Wageningen, Gelderland, Netherlands
  •  8
    Peter Sloterdijk’s Philosophy of Technology: From Anthropogenesis to the Anthropocene
    with Matheus Ferreira de Barros and Marco Pavanini
    Technophany 1 (2): 84-123. 2023.
    In the present work, we aim to expose the central tenets of the philosophy of technology which underlines the work of the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk. Beginning from his early works and also mapping his philosophical influences, we show how he incidentally started theorising technology while still profoundly engaged with critical theory in the 1980s, but along the 1990s, passed through an anthropological turn, which made possible a concept of technology that has its foundations in both H…Read more
  •  239
    In this paper, we carry out a critical analysis of the concept of technology in the current design of the bio-based economy (BBE). Looking at the current status of the BBE, we observe a dominant focus on technological innovation as the principal solution to climatic instability. We take a critical stance towards this “ecomodernist” worldview, addressing its fundamental assumptions, and ofer an underarticulated explanation as to why a successful transition toward a sustainable BBE—i.e. one that f…Read more
  •  7
    In this paper, we carry out a critical analysis of the concept of technology in the current design of the bio-based economy (BBE). Looking at the current status of the BBE, we observe a dominant focus on technological innovation as the principal solution to climatic instability. We take a critical stance towards this “ecomodernist” worldview, addressing its fundamental assumptions, and offer an underarticulated explanation as to why a successful transition toward a sustainable BBE—i.e. one that …Read more
  •  6
    On Pharmacology and Multistability: a Commentary on Marco Pavanini
    Philosophy and Technology 35 (2): 1-6. 2022.
    This is a commentary piece on Marco Pavanini's article ' ‘Multistability and Derrida’s Différance: Investigating the Relations Between Postphenomenology and Stiegler’s General Organology' in which I critically extend upon his comparative analysis of postphenomenology''s notion of multistability and Stiegler's conception of organology, focusing in particular on the pharmacological nature of Stiegler's organology and the latter's most recent re-interpretation of it in terms of entropy and negentro…Read more
  •  428
    This paper provides a phenomenological analysis of postphenomenological philosophy of technology. While acknowledging that the results of its analyses are to be recognized as original, insightful, and valuable, we will argue that in its execution of the empirical turn, postphenomenology forfeits a phenomenological dimension of questioning. By contrasting the postphenomenological method with Heidegger’s understanding of phenomenology as developed in his early Freiburg lectures and in Being and Ti…Read more
  •  220
    The Ideal of a Zero-Waste Humanity: Philosophical Reflections on the Demand for a Bio-Based Economy
    with Jochem Zwier, Vincent Blok, and Robert-Jan Geerts
    Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 28 (2): 353-374. 2015.
    In this paper we inquire into the fundamental assumptions that underpin the ideal of the Bio-Based Economy as it is currently developed . By interpreting the BBE from the philosophical perspective on economy developed by Georges Bataille, we demonstrate how the BBE is fully premised on a thinking of scarcity. As a result, the BBE exclusively frames economic problems in terms of efficient production, endeavoring to exclude a thinking of abundance and wastefulness. Our hypothesis is that this not …Read more
  •  35
    Landscapes of Technological Thoughts
    with Yuk Hui
    Philosophy Today 65 (2): 375-389. 2021.
    In this dialogue with Yuk Hui, Pieter Lemmens explains the discipline called philosophy of technology and gives a concise overview of the most important contemporary approaches within this field. He also offers a critical evaluation of what are probably the two most salient characteristics of contemporary philosophy of technology, the so-called “empirical turn” and the “ethical turn,” which are deeply related and partly reflect the discipline’s on-going alignment with the global neoliberal agend…Read more
  •  15
    Technologizing the Transcendental, not Discarding it
    Foundations of Science 27 (4): 1307-1315. 2022.
    In this reply I further defend my claim that the transcendental should always remain a primary concern for philosophy of technology as a philosophical enterprise, contra the empirical turn’s rejection of it. Yet, instead of emphasizing the non-technological conditions of technology, as ‘classic’ thinkers of technology such as Heidegger did, it should recognize technology itself as the transcendental operator par excellence. Starting from Heidegger’s ontological understanding of transcendence I s…Read more
  •  20
    In Memory of Bernard Stiegler
    Foundations of Science 27 (3): 1021-1028. 2022.
  •  39
    This article has two general aims. It first of all critically reconsiders the empirical turn’s dismissal of transcendentalism in the philosophy of technology, in particular through the work of Ihde and Verbeek, and defends the continuing relevance of the notion of the transcencental in thinking about technology today, illustrating this mainly through a reading of Stiegler’s understanding of the human condition as a technical condition and his view of human (noetic) evolution as proceeding from a…Read more
  •  48
    Toward a Terrestrial Turn in Philosophy of Technology
    Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (2/3): 114-126. 2017.
  •  8
    Volume 25, Issue 4, August 2020, Page 3-8.
  •  10
    This article is an attempt to interpret Yuk Hui’s ambitious and promising project of cosmotechnics and technodiversity as a kind of “critical synthesis” of the philosophies of technology of Martin...
  •  2241
    The Emerging Concept of Responsible Innovation. Three Reasons why it is Questionable and Calls for a Radical Transformation of the Concept of Innovation
    with V. Blok
    In Bert- Jaap Koops, Ilse Oosterlaken, Henny Romijn, Tsjalling Swiwestra & Jeroen Van Den Hoven (eds.), Responsible Innovation 2: Concepts, Approaches, and Applications, Springer International Publishing. pp. 19-35. 2015.
    Abstract In this chapter, we challenge the presupposed concept of innovation in the responsible innovation literature. As a first step, we raise several questions with regard to the possibility of ‘responsible’ innovation and point at several difficulties which undermine the supposedly responsible character of innovation processes, based on an analysis of the input, throughput and output of innovation processes. It becomes clear that the practical applicability of the concept of responsible inno…Read more
  •  7
    Embodiment in Whole-Brain Emulation and its Implications for Death Anxiety
    with Charl Linssen
    Journal of Evolution and Technology 26 (2): 1-15. 2016.
    The awareness of death is a central motivating force behind human activity. Their capacities for abstract and symbolic reasoning give human beings a unique foresight of their finite lifetime and forthcoming demise.Because of the overwhelming nature of this realization; we try to cope with the ensuing anxieties by means of various cognitive and existential strategies. One such strategy is to create a meaningful legacy during one’s lifetime that will outlive the single individual. Whole-brain emul…Read more
  •  25
    Re-Orienting the Noösphere
    Glimpse 19 55-64. 2018.
    According to geologists and Earth System scientists, we are now living in the age of the Anthropocene, in which humans have become the most important geoforce, shaping the face of the planet more decisively than all natural forces combined. This brings with it a huge and unprecedented responsibility of humanity for the future of the biosphere. Humanity’s impact on the planet has been largely destructive until now, causing a rupture of the Earth System which completely changes the planetary condi…Read more
  •  84
    Technological Mediation and Power: Postphenomenology, Critical Theory, and Autonomist Marxism
    with Mithun Bantwal Rao, Joost Jongerden, and Guido Ruivenkamp
    Philosophy and Technology 28 (3): 449-474. 2015.
    This article focuses on the power of technological mediation from the point of view of autonomist Marxism. The first part of the article discusses the theories developed on technological mediation in postphenomenology and critical theory of technology with regard to their respective power perspectives and ways of coping with relations of power embedded in technical artifacts and systems. Rather than focusing on the clashes between the hermeneutic postphenomenological approach and the dialectics …Read more
  •  19
    To be alive is to be vulnerable. That is probably the most basic truth all living creatures confront, from the smallest to the greatest and from the most primitive to the most complex. As Hans Jonas states in the introduction to his wonderful treatise, The Phenomenon of Life, the paradoxical, still enigmatic fact that vital substance by some original act of segregation has isolated itself from the general fabric of things and set itself over against the world introduced the tension of ‘to be or …Read more
  •  57
    ‘The art of living with ICTs ’ today not only means finding new ways to cope, interact and create new lifestyles on the basis of the new digital technologies individually, as ‘consumer-citizens’. It also means inventing new modes of living, producing and, not in the least place, struggling collectively, as workers and producers. As the so-called digital revolution unfolds in the context of a neoliberal cognitive and consumerist capitalism, its ‘innovations’ are predominantly employed to modulate…Read more
  • Hoe greep te krijgen op het genoom?
    Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 1. 2007.
  •  36
    Re-taking Care: Open Source Biotech in Light of the Need to Deproletarianize Agricultural Innovation (review)
    Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 27 (1): 127-152. 2014.
    This article deals with the biotechnology revolution in agriculture and analyzes it in terms of Bernard Stiegler’s theory of techno-evolution and his thesis that technologies have an intrinsically pharmacological nature, meaning that they can be both supportive and destructive for sociotechnical practices based on them. Technological innovations always first disrupt existing sociotechnical practices, but are subsequently always appropriated by the social system to be turned into a new technical …Read more
  •  32
    Cognitive Enhancement and Anthropotechnological Change
    Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 19 (2): 166-190. 2015.
    : This article focuses on cognitive enhancement technologies and their possible anthropological implications, and argues for a reconsideration of the human-technology relation so as to be able to better understand and assess these implications. Current debates on cognitive enhancement consistently disregard the intimate intertwinement of humans and technology as well as the fundamentally technogenic nature of anthropogenesis. Yet, an adequate assessment of CET requires an in-depth and up-to-date…Read more
  •  12
    In 1999, Peter Sloterdijk gave a lecture on the future of humanism in which he 'unmasked' it as part of the ongoing process of self-domestication of the human animal by way of literary media, and speculated that, taking account of the steady decline of literary Bildung in our technocultures, genetic engineering might one day become the key anthropo-technology for the further domestication of mankind. This lecture evoked much controversy, especially in Germany, where Sloterdijk was accused by som…Read more