This book is an anthology of current and classic readings in the philosophy of technology, with a focus on critical evaluations.
From the PREFACE: The phenomenon of technology is at once fascinating and troublesome. With us since the dawn of mankind, it has come to utterly pervade our lives. Conventional wisdom has it that technology exists only to serve our needs, and to better our lives. And yet there is a sense in which our lives are not really getting ‘better’ at all. In fact, many have the feeling that life is becoming more difficult, more demanding, more stressful, and less satisfying.
Since technology is perpetually increasing in power, reach, and affordability, why are our lives not correspondingly better than ever? Why are environmental problems not quickly and permanently resolved? Why do hunger, disease, hardship, and suffering persist around the world? Why are we not on an unambiguously upward path, one in which life is always becoming richer, more fulfilling, healthier, and happier?
There is this lingering sense in which technology gives on the one hand, and takes from the other. Thus it seems that technology also has its dark side, and this is an aspect that is too often ignored, misunderstood, and hence underestimated. In this text we will take a critical look at technology, from the time of the Greeks to the present. Only by doing so can we fully appreciate the impact that modern technology has on our lives, our planet, and our future.
2020. Paperback. 335 pages.
PART I: INTRODUCTION – ON THE PROBLEM OF TECHNOLOGY
Danny Hillis
Close to the Singularity
Jensen and Draffan
Nanotechnology
Jared Diamond
The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
Jerry Mander
Megatechnology (interview)
PART II: HISTORICAL ORIGINS
Lewis Mumford
Technics and the Nature of Man
Plato
Gorgias
Aristotle
Rhetoric
Nicomachean Ethics
Bible
Genesis
Lynn White
Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis
PART III: HISTORICAL CRITIQUES
Lao Tzu and Taoism
Tao Te Ching
Chuang Tzu
Plato
Phaedrus
Henry Agrippa
Incertainty and Vanity of the Worldly Arts & Sciences
Francis Bacon
Novum Organum
Carolyn Merchant
Mining the Earth’s Womb
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
The Luddites
Henry David Thoreau
Walden
Samuel Butler
Darwin among the Machines
Mechanical Creation
Karl Marx
Das Kapital (vol. 1)
Friedrich Nietzsche
Human, All Too Human
PART IV: 20TH CENTURY ASSESSMENTS and CRITIQUES
Alfred North Whitehead
Science and the Modern World
George Orwell
Road to Wigan Pier
Martin Heidegger
The Question concerning Technology
Herbert Marcuse
One-Dimensional Man
Theodore Roszak
Forbidden Games
Ivan Illich
Tools for Conviviality
PART V: ECOLOGICAL CRITIQUES and NEO-PRIMITIVISM
“Green Anarchy” Journal
The Problem of Technology
Arne Naess
Ecosophy, Technology, and Lifestyle
Henryk Skolimowski
From Religious Consciousness to Technological
Consciousness
Theodore Kaczynski
Industrial Society and its Future
PART VI: TECHNOTOPIA?
Chellis Glendinning
Notes Toward a Neo-Luddite Manifesto
Kevin Warwick
Intelligent Robots or Cyborgs
Bill Joy
Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us
Ray Kurzweil
Promise and Peril
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