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Materiality Versus Metabolism in the Hybrid World: Towards a Dualist Concept of Materialism as Limit of Post-humanism in the Technical EraPhilosophy and Technology 37 (60): 1-22. 2024.The point of departure of this article is the trend towards hybridisation in new technology development, which makes classical dichotomies between machines, human life and the environment obsolete and leads to the post-human world we live in today. We critically reflect on the post-human concept of the hybrid world. Although we agree with post-humanists that human life can no longer be opposed to machines but appears as a decentralized human-technology relation, alliance or network that constitu…Read more
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67Earth and the ontology of planetsIn Mirko Daniel Garasic & Marcello Di Paola (eds.), The philosophy of outer space: explorations, controversies, speculations, Routledge. pp. 41-55. 2024.what is the ontology of planets?Our access point to this question is the ontology of planet Earth. Although the presence of life marks planet Earth as special among other planets, Earth shares a basic commonality with them – namely, its material existence. We take this commonality as a point of departure for our reflections on the ontology of both planet Earth and other planets. In this chapter, we ask for the ontology of this materiality of planets. We consult the ontology of planet Earth as I …Read more
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91Epistemic inclusion: a key challenge for RRIJournal of Responsible Innovation 1. 2024.Ten years after introducing the RRI concept, a reflection on its key ambitions seems called for, now that RRI enters the global arena. This paper focues on the key challenge that RRI is currently facing: epistemic inclusion. From the beginning, there has been the awareness that RRI must be open to multiple voices and perspectives, coming from academia, and also from society at large. Besides representing impressive bodies of knowledge, academic disciplines face knowledge gaps as well and must re…Read more
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132From experimentation to structural change: fostering institutional entrepreneurship for public engagement in research and innovationPublic Understanding of Science. 2023.Many researchers experiment with participatory settings to increase public engagement in research and innovation (R&I). Because of their temporary nature, it often remains unclear how such participatory experiments can contribute to structural change. This paper empirically explores options for bridging this gap. It analyzes how participants can be supported to act as institutional entrepreneurs to actively promote public engagement in R&I. To draw lessons, we analyze empirical material gathered…Read more
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247I will start my inaugural address by outlining the main argument of my lecture. First, I will identify the phenomenon that philosophers of technology research. This subject matter, in my view, consists not only of ethical issues that disruptive technologies raise but also of the disruption of the world in which we live and act by these technologies. I will illustrate this disruption by reflecting on the convergence of the physical and the virtual in the digital world, which is expected to change…Read more
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19This paper proposes a political concept of Responsible Innovation (RI). As a first step, we diagnose the RI discourse with a conceptual ambiguity, struggling to accommodate both private and public interests. To address this ambiguity, we distinguish between weak RI, which seeks to govern a techno-economic concept of innovation; and strong RI, which seeks to conceive a political concept of innovation beyond techno-economic ideology and practice. Secondly, we consult The Human Condition, in which …Read more
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236What Does it Mean to Mimic Nature? A Typology for Biomimetic DesignPhilosophy and Technology 36 (4): 1-20. 2023.In an effort to produce new and more sustainable technologies, designers have turned to nature in search of inspiration and innovation. Biomimetic design (from the Greek bios, life, mimesis, imitation) is the conscious imitation of biological models to solve today's technical and ecological challenges. Nowadays numerous different approaches exist that take inspiration from nature as a model for design, such as biomimicry, biomimetics, bionics, permaculture, ecological engineering, etc. This vari…Read more
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109Strategies to Overcome Collaborative Innovation Barriers: The Role of Training to Foster Skills to Navigate Quadruple Helix InnovationsJournal of the Knowledge Economy. 2023.Quadruple Helix Collaborations (QHCs) is a cooperation model in which industry, government, academia, and the public interact to innovate. This paper analyses the impact of a training intervention to provide specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes to deal with barriers commonly found in the progress of QHCs. We designed, implemented, and evaluated three training programs in Austrian, Colombian, Danish, and Spanish institutions. We analysed trainees’ (n = 66) and trainers’ (n = 9) perceptions t…Read more
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15The Ontology of Technology Beyond Anthropocentrism and Determinism: The Role of Technologies in the Constitution of the (post)Anthropocene WorldFoundations of Science 28 (3): 987-1005. 2023.Because climate change can be seen as the blind spot of contemporary philosophy of technology, while the destructive side effects of technological progress are no longer deniable, this article reflects on the role of technologies in the constitution of the (post)Anthropocene world. Our first hypothesis is that humanity is not the primary agent involved in world-production, but concrete technologies. Our second hypothesis is that technological inventions at an ontic level have an ontological impa…Read more
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7Regeneratieve technologie, of de grenzen van het mimetisch vermogen van de mensde Uil Van Minerva 35 (4). 2023.None.
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11The Role of Human Creativity in Human-Technology RelationsPhilosophy and Technology 35 (3): 59. 2022.One of the pressing issues in philosophy of technology is the role of human creativity in human-technology relations. We first observe that a techno-centric orientation of philosophy of technology leaves open the role and contribution of human creativity in technological evolution, while an anthropocentric orientation leaves open the role of the technical milieu in technological evolution. Subsequently, we develop a concept of creation as deviation and responsiveness in response to affordances i…Read more
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3Levinasian Ethics in BusinessIn Deborah C. Poff & Alex C. Michalos (eds.), Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics, Springer Verlag. pp. 1247-1251. 2021.
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34The design and testing of a tool for developing responsible innovation in start-up enterprisesJournal of Responsible Innovation. forthcoming.Innovation leads to new products, business models and even changes to socio-economic systems. However, it is important that innovation has the ‘right impacts’. Responsible innovation can help to achieve this; however, it is unclear how to introduce responsible innovation to real-world, competitive, industry settings. We explore this challenge in the context of sustainability orientated start-up enterprises, developing innovations within agriculture, food or energy. We develop a tool that provide…Read more
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37How to Deal with Hybrids in the Anthropocene? Towards a Philosophy of Technology and Environmental Philosophy 2.0Environmental Values 28 (3): 325-345. 2019.The Anthropocene overthrows classical dichotomies like technology and nature and a new class of beings emerges: hybrids. The transitive status of hybrids - which establishes an extra, separate, 'third' ontological category, going beyond the dichotomy between nature and technology - constitutes a significant problem for environmental philosophy and philosophy of technology since they traditionally focus on either 'nature' (natural entities) or 'artefacts' (technological objects). In order to refl…Read more
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205The Normative and Social Dimensions of the Transition Towards a Responsible, Circular Bio-Based EconomyIn Sally Lamalle & Peter Stoett (eds.), Representations and Rights of the Environment, Cambridge Up. pp. 334-350. 2023.In this chapter, we will first argue that current practices in CBE are framed within the market or economic logic and miss the normative dimension of the call for circularity. The transition to the CBE requires a fundamental reflection on the role of economic actors in the social and ecological environment with significant consequences for their business practices. Second, we will argue that the transition to the CBE requires the acknowledgement of the normative and social dimensions of this tra…Read more
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268Communication or Confrontation – Heidegger and Philosophical MethodEmpedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication 1 (1): 43-57. 2009.In this essay, we consider the philosophical method of reading and writing, of communication. Normally, we interpret the works of the great philosophers and explain them in papers and presentations. The thinking of Martin Heidegger has given us an indication of an entirely different method of philosophical thinking. In the 1930s, he gave a series of lectures on Nietzsche. In them, he calls his own way of reading and writing a confrontation (Auseinandersetzung) with Nietzsche. We consider the spe…Read more
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15The ‘Empirical’ in the Empirical Turn: A Critical AnalysisFoundations of Science 28 (2): 783-804. 2022.During the second half of the twentieth century, several philosophers of technology argued that their predecessors had reflected too abstractly and pessimistically on technology. In the view of these critics, one should study technologies empirically in order to fully understand them. They developed several strategies to empirically inform the philosophy of technology and called their new approach the empirical turn. However, they provide insufficient indications of what exactly is meant by empi…Read more
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191Stop re-inventing the wheel: or how ELSA and RRI can alignJournal of Responsible Innovation (x). 2023.Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects (ELSA) originated in the 4thEuropean Research Framework Programme (1994) andresponsible research and innovation (RRI) from the EC researchagenda in 2010. ELSA has received renewed attention inEuropean funding schemes and research. This raises the questionof how these two approaches to social responsibility relate toone another and if there is the possibility to align. There is aneed to evaluate the relationship/overlap between ELSA and RRIbecau…Read more
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6IntroductionIn Putting Responsible Research and Innovation into Practice: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach, Springer. pp. 1-7. 2022.After a period in which Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) stood as a cross-cutting issue under the Eigth European Union Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (R & I), Horizon 2020, its further development and implementation has reached a crossroad. It turned out that there is a lack of consistent integration of RRI in Europe’s R & I practices (Novitzky et al. 2020), and dedicated funding for RRI is almost entirely absent in the Ninth European Union Framework Programme for R & I…Read more
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6In this concluding chapter, we want to take a broader perspective and, based on the contributions to this book, identify the key lessons from the NewHoRRIzon project about RRI implementation in general and via Social Labs in particular. From a bird’s eye perspective, the NewHoRRIzon Social Labs can be seen as interventions that depend on and are affected by several interrelated levels which might be separated roughly in the micro-level of Social Labs, the meso level of organisations, and the mac…Read more
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17Ecomodernism and the Libidinal Economy: Towards a Critical Conception of Technology in the Bio-Based EconomyPhilosophy and Technology 36 (2): 1-23. 2023.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
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7Technology as Mimesis: Biomimicry as Regenerative Sustainable Design, Engineering, and TechnologyTechné Research in Philosophy and Technology 26 (3): 426-446. 2022.In this article, we investigate how to explain the difference between traditional design, engineering, and technology—which have exploited nature and put increasing pressure on Earth’s carrying capacity since the industrial revolution—and biomimetic design—which claims to explore nature’s sustainable solutions and promises to be regenerative by design. We reflect on the concept of mimesis. Mimesis assumes a continuity between the natural environment as a regenerative model and measure for sustai…Read more
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268The earth means the world to me. Earth- and World-Interest in Times of Climate ChangeIn Pellegrino Gianfranco & Marcello Di Paola (eds.), Handbook of Philosophy of Climate Change, Springer Nature. pp. 1-17. 2023.This contribution considers the world-historical significance of climate change. Climate change unmasks the stability of the living and acting in the world of human and nonhuman existence and confronts it with its living and acting on Earth, shifts the attention from World to Earth, and raises the question about the place of human and nonhuman existence on Earth. To answer this question, this chapter moves beyond humanist and post-humanist positions and argues for earth and world interest in tim…Read more
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225Responsible innovation (RI), also termed Responsible Research and Innovation, has emerged due to increasing concern over how to integrate ethical and societal values into research and innovation policy and governance (Von Schomberg 2013), in response to questioning of the societal role of science as well as populist resurgence in some countries (Long and Blok 2017a). Within a RI approach, innovators must consider three dimensions of responsibility, including the dimensions of (1) ‘avoiding harm’…Read more
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269Putting Responsible Research and Innovation into Practice: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach (edited book)springer. 2022.This Open Access book builds on the experiences of one of the largest European projects in the domain of responsible Research and Innovation: NewHoRRIzon. It highlights the potential of and opportunity in responsible R&I to conduct innovation in a socially responsible way. Employing the methodology of Social Labs, the book analyses responsible R&I from an experience-based viewpoint and further explores the application of responsible R&I beyond scholarly and industrial interests. The contributors…Read more
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164Responsible innovation in the age of science conspiracismJournal of Responsible Innovation 1 ( 1): 1. 2022.Responsible innovation is centered around the ideal that societal stakeholders are entitled to participate in scientific and technological decision-making by voicing their needs and worries. Individuals who believe in science conspiracies (referred to here as ‘science conspiracists’) pose a challenge to implementing this ideal because it is not clear under what conditions their inclusion in responsible innovation exercises is possible and advisable. Yet precisely because of this uncertain status…Read more
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283The social lab as a method for experimental engagement in participatory researchJournal of Responsible Innovation 1 (1): 1. 2022.How does the Social Lab methodology support participatory research? This paper provides an evidence-based analysis of experiences of 19 implemented Social Labs applying experiential learning cycles on the question of how to induce Responsible Research and Innovation in the Horizon2020 research funding scheme of the European Commission and beyond. It looks at the potentials of Social Labs to allow participation in research and innovation addressing societal challenges and contrasts empirical resu…Read more
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145Conspiracism as a Litmus Test for Responsible InnovationIn Jeroen van den Hoven Steven Umbrello Georgy Ishmaev Matthew J. Dennis (ed.), Values for a Post-Pandemic Future. pp. 111-128. 2022.The inclusion of stakeholders in science is one of the core ideas in the field of responsible innovation. Conspiracists, however, are not your garden-variety stakeholders. As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, the conflict between conspiracists and science is deep and intractable. In this paper, we ask how the game of responsible innovation can be played with those who believe that the game is rigged. Understanding the relationship between conspiracism and responsible innovation is necessary in or…Read more
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375Towards the Phenomenology of Hybrids as Regenerative Design and Use -A Post-Heideggerian AccountEnvironmental Values 1 (4): 469-491. 2022.Grasping the identity of hybrids, that is beings which cross the binarism of nature and technology (e.g. genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), syn-bio inventions, biomimetic projects), is problematic since it is still guided by self-evident dualistic categories, either as artefacts or as natural entities. To move beyond the limitations of such a one-sided understanding of hybrids, we suggest turning towards the categories of affordances and the juxtaposition of needs and patterns of proper use,…Read more
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Wageningen University and ResearchCommunication, Philosophy and Technology (CPT)Associate Professor
Wageningen, GE, Netherlands
Areas of Interest
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