•  191
    Technology and values: essential readings (edited book)
    Wiley-Blackwell. 2009.
    Cowan, Ruth Schwartz (1983) More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave. New York: Basic. ...
  •  79
    The work of Jacques Ellul is useful in understanding and evaluating the implications of rapidly changing technologies for human values and democracy. Ellul developed three powerful theses about technology: technological autonomy, technological determinism, and technological bluff. In this essay, the authors explicate these views of technology, and place the work of Ellul in dialogue with the ides of other important theorists of technology. Ellul’s too-often overlooked theses about technology are…Read more
  •  34
    Review of Philosophical Tools (review)
    Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 7 (3): 129-134. 2004.
  •  28
    The Occlusion of Truth Seeking in a Fog of Marketing
    with Miguel Martinez-Saenz
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 17 (2): 93-104. 2010.
    In this essay we argue that attempts to justify the value of the liberal arts in narrowly instrumental ways are a mistake, one that is likely to miss the central importance of a liberal arts education. Of course, we do not claim here that such instrumental justifications are completely wrong, but that in so far as liberal education is defended primarily in terms of enhanced practical outcomes (better paying jobs, saleable professional skills, higher scores on graduate and professional admissions…Read more
  •  24
    Wishing and Hoping
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 6 (2): 25-28. 1999.
    In this essay I think about the ways in which orientation towards the future plays a central role in constituting meaningful lives. Much intellectual work on the nature of persons takes our existence as something given and static, and much of it treats persons as either isolated individuals, or as completely subsumed within a social identity. However, we are both, and neither; we are always individuals, and we are always social creatures, and yet we are never fully either of these. Understanding…Read more
  •  22
    Post-Analytic Philosophy (review)
    Newsletter of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy 21 (65): 37-40. 1993.
  •  17
    Refiguring Critical Theory offers some thoughts about the nature of democracy and the possibilities of individual and collective self-determination. The text traces theories of the relationship between being and consciousness from Marx through Lukacs and the Frankfurt School to Habermas' recent work The Theory of Communicative Action.
  •  15
    Thinking About Democracy and Exclusion
    Southwest Philosophy Review 8 (1): 145-155. 1992.
  •  15
    Fragmented Selves and Loss of Community
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 3 (3): 18-23. 1996.
    In this paper we try to provide the beginning of an analysis of some of the crises of our time. We do so by arguing that a certain account of the individual blocks our ability to think about solutions at the individual and the social levels. As an example we take the industrialization of housework in the United States and its effects on women’s identity and on notions of “home.” We suggest that the rise of liberal individualism, the industrialization of public and private life, and the predomina…Read more
  •  8
    Wishing and Hoping
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 6 (2): 25-28. 1999.
    In this essay I think about the ways in which orientation towards the future plays a central role in constituting meaningful lives. Much intellectual work on the nature of persons takes our existence as something given and static, and much of it treats persons as either isolated individuals, or as completely subsumed within a social identity. However, we are both, and neither; we are always individuals, and we are always social creatures, and yet we are never fully either of these. Understanding…Read more
  •  6
    Jean Baudrillard (review)
    Radical Philosophy Review of Books 6 26-31. 1992.
  •  4
    Jean Baudrillard (review)
    Radical Philosophy Review of Books 6 (6): 26-31. 1992.
  •  2
    Genetic Technologies and Women: The Importance of Context Inmaculada de Melo-Martín St. Mary’s University
    Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 21 (5): 354-360. 2001.
    Bioethicists, like many other academics, have a tendency to try to make things general and simpler by eliminating context. Particulars, such as race, economic class, and gender, often seem to be lost in this ocean of generality and abstraction. But in losing them, we are neglecting the analysis of serious moral problems and, with it, the possibility of offering some kind of solution to such problems. This article argues that particulars do matter very much. We will focus ourattention here on gen…Read more
  •  1
    Dance and Philosophy (edited book)
    Bloomsbury. 2021.
    Craig Hanks and Aili Bresnahan are contributing editors only -- not main editors.
  • Juergen Habermas and the Colonization of the Lifeworld
    Dissertation, Duke University. 1991.
    The relationship between being and consciousness has been characterised as one of alienation , reification , instrumentalization , and 'one dimensionalization' . More recently Jurgen Habermas has described the 'colonization of the lifeworld'. Each of these theorists argues that social and political philosophy has two primary tasks. First, a political philosophy should construct a model of how we might best structure our social and political situation so as to maximize freedom and self-determinat…Read more
  • Cities, Aesthetics, and Human Community: Some Thoughts on the Limits of Design
    with Peter Kroes, Pieter E. Vermaas, Andrew Light, and Steven A. Moore
    In Pieter E. Vermaas, Peter Kroes, Andrew Light & Steven A. Moore (eds.), Philosophy and Design: From Engineering to Architecture, Springer. 2008.