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101. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
Baohua Xia Reconstructing the Disciplinary Consensus of the Philosophy of Technology: Henry Dircks and The Philosophy of Invention
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The author of The Philosophy of Invention, Henry Dircks (1806–1873), was an English civil engineer, inventor and historian of technology. The Philosophy of Invention is a forgotten classic of the philosophy of technology, and its author a forgotten pioneer. This new discovery will correct the disciplinary consensus in the philosophy of technology.
102. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
Mieke Boon In Defense of Engineering Sciences: On the Epistemological Relations Between Science and Technology
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This article presents an overview of discussions in the philosophy of technology on epistemological relations between science and technology, illustrating that often several mutually entangled issues are at stake. The focus is on conceptual and ideological issues concerning the relationship between scientific and technological knowledge. It argues that a widely accepted hierarchy between science and technology, which echoes classic conceptions of epistêmê and technê, engendered the need of emancipating technology from science, thus shifting focus to epistemic aspects of engineering design and design methodology at the cost of in-depth philosophical analysis of the role of scientific research in the engineering sciences. Consequently, the majority of current literature on this topic in the philosophy of technology presents technology as almost completely divided from and independent of science, thereby losing sight of the epistemic relations between contemporary scientific practices and technology.
103. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 2
Shannon Vallor Knowing What to Wish For: Human Enhancement Technology, Dignity and Virtue
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Through an analysis of the appeals to human dignity used by bioconservatives to criticize transhumanist proposals for aggressive development of human enhancement technologies, I identify an implicit tension within such appeals that renders them internally incoherent and ultimately unpersuasive. However, I point the way to a more compelling objection to radical human enhancement available to bioconservatives, a version of the argument from hubris that employs an Aristotelian account of prudential virtue in order to challenge the normative content of the liberal transhumanist vision. The vulnerability of the transhumanist project to this argument is underscored by Ortega y Gasset’s critique of technological mass culture, in which he suggests that humans may increasingly lack the prudential virtues needed to identify and authentically choose those ends worthy of technological pursuit.
104. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 2
Robert Rosenberger A Phenomenology of Image Use in Science: Multistability and the Debate over Martian Gully Deposits
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Insights from the phenomenological tradition of philosophy can be fruitfully applied to ongoing scientific investigations. In what follows, I review and refine a methodology I have developed for the application of concepts from the phenomenology of technology—concepts which articulate bodily and perceptual relations to technology—to a specific context of scientific practice: debate over the interpretation of laboratory images. As a guiding example, I introduce a case study of a contemporary debate over images of Mars which reveal evidence of fluid movement on the planet’s surface in the last decade. Next, the framework of phenomenological concepts is applied to this example, and contrasts are made with the results of previous case studies. I conclude with reflections on the implications of this perspective for both the use of imaging technologies in scientific research specifically, and for the phenomenology of technology generally.
105. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 2
Dingmar van Eck Incommensurability and Rationality in Engineering Design: The Case of Functional Decomposition
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In engineering design research different models of functional decomposition are advanced side-by-side. In this paper I explain and validate this co-existence of models in terms of the Kuhnian thesis of methodological incommensurability. I advance this analysis in terms of the thesis’ construal of (non-algorithmic) theory choice in terms of values, expanding this notion to the engineering domain. I further argue that the (by some) implicated threat of the thesis to rational theory choice has no force in the functional decomposition case: co-existence of different models of functional decomposition is rational from an instrumental point of view. My explanation covers cases in which different models are advanced as means for the same objective. Such cases cannot be explicated with the explanatory construct of variety in objectives, as advanced in other analyses of co-existing conceptualizations in engineering.
106. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 2
Susanne Lettow Somatechnologies: Rethinking the Body in the Philosophy of Technology
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Until now, the body has played only a minor role in the philosophy of technology. However, more elaborate reflections on the relation between technology and the body are needed because of the advent of somatechnologies – technologies intentionally geared toward modifying bodies and that use bodily substances as technological means. The article discusses some approaches within the philosophy of technology that prove to be fruitful in this context. The article argues thatsomatechnical modifications of bodies should be understood as elements of ‘body technologies’ and body politics in a broader sense. In such a perspective, concepts of the body developed by Judith Butler and Michel Foucault should be adopted by a praxeological philosophy of technology.
107. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 2
Heather Tillberg-Webb, Johannes Strobel Analysis of Technological Ideologies in Education: A Translation of Lessons from Technological Dystopian Literature into Educational Theory
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Through a critique and analysis of technological dystopian literature, specifically Brave New World, 1984, and The Machine Stops, a humanizing framework analyzing the promise and responsibility of a liberal education is constructed. Through this framework we visualize agency as the central goal of education, buoyed by the development of independent thinking, affective engagement, and recognition of socio-cultural and historical contexts. Modern education must prepare learners to manage, apply, evaluate, synthesize, analyze information and knowledge and creatively contribute back to the world of information.
108. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 2
Per Norström Technological Know-How from Rules of Thumb
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Rules of thumb are simple instructions, used to guide actions toward a specific result, without need of advanced knowledge. Knowing adequate rules of thumb is a common form of technological knowledge. It differs both from science-based and intuitive (or tacit) technological knowledge, although it may have its origin in experience, scientific knowledge, trial and error, or a combination thereof. One of the major advantages of rules of thumb is the ease with which they can be learned. One of their major disadvantages is that they cannot easily be adjusted to new situations or conditions.
109. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 2
David Lewin Technology and the Good Life: Suggestions for a Theological Turn in the Philosophy of Technology
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This essay argues that a purely secular philosophy of technology omits an essential aspect of technical activity: the ultimate concern for which any action is undertaken. By way of an analysis of Borgmann and Hickman, I show that the philosophy of technology cannot articulate the nature of the good life without reference to an ultimacy beyond finite human goods. This paradoxically implies that human beings desire something infinite which they cannot name, a paradox that theologians have long understood in terms of a theological dialectic.
110. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 3
Robert Rosenberger Introduction
111. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 3
Norm Friesen Less is More: A Response to Ihde, Rosenberger, Borgmann, Barney and Sørensen
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This response paper begins by countering the contributions of Don Ihde and Robert Rosenberger to this special issue, making its case in existential terms. Then, addressing Darin Barney, these arguments are developed further in aesthetic terms, making use of the “modernist” educational theory of René Arcilla. This response article concludes by returning to the realm of the educational with the help of Albert Borgmann's and Estrid Sørensen's feedback.
112. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 3
Don Ihde Dissection and Simulation: A Postphenomenological Critique
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In the lead article dissection is juxtaposed to simulation, but the problem is the example set on both sides is antiquated. I argue that a dynamic set of imaging technologies uses as in science documentaries is far superior to either the the 18th-19th century notions of biological education illustrated is what is needed.
113. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 3
Robert Rosenberger A Phenomenological Defense of Computer-Simulated Frog Dissection
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Defenders of educational frog dissection tend to emphasize the claim that computer-simulated alternatives cannot replicate the same exact experience of slicing open a frog, with all its queasy and visceral impact. Without denying that point, I argue that this is not the only educational standard against which computer-simulated dissection should be evaluated. When real-world frog dissection is analyzed as a concrete technological practice rather than an assumed ideal, the particular educational advantages distinct to real-world dissection and virtual dissection can be enumerated and compared. Building on the work of John Dewey and Don Ihde, I explore the still-expanding advantages of computer-simulated dissection, and in this proper context of comparison it becomes clear that virtual alternatives are increasingly the more educationally beneficial option.
114. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 3
Norm Friesen Dissection and Simulation: Brilliance and Transparency, or Encumbrance and Disruption?
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The increasing use of online simulations as replacements for animal dissection in the classroom or lab raises important questions about the nature of simulation itself and its relationship to embodied educational experience. This paper addresses these questions first by presenting a comparative hermeneutic-phenomenological investigation of online and offline dissection. It then interprets the results of this study in terms of Borgmann’s (1992) notion of the intentional “transparency” and “pliability” of simulated hyperreality. It makes the case that it is precisely encumbrance and disruption—elements that are by definition excluded from simulations and interfaces—which give dissection its educational value.
115. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 3
Darin Barney Gut Feelings: A Response to Norm Friesen’s “Dissection and Simulation”
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This response considers how Friesen’s account of simulation helps us to think through the situation of politics under technological conditions. The alleviation of material and corporeal risks entailed in simulated dissection is compared to the manner in which emerging media technologies facilitate experiences of political participation that are evacuated of the burdens of engagement. This dynamic is finally attributed not to digital mediation itself, but to its operation under the sign of simulation.
116. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 3
Estrid Sørensen Comment on Norm Friesen’s: “Dissection and Simulation: Brilliance and Transparency, or Encumbrance and Disruption?”
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Friesen's comparison between classroom practices and digital dissection carries the flaws of treating the digital and non-digital learning materials differently when comparing. This reply paper argues for a symmetric comparison through a focus on the way in which comparability between digital and non-digital learning materials is established by the researcher. It is suggested that such comparison might have brought about a result more favorable for digital technology.
117. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 15 > Issue: 3
Albert Borgmann Response to Norm Friesen
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Friesen has presented an articulate and detailed account of the injuries of virtualized education and a convincing brief for the value of education that is face-to-face and engaged with tangible reality.
118. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
Elizabeth Soliday Autonomy in Maternal Accounts of Birth after Cesarean
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Following decades of maltreatment of women in obstetric care, professional respect for maternal autonomy in obstetric decision making and care have become codified in global and national professional ethical guidelines. Yet, using the example of birth after cesarean, identifiable threats to maternal autonomy in obstetrics continue. This paper focuses on how current scientific knowledge and obstetric practice patterns factor into restricted maternal autonomy as evidenced in three representative maternal accounts obtained prior and subsequent to birth after cesarean. Short- and long-term remedies to improve the current state of restricted maternal autonomy in clinical practice surrounding decision making on birth after cesarean are provided.
119. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
Tanya N. Cook Hooked Up: How Electronic Fetal Monitoring Affects Maternal Agency and Maternal Autonomy
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Near ubiquitous use of electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) during low-risk childbirth constrains both maternal agency and maternal autonomy. An analysis of interdisciplinary literature about EFM reveals that its use cannot be understood apart from broader norms and values that have significant implications for the agency and autonomy of laboring women. Overreliance on EFM use for low-risk women threatens their autonomy in several ways: by privileging the status of the fetal patient, by delegitimizing women’s embodied experience of childbirth, and by constructing EFM data as objective science despite evidence to the contrary. In birth situations defined as high-risk, however, EFM may lead to greater maternal agency by enabling women to choose vaginal over cesarean birth. Viewing doctor-patient interactions as a co-construction in the context of an understanding that sees EFM as a social as well as technological construction may improve autonomy in childbirth.
120. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
Dana S. Belu Nature and Technology in Modern Childbirth: A Phenomenological Interpretation
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This paper provides a phenomenological interpretation of technological and natural childbirth. By using Heidegger’s ontology of technology to think about childbirth I argue that these two types of contemporary childbirth present us with a false dilemma as both reflect the same norms Heidegger associates with modernity, namely order, control, and efficiency. The paper briefly explains Heidegger’s concept of the enframing as the essence of the technological age whilefocusing on how it helps us to avoid falling into a technophilic or technophobic trap. Although the technophobic approach popularized by Lamaze gained some favor with feminists who saw the increased use of reproductive technology as an extension of patriarchal control over women’s bodies, I argue that this natural birthing technique incorporated order and control in ways that are similar to its technophilic counterpart. In order to move beyond what I call the reproductiveenframing, it is necessary to recognize the false dilemma presented by the technological and natural alternatives.