Philosophy of Technology as Politics - Oxford Handbooks

"The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology gives readers a view into this increasingly vital and urgently needed domain of philosophical understanding, offering an in-depth collection of leading and emerging voices in the philosophy of technology. The thirty-two contributions in this volume cut across and connect diverse philosophical traditions and methodologies. They reveal the often-neglected importance of technology for virtually every subfield of philosophy, including ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, aesthetics, philosophy of language, and political theory. The Handbook also gives readers a new sense of what philosophy looks like when fully engaged with the disciplines and domains of knowledge that continue to transform the material and practical features and affordances of our world, including engineering, arts and design, computing, and the physical and social sciences. The chapters reveal enduring conceptual themes concerning technology's role in the shaping of human knowledge, identity, power, values, and freedom, while bringing a philosophical lens to the profound transformations of our existence brought by innovations ranging from biotechnology and nuclear engineering to artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and robotics. This new collection challenges the reader with provocative and original insights on the history, concepts, problems, and questions to be brought to bear upon humanity's complex and evolving relationship to technology"-- Provided by publisher This chapter offers a meta-philosophical account or a philosophy of the philosophy of technology. It first pictures the philosophy of technology as itself a technique, namely an academic discipline, with its own politics. It then explores the largely unexamined political imperatives of this technique drawing from the works of Martin Heidegger and Ivan Illich as well as literature in interdisciplinary studies. The following sections offer first a defense of the discipline and then a critique. Philosophers should in fact be disciplined in important ways. The problem is in how the modern academic discipline is a technique without a governor to limit its excesses. The chapter next offers an account of different philosophies of technology with alternative politics. The chapter concludes with some ideas for reforming philosophy of technology in the twenty-first century. Philosophy of Technology as Politics 1 Abstract and Keywords 1 1. Philosophy as Technology 1 Adam Briggle 1 Edited by Shannon Vallor 1 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 2 2. Philosophy of the Discipline 2 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 3 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 4 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 5 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 6 3. In Defense of the Discipline 6 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 7 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 8 4. Why the Discipline Is Bad for Philosophy 8 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 9 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 10 5. Alternative Technologies of Philosophy: A Bestiary 10 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 11 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 12 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 13 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 14 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 15 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 16 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 17 6. Conclusion: An Agenda for Reform 17 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 18 References 18 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 19 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 20 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 21 Philosophy of Technology as Politics 22