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178Marcuse or Habermas: Two critiques of technologyInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 39 (1). 1996.The debate between Marcuse and Habermas over technology marked a significant turning point in the history of the Frankfurt School. After the 1960s Habermas's influence grew as Marcuse's declined and Critical Theory adopted a far less Utopian stance. Recently there has been a revival of quite radical technology criticism in the environmental movement and under the influence of Foucault and constructivism. This article takes a new look at the earlier debate from the standpoint of these recent deve…Read more
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38Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption of HistoryRoutledge. 2004.First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
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79The Mediation is the MessageTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 17 (1): 7-24. 2013.Critical theory of technology brings technology studies to bear on the social theory of rationality. This paper discusses this connection through a reconsideration of the contribution of the Frankfurt School to our understanding of what I call the paradox of rationality, the fact that the promise of the Enlightenment has been disappointed as advances in scientific and technical knowledge have led to more and more catastrophic consequences. The challenge for critical theory is to understand this …Read more
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68Democratizing technology: Interests, codes, rights (review)The Journal of Ethics 5 (2): 177-195. 2001.This reply to criticism of Questioning Technology by Gerald Doppeltaddresses differences between political philosophy and philosophy oftechnology. While political philosophers such as Doppelt emphasize procedural aspects of democracy and equal rights, many philosophers of technologyimplicitly assume a substantive criterion of the good centered on thedevelopment of human capacities. Questioning Technology alsoemphasizes the diminishing agency of individuals in technologically advanced societies d…Read more
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98Subversive rationalization: Technology, power, and democracyInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 35 (3-4). 1992.This paper argues, against technological and economic determinism, that the dominant model of industrial society is politically contingent. The idea that technical decisions are significantly constrained by ?rationality? ? either technical or economic ? is shown to be groundless. Constructivist and hermeneutic approaches to technology show that modern societies are inherently available for a different type of development in a different cultural framework. It is possible that, in the future, thos…Read more
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Simon Fraser UniversityRegular Faculty
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Computing and Information |
Continental Philosophy |