Recent trends towards an e-Science offer us the opportunity to think about the specific epistemological changes created by computational empowerment in scientific practices. In fact, we can say that a computational epistemology exists that requires our attention. By ‘computational epistemology’ I mean the computational processes implied or required to achieve human knowledge. In that category we can include AI, supercomputers, expert systems, distributed computation, imaging technologies, virtual instruments, middleware, robotics, grids or databases. Although several authors talk about the extended mind (...) and computational extensions of the human body, most of these proposals don’t analyze the deep epistemological implications of computer empowerment in scientific practices. At the same time, we must identify the principal concept for e-Science: Information. Why should we think about a new epistemology for e-Science? Because several processes exist around scientific information that require a good epistemological model to be understood. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper, I try to clear the ground from frequent misconceptions about the relationship between fact and value by examining some uses of the adjective “natural” in ethical controversies. Such uses bear evidence to our “natural” tendency to regard nature (considered in a descriptive sense, as the complex of physical and biological regularities) as the source of ethical norms. I then try to account for the origin of this tendency by offering three related explanations, the (...) most important of which regards it as the outcome of an adaptation: if any behaviour that favours our equilibrium with the environment is potentially adaptive, nothing can be more effective for this goal than developing an attitude toward the natural world that regards it as a dispenser of sacred norms that must be invariably respected. By referring to the Aristotelian notion of human flourishing illustrated in the first part of the paper, in the second I discuss some ethical problems raised by mini-chips implantable under in our bodies. I conclude by defending the potential beneficial effects of such new technological instruments. (shrink)

My research into Virtual Reality technology and its central property of immersion has indicated that immersion in Virtual Reality (VR) electronic systems is a significant key to the understanding of contemporary culture as well as considerable aspects of previous culture as detected in the histories of philosophy and the visual arts. The fundamental change in aesthetic perception engendered by immersion, a perception which is connected to the ideal of total-immersion in virtual space, identifies certain shifts in ontology which are relevant (...) to a better understanding of the human being. This understanding was achieved through a broad inquiry into the histories of Virtual Reality, philosophy, and the visual arts and has lead to the formulation of an aesthetic theory of immersive consciousness indicative of immersive culture. The primary subject of this discourse is immersion then: an experience which will be identified within the dissertation as the indispensable characteristic of Virtual Reality. The understanding of immersion arrived at here will be used to fashion a synchronous theory of art particularly informed by encounters and concepts of immersion into virtuality. To sufficiently address this subject in a scholarly fashion, I have researched, found and accumulated aesthetic and philosophic examples of immersive tendencies, as found within the histories of art and philosophy, which subsequently contributed towards the articulation of what I have come to call immersive consciousness. As a result of formulating such an immersive consciousness, a good deal of the basis for the questioning of the Western ontological tradition has been found in the Western tradition itself when we look with new eyes and ask new uncertain questions. Moreover, this immersive consciousness will be used to propose some abstract questions encircling today's electronic-based culture. Through the structuring of the argument within the thesis - and overtly within the conclusion - I have articulated a non-teleological creative strategy which provides the basis for an unconstraining integration of noologies (ways of semblancing the thinking process). This strategy provides a means of exemplifying - and for honoring - various methods of thinking. This structuring strategy is consistent with the 'hacker ethic' as defined by Steven Levy, as a demand that access to computers - and anything which might teach us something about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total. To follow this strategy, this dissertation has set out to understand how topical conceptions of virtual immersion connect to pre-existing systems of thought as revealed in art as they have extended out of antecedent ontological self-understandings, historical human self-understandings which have evidenced themselves in the elaboration of technological objectives. To do this I have forged a certain rhizomatic paternity/maternity for Virtual Reality within this dissertation by joining choice immersive examples of simulacra technology into mental connections with the relevant examples culled from the histories of art, architecture, information-technology, sex, myth, space, consciousness and philosophy. (shrink)

This article offers an account and defence of constructionism, both as a metaphilosophical approach and as a philosophical methodology, with references to the so-called maker's knowledge tradition. Its main thesis is that Plato's “user's knowledge” tradition should be complemented, if not replaced, by a constructionist approach to philosophical problems in general and to knowledge in particular. Epistemic agents know something when they are able to build (reproduce, simulate, model, construct, etc.) that something and plug the obtained information into the correct (...) network of relations that account for it. Their epistemic expertise increases with the scope and depth of the questions that they are able to ask and answer. Thus, constructionism deprioritises mimetic, passive, and declarative knowledge that something is the case, in favour of poietic, interactive, and practical knowledge of something being the case. Metaphilosophically, constructionism suggests adding conceptual engineering to conceptual analysis as a fundamental method. (shrink)

The program of intervening, manipulating, constructing and creating is central to natural and engineering sciences. A renewed wave of interest in this program has emerged within the recent practices and discourse of nano-technoscience. However, it is striking that, framed from the perspective of well-established epistemologies, the constructed technoscientific objects and engineered things remain invisible. Their ontological and epistemological status is unclear. The purpose of the present paper is to support present-day approaches to techno-objects ( ontology ) insofar as they make (...) these hidden objects epistemologically perceivable. To accomplish this goal, it is inspiring to look back to the origin of the project of modernity and to its founding father: Francis Bacon. The thesis is that everything we need today for an adequate (dialectic-materialist), ontologically well-informed epistemology of technoscience can be found in the works of Bacon—this position will be called epistemological real-constructivism. Rather than describing it as realist or constructivist, empiricist or rationalist, Bacon’s position can best be understood as real-constructivist since it challenges modern dichotomies, including the dichotomy between epistemology and ontology. Such real-constructive turn might serve to promote the acknowledgement that natural and engineering sciences, in particular recent technosciences, are creating and producing the world we live in. Reflection upon the contemporary relevance of Bacon is intended as a contribution to the expanding and critical discussion on nano-technoscience. (shrink)

This article defends three interconnected premises that together demand for a new way of dealing with moral responsibility in developing and using technological artifacts. The first premise is that humans increasingly make use of dissociated technological delegation. Second, because technologies do not simply fulfill our actions, but rather mediate them, the initial aims alter and outcomes are often different from those intended. Third, since the outcomes are often unforeseen and unintended, we can no longer simply apply the traditional (modernist) models (...) for discussing moral responsibility. We need to reinterpret moral responsibility. A schematic layout of a model on Social Role-Responsibility that incorporates these three premises is presented to allow discussion of a new way of interpreting moral responsibility. (shrink)

Unlike basic sciences, scientific research in advanced technologies aims to explain, predict, and (mathematically) describe not phenomena in nature, but phenomena in technological artefacts, thereby producing knowledge that is utilized in technological design. This article first explains why the covering-law view of applying science is inadequate for characterizing this research practice. Instead, the covering-law approach and causal explanation are integrated in this practice. Ludwig Prandtl's approach to concrete fluid flows is used as an example of scientific research in the engineering (...) sciences. A methodology of distinguishing between regions in space and/or phases in time that show distinct physical behaviours is specific to this research practice. Accordingly, two types of models specific to the engineering sciences are introduced. The diagrammatic model represents the causal explanation of physical behaviour in distinct spatial regions or time phases; the nomo-mathematical model represents the phenomenon in terms of a set of mathematically formulated laws. (shrink)

In the paper, the touchstone points of the project “Towards an agency-based philosophy of (advanced) technology” are outlined. The main plot of this elaboration concerns human-machine interactions and appropriate interpretation of reciprocal aligning, adapting within involved into such interactions agents; as well as the status as such of being an agent. Into the theoretical and historical background of the project such spheres as Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Engineering and Design Technological Actions, STS (Science and Technology Studies), (...) Applied Ethics etc. could be invited. To treat agency as technology, reestablish the role of agency in technology is the most ambitious goal of the project: ‘activity as technology’ focuses on activities through technologies. The terms «agency» and «activity» are used in this paper synonymously with the basic Aristotelian meaning of agent’s potential capacity to act. The proposed by the author theory of action and agency (and correspondently defended in 2016 dissertation of Doctor of Philosophical Science) is to be applied into philosophical reflections about various problems of dealing with currently continually appearing flourishing fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning (including deep learning methods and simulation methods), inventing computers and codes, numerically controlled machines and robots, computer-chip equipped devices, smart objects etc. (shrink)

The difficulty of explaining the outputs of artificial intelligence (AI) models and what has led to them is a notorious ethical problem wherever these technologies are applied, including in the medical domain, and one that has no obvious solution. This paper examines the proposal, made by Luciano Floridi and colleagues, to include a new ‘principle of explicability’ alongside the traditional four principles of bioethics that make up the theory of ‘principlism’. It specifically responds to a recent set of criticisms that (...) challenge the supposed need for such a principle to perform an enabling role in relation to the traditional four principles and therefore suggest that these four are sufficient without the addition of explicability. The paper challenges the critics’ premise that explicability cannot be an ethical principle like the classic four because it is explicitly subordinate to them. It argues instead that principlism in its original formulation locates the justification for ethical principles in a midlevel position such that they mediate between the most general moral norms and the contextual requirements of medicine. This conception of an ethical principle then provides a mold for an approach to explicability on which it functions as an enabling principle that unifies technical/epistemic demands on AI and the requirements of high-level ethical theories. The paper finishes by anticipating an objection that decision-making by clinicians and AI fall equally, but implausibly, under the principle of explicability’s scope, which it rejects on the grounds that human decisions, unlike AI’s, can be explained by their social environments. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to a discussion in philosophy of technology by focusing on the epistemological status of the example. Of the various developments in the emerging, inchoate field of philosophy of technology, the “empirical turn” stands out as having left the most enduring mark on the trajectory contemporary research takes. From a historical point of view, the empirical turn can best be understood as a corrective to the overly “transcendentalizing” tendencies of “classical” philosophers of technology, such as Heidegger. (...) Empirically oriented philosophy of technology emphasizes actual technologies through case-study research into the formation of technical objects and systems and how they, for example, transform our perceptions and conceptions or pass on and propagate relations of power. This paper explores the point of convergence of classical and contemporary approaches by means of the notion of the “example” or “paradigm.” It starts with a discussion of the quintessential modern philosopher of technology, Martin Heidegger, and his thinking about technology in terms of the ontological difference. Heidegger’s framing of technology in terms of this difference places the weight of intelligibility entirely on the side of being, to such an extent that his examples become heuristic rather than constitutive. The second part of the paper discusses the methodological and epistemological import of the “example” and the form of intelligibility it affords. Drawing on the work of Wittgenstein, Foucault, and Agamben, we argue that the example offers an alternative way of understanding the study of technologies from that of empirical case studies. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy is a relatively recent discipline that employs experimental methods to investigate the intuitions, concepts, and assumptions behind traditional philosophical arguments, problems, and theories. While experimental philosophy initially served to interrogate the role that intuitions play in philosophy, it has since branched out to bring empirical methods to bear on problems within a variety of traditional areas of philosophy—including metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. To date, no connection has been made between developments in experimental philosophy (...) and philosophy of technology. In this paper, I develop and defend a research program for an experimental philosophy of technology. (shrink)

Three philosophical perspectives on the relation between technology and society are distinguished and discussed: 1) technology as an autonomous force that determines society; 2) technology as a human construct that can be shaped by human values, and 3) a co-evolutionary perspective on technology and society where neither of them determines the other. The historical evolution of the three perspectives is discussed and it is argued that all three are still present in current debates about technological change and how it may (...) affect society. This is illustrated for the case of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is argued that each of the three perspectives contributes to the debate of AI but that the third has the strongest potential to uncover blind spots in the current debate. (shrink)

A recurrent theme in the characterization of synthetic biology is the role of engineering. This theme is widespread in the accounts of scholars studying this field and the biologists working in it, in those of the biologists themselves, as well as in policy documents. The aim of this article is to open this black-box of engineering that is supposed to influence and change contemporary life sciences. Too often, both synthetic biologists and their critics assume a very narrow understanding of what (...) engineering is about, resulting in an unfruitful debate about whether synthetic biology possesses genuine engineering methodologies or not. By looking in more detail to the diversity of engineering conceptions in debates concerning synthetic biology, a richer perspective can be developed. In this article, I will examine five influential ways in which engineering is understood in these debates, namely engineering as applied science, as rational methodology, context-sensitive practice, cunning activity or design. The claim is first of all thus to argue that engineering must not be seen as something stable or characterized by a fixed essence. It rather has multiple meanings and interpretations. Secondly, the claim is that most of the debates on synthetic biology cannot be indifferent towards the question which conception of engineering is at play, since the specific questions and concerns that pop up depend to a great extent on the precise conception of engineering one has in account. Many of the existing debates around synthetic biology can thus be reinterpreted and readdressed once one is aware of which conception of engineering is at play. (shrink)

This study tries to show the relation between technê and the ethical sphere in the Ancient Greek through mythology and the philosophical literature. Both in mythology and in the philosophical framework the benefits of technê and the power provided by technê for humanity are emphasized. And technê is considered as competence increases the control of human beings in practical areas. However, the ambiguous character of the human experience related to technê and the morally problematic character of this field is also (...) pointed out in the literature. Because, if not controlled, technê has a potential to turn easily against humanity and to produce things that would harm human beings. At this point, ethical values have a crucial role in the control of technê. Technê as a type of knowledge which gives how to do things and how to control the environment but does not give why something is to be done and cannot give an ultimate goal should be subject to higher spheres in the philosophical framework. Therefore technê is subject to ethical and ultimately metaphysical sphere. (shrink)

In this essay we argue that the notion of machine necessarily includes its being designed for a purpose. Therefore, being a mechanical system is not enough for being a machine. Since the experimental scientific method excludes any consideration of finality on methodological grounds, it is then also insufficient to fully understand what machines are. Instead in order to understand a machine it is first required to understand its purpose, along with its structure, in clear parallel with Aristotle’s final and formal (...) causes. Obviously, purpose and structure are not machine components that can physically interact with other components; nonetheless they are essential to understanding their operation. This casts an interesting light on the relationship between mind and body: for just as an artifact’s finality and structure explain its operation, so also consciousness is the explanation—not the efficient cause—of specifically human behavior. What machines and human beings have in common is that, in order to understand them, it is necessary to appeal to the principle of finality. Yet while finality is given and extrinsic in the case of machines, we human beings are characterized by the ability to self-propose our own ends. Since the principle of finality is essential to understanding the production of machines, the traditional view in modern Western philosophy that finality lies beyond the scope of objective/scientific knowledge should be rectified to allow for a genuine science of the artificial. We think a correct understanding of final causality will overcome current resistance to this principle. (shrink)

In the philosophy of technology after the empirical turn, little attention has been paid to language and its relation to technology. In this programmatic and explorative paper, it is proposed to use the later Wittgenstein, not only to pay more attention to language use in philosophy of technology, but also to rethink technology itself—at least technology in its aspect of tool, technology-in-use. This is done by outlining a working account of Wittgenstein’s view of language and by then applying that account (...) to technology—turning around Wittgenstein’s metaphor of the toolbox. Using Wittgenstein’s concepts of language games and form of life and coining the term ‘technology games’, the paper proposes and argues for a use-oriented, holistic, transcendental, social, and historical approach to technology which is empirically but also normatively sensitive, and which takes into account implicit knowledge and know-how. It gives examples of interaction with social robots to support the relevance of this project for understanding and evaluating today’s technologies, makes comparisons with authors in philosophy of technology such as Winner and Ihde, and sketches the contours of a phenomenology and hermeneutics of technology use that may help us to understand but also to gain a more critical relation to specific uses of concrete technologies in everyday contexts. Ultimately, given the holism argued for, it also promises a more critical relation to the games and forms of life technologies are embedded in—to the ways we do things. (shrink)

This paper aims to assess the credibility of the legitimation thesis; the claim that the development of experimental science involved a legitimation of certain aspects of artisanal practice or craft knowledge. My goal will be to provide a critique of this idea by examining Francis Bacon’s notion of ‘mechanical history’ and the influence it exerted on attempts by later generations of scholars to appropriate the knowledge of craft traditions. Specifically, I aim to show how such projects were often premised upon (...) socio-epistemological ideals that served to reinforce, rather than relinquish boundaries between artisans and natural philosophers. It will be my claim that a closer examination of the presuppositions underlying attempts by early modern natural philosophers to appropriate craft knowledge reveals, not a desire to legitimize aspects of artisanal practice, but rather strategies aimed at demonstrating the inferiority of the local ways of knowing upon which it was based. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to provide a discussion of scholarly ‘crisis of modernity’ discourses that have developed in the field of social philosophy. Re-visiting past and present discourses can be illuminating in at least three ways: it can reveal the broader picture of the present financialized and technologized world and the rise of financial technologies; it can provide scholars with new vocabularies, concepts, and metaphors to comprehend present-day phenomena and developments; and it can reveal the variety of commitments (...) that are possible, today, too. This article starts with a discussion of the original ‘crisis of modernity’ discourses, in which the clashing arguments of Comte and Tocqueville are featured, and a discussion of a second ‘crisis of modernity’ that developed in the context of the ‘Great Depression.’ A third ‘crisis of modernity’ discourse emerged in the wake of the financial crises of the 1970s. Such crises are still ongoing and discussed within the boundaries of the third ‘crisis of modernity’ discourse. How financial technologies do and do not fit within this third discourse is discussed in the remainder of this article. (shrink)

The convergence of computing, sensing, and communication technology will soon permit large-scale deployment of self-driving vehicles. This will in turn permit a radical transformation of traffic control technology. This paper makes a case for the importance of addressing questions of social justice in this transformation, and sketches a preliminary framework for doing so. We explain how new forms of traffic control technology have potential implications for several dimensions of social justice, including safety, sustainability, privacy, efficiency, and equal access. Our central (...) focus is on efficiency and equal access as desiderata for traffic control design. We explain the limitations of conventional traffic control in meeting these desiderata, and sketch a preliminary vision for a next-generation traffic control tailored to address better the demands of social justice. One component of this vision is cooperative, hierarchically distributed self-organization among vehicles. Another component of this vision is a priority system enabling selection of priority levels by the user for each vehicle trip in the network, based on the supporting structure of non-monetary credits. (shrink)

En los inicios del siglo XXI está desarrollándose una e-ciencia, una ciencia electrónica y altamente computarizada que exige un replanteamiento sobre la epistemología científica. A través del ejemplo de la Bioinformática y las Biotecnologías, el autor muestra algunas características de esta nueva e-ciencia e indica algunos de los problemas con los que deben enfrentarse los filósofos de la ciencia contemporáneos. Right at the beginning of the 21st century an e-Science is emerging, a highly computerized electronic science which demands a new (...) way of understanding scientific epistemology. Through Bioinformatics and Biotechnologies, the author analyzes some of the characteristics of this new e-Science and shows several problems which contemporary philosophers of science must face. (shrink)

Computing is changing the traditional field of Philosophy of Science in a very profound way. First as a methodological tool, computing makes possible ``experimental Philosophy'' which is able to provide practical tests for different philosophical ideas. At the same time the ideal object of investigation of the Philosophy of Science is changing. For a long period of time the ideal science was Physics (e.g., Popper, Carnap, Kuhn, and Chalmers). Now the focus is shifting to the field of Computing/Informatics. There are (...) many good reasons for this paradigm shift, one of those being a long standing need of a new meeting between the sciences and humanities, for which the new discipline of Computing/Informatics gives innumerable possibilities. Contrary to Physics, Computing/Informatics is very much human-centered. It brings a potential for a new Renaissance, where Science and Humanities, Arts and Engineering can reach a new synthesis, so very much needed in our intellectually split culture. This paper investigates contemporary trends and the relation between the Philosophy of Science and the Philosophy of Computing and Information, which is equivalent to the present relation between Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Physics. (shrink)

The inquiry into the moral status of artificial intelligence (AI) is leading to prolific theoretical discussions. A new entity that does not share the material substrate of human beings begins to show signs of a number of properties that are nuclear to the understanding of moral agency. It makes us wonder whether the properties we associate with moral status need to be revised or whether the new artificial entities deserve to enter within the circle of moral consideration. This raises the (...) foreboding that we are at the gates of an anthropological crisis: the properties bound to moral agency have been exclusively possessed in the past by human beings and have shaped the very definition of being human. In this article, I will argue that AI does not lead us to an anthropological crisis and that, if we adhere to the history and philosophy of technology, we will notice that the debate on the moral status of AI uncritically starts from an anthropology of properties and loses sight of the relational dimension of technology. First, I will articulate three criteria for analyzing different anthropological views in philosophy of technology. Second, I will propose six anthropological models: traditional, industrial, phenomenological, postphenomenological, symmetrical, and cyborg. Third, I will show how the emergence of AI breaks with the dynamics of increased relationality in the history and philosophy of technology. I will argue that this aspect is central to debates about the moral status of AI, since it sheds light on an aspect of moral consideration that has been obscured. Finally, I will reject entirely relational approaches to moral status and propose two hybrid possibilities for rethinking it. (shrink)

Multistability—the plurality of meanings of technological artifacts—is an emancipatory phenomenon insofar as it allows the user to freely appropriate the object according to his or her interests, even against the will of the designer. The objective of this article is to show how the trend to connect physical and digital artifacts to the Internet poses a danger to the freedom that there is in multistability. By reducing the traditional separation between the artifact and the designer, the connection of the artifact (...) to the Internet allows the designer to continually modify the software that governs or constitutes it, which involves a relative loss of power for the user to determine its meaning. This change, in favor of the designer in the correlation of power among the actors—designer, artifact, and user—from whose interplay the meaning of artifacts arises, favors concentric stabilities and hinders eccentric ones with respect to the will of the designer. Thus, we should rethink the truth value of the designer fallacy, that is, the claim that the meaning of artifacts is determined only by the designer. From a political point of view, the remote control of artifacts and their multistability is an effective pedagogical tool to educate human beings in a time in which texts, according to Sloterdijk, no longer serve this function. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to encourage participants in the debate about the locus of cognition (e.g., extended mind vs embedded mind) to turn their attention to noteworthy anthropological and sociological considerations typically (but not uniquely) arising from transhumanist and posthumanist research. Such considerations, we claim, promise to potentially give us a way out of the stalemate in which such a debate has fallen. A secondary goal of this paper is to impress trans and post-humanistically inclined readers to embrace (...) (or at least seriously reflect on) the extended mind thesis as a potential gamechanger to the state of play in their own debates. We start off (Sect. 1) by reviewing two crucial ideas (homo faber and plasticity of the body schema) that are instrumental in setting up the dispute between extended and embedded. We then summarise (Sect. 2), the stalemate between these two competing accounts of cognition, and review some of the dialectics underlying it. In Sect. 3, to get out of the stalemate, we propose to focus on a series of important anthropological and sociological considerations derived from and related to trans and posthumanist research. In doing so, we claim (Sect. 4) that an extended approach to cognition becomes anthropologically preferable and morally as well as socially more desirable than an embedded one. (shrink)

This article builds on the hypothesis that theoretical approaches to philosophy of technology are currently stuck in a false alternative: either embrace the “empirical turn” or jump back into the determinism, pessimism, and general ignorance towards specific technologies that characterized the “humanities philosophy of technology.” A third path is however possible, which consists of articulating an empirical point of view with an interest in the symbolic dimension in which technologies and technological mediations are always already embedded. Bourdieu’s sociology of the (...) symbolic forms represents an important and mostly unexplored resource in this respect. In this article, we introduce the notion of technological capital and its tree states—objectified, institutionalized, and embodied. In the first section, we briefly account of the empirical turn in philosophy of technology. Specific attention is then devoted to postphenomenology. We depict three perspectives in postphenomenology: standard postphenomenology, in which one single human-technology-world relation at a time is considered; the attempt of some technological mediation theorists to articulate postphenomenology and actor-network theory ; the original effort in Ihde, which is currently practiced by a minority of postphenomenologists, to combine an interest for the empirical dimension of technological mediations with an attention to the social and cultural conditions of possibility in which these mediations are embedded. In the second section, we consider some recent critiques of the limits of the empirical turn in philosophy of technology, especially related to postphenomenology. Furthermore, we argue that Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology may benefit the philosophy of technology. One might say that according to a Bourdieusian perspective, technologies are, in their invention, implementation, and use, embedded in symbolically organized interactions among social actors or groups. The notion of technological capital is introduced. A specific attention is given to its embodied state, which is related to the habitus. Such concept suggests that, to rephrase the famous sentence by Heidegger, “the essence of technology is not totally technological.” In the conclusion, we consider three risks related to a Bourdieusian approach to technology: transparency, determinism, and absolutism. (shrink)

Paper presented at the symposium on the occasion of the retirement of Sven Ove Hansson. The symposium took place on 13-14 December 2019 at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

How engineers know, and act on that knowledge, has a profound impact on society. Consequently, the analysis of engineering knowledge is one of the central challenges for the philosophy of engineering. In this article, we present a thematic multidisciplinary conceptual survey of engineering epistemology and identify key areas of research that are still to be comprehensively investigated. Themes are organized based on a survey of engineering epistemology including research from history, sociology, philosophy, design theory, and engineering itself. Five major interrelated (...) themes are identified: the relationship between scientific and engineering knowledge, engineering knowledge as a distinct field of study, the social epistemology of engineering, the relationship between engineering knowledge and its products, and the cognitive aspects of engineering knowledge. We discuss areas of potential future research that are underdeveloped or “undone.”. (shrink)

Science and technology are so intertwined that technoscience has been argued to more accurately reflect the progress of science and its impact on society, and most socioscientific issues require technoscientific reasoning. Education policy documents have long noted that the general public lacks sufficient understanding of science and technology necessary for informed decision-making regarding socioscientific/technological issues. The science–technology–society movement and scholarship addressing socioscientific issues in science education reflect efforts in the science education community to promote more informed decision-making regarding such issues. (...) Now Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics education has emerged as a major reform movement impacting science education. STEM education efforts emphasize literacy across the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but with rare exceptions, treat issues of technology superficially and uncritically. Informed decision-making regarding many personal and societal issues requires technological literacy beyond merely becoming an enthusiastic designer or skilled user of technology, but the science education community has given little attention to what such literacy entails. Here, we present results of an extensive review of the literature regarding the nature of technology in order to identify key issues among scholars who study technology. We then provide predominant perspectives among those scholars and suggest which identified NOT issues are most essential to address as part of STEM education efforts that seek to promote informed personal and societal decision-making. (shrink)

A fé absoluta na capacidade da tecnologia em promover melhorias sociais sofreu fortes críticas no último século. O escritor norte-americano Lewis Mumford denunciou este mito e seus prejuízos, estabelecendo-se como uma voz de reação contra os valores impostos pela sociedade industrial tecnocrática. Embora Mumford tenha destacado as denúncias sobre o poder desmedido da esfera tecnológica da vida moderna, e as razões históricas que nos legou essa cultura, suas teses sugerem um otimismo frente à possibilidade de controlarmos e reorientarmos seu desenvolvimento. (...) Neste artigo, trazemos a aposta de Mumford para uma possível reorientação radical de atitudes que transformariam esta civilização, sempre em vistas a um desenvolvimento civilizatório mais equilibrado e orientado à emancipação humana. (shrink)

_Keiji Nishitani's critique of technology as a dehumanizing force is objected to by showing that it is possible to establish a relationship with technology characterized by the standpoint of sunyata. In order to support my claim, I offer an interpretation of sunyata as a lived experience in which knowing and being are unified. One method used to experience the identity of knowing and being is the method of negatio negationis. I argue that technology embodies this method, and that thus has (...) a built-in process that allows users of technology to achieve a samadhi experience in the use of tools and machines. Hubert Dreyfus' theory of embodiment is offered in support of this claim. If it is possible to establish an intimate relation with certain technologies, then the nature of technology cannot be reduced to its most obvious dehumanizing and destructive effects_. (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)

Undoubtedly, technology continues to permeate the world at an unprecedented pace. The discipline of nursing is not alien to this phenomenon as nurses continue to employ various technological objects and applications in clinical practice, education, administration and research. Despite the centrality of technology in nursing, it has not been recognised as a metaparadigm domain of interest in the discipline of nursing. Thus, this paper sought to examine if technology truly reflected a metaparadigm domain using the four requirements posited by Fawcett. (...) Using these requirements, we examined the onto‐epistemology of technology in relation to nursing and conclude that technology potentially represents a distinct domain that intersects with nursing (particularly, from the humanities perspective). Also, technology encompasses some phenomena of interest to the discipline of nursing, demonstrates perspective‐neutrality, and is international in scope and substance albeit with some nuances which do not fit well with nursing onto‐epistemology. Put together, it is highlighted that technology intersects with the existing metaparadigm domains (person, health, environment and nursing) which positions it as a potential phenomenon of interest to the discipline of nursing requiring further work to articulate its position and role. (shrink)

Climate change education (CCE) and environmental education (EE) seek ways for us humans to keep inhabiting Earth. We present a thought experiment adopting the perspective of Earth-settlers, aiming to illuminate the planetary mass of technology. By elaborating Hannah Arendt’s notion of ‘earth alienation’ and Bruno Latour’s notion of technology as ‘missing mass’, we suggest that, in the current Anthropocene era, our relation to technology should be a crucial theme of CCE and EE. We further suspect that sustainable development (SD) and (...) the education promoting it (ESD) are problematic, because the green growth proposed is inextricably linked to the unattainable goal of decoupling growth from environmental impact. We therefore suggest education for post-sustainability (EPS) that critically re-evaluates the connections between technology and sustainability. But can educators critically question technology, since educational institutions seem to be unconditionally committed to promoting technological progress? While tracing this professional dilemma, we call for educational responsibility and autonomy to question technology when it is at odds with sustainability. To this end, we outline technological literacy that introduces the arts of (a) seeing technology, (b) living with technology, and (c) delegating or sustainably assimilating technology. (shrink)

Public “upstream engagement” and other approaches to the social control of technology are currently receiving international attention in policy discourses around emerging technologies such as nanotechnology. To the extent that such approaches hold implications for research and development (R&D) activities, the distinct participation of scientists and engineers is required. The capacity of technoscientists to broaden the influences on R&D activities, however, implies that they conduct R&D differently. This article discusses the possibility for more reflexive participation by scientists and engineers in (...) the internal governance of technology development. It reviews various historical attempts to govern technoscience and introduces the concept of midstream modulation, through which scientists and engineers, ideally in concert with others, bring societal considerations to bear on their work. (shrink)

Technological enthusiasm is a value that can influence engineering, shape technologies and subsequently transform human lifestyles. Despite its significant role, up until now, there has been little research done on this value. The dominant idea is that this value is commendable. However, based on consequentialism, a recently proposed idea describes TE as neither morally commendable nor reprehensible. In this paper, three arguments are presented against this recent idea, and a new idea is introduced, which challenges not only commendation for TE (...) but also neutrality of TE. Further, it is shown that a virtue ethics approach can be adopted to evaluate the moral role of TE. In the approach, TE can be considered a character trait or a virtue/vice. Then, three arguments are proposed to indicate that TE is not a virtue but a vice. This paper illustrates some advantages of virtue ethics in ethical evaluation of a problem in which consequentialism or utilitarianism is not effective. (shrink)

The sociocultural landscape of contemporaneity can be represented as a porous inhomogeneous space consisting of border zones. These zones, understood by P. Galison as “local coordination of beliefs and actions,” can be deployed due to already existing conditions, for example, a project may arise at a university. However, such zones do not create sustainable social configurations and infrastructures associated with new areas of knowledge. In this article, we expand the concept of trading zones and call them zones requiring local ontologies (...) that arise on the border between different knowledge and imagination systems and, in turn, require their own infrastructure. This approach supports the view on humanities not as “pre-packaged” knowledge, but as special “technique” forming local ontologies. For a humanities-as-technique to emerge, it is necessary that two or more systems of knowledge coincide in time and form an intermediate zone, on the basis of which some local ontology can unfold. Thus, for example, when combining contemporary philosophy and contemporary mathematics, new images of knowledge emerge. Humanities-as-technique are considered as the basis for the establishment of trading zones, which are understood as local ontologies. We also propose a system of concepts that can be used to describe and construct these trading zones on the territory of the humanities in a techno-oriented cultural environment. (shrink)

Resumen En la historia de la filosofía, la oposición entre episteme y téchne ha sido convencional. Ya sea que se interprete a Platón o Aristóteles, o se revisen las invenciones de Arquímedes, Ctesibio, Filón de Bizancio o Herón de Alejandría, hay una marginalidad temática de la téchne frente a la jerarquía epistémica de un pensamiento puro (logis-mós). En este artículo se propone una interpretación diferente, de carácter arqueológico y genealógico, según la cual se podría postular una episteme en la téchne (...) y una téchne en la episteme. La indagación inicia con una lectura de fuentes, recurriendo a la etimología como téchne hermenéutica (o método hermenéutico). Como fuente primaria principal se utilizan los Tratados hipocráticos.In the history of philosophy, the opposition between episteme and téchne has been conventional. Whether Plato or Aristotle is interpreted, or whether Archimedes, Ctesibius, Philo of Byzantium or Heron of Alexandria are revised, there is a margi-nalization of the téchne as compared to the epistemic hierarchy of pure thought (logismós). I propose a different interpretation of an archaeological and genealogical nature, according to which an episteme in the téchne and a téchne in the episteme could be postulated. The inquiry begins with a reading of sources making use of ety-mology as a hermeneutic téchne (or hermeneutic method). The Hippocratic treatises have been used as the principal primary source. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to diagnose and analyze the gap between philosophy of technology and engineering ethics and to suggest bridging them in a constructive way. In the first section, I will analyze why philosophy of technology and engineering ethics have taken separate paths so far. The following section will deal with the so-called macro-approach in engineering ethics. While appreciating the initiative, I will argue that there are still certain aspects in this approach that can be improved. In (...) the third, fourth, and fifth sections, I will point out three shortcomings of engineering ethics in terms of its macro-level discourse and argue that a number of certain insights taken from the study of philosophy of technology could be employed in overcoming those problems. In the concluding section, a final recommendation is made that topics of philosophy of technology be included in the curriculum of engineering ethics. (shrink)

This introduction to the special issue of Human Studies on postphenomenology outlines specific developments which have led to this style of phenomenology. Postphenomenology adapts aspects of pragmatism, including its anti-Cartesian program against early modern subject/object epistemology. Postphenomenology retains and emphasizes the use of phenomenological variations as an analytic tool, and in practice postphenomenology takes what is commonly now called “an empirical turn,” which deeply analyzes case studies or concrete issues under its purview.

In the history of philosophy, the opposition between epistēmē and téchnē has been conventional. Whether Plato or Aristotle is interpreted, or whether Archimedes, Ctesibius, Philo of Byzantium or Heron of Alexandria are revised, there is a marginalization of the téchnē as compared to the epistemic hierarchy of pure thought . I propose a different interpretation of an archaeological and genealogical nature, according to which an epistēmē in the téchnē and a téchnē in the epistēmē could be postulated.The inquiry begins with (...) a reading of sources making use of etymology as a hermeneutic téchnē . The Hippocratic treatises have been used as the principal primary source. (shrink)

Over the past four decades, software engineering has emerged as a discipline in its own right, though it has roots both in computer science and in classical engineering. Its philosophical foundations and premises are not yet well understood. In recent times, members of the software engineering community have started to search for such foundations. In particular, the philosophies of Kuhn and Popper have been used by philosophically-minded software engineers in search of a deeper understanding of their discipline. It seems, however, (...) that professional philosophers of science are not yet aware of this new discourse within the field of software engineering. Therefore, this article aims to reflect critically upon recent software engineers’ attempts towards a philosophy of software engineering and to introduce our own philosophical thoughts in this context. Finally, we invite the professional philosophers of science to participate in this interesting new discourse. (shrink)