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Programme:
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Even Selinger: Embodiment,
AI, and Expertise: The
Problem of Extrapolation
Investigating phenomena
that traverse the philosophies of technology and science, Harry Collins
makes
progress in some directions while failing in others.
He claims that empirical evidence validates
his views on “linguistic socialization,” and that debates about
artificial
intelligence and the nature of expertise can be advanced by integrating
this
evidence. I contend that even while
Collins furthers philosophical and sociological discussions on how
knowledge
and language relate, he mischaracterizes the data under review and
fails to
properly understand how expert knowers are embodied. Nevertheless, the argument leads to further
exploration of the meaning of “extrapolation,” and this has productive
consequences. I will conclude my talk by
discussing how interdisciplinary exchanges between phenomenology and
sociology
on extrapolation can lead to new kinds of understanding concerning
knowledge,
skill, and authority. Top of
page
Finn
Olesen: Epistemic technology
Various authors
have
pointed out the materiality of technoscientific and more mundane
activities in which
'epistemic technology' is actively shaping the meaning of the activity,
or
imports theories from other domains. In science, this is the case, when
a piece
of technical equipment is imported from one research domain to
calibrate some
measurement apparatus in a totally different domain. Here, built-in
theories
and assumptions about e.g. 'correct' measurement', 'precision',
'relevancy' are
imported to the new setting. In computer design processes similar
things
happen when imported equipment settles what is to count as standards
for
'rational' or 'optimal' use situations. In everyday situations we
regularly
accept built-in assumptions without questioning them, e.g. the implicit
ideas
about ergonomics built into the qwerty-keyboard. A
feasible definition of the term might be as
follows: Epistemic technology is basically
material artefacts, systems or
devices with the capacity to:
a) hardwire theories and assumptions; b) make theories and assumptions
movable;
c) certify results without reference to theories. Top of page
Peter-Paul
Verbeek: Toward
a posthumanist ethics of technology
Moral
evaluations of technology are always informed by a metaphysical
position
regarding the relation between technology and humanity. Three such
approaches
can be distinguished; one humanist, another transhumanist and the third
posthumanist. Classical (continental) philosophy of technology was
dominated by
the humanist position, radically separating humanity from technology
and
claiming an absolute status for the human. From this position,
technology is
either an invasive and alienating threat to humanity (Heidegger, Ellul)
or a
form of instrumentality that needs to be used and controlled wisely
(Jaspers,
Ortega). Many contemporary ethical discussions about technology,
focusing on risk
assessment and whistleblowing, start from this metaphysical position as
well,
reducing technologies to instruments to be controlled by human beings.
At the
other extreme, there is the ‘transhumanist’ plea for developing an
improved
successor of homo sapiens. Rather
than separating humanity and technology, this position replaces them
with a
blend of both: the transhuman
(Bostrom). This transhuman entity has a remarkable moral status. On the
one
hand, it is presented as the unavoidable outcome of a process of human
and
technological evolution; on the other hand its alleged superiority
functions as
a moral standard telling us in which direction to move. All space to
reflect on
technology in a moral sense seems to be lost here too.
Against
these two approaches I will elaborate a 'posthumanist' position. Rather
than
reverting to a science-fiction kind of speculation about the future of homo sapiens, I will argue that
technology challenges the primacy of the human in quite a different
way. In
myriad ways, technologies mediate our actions and the experiences which
inform
our actions. And since ethics is about the question ‘how to act’, this
implies
that technologies have some form of morality: they help us to make
moral
decisions, and therefore challenge the idea that we are unique in being
moral
beings, and, worse, the idea that we are autonomous
moral beings. This technologically mediated character of morality
challenges
ethical theory, since it demands both a rethinking of the moral subject
(beyond
autonomy) and the object (beyond instrumental inertia) in ethical
theory. In
critical discussion with Sloterdijk's 'Rules for the Anthropic Garden' and connecting
to Michel
Foucault’s ‘ethics of life’, I will argue that the approach of
technological
mediation can inform a posthumanist ethics, which is an alternative to
the
inadequate dispute between humanists and transhumanists. Top of page
Andrew Feenberg:
From Critical Theory of Technology to the
Rational Critique of Rationality
This
paper
explores the sense in which modern societies can be said to be
rational. Social
rationality cannot be understood on the model of an idealized image of
scientific method. Neither science nor society conform to this image.
Nevertheless, critique is routinely silenced by neo-liberal and
technocratic
arguments that appeal to social simulacra of science. This paper
develops a
critical strategy for addressing the resistance of rationality to
rational critique.
Romantic rejection of reason has proven less effective than strategies
that
conceptualize modern artifacts, systems, and organizations as
rationally
underdetermined. This approach first appears in Marx’s analysis of
capitalist
economics. Although he lacks the concept of underdetermination, Marx
gets around the
silencing effect of
social rationality with something very much like it in his discussion
of the
length of the working day. Frankfurt School Critical Theory later
blended
romantic elements with Marxian ones in a suggestive but confusing
mixture. The
concept of underdetermination reappears in contemporary science and
technology
studies, now clearly articulated and philosophically and sociologically
elaborated. But somewhere along the way the critical thrust was
diluted. Critical
theory of technology attempts to recover that thrust. Here its approach
is
generalized to cover the three main forms of social rationality. Top of page
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