This paper proposes a specific approach to understanding the nature of technology that encompasses the entire field of technological praxis, from the making of primitive tools to using the Internet. In that approach, technology is a specific form of human agency that yields to (an imperfect) realization of human control over a technological situation—that is, a situation not governed to an end by natural constraints but by specific human aims. The components of such technological situations are a given collection of (...) natural or artificial beings, humans, human aims, and situation-bound tools. By performing technological situation analysis, the essential form of tool making, the complex system of relationships between science and technology, technological practices with and without machines, the finiteness or imperfectness of any technology, and engineering (i.e., the possibility of the creation of technological situations) can be considered. For a better characterization of the approach to technology, the paper also presents a comparison of other philosophies of technology. Following Feenberg’s comparative analysis, the so-called fundamental question of the philosophy of technology is formulated, its two sides are identified, and it is applied for clarification of our position within philosophy of technology. In our approach, all human praxis can be considered to be technological; more precisely, every human activity has a technological aspect or dimension. (shrink)

The study aims to identify the mechanisms of communication humanization in the virtual environment with the help of new signs as the means of communication. The factors which limit emotional connections while using written signs in digital communication as a form of alienation are provided in the article. The scientific novelty is shown through the essential role of nonverbal signs and symbols used to overcome alienation under conditions of limited communication. The widespread use and evolution of nonverbal signs and symbols (...) in the process of digital communication is becoming a new frame that promotes communication to expand in the interactive sphere and make it more human. Understanding new signs and symbols go with socio-cultural issues of the current age and provides integrity and unique character of the individual. (shrink)

Purpose. The knowledge influence analysis on the formation process of new anthropological images of man in the contexts of scientific achievements and innovative technologies is the basis of this study. It involves the solution of the following tasks: 1) explication of the ontological content of knowledge in the anthropo-cultural senses of the epoch; 2) analysis of the knowledge influence on the process of forming a new type of man; 3) characteristics of the modern anthropological situation in the context of digital (...) culture; 4) substantiation of interrelation of phatic communication with post-truth society in the dimensions of anthropo-social transformations of the present. Theoretical basis. Ontological content of knowledge determines the anthropo-cultural context of the epoch by forming a system of intellectual, value, social meanings of human life. The assertion of new anthropological types of man is caused by the changes in social and cultural space in the context of the growing influence of achievements in scientific knowledge and technology. Digital revolution as the process of expanding the possibilities of informational-digital reality, the substitution of knowledge for information gives rise to Homo digitalis – the digital man. He focuses on phatic communication, which in its intellectual meaninglessness is commensurate with the anthropological dimensions of post-truth society. Originality. It is substantiated that Homo digitalis is the result of a complex set of heterogeneous effects of scientific knowledge, which in modern post-truth conditions appears as different communicative practices. A condition for the formation of a new anthropological type of man in the perspective of scientific and technological progress is the affirmation of ethical wisdom. Conclusions. Knowledge in the process of evolution of socio-cultural life acquires constitutive significance for the process of formation of anthropological situations that manifest themselves in new images of man. Today, he is commensurate with the demands of digital culture, in which human life practices are increasingly becoming information and digital clusters embedded in the reality of a post-truth society. The means of overcoming the passivity of digital man is the formation of a new anthropological type based on a rethinking of the value system. (shrink)

Purpose. The paper is aimed to explicate a recently emerging anthropological model of homo eudaimonicus from its secular framework perspective. Theoretical basis. Secularity is considered in three aspects with reference to Taylor’s and Habermas’ ideas: as a common public sphere, as a phenomenological experience of living in a Secular Age, and as a background for happiness to become a major common value among other secular values in the Age of Authenticity. The modifications of happiness interpretation are traced from Early Modernity (...) till nowadays. The preconditions of the contemporary appeal to Aristotle’s eudaimonic theory of happiness are elucidated. The main characteristics of homo economicus anthropological model and reasons for its collapse in the contemporary world are analyzed. Specificities of the contemporary interpretations of eudaimonia are described with reference to the works of MacIntyre, Haybron, Hamilton, Kekes, Melnick, and others. A moral foundation and a behavioral strategy of homo eudaimonicus model are expounded and the role of this model in the life of a contemporary individual person and society is revealed. Originality. For the first time in the Ukrainian philosophical discourse, it is shown how secular ethics enables the rise of a new homo eudaimonicus model within a sphere of secularity; and it is argued that homo eudaimonicus is the result of overcoming the values crisis. It is revealed how homo eudaimonicus along with being descriptive becomes also a normative model of a new effective behavior strategy of a contemporary person facing the current social, economic, political, and environmental challenges. Conclusions. According to the contemporary interpretation, happiness as eudaimonia is a combination of the good life and the meaningful life; it is a human flourishing in this world through the accomplishment of a person’s life plan in the sphere of secularity. Homo eudaimonicus manifests the overcoming of values crisis and the rediscovery of purpose and meaning, this time on the secular basis. Homo eudaimonicus implies the realization of a person’s project of a happy and fulfilling life through moral behavior and socially useful activities. (shrink)

Показано, що зростаючий вплив зовнішніх інформаційних і комунікаційних чинників на розвиток суспільно-політичних відносин в суспільстві вимагає термінового підвищення якості виконання державою інформаційно-комунікаційної функції. Обґрунтовується, що у сучасних умовах проблема інформаційної безпеки особистості, держави і суспільства принципово актуалізується і потребує комплексного осмислення.

Laying the groundwork -- Bateson and technology -- The art of living with technology.

The purpose of this article is to define the limits of technocentrism through the analysis of the limiting opportunities of technique and technology from certain value positions. Theoretical basis. The philosophical anthropology of Helmut Plessner was the research methodology. Originality. The institutional use of technology gives it the character of a social phenomenon and turns it into technology. The ability of individuals, which is aimed at achieving a certain goal with the help of certain sustainable techniques, is not yet technology (...) in itself but is only a certain author’s technique. Such subjectively acquired technique can be turned into socially used technology, otherwise, it will be lost. Technology is a technique that has gained recognition and has been mastered by those who did not invent it but used the algorithm proposed by the inventor, a detailed and functionally sound explanation, a method of constructing this technique. But the main thing is that technology is a technique that has received an acceptable justification for society. Conclusions. Technology is not only a means of achieving the goal, it is a way for a human being to transform the world. As such, technology is a component of human himself/herself and changes human – more precisely, a human being changed himself/herself with the help of technologies that he/she creates. However, this creates certain limits of such transformations: technology cannot replace humans in their ability to self-reproduce. Technology is always an element of social communication: the success of communication is interdependent on the success of the technology. Social modernization includes new technologies, but a more important component of social modernization is the new values for which these new technologies are created. Human evolution generates the technocratism at a certain stage. But to the extent that technocracy begins to contradict the values of humans and society, it loses its source of development – human creativity. (shrink)

Dialectic of Enlightenment is undoubtedly the most influential publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism." Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of (...) contemporary events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present. The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected, together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment. The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western civilization. Adorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the domination of external nature and society. They trace enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of both real and intellectual life. "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology." This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book. This new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work in the development of Critical Theory. (shrink)

This book discusses key ethical and deontological problems concerning the use of the most common information and communication devices. It focuses on the challenges of the new environments we now find ourselves in thanks to these technologies, and the issues arising from the newly established relationship between the virtual sphere and the real world. Each aspect is analysed by starting from a very specific example or a case study presenting a dilemma that can only be resolved by making a reasoned (...) ethical choice. Rather than thematically addressing only one of the many aspects mentioned above, the book presents a comprehensive introduction to, and a co-ordinated overview of, the various deontological and ethical issues regarding the spread of the most common information and communication technologies. (shrink)