Val Dusek

The new edition of this authoritative introduction to the philosophy of technology includes recent developments in the subject, while retaining the range and depth of its selection of seminal contributions and its much-admired editorial commentary. Remains the most comprehensive anthology on the philosophy of technology available Includes editors’ insightful section introductions and critical summaries for each selection Revised and updated to reflect the latest developments in the field Combines difficult to find seminal essays with a judicious selection of contemporary material Examines the relationship between technology and the understanding of the nature of science that underlies technology studies.

_Ideal for undergraduate students in philosophy and science studies, _Philosophy of Technology_ offers an engaging and comprehensive overview of a subject vital to our time._ An up-to-date, accessible overview of the philosophy of technology, defining technology and its characteristics. Explores the issues that arise as technology becomes an integral part of our society. In addition to traditional topics in science and technology studies, the volume offers discussion of technocracy, the romantic rebellion against technology. Complements _The Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition: An Anthology_, edited by Robert C. Scharff and Val Dusek (Blackwell, 2003).

Paul Feyerabend met Bertolt Brecht and frequently refers to Brecht in writing. Feyerabend’s characterizing to his own writings as “collage” parallels Brecht’s description of his own work as “montage,” both forms of art and film respectively. Feyerabend’s called himself a Dadaist referring to a post-WWI movement to which Brecht was originally sympathetic. Both Feyerabend and Brecht believed there was an ultimate unity of science and art. The two men also each had sympathy for Chinese culture, both ancient and Maoist. Feyerabend’s criticisms of the scientific methodology advocated by Imre Lakatos parallel Brecht’s criticisms of Georg Lukács in the “expressionism debate” in aesthetics.

This chapter is Fuller’s version of Intelligent Design (ID) in opposition to evolutionary theorists, and the controversy concerning it is discussed. This chapter discusses why ID is important to Fuller in terms of defending the spiritual distinctiveness of humanity. He claims doing science is to participate in the mind of God, since humanity is created in the image and likeness of God. Fuller contrasts what he claims is the natural history approach of Darwin and evolutionists with molecular biology, claiming ID is linked to the latter. Fuller’s claims concerning the scientific status of evolutionary theory are criticized.

This chapter starts with a contrast and comparison of Fuller and Latour and a survey of Fuller’s criticisms of Latour, on the human and non-human distinction in which Fuller defends that humans have agency against Latour’s view that agency is deflated to networks and actants. Next is Fuller’s treatment of Kuhn and Popper since Fuller views Kuhn as setting the stage for STS’s ascendancy through STS’s criticism of normativity in philosophy of science. Fuller’s relation to STS to which Fuller is most closely associated is described. Fuller is critical of STS’s lack of knowledge policy and of its relativism. STS’s version of social constructivism is contrasted to Fuller’s realism on the social sciences and social constructivism on the natural sciences.

This chapter is on agent-oriented social epistemology, which emphasizes epistemic agency or the knower as ontologically open. This is from Fuller’s move to transhumanist in which to knower is enhanced to become disembodied. Fuller views the epistemic agent to make knowledge to act in the world as contrasted to analytic social epistemology’s epistemic agent, who is a human knower with beliefs and does not make knowledge through construction of reality. There is also a discussion of cognitive economics in which the epistemic agent makes knowledge and leverages beliefs to action instead of the epistemic agent having beliefs to access knowledge.

This chapter is on an exploration of Fuller’s version of Cosmism. This movement, based in part on the Russian Orthodox concept of theosis as moving toward a union with God, advocates space travel and the scientific pursuit of immortality. This resembles Fuller’s humanity 2.0. There are charges of Gnosticism, which is the Christian heresy holding that the creator of the world was an evil creature and God is beyond this realm and with knowledge (gnosis), one can move beyond this world to a higher form of being, against Fuller’s transhumanism. Fuller has been accused of Gnosticism, though the Gnosticism of which he is accused is really eschatology. Fuller himself criticizes biologists who publicly deny biological race differences of being Gnostics. This view is critically analyzed.

Imre Lakatos gained fame in the English-speaking world as a follower and critic of philosopher of science Karl Popper. However, Lakatos’ background involved other philosophical and scientific sources from his native Hungary. Lakatos surreptitiously used Hegelian Marxism in his works on philosophy of science and mathematics, disguising it with the rhetoric of the Popper school. He also less surreptitiously incorporated, particularly in his treatment of mathematics, work of the strong tradition of heuristics in twentieth century Hungary. Both his Marxism and his emphasis on heuristics contained a view of science and mathematics that contrasted with the mainstream of Anglo-American philosophy of science. Both involved a dynamic view of science, whether historical or psychological, and an emphasis on practice as opposed to static, formal representations of scientific theories.

This book examines Fuller’s pioneering vision of social epistemology. It focuses specifically on his work post-2000, which is founded in the changing conception of humanity and project into a ‘post-‘ or ‘trans-‘ human future. Chapters treat especially Fuller’s provocative response to the changing boundary conditions of the knower due to anticipated changes in humanity coming from the nanosciences, neuroscience, synthetic biology and computer technology and end on an interview with Fuller himself. While Fuller’s turn in this direction has invited at least as much criticism as his earlier work, to him the result is an extended sense of the knower, or ‘humanity 2.0’, which Fuller himself identifies with transhumanism. The authors assess Fuller’s work on the following issues: Science and Technology Studies (STS), the university and intellectual life, neo-liberal political economy, intelligent design, Cosmism, Gnosticism, agent-oriented epistemology, proactionary vs precautionary principles and Welfare State 2.0.