The concept of innovation defines our age. It fuels the global economy, promises a sustainable future, and stands at the heart of our interconnected society. On the one hand, the concept of innovation is widely presupposed in terms of the commercial value it generates. As claimed in the tradition of economic analysis, innovation is characterized by its competitive dynamics and primarily directed at developing marketable products and services. On the other hand, the reality of today’s global issues, such as climate (...) change and food security, urges innovation to generate societal value beyond mainstream economic incentive. To this end, the EU policy discourse has paved the way for Responsible Innovation. The core idea here is to steer innovation processes towards societally desirable outcomes, specifically in response to the ‘grand challenges’ of our time. Under the sway of ‘science with and for society’, the hypothesis is that innovation can only respond to the needs and ambitions of society by including all its actors throughout the process. However, while much effort is dedicated to governing innovation, little thought goes to what innovation itself means conceptually. What understanding of innovation underpins the framework of RI? What implications, if any, does this have for the ambition to achieve RI? These are important questions to raise as they enable critical reflection on the relation between responsibility and innovation, broadly speaking. Does the ‘R’ in RI entail an application of ethical keys to an already existing concept of innovation, or does it require us to rethink the concept of innovation altogether? After providing a general introduction in chapter 1 on the context of the dissertation and its main research objectives, chapter 2 shows how RI emerged from a longer history of efforts to incorporate ethical dimensions in new and emerging technologies, such as Technology Assessment and Science and Technology Studies. While similar to its precursors in prioritizing ethical concerns, RI clearly distinguishes itself by shifting from an ethics of constraints to an ethics of construction. The chapter continues to show that such an approach comes with an epistemic challenge, a political challenge, and a conceptual challenge. Through an extensive analysis of policy documents and academic literature, chapter 3 breaks open the concept of innovation in the RI discourse. Firstly, it demonstrates that the RI discourse tends to presuppose a techno-economic concept of innovation, as coined by the terms ‘technological innovation’ and ‘commercialized innovation’. Secondly, it provides a historical analysis to show that the concept of innovation was originally politically oriented and had little to do with the way in which it is commonly understood today. Thirdly, it discusses the implications of a techno-economic concept of innovation for achieving the ideal of RI and brings into question whether the political origins of innovation may inspire an alternative route. Chapter 4 engages with the philosophy of technology to assess the feasibility of RI at both an ontic and ontological level. While innovation at the ontic level refers to concrete innovative artefacts, innovation at the ontological level refers to the mode through which these artefacts are seen, understood, and created. At the ontic level, RI is shown to play a significant role in steering emerging technologies towards societally desirable outcomes. Even so, at the ontological level, the question is whether the ideal of RI is feasible insofar its scope is limited to governing a techno-economic concept of innovation. Parallel to Martin Heidegger’s view of technology as Enframing, this chapter denotes that in trying to govern a techno-economic concept of innovation, the RI discourse remains subject to its dominance. This in turn explains why, at the operational level, RI is often employed for mere strategic and instrumental purposes, while falling short on its promoted ambitions. Chapter 5 articulates an orientation shift from a techno-economic concept of innovation towards a political concept of innovation in the RI discourse. To this end, the chapter distinguishes between weak RI, which seeks to govern a techno-economic concept of innovation through an applied set of ethical dimensions; and strong RI, which seeks to conceive a political concept of innovation beyond techno-economic ideology and practice. Inspired by the work of Hannah Arendt, the chapter establishes a political concept of innovation that actualizes the human capacity for speech and action, inspires radical novelty, and empowers the public sphere. In doing so, the chapter concludes that strong RI is principally a plural undertaking which guards individual opinion from collective opinion; enables a physical and symbolic openness that genuinely activates citizenry; and stimulates performative speech. The final chapter, chapter 6, briefly recaps the main research objectives and takes stock of the insights gained. It concludes that the contribution of this dissertation does not reside in the concern with the techno-economic ideology of innovation as such – a concern which RI in fact already expressed when it first emerged – but more so in the ontological critique to the idea that this ideology can somehow be overpowered through governance and regulation. The rehabilitation of an ontological dimension in RI in turn provides a new perspective to the philosophy of technology, which over the years has taken a course away from ontological viewpoints. Moreover, the chapter elaborates on how a political concept of innovation adds depth to the foundational claims of RI. Based on these conclusions, the chapter reflects on a range of broader insights, particularly in relation to the philosophy of innovation and the ethics of socially disruptive technologies. In sum, this dissertation politicizes the RI discourse precisely in the way it was originally envisioned, that is, through conceptualizing innovation as a fundamentally political matter. In this view, politics is not merely an extension of RI but is itself the condition of RI; it is what enables innovation to genuinely serve the public good. (shrink)

This article seeks to address a tension in contemporary scholarship regarding Machiavelli’s view of human nature. While it is common for readers to identify Machiavelli’s rejection of any foundational law that determines the structure of the world, it is just as common for them to abstract human nature from this world and thereby to posit a fixed human essence. Machiavelli is thus seen as an anti-essentialist when it comes to external nature and as an essentialist when it comes to internal (...) human nature. I will attempt to demonstrate, however, that for Machiavelli these two interpretations are integrated into an overall ontology of being that rejects all forms of essentialist thinking, including all positive models of human nature. Machiavelli’s rejection of a fixed or positive human essence will be demonstrated by analyzing his account of the openness of human being to change and alteration by socialization, and his account of the multiplicity of forms of human doing and being. I argue that Machia... (shrink)

The principle of self-determination, as commonly established, is based on a formal and individualistic view of liberty rights. This perspective, however, is inconsistent with the needs of a community and particularly with the necessity to promote integration between subjects and a relatively stable social order. I propose a different perspective, the one that not only takes into account individuals but also relationships. In particular, what I propose is: 1) that any community is aware of a specific social order, which consists (...) of a set of practices, 2) that these practices express specific values, 3) that these values are the result of historical and cultural circumstances, 4) that they are subject to a permanent public debate, and finally 5) that the individual praxis can lead to recognition of rights only if it is consistent with these values. In this perspective there is no general liberty for self-determination of the subject outside specific relationships. It only could be stated that one has a practical liberty (not a right) to do and behave as one wants, but one's rights depend on the relationships in which the person is engaged. El principio de auto- determinación, como comúnmente se pretende, se plantea sobre una visión formal e individualista de los derechos de libertad. Esta perspectiva, sin embargo, es incompatible con las necesidades de una comunidad, y en particular con la necesidad de promover un orden social estable, y una integración entre los sujetos. Yo propongo una perspectiva diferente, que tenga en cuenta las relaciones y no solo los individuos. En particular, lo que argumento es que 1) cualquier comunidad se da cuenta de un determinado orden social, que es un conjunto de prácticas; 2) que estas prácticas expresan valores específicos; 3) que están sujetos a un debate público permanente y, finalmente, 5) que solo si la praxis individual es consistente con estos valores puede llevar al reconocimiento de los derechos. En esa perspectiva, no existe una libertad general para que un sujeto pueda auto-determinarse, sin considerar una relación específica. Solo se podría afirmar que uno tiene una libertad concreta (y no un derecho) de hacer y de actuar como quiera, pero los derechos dependen de las relaciones en las que participa la persona. (shrink)