Alle Publikationen
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2017
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(2017): Social Transformation and Online Technology. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (1), S. 55-70. DOI: 10.5840/techne20174561
Abstract: The Internet age has seen the influential rise of social media. Consumer culture is tied to this modern phenomenon. This paper begins with an exposition of Herbert Marcuse’s grounding in phenomenology and his subsequent critique of Heidegger’s apolitical Dasein. In explicating Marcuse’s critical theory of technology, this paper will retrace Hegel’s influence on Marcuse in the idea of the dialectic. The dialectic is an integral aspect of social transformation. While modern technology may be value-neutral, it is argued herein that the lack of depth in social media provokes thought and invites critical dissent. Marcuse believes in the capacity of modern tools to effect social reform through adaptation. But emerging pathologies from online technology also have pressing challenges. For instance, social media makes manifest a dominant order that can be manipulative. It can be said that particular interests, notably from business and capitalists, shape the type of consumer culture that online technology promotes. In advancing Marcuse’s relevance in today’s Internet age, the paper will explore how social media as a platform can truly liberate the individual from the ills that consumerism peddles online.
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(2017): Political inertia and social acceleration. In: Philosophy & Social Criticism 43 (7), S. 707-723. DOI: 10.1177/0191453716669195
Abstract: There is a complicated relation between social and political inertia - the failure of institutions to respond adequately to social, technological and environmental change - and social acceleration - the tendency of social change to go faster and faster. Social stasis and acceleration are not simply opposed but also causally related. This article contrasts two theories of political and social inertia. Francis Fukuyama argues that political inertia is a result of a cognitive and institutional rigidity which is ultimately grounded in human nature, and that therefore inertia is a feature inherent in political systems. Hartmut Rosa, by contrast, sees inertia as a specifically modern phenomenon, which is the result of the inability of political institutions to cope with the accelerating rate of change in other social systems. It will be argued that a broad approach combining historical, institutional and normative perspectives is needed to explain political inertia.
Keywords: Critical Theory of Technology, Disziplin, Fukuyama, Hartmut Rosa, Im (wissenschaftlichen) Diskurs, inertia, Kulturphilosophie, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Philosophie, Reflexionen über MTR, social acceleration, social, technological and environmental change, soziale Akzeleration, Soziale Angemessenheit, sozialer Wandel, Technikphilosophie, Technologie und Politik, Technologie und Soziales, Trägheit politischer Systeme 2016
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(2016): On Technological Rationality and the Lack of Authenticity in the Modern Age. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (1), S. 34-50. DOI: 10.5840/techne201632445
Abstract: I will argue in this paper that Andrew Feenberg has erred in his claim on technological adaptability. Adapting to modern technology may not always be liberating. Drawing from his reflections on Heidegger and Marcuse, I will explain why Feenberg thinks that adaptability has a redemptive role in the midst of technological domination. I will also show why technological domination still characterizes human relations in the modern age. Advanced technologies including social media, have continued to manipulate people and as such, diminish rather than deepen the authenticity of human life. For instance, two people in a café sometimes spend more time on their smartphones rather than valuing their face-to-face encounter; here, one can point out the lack of authenticity in human relations. This clearly manifests how consumer culture has taken over human life. In addition, it can be said that the notion of adaptability also fails to account for the hegemonic social relations created by modern technological innovations, since these gadgets remain beyond the reach of the masses, thus broadening the divide between classes of people in society. In order to address this, I propose that people should use technology in a socially sensitive way in order to truly give meaning to their lives and to effectively resist the totalitarian tendency of the modern age.
2015
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(2015): Critical Theory of Technology and technoscientific citizenship: resistance, "insistence" and hacking. Resistência, insistência e hacking. In: Revista de Filosofia Aurora 27 (621). DOI: 10.7213/aurora.27.040.DS07
Abstract: In recent years, the notion of citizenship and its novel forms and practices have been criticized, discussed, and re-conceptualized by several scholars in the Latin-American context, especially in fields as political sciences and sociology. Feenberg's work is of great value to apply and foster such discussions in the context of Science and Technology Studies, and to investigate potentialities and practices for a technical citizenship. We show how what we will call political and epistemological hacking may allow the reconceptualization of citizenship and the visibility of possible paths for an experimental ethics and a bottom-up politics, not based in principles or axioms, but on a Critical Practice of Technology. Changing social systems and technological codes is possible, if analysis and practices are grounded not on an essentialist vision of technique, nor on a normative notion of human nature, but on a dynamic, dialectic approach to the human condition and its technical environment.
2014
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Dahms, Harry F. (2014): Mediations of social life in the 21st century. First edition. Bingle, UK: Emerald Group Publishing (Current Perspectives in Social Theory)
Keywords: Anerkennung, Critical Theory of Technology, Emerald eBook Collection, Honneth und aktuelle Kritische Theorie, Im (wissenschaftlichen) Diskurs, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Philosophy, recognition and subjectivity, Reflexionen über MTR, Research, Sammelband, social action, Social Change, social sciences, Sociology, Soziale Angemessenheit, Übersicht 2012
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(2012): Democracy, Narcissism, and the World Wide Web. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 16 (3), S. 252-274. DOI: 10.5840/techne201216317
Abstract: Against a thinker like Martin Heidegger who takes restraints on individual freedom and the promotion of authoritarianism as implicit features in the ongoing development of technology, Andrew Feenberg argues for a “democratic rationalization” of modern technology whereby people effectively choose their own futures, not in spite of their tools, but increasingly because of them. Acknowledging the Web’s democratic potential, I believe that a new threat—far different from authoritarian regimes or structures—has emerged: a rampant and multifarious narcissism that threatens to drown democratic ideals in a wave of self-obsession and self-promotion.
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