A good philosophy of technology should unite philosophical thinking about technology with the main philosophical traditions of the West. That is the pathway followed by Heidegger.
The dominant technological images are still associated with the military, industrial, and Big Science technologies. These are the images of a modernism, and they kinda come together with Chernobyl.
This was a time of technological determinism in which technology was praised for modernizing us, and blamed for the crisis of our culture. Technology becomes destiny.
Have things changed in the 1990s? In Big Science there is a shift away from physics to the biological sciences; from nuclear bombs and powerplants to gene splicing and other biotechnologies.
In industry there is a shift away from treecutters, dams and bulldozers to computers, high definition television, and satellite communications. We've gone digital.
Does that mean we have to understand Heidegger's machine metaphysics in a historical way? Is the philosophy of technology becoming more fragmented and pluralist?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at April 21, 2005 11:53 PM | TrackBack