Keywords
Philosophy of Technology technological determinism Ihde
Abstract
Ihde’s project is an intellectual challenge with elements of hard technological determinism. Apart from different accounts of hard technological determinism in the literature of philosophy of technology, it can be regarded as a view that focuses on determination of a certain direction by using given technological artifacts regardless of other forces and contexts. At the cultural level, it means a single, massive trajectory happens by the rise of high-technological culture and its attainment as a world culture. I believe that Ihde’s project cannot be fully understood unless one thinks about its challenge while keeping in mind this meaning of technological determinism. This is what this paper aims to pursue, namely the description and evaluation of his challenge with technological determinism. The paper has six interconnected sections. After an introduction, in Section 2, I will explore “postphenomenology”, which is Ihde’s philosophical and intellectual approach toward human-technology relations. In Section 3, I will emphasize Ihde’s challenges with the elements of technological determinism. In addition, because of the relation of technological determinism and technological ethics, I will try to illustrate normative aspects of Ihde’s project in Section 4. Then, I will show the intellectual dialogue between Ihde and Heidegger in Section 5. In summary, Sections 4 and 5 will show some consequences of Ihde’s confrontation with technological determinism that will be developed in Section 3. Finally, Section 6 focuses on a critical evaluation of Ihde’s dialogue with technological determinism. In this section, my main emphasis is making some distinctions to decrease the analytical deficiencies of Ihde’s project on hard technological determinism.
Primary Advisor
Dr. Philip Rose
Program Reader
R. Neculau
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Philosophy
Document Type
Major Research Paper
Convocation Year
2020