Description
Book SynopsisFocuses on how technologies mediate our actions and our world perceptions. Peter-Paul Verbeek examines the philosophy of technology formulated by Jaspers and Heidegger, and extends the work of more recent philosophers of technology. He shows how his "postphenomenological" approach applies to the technological practice of industrial designers.
Trade Review“This is really a good book. The goal is to advance our philosophical and cultural understanding of technology with a focused interpretation of artifacts or material culture. As Verbeek correctly argues, previous modern philosophies of technology (Jaspers and Heidegger) have inadequately appreciated artifacts as artifacts. More contemporary philosophers of technology (Ihde, Latour, and Borgmann) have taken steps toward more adequate appreciations and understanding of artifacts, but their work calls for development and especially application to the real world of design. Verbeek demonstrates a solid appreciation of what has gone before him, fairly explicates and criticizes (his criticisms are always judicious and acknowledge others), and then creatively extends the movement toward a fuller appreciation of artifacts. If I were to give this book my own title, it would be ‘Artifacts Have Consequences’ (playing off the Richard Weaver book ‘Ideas Have Consequences’).”
—Carl Mitcham,Colorado School of Mines
“Peter-Paul Verbeek is one of the up-and-coming philosophers of technology. He has been able to combine some of the best insights from both contemporary philosophy of technology and the newer strands of science studies. Looking at materiality, he extends the attentiveness to things that comes from these movements. His own original insights show forth in this book.”
—Don Ihde,SUNY–Stony Brook
“Peter-Paul Verbeek is one of the up-and-coming philosophers of technology. He has been able to combine some of the best insights from both contemporary philosophy of technology and the newer strands of science studies. Looking at materiality, he extends the attentiveness to things that come from these movements. His own original insights show forth in this book.”
—Don Ihde,SUNY–Stony Brook
“This is really a good book. The goal is to advance our philosophical and cultural understanding of technology with a focused interpretation of artifacts or material culture. . . . Verbeek demonstrates a solid appreciation of what has gone before him, fairly explicates and criticizes (his criticisms are always judicious and acknowledge others), and then creatively extends the movement toward a fuller appreciation of artifacts. If I were to give this book my own title, it would be ‘Artifacts Have Consequences’ (playing off the Richard Weaver book ‘Ideas Have Consequences’).”
—Carl Mitcham,Colorado School of Mines
“In this insightful examination of the technological mediation in human action, he both poses new philosophical and societal questions, and offers a new way of bringing ethics into the practice of designing technical artifacts.”
—Katinka Waelbers Science and Engineering Ethics
Table of ContentsContents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: To the Things Themselves
1. The Death of Things
2. The Thing About the Philosophy of Technology
3. Toward a Philosophy of Artifacts
Part I: Philosophy Beyond Things
1. Technology and the Self
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Technology and Mass-Rule
1.3 Human Beings and Mass Production
1.4 Mass Existence
1.5 The Neutrality of Technology
1.6 Conclusion
2. The Thing about Technology
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Heidegger’s Philosophy of Technology
2.3 To Be or Not to Be—That Is the Question
2.4 Heidegger and Things
2.5 Conclusion
Part II: Philosophy from Things
3. Postphenomenology
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Empirical Research into Technology
3.3 Beyond Classical Phenomenology
3.4 Toward a Postphenomenology of Things
4. A Material Hermeneutic
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Relations Between Human Beings and Artifacts
4.3 Mediation and Meaning
4.4 Artifacts, Culture, and Science
4.5 Conclusion
5. The Acts of Artifacts
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Latour’s Amodern Ontology
5.3 Technical Mediation
5.4 Actor-Network Theory and Postphenomenology
5.5 Mediation of Action
5.6 Conclusion
6. Devices and the Good Life
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Device Paradigm
6.3 Technology and the Good Life
6.4 Beyond Alienation
6.5 Mediated Engagement
6.6 Conclusion: The Mediation of Action and Experience
Part III: Philosophy for Things
7. Artifacts in Design
7.1 Introduction
7.2 The Materiality of Things
7.3 Toward a Material Aesthetics
7.4 Durable Designs
7.5 Conclusion
