Virtual Futures

Virtual Futures PDF

Author: Joan Broadhurst Dixon

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-07-20

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1134784600

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Explores the idea that the future lies in its ability to articulate the consequences of an increasingly synthetic and virtual world.

Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture

Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture PDF

Author: Larry A. Hickman

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2001-02-22

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780253108647

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"Hickman['s]... style of pragmatism provides us with flexible, philosophical 'tools' which can be used to analyze and penetrate various technology and technological cultural problems of the present. He, himself, uses this toolkit to make his analyses and succeeds very well indeed." -- Don Ihde A practical and comprehensive appraisal of the value of philosophy in today's technological culture. Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture contends that technology -- a defining mark of contemporary culture -- should be a legitimate concern of philosophers. Larry A. Hickman contests the perception that philosophy is little more than a narrow academic discipline and that philosophical discourse is merely redescription of the ancient past. Drawing inspiration from John Dewey, one of America's greatest public philosophers, Hickman validates the role of philosophers as cultural critics and reformers in the broadest sense. Hickman situates Dewey's critique of technological culture within the debates of 20th-century Western philosophy by engaging the work of Richard Rorty, Albert Borgmann, Jacques Ellul, Walter Benjamin, JÃ1⁄4rgen Habermas, and Martin Heidegger, among others. Pushing beyond their philosophical concerns, Hickman designs and assembles a set of philosophical tools to cope with technological culture in a new century. His pragmatic treatment of current themes -- such as technology and its relationship to the arts, technosciences and technocrats, the role of the media in education, and the meaning of democracy and community life in an age dominated by technology -- reveals that philosophy possesses powerful tools for cultural renewal. This original, timely, and accessible work will be of interest to readers seeking a deeper understanding of the meanings and consequences of technology in today's world.

Pragmatism, Technology, and the Persistence of the Postmodern

Pragmatism, Technology, and the Persistence of the Postmodern PDF

Author: Andrew Wells Garnar

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-07-15

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1498597602

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Is postmodernity over? Does postmodernism still have anything important to say? Pragmatism, Technology, and the Persistence of the Postmodern argues “yes” to both. Despite the claims of a number of scholars that “postmodern” is over and done with, Andrew Wells Garnar demonstrates its continued relevance by carefully examining the use of information and communication technologies. These technologies illustrate many important postmodern concepts, thus showing the continued significance of postmodern philosophy. Garnar reconstructs these concepts with the tools of classical pragmatism. By engaging with pragmatists as well as with the thought of Jean-François Lyotard, Albert Borgmann, and others, this book produces a revitalized vision of both pragmatism and the postmodern. This version of pragmatism reflects the tenor of the times in a more nuanced way, while also showing how the postmodern continues to play out in contemporary life. Pragmatism, Technology, and the Persistence of the Postmodern shows how a pragmatic conception of technology opens up possibilities for working within postmodernity to materially address social and technical problems.

Technology, Pessimism, and Postmodernism

Technology, Pessimism, and Postmodernism PDF

Author: Yaron Ezrahi

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-07

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9401108765

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HOWARD P. SEGAL, FOR THE EDITORS In November 1979 the Humanities Department of the University of Michi gan's College of Engineering sponsored a symposium on ''Technology and Pessimism. " The symposium included scholars from a variety of fields and carefully balanced critics and defenders of modern technology, broadly defined. Although by this point it was hardly revolutionary to suggest that technology was no longer automatically equated with optimism and in turn with unceasing social advance, the idea of linking technology so explicitly with pessimism was bound to attract attention. Among others, John Noble Wilford, a New York Times science and technology correspondent, not only covered the symposium but also wrote about it at length in the Times the following week. As Wilford observed, "Whatever their disagreements, the participants agreed that a mood of pessimism is overtaking and may have already displaced the old optimistic view of history as a steady and cumulative expansion of human power, the idea of inevitable progress born in the Scientific and Industrial Rev olutions and dominant in the 19th century and for at least the first half of this century. " Such pessimism, he continued, "is fed by growing doubts about soci ety's ability to rein in the seemingly runaway forces of technology, though the participants conceded that in many instances technology was more the symbol than the substance of the problem.

Feedback Loops

Feedback Loops PDF

Author: Andrew Wells Garnar

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-11-03

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1498597637

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In a world of information technologies, genetic engineering, controversies about established science, and the mysteries of quantum physics, it is at once seemingly impossible and absolutely vital to find ways to make sense of how science, technology, and society connect. In Feedback Loops: Pragmatism about Science & Technology, editors Andrew Wells Garnar and Ashley Shew bring together original writing from philosophers and science and technology studies scholars to provide novel ways of rethinking the relationships among science, technology, education, and society. Through critiquing and exploring the work of philosopher of science and technology Joseph C. Pitt, the authors featured in this volume investigate the complexities of contemporary technoscience, writing on topics ranging from super-computing to pedagogy, engineering to biotechnology patents, and scientific instruments to disability studies. Taken together, these chapters develop an argument about the necessity of using pragmatism to foster a more productive relationship among science, technology and society.

Pragmatism

Pragmatism PDF

Author: Robert Hollinger

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 1999-01-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0275965244

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American pragmatism can be best understood against the background of 20th-century American culture and politics. The essays in this volume, by philosophers, cultural critics, and historians, explore the development of pragmatism in this context. The emphasis in this volume is on the interrelations between the philosophical or foundational issues raised by pragmatism as a philosophical movement, and the cultural, political, and educational programs that have been associated with pragmatism from James, Dewey, and Mead to Rorty and Cornel West. The book is divided into three parts, reflecting the periods of Progressivism, Positivism, and Postmodernism. The contributors explore the ways in which pragmatist writings have been appropriated or misappropriated in the literature and practice of Progressive reformers, positivist academics, end-of-ideology liberals, and postmodernists.

Pragmatism

Pragmatism PDF

Author: Robert Hollinger

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 1995-05-23

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 027594882X

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These essays explore the development of American pragmatism against the background of 20th-century American culture and politics. The book emphasises the inter-relations between the philosophical or foundational issues raised by pragmatism as a philosophical movement.

Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture

Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture PDF

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 730

ISBN-13:

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"Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture" contends that technology - a defining mark of contemporary culture - should be a legitimate concern of philosophers. Larry A. Hickman contests the popular notions that philosophy is little more than a narrow academic discipline and that philosophical discourse is little more than re-description of the ancient past. Drawing inspiration from John Dewey, one of America's greatest public philosophers, Hickman validates the role of philosophers as cultural critics and reformers in the broadest sense. Hickman situates Dewey's critique of technological culture within the debates of twentieth-century Western philosophy by engaging the work of Richard Rorty, Albert Borgmann, Jacques Ellul, Walter Benjamin, Jurgen Habermas, and Martin Heidegger, among others. Pushing beyond the philosophical concerns of these philosophers, Hickman designs and assembles a set of philosophical tools to cope with technological culture in a new century. The pragmatic treatment Hickman gives to current themes such as technology and its relationship to the arts, technosciences and technocrats, the role of the media in education, the meaning of democracy and community life in an age dominated by technology, reveals that philosophy possesses powerful tools for cultural renewal. This original, timely, and accessible work will be of interest to readers seeking a deeper understanding of the meanings and consequences of technology in today's world.