Maintenance and Philosophy of Technology: Keeping Things Going (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)

What can we learn about the nature of technology by studying practices of maintenance and repair? This volume addresses this question by bringing together scholarship from philosophers of technology working at the forefront of this emerging and exciting topic. The chapters in this volume explore how attending to maintenance and repair can challenge and complement existing ways of thinking about technology focused on use and design and introduce new philosophical perspectives on the relationship between technology, time and human practice. They examine the significance of maintenance and repair practices at different scales in relation to a diverse range of philosophical traditions and a wide variety of technologies, from urban infrastructure such as bridges and buildings to data technologies such as servers and software systems. Together, the contributions highlight common themes in the philosophical study of maintenance, including the role of skill, the significance of social values and the potential of these practices to transform the technologies to which they are applied. By reflecting on the different ways in which we keep technologies going, from the devices we use in our homes to the large technical systems which surround us, this volume reveals the philosophical significance of practices of maintenance, not only as a source of new insights but also as a resource for enriching our understanding of a variety of existing topics in philosophy. Maintenance and Philosophy of Technology will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of technology, philosophy of engineering and science & technology studies. Chapter 9 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at (http://www.taylorfrancis.com/) www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of Contributors Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Keeping Things Going: Maintenance and Philosophy of Technology 1.1 Maintenance and Repair Studies 1.1.1 Maintenance Beyond Materiality 1.1.2 The Invisibility of Maintenance 1.1.3 Vulnerability, Fragility and Breakdown 1.1.4 Maintenance and Repair as Transformative 1.2 Maintenance and Philosophy of Technology: Preliminary Issues 1.2.1 The Meaning(s) of Maintenance 1.2.2 Surveying the Landscape of Maintenance and Philosophy of Technology 1.3 Structure of the Volume Notes Bibliography Part I: Metaphysics and Epistemology of Maintenance Chapter 2: Maintenance and the Humanness of Infrastructure I II III IV Notes References Chapter 3: Technology in Process: Maintenance and the Metaphysics of Artefacts 3.1 The Problematic Status of Change in Western Metaphysics 3.2 Maintenance and Modification 3.3 From Biology to Technology: Towards a Process Philosophy of Artefacts 3.4 Conclusion Notes Bibliography Chapter 4: There, I Fixed It! On the Status and Meaning of Repair 4.1 Introduction 4.2 About Repair 4.3 Defining Repair 4.4 Repair and Context 4.5 Repair Knowledge 4.6 The Phenomenology of Informal Repair 4.7 Conclusion Funding Information Notes References Chapter 5: A Standpoint Epistemology of Repair? 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Repair 5.3 Knowledge Subordination 5.4 First Steps Towards a Theoretically Inspired Standpoint Epistemology of Repair 5.5 Standpoint Epistemologies: Main Tenets 5.6 A Standpoint Epistemology of Repair? 5.7 Repair as Critique 5.8 Conclusion Notes References Chapter 6: Sustainability as Planetary Maintenance 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Maintenance as Technics, Technics as Maintenance 6.3 Sustainability as Maintenance 6.3.1 Hylomorphism and Verticality 6.3.2 Sustainability and Horizontality 6.4 Technical Maintenance of Actuality or Potentiality? 6.4.1 Simondon versus Hylomorphism 6.4.2 Metastability or Elusive Homeostasis 6.5 Conclusion Notes References Chapter 7: Towards a Realist Metaphysics of Software Maintenance 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The Ontological Dualities of Computational Entities 7.3 Katz’s Realist Ontology of Composite Objects 7.4 Types, Tokens and Software 7.5 Software Maintenance 7.6 Conclusion Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography Chapter 8: Maintaining Perpetual Actuality in the Digital Age?: Simondon’s Conception of Maintenance and the Networked Era 8.1 The Temporality and Evolution of Technical Objects 8.2 Simondon’s Philosophy of Maintenance: Maintenance, Education and (Hi)story-Telling 8.3 Maintenance in the Networked Era? Notes Bibliography Part II: Ethics, Politics and Aesthetics of Maintenance Chapter 9: Maintenance of Value and the Value of Maintenance 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Maintenance: Beyond Design, Hardware and Conservation 9.2.1 Maintenance: Beyond Design 9.2.2 Maintenance: Beyond Hardware 9.2.3 Maintenance: Beyond Conservation 9.3 Maintaining Technology, Maintaining Value: The Case of Socio-technical Systems 9.4 Technology through Time: Maintenance and Value Domains 9.5 Conclusion Notes References Chapter 10: An Eco-Ethics for the End of the Anthropocene: Finding Ethical and Sustainable Paths through Consumerism, Disposability and Planned Obsolescence 10.1 A Storm Is Blowing in From Paradise 10.2 Swimming in the Global Waste Stream 10.2.1 Technological ‘Progress’ 10.2.2 (Fast) Fashion 10.2.3 Things Fall Apart 10.2.4 ‘Disposable’ Packaging and Single-Use Plastic 10.2.5 There Is No Unscrambling Some Eggs 10.2.6 Recycling – The Big Lie 10.2.7 Growth and Degrowth 10.2.8 The End of the Anthropocene 10.3 Bricolage Aesthetics: Maintenance, Repair and Salvage 10.3.1 Salvage Eco-ethics 10.3.2 An Autobiographical Intermezzo 10.3.3 Shoes and Socks 10.4 Doing the Eco-ethics of Salvage 10.4.1 Life in the Workshop – Repair, Bricolage and Improvisation 10.4.2 Taxonomy, Organisation and Sorting in the Shop 10.4.3 Pathological Maintenance 10.4.4 The Obsessive Bricoleur 10.4.5 Hoarding, Collecting, Exhibiting and Purging 10.5 Conclusion Notes References Chapter 11: Aesthetic Values in the Maintenance of Urban Technologies 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Traces of the Past, Traces of the Future 11.3 Aesthetics of Care in Maintenance Practices 11.4 Deliberation of Aesthetic Values 11.5 Conclusions Notes References Chapter 12: Negotiating Visions of Waste: On the Ethics of Maintaining Waste Infrastructures 12.1 Introduction: Waste, Ethics and Maintenance 12.2 Maintenance and Infrastructure 12.3 Reflexive Repair and Dynamic Maintenance 12.4 A Dynamic Concept of Waste 12.5 Modern Waste Management: An Institutional Perspective 12.6 Modern Imaginary of Waste 12.7 Value Change 12.8 Some Politics of Waste Infrastructures in the EU 12.9 Waste Affirmation and Municipal Solid Waste Management 12.10 Conclusion Notes Bibliography Chapter 13: Repairing AI 13.1 Introduction 13.2 Sustainable AI 13.3 Maintenance, Repair and Sustainable AI 13.3.1 AI for Sustainability as Acts of Repair 13.3.2 Repairing AI 13.4 Conclusion Notes References Index What can we learn about the nature of technology by studying practices of maintenance and repair? This volume addresses this question by bringing together scholarship from philosophers of technology working at the forefront of this emerging and exciting topic. The chapters in this volume explore how attending to maintenance and repair can challenge and complement existing ways of thinking about technology focused on use and design and introduce new philosophical perspectives on the relationship between technology, time and human practice. They examine the significance of maintenance and repair practices at different scales in relation to a diverse range of philosophical traditions and a wide variety of technologies, from urban infrastructure such as bridges and buildings to data technologies such as servers and software systems. Together, the contributions highlight common themes in the philosophical study of maintenance, including the role of skill, the significance of social values and the potential of these practices to transform the technologies to which they are applied. By reflecting on the different ways in which we keep technologies going, from the devices we use in our homes to the large technical systems which surround us, this volume reveals the philosophical significance of practices of maintenance, not only as a source of new insights but also as a resource for enriching our understanding of a variety of existing topics in philosophy. Maintenance and Philosophy of Technology will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of technology, philosophy of engineering and science & technology studies. Chapter 9 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at [www.taylorfrancis.com](http://www.taylorfrancis.com/) under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.