Search

Trish Glazebrook and Dana Belu both think I spend too much time criticizing the Cartesianism that both empirical and transcendental philosophies of technology quite obviously oppose. They argue that I would have been better off if I had instead considered how these two philosophies 'converge on the thesis of crisis' in technoscientific life (Glazebrook) and/or 'made wider use of Feenberg's work' (Belu). While I am sympathetic to both Glazebrook's thesis and Feenberg's work, I argue that their recommendations raise precisely the 'pre-philosophical' issue I discuss in my paper. The issue, addressed directly by both Nietzsche and the young Heidegger, is how such recommendations can be carried forward as productive, life-driven articulations of our current needs in technoscientific times and not just become two more in a long string of chosen (and thus very Cartesian) 'turns' in a history of philosophical 'positions.', Author(s): Robert C. Scharff [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.167436.1, 0000 0001 2192 7145, University of New Hampshire, , 03824, Durham, NH, USA Introduction > I want to thank my two [...]

I approach the idea of empirical turns and transcendental theories indirectly. I do not start 'post-' or 'neg-' anything; instead I begin pre-philosophically-that is, before everyone has a position and opposes other positions-with Heidegger's 'preparatory hermeneutical' question: As whom and with what concerns do empirically or transcendentally minded philosophers of technology respond to their experience of technoscientific life? For example, in his second Untimely Meditation, Nietzsche identifies his concern as one of 'taking advantage' of historical knowledge 'for life,' that is, he understands himself to be motivated by a life-driven, not scientific 'need.' But how are 'needs' in Nietzsche's sense to be distinguished? The question leads straight to Heidegger's idea of a hermeneutics that comes 'before philosophy'-a 'hermeneutics of facticity' that considers 'what goes on in [i.e., motivates] a philosophy before it becomes what it is'? I argue that once Nietzsche's notion of need is expanded and deepened in Heidegger's direction, we gain some clarity about how to appropriate any information 'for life,' whether it is science-based, culturally operative, or phenomenological. I then consider Ihde, Stiegler, and the future prospects of empirical turns and transcendental theories in light of this idea., Author(s): Robert C. Scharff [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.167436.1, 0000 0001 2192 7145, University of New Hampshire, , 03824, Durham, NH, USA Introductory Note In the announcement of their 2018 [...]

Marc Van den Bosche suggests that Heidegger's conceptions of Gestell and Gelassenheit, taken together with his analysis of Nietzschean Nihilism (interpreted especially by Wolfgang Schirmacher), depicts our era in a way that 'supplements' Andrew Feenberg and Don Ihde's work. Weaving these sources together, he sees the possibility of our becoming (quoting Schirmacher) 'technicians' that 'live, in a released way, within the groundless.' Here, I raise some questions about whether the author has really fitted all these sources together and argue that his idea of becoming post-modern 'technicians' appears to require that we first practice a very un-Heideggerian kind of 'renunciation.', Author(s): Robert C. Scharff [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0001 2192 7145, grid.167436.1, University of New Hampshire, , Durham, NH, USA In 'Releasement and Nihilism in the Art of Living [...]

Gert Goeminne's paper is primarily concerned with 'the politics of sustainable technology,' but for good reasons he does not start with this topic. He knows that technology studies as he conceives it must clear a space for itself in a philosophical atmosphere that discourages its pursuit. He therefore begins with a critique of this objectivistic and technocratically defined atmosphere, before moving on to embrace a postphenomenology of technological multistabilities, and then further to introduce what he calls (in an adaptation of Rudolf Boehm) the 'topical measure' of technoscientific life. The problem I raise is not about Goeminne's aims, with which I mostly agree, but with his presentation of how to achieve them. I argue that if one were actually to follow his advice--that is, start with critique, move on to postphenomenology, and end with 'political' evaluation of technoscientific life, the project would be doomed to failure. For in our world, no one Understands this pluralizing vision. According to the understanding we actually live through and speak from, some of postphenomenology's multiple disclosures already arrive in our experience with significantly greater ontological power than others, and sincerity about topical measure notwithstanding, the very identification of something as an interest or 'value,' especially if it allegedly comes from a 'layperson,' already condemns it to secondary status. Keywords Philosophy of technology * Postphenomenology * Human-technology-world relations * Sustainability * Heidegger * Boehm * Rouse, Gert Goeminne's paper (1) is primarily concerned with 'the politics of sustainable technology,' but he has good reason not start with this topic, viz., that contemporary science and technology studies [...]

Hans Ruin and Patrick Heelan join me in celebrating the rise of post-positivist and phenomenological approaches to scientific and technological practice. Yet as they both know, I am also concerned that the very presence of all the new accounts which give voice to this trend may tempt us into concluding prematurely that the traditional understanding of science and technology has already been displaced. With especially Ruin's encouragement, I expand my original discussion of this concern by explaining why I agree with him about the ontologically mistaken suppositions that one might become post-positivistic by doing philosophy 'meta-philosophically,' or become phenomenological by making 'life' more basic that 'nature.' Keywords Philosophy of technology * Philosophy of science * Post-positivism * Heidegger * Dilthey * Philosophy of life, Reading through the comments on my paper by Hans Ruin (Ruin 2011) and Patrick Heelan (Heelan 2011), I am struck by how much the philosophical treatment of science and technology [...]

W. W. Norton & Company, 2011 Measure and the Measureless Dr. Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis University of Copenhagen Norre Farimagsgade 5 A, Room 10.0.27 1014 Copenhagen, Denmark Email: jkof@sund.ku.dk [...]

New information on Heidegger's early lecture courses shows that Dilthey's influence on Heidegger's early work was much more extensive than has been appreciated. Heidegger's appropriation of Dilthey took place over the course of nearly ten years, during which he focused on the meaning of 'being historical.' Appreciation of Dilthey's influence suggests an aspect that has been neglected in interpretations that highlight the phenomenological and transcendental strains of Heidegger's 'Being and Time.'