The study of digital economies and the sociology of risk have, with few exceptions, a relationship of benign mutual neglect despite possible important connections between the two. This article aims to bridge the gap between these two fields using Beck’s theory of risk society to explore how the digital economy’s momentum of innovation is generating risks and limiting the scope of existing democratic decision-making via the power of the digital economy to create social faits accomplis outside of democratic control. Three (...) specific risks emerging from the dynamics of innovation of digital economies are discussed as vignettes to illustrate these developments: (1) the remaking of interpersonal co-presence and solitary life; (2) the growing threats of AI to intensify unemployment and inequality; and (3) the impact on the environment of an ‘always on’ and ‘always upgrading’ digital communication ecosystem. With the gap between the potential and the actual use value of the digitalization of the infrastructure of life continuing to grow, this article argues that a different relationship between digital innovation and private and public spheres needs to be established to protect the effectiveness of contemporary democracy. (shrink)

In his Sociology, Rosenstock-Huessy had argued that the translatio imperii was an important, but forgotten, Medieval Christian formulation which grasped that with the Church the aspiration of empire had entered onto a new historical path; the extinction that is the fate of all earthly empires need not be repeated if the powers of human endeavour are incorporated within a spiritual body (Augustine’s ‘heavenly city’) for whom ‘love is stronger than death’. This radical faith in the future has been retained in, (...) and is indeed intrinsic to, the secular Western revolutionary consciousness. This faith also provides the discipline of History with an eschatological mission far beyond merely chronicling of the past. History inevitably shares the same theological and philosophical roots not only of Europe but the entire world. For the ‘world’ we now inhabit is what it is because of the outgrowths of revolutions and world wars that were initiated in Europe. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article integrates into critical discourse analysis concepts developed by the Marxist literary critic Fredric Jameson. These concepts include Jameson's theories of contradiction, mode of production, and social formation. By taking up Jameson's ideas, it is argued, researchers can strengthen CDA's underdeveloped theories of contradiction and historical change. Furthermore, this article shows how Jameson's theories can sharpen CDA's methods of studying texts. By taking a Jamesonian tack and viewing each text as offering ‘an imaginary resolution of a real contradiction', researchers (...) can track how antagonisms in the social order shape and are shaped by processes of textual production. Additionally, by foregrounding contradictions and resolutions, researchers can see how texts participate in processes of historical change. To demonstrate a Jamesonian version of CDA, this article concludes with an analysis of a text that charts a course through neoliberal capitalism. (shrink)

Although a great deal of literature has looked at how individuals respond to stigma, far less has been written about how professional groups address challenges to their self-perception as abiding by clear moral standards. In this paper, we ask how professional group members maintain a positive self-perception in the face of moral stigma. Drawing on pragmatic and cultural sociology, we claim that professional communities hold narratives that link various aspects of the work their members perform with specific understanding of the (...) common good. These narratives allow professionals to maintain a shared view of their work as benefitting society and to perceive themselves as moral individuals. As a case study, we focus on the advertising industry, which has long been stigmatized as complicit in exploitative capitalist mechanisms and cultural degradation. We draw on nine total months of fieldwork and seventy-four interviews across three US advertising agencies. We find that advertising practitioners use narratives to present their work as contributing to the common good, depicting themselves as moral individuals who care about others in the process. We analyze three prevalent narratives: the account-driven narrative, which links moral virtue to caring for clients; the creative-driven narrative, which ties caring to the production of meaningful advertisements; and the strategic-driven narrative, which sees caring in finding meaningful relationships for consumers and brands. (shrink)

The proponents of critical pedagogy criticize the earlier Neo‐Marxist theories of education, arguing that they provide only a ‘language of critique’. By introducing the possibility of human agency and resistance, critical pedagogists attempt to develop not only a pedagogy of critique, but also to build a pedagogy of hope. Fundamentally, the aim of critical pedagogy is twofold: 1) to correct the pessimistic conclusions of Neo‐Marxist theories, and 2) to transform a ‘language of critique’ into a ‘language of possibility’ . Then, (...) what political projects do critical pedagogies present to us? What alternative visions of schooling do critical pedagogies offer against the mainstream pedagogy? The purpose of this paper is to identify main projects of critical pedagogy, and to explore overarching politics that underlie the field of critical pedagogy. Although there are diverse theories and approaches in critical pedagogy, three overarching projects can be identified, which I call: 1) the project of experience, 2) the project of anti‐system, and 3) the project of inclusion. Based on an examination of the general trends and characteristics of these three projects of critical pedagogy, I argue that three prominent politics that underlie the field of critical pedagogy are culturalist politics, self/identity politics, and grassroots politics. In trying to better understand why and how critical pedagogy has developed the political stances as it has, the last part of the paper links these three politics to the historical developments of the New Left and the New Social Movements. (shrink)

It has been argued that globalization assists the USA to gain a hegemonic position, allowing it to export its culture. Because this exportation leads to the domination by American culture of the local cultures of importing countries, which are the key element in sustaining their citizens’ national identity, citizens of these countries are unable to protect state sovereignty from this cultural invasion. In order to prevent a political crisis arising from such an invasion, these countries will adopt the strategy of (...) cultural localization. However, this top-down approach overestimates the influence of hegemonic cultures and, thus, overlooks the dynamic nature of cultural development that is generated by people’s agency. This essay rejects this top-down model by arguing that texts cannot dominate people, and that people influence their existence and value. (shrink)

Individuals use their capacity for autonomy to express preferences regarding food choices. Food choices are fundamental, universal, and reflect a diversity of interests and cultural preferences. Traditionally, autonomy is cast in only epistemic terms, and the social and political dimension of it, where autonomy obstruction tends to arise, is omitted. This reflects problematic limits in the Cartesian notion of the individual. Because this notion ignores context and embodiment, the external and internal constraints on autonomy that extend from social location are (...) not considered. Therefore, reconceptions of the individual and autonomy which emphasize social location and relational interdependency are needed. To combat autonomy obstruction, individuals can appeal to community and community autonomy as a social mechanism. Communities are social groups characterized by people living in places with shared goals. Recognizing their interdependency, individuals can organize as communities in order to accomplish objectives that they cannot on their own. While community autonomy is valuable unto itself, it can also enhance individual autonomy. (shrink)

Through a critique of the rhetorical configurations of identity theft, this article contributes to the emerging body of theory contending with the social effects of digital information technologies (DIT). It demonstrates how the politics of fear manipulate technosocial matrices in order to derive consent for radical changes such as the domestication of the Web and the instrumentalization of identity. Specifically, this critique attends to these tasks by performing a rhetorical reading of three recent television commercials that were heavily circulated by (...) the international financial conglomerate, Citigroup Incorporated. Based on this reading, which is heavily indebted to Foucaldian theories of power and discipline, a distinction is drawn between identity theft as it is configured in juridico-political discourse and the cultural phenomenon of identity theft, which functions as a technosocial myth. (shrink)

Despite the many turns that philosophy of technology has undergone in recent decades, the question of the nature and limits of technological determinism (TD) has been neglected, because it was considered as solved and overcome, and therefore not worth further discussion. This paper once again raises the problem of TD, by trying to save the opposing, but complementary elements of truth of the two main forms of TD that I shall call “nomological” and “normative”: (a) technology is all-pervasive and has (...) an inexorable capacity for extending itself into every field of human life, and (b) we have a capacity to counteract and orient technology, at least in some measure. In order to reconcile these seemingly inconsistent claims, the key move for my argument is a brief analysis of the notion of scientific experiment from the perspective of the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification. As a result, two senses of technology are distinguished, which I shall call respectively “reflective” and “methodological.” From the point of view of this distinction, the all-pervasiveness and inexorability of technology and the in principle irreducibility of human persons to technology—which nomological and normative TD assert dialectically one against the other—can be reconciled. Among other things, this requires the rejection (in one fundamental sense) of the widely held assumption, made both by nomological and normative TD, that technology is a cultural field whose contents can be neatly separated from the rest of human culture. This thesis should be replaced by the more qualified claim of the reflective unity and the methodological multiplicity of technology. (shrink)

I critically analyze Kevin Elliott’s A Tapestry of Values in order to tease out his views on the nature and status of values or value judgments in the text. I show there is a tension in Elliott’s view that is closely connected to a major lacuna in the philosophical literature on values in science: the need for a better theory of values.

Using concepts from Ulrich Beck's Risk Society, this paper argues that as expertise proliferates questions of ethics in decision-making fall through gaps between domains of expertise. As a consequence, unethical outcomes are unattached to actions taken with no one accountable or responsible for these outcomes. Using Actor-Network Theory, a case study is presented showing how the sale of students' personal information by the Calgary Board of Education escaped questions of ethics. The sale of student information was the product of the (...) convergence of narrowly focussed technology and education expert actions and decisions with an earlier two-stage translation of privacy from a potential ethical issue to an issue of expert rule creation and interpretation. The purpose of this paper is to show, through an example, how questions of ethics are displaced in expert decision-making and to enable the public, managers, individuals and experts to recognize displacements and, through this, create a space for ethics to appear. (shrink)

Using concepts from Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society, this paper argues that as expertise proliferates questions of ethics in decision-making fall through gaps between domains of expertise. As a consequence, unethical outcomes are unattached to actions taken with no one accountable or responsible for these outcomes. Using Actor-Network Theory (ANT), a case study is presented showing how the sale of students’ personal information by the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) escaped questions of ethics. The sale of student information was the product (...) of the convergence of narrowly focussed technology and education expert actions and decisions with an earlier two-stage translation of privacy from a potential ethical issue to an issue of expert rule creation and interpretation. The purpose of this paper is to show, through an example, how questions of ethics are displaced in expert decision-making and to enable the public, managers, individuals and experts to recognize displacements and, through this, create a space for ethics to appear. (shrink)

This paper investigates the compatibility of Hegel’s analyses of the mechanization of work in industrial society with Hegel’s notion of freedom as rational self-determination. Work as such is for Hegel a crucial moment on the way to a more complete realization of human freedom, but, as I maintain with Adorno, the technological developments of the last two centuries raise the question of whether the nature of work itself has changed since the industrial revolution. In his Jena lectures, Hegel recognized significant (...) problems that the mechanization of work poses for human freedom that—on my assessment—his later, mature thought does not sufficiently address. One finds, however, a more comprehensive depiction of the same worries that Hegel mentioned in his Jena lectures in Adorno’s critique of the dominant forms of labor in contemporary society and his understanding of technological rationality, which according to Adorno, dominates the contemporary world. I suggest, furthermore, that juxtaposing Hegel’s and Adorno’s thoughts on technology and the mechanization of work reveals Adorno’s philosophy of technology to be an extension, rather than a critique, of the spirit of Hegel’s own philosophical project as immanent critique of the necessary entailments of any given concept. (shrink)

Nanotechnology, the emerging capability of human beings to observe and organize matter at the atomic level, has captured the attention of the federal government, science and engineering communities, and the general public. Some proponents are referring to nanotechnology as “the next technological revolution”. Applications projected for this new evolution in technology span a broad range from the design and fabrication of new membranes, to improved fuel cells, to sophisticated medical prosthesis techniques, to tiny intelligent machines whose impact on humankind is (...) unknowable. As with the appropriation of technological innovation generally, nanotechnology is likely to eventually bring dramatic and unpredictable new capabilities to human material existence, along with resulting ethical challenges and social changes to be reconciled. But as of yet, aside from a few simple new consumer goods, such as paint, rackets and fabric coatings, nanotechnology is undeveloped. Its social and ethical dimensions are not apparent. Even still, given the stated goals of the various nanotechnology initiatives to rearrange matter with increasing atomic precision, the impact of nanotechnology on human life and society is likely be profound. It is very difficult, however, to make accurate predictions about the future impact of nanotechnology development on humanity. At this time, the most important role for ethics analysis is to contribute to a humanitarian, conscientious approach to its development. This paper suggests that such an approach requires that attention be given to the roles of imagination, meaning-making, metaphor, myth and belief. (shrink)

Being young today is no longer a transitory stage, but rather a choice of life, well established and brutally promoted by the media system. While the classic paradigms of adulthood and maturation could interpret such infantile behavior as a symptom of deviance, such behavior has become a model to follow, an ideal of fun and being carefree, present in a wide variety of contexts of society. The contemporary adult follows a sort of thoughtful immaturity, a conscious escape from the responsibilities (...) of an anachronistic model of life. If an ideal of maturity remains, it does not find behavioral compensations in a society where childish attitudes and adolescent life models are constantly promoted by the media and tolerated by institutions. (shrink)

This essay seeks to contribute to the critical reception of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives by tracing the Taxonomy’s underlying philosophical assumptions. Identifying Bloom’s work as consistent with the legacy of Cartesian thought, I argue that its hierarchy of behavioral objectives provides a framework for certainty and communicability in ascertaining student learning. However, its implicit rejection of intuitive knowledge as well as its antagonism between the human subject and the known object promote the Enlightenment ideal of education as “intellectual work.” (...) When embodied in the Taxonomy, Cartesian assumptions foster a fundamental disposition in front of reality that is ultimately alienating. The paper begins with an explication of the Taxonomy’s affordances and philosophical assumptions. I then identify the Cartesian elements of these assumptions, particularly the Taxonomy’s inherent mind–body dualism and primacy of method. Finally, the paper employs these elements as an explanatory factor for the predominant critiques of the Taxonomy in educational theory literature. An addendum questions the possibility or plausibility of distance from objectives frameworks in the contemporary classroom. (shrink)

Recognition is a fundamental good that corporations ought to give to employees, a good that is essential to their well-being, and thus, recognition should be among the central notions in our understanding of organizations and in any theory of business ethics. Drawing upon the work of Philip Pettit and Robert Brandom as well as themes from instrumental stakeholder theory, I develop a complex notion of recognition involving both status recognition and capacity recognition and argue that this account meets three fundamental (...) desiderata of any adequate account of business ethics: It makes salient key normative features of the practice of business. It articulates a genuine ethical demand that is not reducible to the economic imperatives typical of self-interested actors. And it is compatible with the strategic demands that organizations face to remain competitive. Status recognition involves treating others as persons whose rights are legally enshrined. Capacity recognition involves treating others as persons possessing specific capacities. When corporations accord these forms of recognition to employees, they promote their well-being in a fundamental way and they promote the long-term success of the firm. Thus, recognition represents an underappreciated concept that may further contribute to theory development in business ethics and organization studies and more ethical business practice. (shrink)

“Informed consent” implicitly links the transmission of information to the granting of permission on the part of patients, tissue donors, and research subjects. But what of the corollary, informed refusal? Drawing together insights from three moments of refusal, this article explores the rights and obligations of biological citizenship from the vantage point of biodefectors—those who attempt to resist technoscientific conscription. Taken together, the cases expose the limits of individual autonomy as one of the bedrocks of bioethics and suggest the need (...) for a justice-oriented approach to science, medicine, and technology that reclaims the epistemological and political value of refusal. (shrink)

This article is an appreciative essay review of Andrew Feenberg's Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption of History (2005).

Thomas Flynn's work on Sartre and Foucault, the first of a two-volume project, offers a unique opportunity for examining an existential theory of history. It occasions rethinking existential-social categories from the vantage point of the poststructuralist turn. And it contributes to developing existential variants of critical theory. The following questions guide me in each of the three above areas. First, how is human history intelligible, given not only our finite sense of ourselves but also claims that we have reached the (...) end of history? Second, with the poststructuralist eclipse of dialectics, can we render existential categories in social terms and vice versa? Third, critics decry grand theorizing even in fallibilist reason, e.g., of Habermas, while others are worried by the normative deficits of poststructuralist nominalism, e.g., of Foucault. Can existential variants of critical social theory, anticipated before Sartre by Marcuse, split the difference? (shrink)

While Cavell is well known for his reinterpretation of the later Wittgenstein, he has never really engaged himself with post-Investigations writings like On Certainty. This collection may, however, seem to undermine the profoundly anti-dogmatic reading of Wittgenstein that Cavell has developed. In addition to apparently arguing against what Cavell calls ‘the truth of skepticism’ – a phrase contested by other Wittgensteinians – On Certainty may seem to justify the rejection of whoever dares to question one’s basic presuppositions. According to On (...) Certainty, or so it seems, the only right response to someone with different certainties is a reproach like ‘Fool!’ or ‘Heretic!’. This article aims to show that On Certainty need not be taken to prove Cavell wrong. It explains that Wittgenstein, in line with the first two parts of The Claim of Reason, does not reject scepticism out of hand but rather questions the sceptic’s self-understanding. Using arguments from Part Three of The Claim, the article moreover argues that a confrontation with divergence calls for self-examination rather than self-righteousness. Precisely because Wittgenstein acknowledges ‘the groundlessness of our believing’ or, in Cavellian terms, ‘the truth of skepticism’, he is not the authoritarian thinker that some have taken him to be. (shrink)

We live today within a system in which state and corporate power aim to render space flat, transparent, and uniform, for only then can it be truly controlled. The gaze of power and the commodity form are capable of infiltrating even the darkest of corners, and often, we invite them into our most private spaces. We do so as a matter of convenience, but also to placate ourselves and cope with the alienation inherent in our everyday lives. The resulting dominant (...) space can best be termed totalitarian. It is space stripped of uniqueness, deprived of the “spatial aura” necessary for authentic experience. In Totalitarian Space and the Destruction of Aura, Saladdin Ahmed sets out to help us grasp what has been lost before no trace remains. He draws attention to that which we might prefer not to see, but despite the bleakness of this indictment of reality, the book also offers a message of hope. Namely, it is only once we comprehend the magnitude of the threat to our spatial experience and our own complicity in sustaining this system that we can begin to resist the totalizing forces at work. (shrink)

Utría National Park is a remote biodiversity hotspot in Colombia. It encompasses ancestral territories of the Embera indigenous peoples and borders territories of Afro-descendant communities in El Valle. We explore environmental value conflicts regarding the use of the park, describing them as a Wicked Problem that has no clear solution. Juxtaposing how the territory is perceived by different communities, we employ Faber et al.'s heuristic of the three tele of living nature to search for deficiency in the third telos, service, (...) which we take to be symptomatic of Wicked Problems. Based on field data encoded using the three-tele heuristic, concerning how the respective communities would like to use the park area, we identify deficiencies in the third telos and develop recommendations regarding how these might be addressed. (shrink)

Philosophy strives to give us a firmer hold on our concepts. But what about their hold on us? Why place ourselves under the sway of a concept and grant it the authority to shape our thought and conduct? Another conceptualization would carry different implications. What makes one way of thinking better than another? This book develops a framework for concept appraisal. Its guiding idea is that to question the authority of concepts is to ask for reasons of a special kind: (...) reasons for concept use, which tell us which concepts to adopt, adhere to, or abandon, thereby shoring up—or undercutting—the reasons for action and belief that guide our deliberations. Traditionally, reasons for concept use have been sought either in timeless rational foundations or in concepts’ inherent virtues, such as precision and consistency. Against this, the book advances two main claims: that we find reasons for concept use in the conceptual needs we discover when we critically distance ourselves from a concept by viewing it from the autoethnographic stance; and that sometimes, concepts that conflict, or exhibit other vices such as vagueness or superficiality, are just what we need. By considering not what concepts are absolutely best, but what concepts we now need, we can reconcile ourselves to the contingency of our concepts, determine the proper place of efforts to tidy up thought, and adjudicate between competing conceptions of things,—even things as contested as liberty or free will. A needs-based approach separates helpful clarification from hobbling tidy-mindedness, and authoritative definition from conceptual gerrymandering. (shrink)

A work ehic is a value-based motivation for working. In the now developed world, three such values have been stressed over time: soial status, duty, and wealth or, simply, money. Craft pride has also been proffered but is increasingly a victim of automation. Each will be considered here. First, however, a few remarks about how socio-economic conditions influence a society's stance regarding one's obligation to work.

This article analyzes ‘commemorative’ images of Diana Spencer for how they invoke tropes of charity and sympathy to produce racialized mediations of history, memory, motherhood and US national identity. Drawing from cultural theory that establishes technologies of memory and forgetting as material forces, this discussion illumines how images of Diana appearing in such popular US magazines as People and Life incorporate visual scripts of race and sentiment that have historically demarcated the relative social value(s) of maternity and reproduction. Understanding visual (...) culture as a force that is both structured by and structuring of hierarchies of power enables us to see how the posthumous circulation of images of ‘Our Princess’ are indeed not ideologically innocent memorializations. Rather, these images are the physical, embodied material of a national monument that provides faithful ‘visitors’ an affective connection to historically idealized notions of whiteness, motherhood, and the family. (shrink)

This paper explores what insights can be drawn from critical theory to enrich and strengthen Sen’s capability approach in relation to technology and human development. The two theories share some important commonalities: both are concerned with the pursuit of “a good life”; both are normative theories rooted in ethics and meant to make a difference, and both are interested in democracy. The paper provides a brief overview of both schools of thought and their applications to technology and human development. Three (...) areas are identified where critical theory can make a contribution to the capability approach: conceptually, by providing a critical account of individual agency and enriching the concept of technology beyond the simplistic notion of commodities; methodologically, by sensitising towards reification and hegemony of scientific tools, and, finally, by emphasising reflexivity of researchers. (shrink)

In 2012, China officially declared, as a national strategy of governance, the development of ecological consciousness, the promotion of what has been called “eco-civilization,” and the development of “ecological citizens.” In this paper, we argue that the concept of green burial reflects a number of the values underlying “eco-civilization” and ecological citizenship: respect for nature, respect for humanity, and the ecologically-sensitive rational awareness of the “harmony between nature and humanity, as in the saying “天人合一” Tian Ren He Yi = “Nature (...) and human beings combine into an integral whole”). The practice of green burial can play a valuable role in promoting the construction of an eco-civilization, although many people in China—and elsewhere—may be reluctant to accept it. One reason for this may be that the concept and practice of green burial are so new that it does not yet have a place in the ecological awareness of China’s citizens, who are the main subjects of the construction of eco-civilization. In our view, it is necessary to increase citizen awareness of green burials and their value, and to encourage people to participate in the practice. This is a reflection of the values that underlie ecological citizenship, but also serves to promote these values. While our proposal in this paper is to argue for green burial as an element in realizing this model of “eco-civilization” in China, its relevance clearly extends beyond the Chinese context. (shrink)

The functional approach to natural language (FANL) emerged in the late 1960s. It focused on the use and the sub-use of language expressions, taking into account role of the language context and the extra-linguistic situation of a given statements. This approach referred, both conceptually and methodologically, to the tradition of British analytical philosophy of language on the one hand, and to the achievements of the Lvov-Warsaw School on the other. It seems that despite the passage of more than half a (...) century since its inception, this approach has lost nothing of its relevance and its cognitive value, and may even provide inspiration for the exploration new research areas concerning the formulation of language utterances. The aim of this article is to show the potential applications of the FANL as a specific semiotic concept in the field of the philosophy of social sciences. The paper points out how the functional conception can be successfully used in methodological analyses of the logical methodology of social sciences. The case studies presented in the article refer to the research practice of social sciences. Examples of the use and sub-uses of terms are discussed in the light of the polyparadigmatic structure of social sciences and the differences in research patterns accepted by given scientific collectives. (shrink)

This paper explores the political import of Husserl’s critical discussion of the epistemic effects of the formalization of rational thinking. More specifically, it argues that this discussion is of direct relevance to make sense of the pervasive processes of ‘technization’, that is, of a mechanistic and superficial generation and use of knowledge, to be observed in current contexts of governance. Building upon Husserl’s understanding of formalization as a symbolic technique for abstraction in the thinking with and about numbers, I argue (...) that processes of technization, while being necessary and legitimate procedures for the reduction of complexities, also may give rise to politically unresponsive and ultimately dysfunctional ‘economies of thinking.’ This paper is structured in three parts. In the first part I outline Husserl’s account of the formalization and technization of thought and knowledge. In the second part I make my case for the political import of this account, departing in this context from positions that (a) regard Husserl’s discussions of formalization and its effects as merely epistemological, or that (b) try to mobilize Husserl for a one-sided critique of instrumental reason. In the final part I address a major shortcoming of Husserl’s account, namely its neglect of the concrete and historically evolving technological infrastructures of processes of formalization/technization. (shrink)

I argue in this paper that animal biotechnology constitutes a dangerous ontological collapse between animals and the technical-economic apparatus. By ontological collapse, I mean the elimination of fundamental ontological tensions between embodied subjects and the principles of scientific, technological, and economic rationalization. Biotechnology imposes this collapse in various ways: by genetically “reprogramming” animals to serve as uniform commodities, by abstracting them into data and code, and, in some cases, by literally manipulating their movements with computer technologies. These and other forms (...) of ontological violence not only lead to profound physical suffering for the animals involved, but also distort the phenomenological basis of their existence, especially their perceptual experience and expression of subjective time and space. In subordinating nonhuman animals to the logic of “technological rationality” or “technique,” to borrow Herbert Marcuse and Jacques Ellul’s respective terms, biotechnology perpetuates the productive extermination of animals. Biotech animals are exterminated in the sense of being “drive[n] beyond the boundaries” of meaningful existence and “destroyed completely” or “completely wiped out” as subjects. But they are also exterminated in the sense of being “overproduced” and “overgenerated,” both quantitatively and qualitatively. I go on to argue that the collapse of the ontological is accompanied by a collapse of the ethical. This ethical collapse is characterized by the internalization of the logic of technique and the corresponding failure both within technoscientific culture itself and within some scholarly discourses about biotechnology to evaluate from a genuinely critical vantage point the fundamental ethical issues that animal biotechnology raises. The aim of this paper is to offer an alternative analysis of the ontological and ethical implications of biotechnology from the standpoint of Marcuse and Ellul’s critical theory of technology. To explore other ramifications of animal biotechnology, I draw on Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s insights into ideologies of extermination and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodiment. (shrink)

Yin Haiguang’s investigation and pursuit of the idea of “Man” reflect not merely a limited historical or parochial academic interest, but indeed address an ultimate concern of humanity which transcends any spatio-temporal limitations. In criticizing “modern man” for its faceless and non-self-identical figure, Yin Haiguang brings the conditions, purposes and noble values of humanity to light. His work has extraordinary significance for the highest aims of humanity and civilization.

The disembodiment of cognitive science has resulted in curricula with disembodied concepts and practice. The emergence of the embodied cognitive science provoked public reflections on the nature of the curriculum. This has elevated the body from the ‘peripheral’ position to the ‘central’ position, acting as the subject in action and becoming the bridge to experience transformations. Meanwhile, the nurturing role of the environment for the mind is attracting increasingly more attention, and the environment, the body, and the mind jointly constitute (...) a dynamic system that prompts the transformation and restructuring of learners’ experience. The reshaping of the relationship between the body and education and the integration of physical experience and mind-building have led us to examine curriculum from a completely new perspective, and curriculum construction is thus transformed to the dynamic generation of interaction among the body, the mind, and the environment based on group experiences. To be precise, there are three basic dimensions in the construction of an embodied curriculum: returning to the life-world and promoting the integration of the curriculum narrative framework and the student’s learning trajectory; introducing the embodied experience and realizing the continuous interactions among the learner’s body, mind, and environment; and integrating the functions of technologies to provide a powerful mediating tool for the construction of embodied curriculum. (shrink)

Jacques Ellul’s work on propaganda provides the basis for this analysis of life in technology. Advertising and the mass media rely on temptation and seduction and create a constant flow of propaganda, all of which serve the technological system. Propaganda aims to condition and regulate us so that we participate in and adapt ourselves to a desired pattern, specifically an existence adjusted to and in accord with the technological milieu. Technology tempts and seduces us with its promise and provision of (...) comfort, convenience, and efficiency. Above all, technology tempts and seduces us with power: power over nature and over human beings. Naively and paradoxically, we believe we have power over technology, even though it actually has power over us. Our immersion in a sea of temptation and seduction, of constant and total propaganda, may seem inescapable; however, to criticize and challenge the primacy of technology is to reassert our freedom. (shrink)

This essay takes an epistemological perspective on the question of the ‘art of living with technology.’ Such an approach is needed as our everyday notion and understanding of technology keep being framed in the old categories of instrumentalism and essentialism—notwithstanding philosophy of technology’s substantial attempts, in recent times, to bridge the stark dichotomy between those two viewpoints. Here, the persistent dichotomous thinking still characterizing our everyday involvement with technology is traced back to the epistemological distinction between ‘concrete’ and ‘abstract.’ Those (...) terms are often contrasted, and a tendency can be found, in the literature as well as in popular discourse, to either conceptually favor one of both or let them collapse into each other. The current essay makes a plea, in an exploratory manner, and on the basis of insights hailing from among others Gregory Bateson and Alfred Korzybski, to not choose either one of those options, but to practice ourselves in navigating ladders of abstraction. (shrink)

‘I don’t believe that we can change moral intuitions except as educators – that is, not as theoreticians and not as writers’. (Jürgen Habermas 1992, 202) ‘The thinker as lifestyle, as vision, as ex...

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of critique in Habermasian thought. Given that the concept of critique is a central theoretical category in the work of the Frankfurt School, it comes as a surprise that little in the way of a systematic account which sheds light on the multifaceted meanings of the concept of critique in Habermas's oeuvre can be found in the literature. This paper aims to fill this gap by exploring the various meanings (...) that Habermas attributes to the concept of critique in 10 key thematic areas of his writings: (1) the public sphere, (2) knowledge, (3) language, (4) morality, (5) ethics, (6) evolution, (7) legitimation, (8) democracy, (9) religion, and (10) modernity. On the basis of a detailed analysis of Habermas's multifaceted concerns with the nature and function of critique, the study seeks to demonstrate that the concept of critique can be considered not only as a constitutive element but also as a normative cornerstone of Habermasian thought. The paper draws to a close by reflecting on some of the limitations of Habermas's conception of critique, arguing that in order to be truly critical in the Habermasian sense we need to turn the subject of critique into an object of critique. (shrink)

This article seeks to analyze the theory of technology formulated by the philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979). It shows the ways in which the author repurposes fundamental concepts of classical aesthetics in order to formulate a theory of technology aimed at liberating both nature and humanity. To this end, we argue that Marcuse mobilizes the theories of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805). In the first part of the article, we tackle some important aspects of Kant’s and Schiller’s aesthetic theories. (...) We begin with an analysis of Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790), focusing on central concepts that would later be absorbed by Schiller and Marcuse. Next, we try to show the reception of the Third critique in Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795) and this author’s contribution to aesthetic studies within political thought. In the second part, we focus on Marcuse’s work, highlighting two key moments in his analysis on technology. We show that his theory undergoes transformation and development until it reaches its stable form in the 1960s and 1970s, during which the author proposes a new theory of technology based on human aesthetic possibilities whose goal is the liberation of nature. (shrink)

Este texto muestra cómo la tradición fenomenológica de la filosofía de la tecnología ha interrogado y cuestionado a la tecnología moderna entendida como ciencia aplicada y neutral. El análisis inicia con la indagación ontológica sobre el significado de la técnica para el hombre llevada a cabo por Heidegger y Ortega, para señalar luego la pertinencia de encontrar vínculoscon otros modos de considerar la acción práctica del hombre y explicitar con ello el acercamiento entre la racionalidad técnica con el poder humanizante (...) de la imaginación y la creatividad. Finalmente se muestra cómo este vínculo fue desarrollado por Gaston Bachelard bajo la sugerente idea de un racionalismo inventivo que debe acompañar tanto a la práctica científica del sabio como a la construcción técnica de los fenómenos por parte del ingeniero. (shrink)

A Heideggerian reading of J.H. van den Berg's writings contributes to an appreciation of phenomenological psychology as a cultural therapeutics. Both van den Berg's structural phenomenology of human existence and his Metablectic theory of historical changes lead to a notion of culture as a disclosive construction of the world. Our technological culture, in its reduction of all forms of relatedness to functionality (what van den Berg refers to as secularization), has repressed the spiritual dimension of contemporary life. The resultant derangement (...) of social existence gives rise to the individual distress brought in to psychotherapy. Attention to the spiritual unconscious is the ethical obligation of phenomenological psychology that transcends, and in so doing contextualizes considerations of professional competency. (shrink)

The current viewpoint on technology seems to derive from the optimistic idea of the existence of pre-established harmony that any technological progress leads to people's health, and welfare. But history has shown us that this is not always the case, and that we must select the proper direction which leads to health and welfare. For that purpose, this article presents the viewpoint of technology as a kind of human care service, along with the lessons from nursing theories. Five leading nursing (...) theories are introduced as well as their implications for technology. ‘The nursing model of technology’ is then presented. (shrink)

This article sets out to compare reconstructivism and critical theory as two possible avenues for a normative science and technology studies discipline “after constructivism”. This investigation is pursued through a case study of a wireless network community in the Czech Republic. The case study focuses on a schism that erupted after some users attempted to commercialise an invention for sending data with visible light. Their enterprise was partly motivated by a larger, political aspiration of creating a decentralised communication infrastructure. Other (...) members in the Czech wireless network community opposed this attempt as they perceived commercialisation as more of a threat than an aid for their politics. I will argue that these conflicting viewpoints over the role of markets can also clarify the different, theoretical assumptions behind reconstructivism and critical theory, and give some direction for a future, normative STS discipline. (shrink)

The character of the current controversy over geneticallymodified (GM) agriculture, typified by protesters' use of emotivesymbolism, has been largely inspired by the Green movement'snon-governmental organizations and political parties. This articleexplores the deeper philosophical and spiritual motivations of the Greenmovement, to inquire why it is implacably opposed to GM agriculture. TheGreen movement's anti-capitalism, exemplified by the hate-symbol statusof Monsanto as the company pioneering GM crops, is viewed within thewider context of alienation in the modern era. A complex of meanings isseen in (...) Frankenstein as the focal symbol of GM protests, includingperceptions of risk, fears of the remixing of living identities seen ingenetic engineering, and resentment at the spiritual nihilism of thereduction of life to the digital code of DNA. By contrast, RobertGoodin's Green Theory of Value, which postulates the deep psychologicalimportance of nature in locating the self in a meaningful context largerthan ourselves, can explain the power of the Green symbol of thethreatened environment, Gaia. The advent of GM agriculture seems toimply that capitalism and technology can now enframe nature itself,leaving a world devoid of natural myth or meaning, with no escape fromthe alienation and nihilism of modernity. The central question posed forprotagonists of the GM debate is whether their agenda is based on thesepowerful but mythical conceptions of the environment, or whetherpreservation of the real environment is their primary ethic. (shrink)