Philosophy of Technology

COMMUNICATIONS 577

Tuesday 3-5 Gregory Hall 336

Fall Semester 2007

C. Christians 228 Gregory Hall cchrstns@uiuc.edu 333-1549

Communications Library, Gregory Hall 122.

Notes and Quotes, 502 E. John

August 28 Introduction

I. Overview

1. September 4. Arnold Pacey, The Culture of Technology.

II. Philosophical Foundations. Essence of technology. Nature and structure of technological products and processes.

2. September 11. Norbert Wiener, Human Uses of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society, 2nd ed., 1954. (Communications Library)(Copies 228 Gregory Hall)

3. September 18. "Marxist Theories of Repressive Technology," in Marxism and Domination, 1982, pp. 126-166 [N-Q]. Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.

4. September 25. Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Also C. Christians, “Technology and Triadic Theories of Mediation,” in Stewart Hoover and Knut Lundby, Rethinking Media, Religion and Culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997, ch. 4 [N-Q].

III. Theoretical Classics. Conceptually rigorous models which provide the vocabulary and parameters of debate. They satisfy the demands of concreteness, general validity, and normativity.

6. October 9. Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality. (Communications Library)(Copies 228 Gregory Hall). Also Clifford Christians, "A Theory of Normative Technology." In E.F. Byrne and Joseph C. Pitt, eds., Technological Transformation: Contextual and Conceptual Implications. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989, pp. 123-139 [N-Q].

7. October 16. Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society. Also C. Christians, "Propaganda and the Technological System" in Theodore Glasser and Charles Salmon, eds., Public Opinion and the Communication of Consent. New York: Guilford Press, 1995, ch. 7 [N-Q].

8. October 23. Jean Baudrillard, Simulations. Also Mark Nunes, “Jean Baudrillard in Cyberspace: Internet, Virtuality, Postmodernity,” Style, 1995, pp. 314-327. J. Baudrillard, “The Violence of the Global,” Power Inferno, 2002, pp. 63-83 [N-Q].

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IV. Political and Ethical Critiques. Philosophically informed analyses of the implications and ethical problems.

5. October 2. Tony Fry, ed., RUA TV? Heidegger and the Televisual. Sydney, Australia: Power Publications, 1993. (Communications Library)(Copies 228 Gregory Hall)

9. November 6. David Gunkel, Hacking Cyberspace. Westview, 2001. The topic is the philosophy of virtual

reality and the author will teach this class.

10. November 13. Andrew Feenberg, Critical Theory of Technology. (Communications Library)(Copies 228 Gregory Hall)

11. November 20. Judy Wajcman, Feminism Confronts Technology.

12. December 5. Cees Hamelink, The Ethics of Cyberspace. Sage, 2000.

In addition to a close reading of these texts, one research paper is required. Due on day ordinarily for final exam (December 14, 5:00 p.m.). Approximately 35 pages double-spaced. Any topic directly related to the course material is acceptable: in-depth study of an author, a historical period, an important theoretical concept or problem, scholarship in a geographical region or country, one type of technology, a sociological problem in technology or case study, and so forth.

Recommended Reading

Kostas Axelos, Alienation, Praxis, and Techne in the Thought of Karl Marx.

Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital. New York: Knopf, 1995.

Cheris Kramarae, Technology and Women’s Voices. Routledge, 1988.

Richard Wolin, Heidegger’s Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas, Herbert Marcuse. Princeton University Press, 2001.

Bernard Radloff, “Heidegger’s Retrieval of Aristotle and the Relation of Volk and Science in the Rector’s Address of 1933. Philosophy Today, Spring 2003, pp. 3-22.

Gary Steiner, “The Perils of a Total Critique of Reason: Rethinking Heidegger’s Influence.” Philosophy Today, Spring 2003, pp. 93-111.

R. Buckminster Fuller, Synergetics; Critical Path; Utopia or Oblivion; No More Secondhand God.

David Noble, America By Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism.

Joseph C. Pitt, Thinking About Technology: Foundations of the Philosophy of Technology. New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000.

Jürgen Habermas, Toward a Rational Society, esp. “Technology and Science as Ideology,” pp. 81-122.

Andrew Feenberg, Questioning Technology. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Elzbieta Ettinger, Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger. Yale University Press, 1995.

Alston Chase, Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist. New York: Norton, 2003.

Stephen Monsma, et al., Responsible Technology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986.

Herman Philipse, Heidegger’s Philosophy of Being: A Critical Interpretation. Princeton University Press, 1998.

Clifford Christians,”Religious Perspectives on Communication Technology,” Journal of Media and Religion,1:1, 2002, pp. 37-48.

William Barrett, Death of the Soul: From Descartes to the Computer.

Joseph Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason.

Michael Scriven, Sartre and the Media. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993.

Andrew Feenberg, Lukács, Marx and the Sources of Critical Theory (Rowman & Littlefield, 1981).

Donna Harraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge, 1991.

Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish.

Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery (New York: Vintage, 1953).

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (New York: Bantam, 1975).

Charles Ess, ed. Philosophial Perspectives on Computers - Mediated Communication. SUNY Press, 1996.

Carl Mitcham, Thinking Through Technology. University of Chicago Press, 1994.

George Grant, Technology and Justice. University of Notre Dame Press, 1986.

Bruce Holbrook, The Stone Monkey: An Alternative, Chinese-Scientific, Reality (New York: William Morrow, 1981).

Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Societies.

E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful; Guide for the Perplexed.

Manfred Stanley, The Technological Conscience: Survival and Dignity in an Age of Expertise.

George McRobie, Small is Possible, Harper and Row, 1981.

Nick Dyer-Witheford, Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-Technology Capitalism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind, 6th ed. (Oxford University Press, 1989).

Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.

Ivan Illich, Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health. New York: Pantheon, 1976.

Ivan Illich, Toward a History of Needs. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1977.

Ivan Illich, H20 and the Waters of Forgetfulness. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1985.

David Cayley, Ivan Illich in Conversation. Concord, Ontario: Anansi, 1992.

Clifford Christians, “Justice and the Global Media,” Studies in Christian Ethics, 13:1 (2000), pp. 76-92.

Everett M. Rogers, Communication Technology: The New Media in Society, New York: Macmillan Free Press, 1986.

Nick Stevenson, The Transformation of the Media: Globalization, Morality and Ethics. Longman, 1999.

Paul Theroux, The Mosquito Coast.

Kevin Robins and Frank Webster, Times of the Technoculture: From the Information Society to the Virtual Life. Routledge, 1999.

P. Bourdieu, The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.

Thomas Cooper and C. Christians, Issue co-editors, “New Media Technologies,” Journal of Mass Media Ethics (13:2), 1998.

C. Christians, Issue Editor, “Virtual Reality and Communication Ethics,” Journal of Mass Media Ethics (18:3-4), 2003.

Theodore Roszak, The Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computers and the True Art of Thinking.

Jerry Mander, In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991.

Andrew Feenberg, Alternative Modernity: The Technical Turn in Philosophy and Social Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Richard Spinello & Herman Tavani, Readings in CyberEthics, 2^nd ed. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Barlett, 2004.

Andrew Feenberg & Alastair Hannay, Technology and the Politics of Knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.

M. David Erdmann, Mary B. Williams and Michele S. Shauf, Computers, Ethics and Society, 2^nd ed. Oxford University Press, 1997.

Annabelle Sreberny Mohammadi & Ali Mohammadi, Small Media, Big Revolution. University of Minnesota Press, 1994.

S. M. Evans & H. C. Boyte, Free Spaces: The Sources of Democratic Change in America. University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Michael Heim, The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality. Oxford University Press, 1994.

Harry Boyte, The Backyard Revolution: Understanding the New Citizen Movement.

Victor Papanek. Design for Human Scale. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983.