Bernhard Irrgang : critics of technological lifeworld : collection of philosophical essays

155 Pages·2014·1.157 MB·English

by  Irrgang, Bernhard, Tripathi, Arun Kumar

Bernhard Irrgang: Critics of Technological Lifeworld
Dresden Philosophy of Technology Studies
Dresdner Studien zur Philosophie der Technologie
Edited by/Herausgegeben von Bernhard Irrgang
Vol./Bd. 4
PETER LANG
Frankfurt am Main · Berlin · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Wien
Arun Kumar Tripathi (ed.)
Bernhard Irrgang:
Critics of Technological Lifeworld
Collection of Philosophical Essays
PETER LANG
Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
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DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-05024-0
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Preface
Today, more than ever before, there is an urgent need to understand the impera-
tive of modernization and its attendant idiom of globalization. We require an
understanding of science and technology on the basis of culture, wisdom, ecol-
ogy and ethical values. The process of current globalization is emerging into a
cultural, historical, and ecological phenomenon. At the same time, this change is
adding an ethical dimension to the development of technology, which requires a
deeper understanding of techniques, technology and science.
The philosophy of technology remains a relatively young sub-discipline in
philosophy. Although there were late 19th century intimations with Karl Marx
and Ernst Kapp, its origins are largely 20th century. Even the term, „technol-
ogy,” it is a largely 20th century term and use. David Nye, a historian of tech-
nology notes that there are very few references to technology in the late 19th
century, with „inventions” and „applied arts” being more common until after the
First World War And, it is just after the first World War that philosophers, par-
ticularly in Europe, began to use the term, „technology,” and to write book-
length works about or including discussions of technology, Don Ihde argues.
Technologies were analogized as extensions and magnifications of human or-
ganic processes and projected into an external environment. A philosophy of
technological culture should take the material culture of technology into ac-
count. Classical phenomenological philosophy of technology has mainly tried to
understand technology in terms of the conditions of its possibility. As Peter-Paul
Verbeek (in his book What Things Do) has claimed that, the transcendentalist
approach resulted in a one-sided and inadequate understanding of technology in
terms of alienation. What is needed is not so much an analysis of the origins of
technologies but of what they actually do: the ways, in which they co-shape the
relationships between humans and their world, Verbeek argues.
Since 1993, Bernhard Irrgang who is a Professor for the Philosophy of Tech-
nology, has been teaching courses in philosophy of technology, medical ethics
and ethical hermeneutics at the Institute for Philosophy at Dresden University of
Technology (TU Dresden) Germany. The main topics of educational activities
of the institute are: Philosophical questions and topics concerning technique and
technology; Technology transfer; Technological development and early forms of
technological cultures; Technoscience; Science, Technology and Society stud-
ies, especially focusing on genetic engineering, cultural theory of technology,
Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems; Technol-
ogy Assessment; Philosophy and Biology; Hermeneutical Ethics; Technological
and Ecological ethics; Medical Ethics; Intercultural environmental ethics; and
History of Philosophy in the 17th, 18th, and 20th century.
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Irrgang for last 2 decades engaging with the questions, what role does tech-
nology play in everyday human experience? How do technological artefacts af-
fect people’s existence and their relations with the world? And how do instru-
ments, devices and apparatuses produce and transform human knowledge?
These are the central questions in Bernhard Irrgang’s philosophy of technology.
For the actual discussion on ethics and technologies, Irrgang in his book „Her-
meneutics Ethics: Pragmatically and ethical orientation in technological socie-
ties” is proposing a philosophical and pragmatic approach of „hermeneutics of
lifeworld.” Irrgang tries to connect the traditions of hermeneutics and the moral
philosophy, which makes the ethical problems of contemporary world (which is
technologically mediated) intelligibly understandable. Irrgang is offering an in-
troductory approach for ethical judgments, which facilitates and motivates the
human beings to overcome their complex everyday lifeworld and understand
technically embedded everyday situations to act responsibly. At the same time,
for technological world, Irrgang has also left the new possibilities of understand-
ing to master the everyday lifeworld, whereas human beings need competence.
Technology consists of the constellations of materials, tools, and procedures
we use to do things. It did not come into being only in modern times, but has
existed as long as man has been on the earth. Indeed, it may be considered an
essential aspect of being human. Pre-eminent historian of technology, Carl Mit-
cham has introduced the basic philosophical issues involved and reveals the
scope of the problems of technology as going to the foundations of everyday life
and our relations to the world. Along with Don Ihde and Carl Mitcham, Bern-
hard Irrgang provides a useful vocabulary for understanding the ways we relate
to technology and to the world through technology.
It is long argued that, the brute fact of technology in modern society is urging
philosophers of technology out from under the shadow of philosophers of sci-
ence. Along with Don Ihde and Albert Borgmann, Bernhard Irrgang in his
works, has responded to the „given fact” that we live in a „technological and
organizational culture” by sketching a „praxis philosophy” of technologies. Don
Ihde and Bernhard Irrgang, in particular draws his inspiration from Heidegger’s
„tool analysis”, Husserl’s notion of „intentionality” and Merleau-Ponty’s notion
of „lived body.” Praxis philosophies (existentialism, phenomenology, Marxism
dialectical traditions, and some forms of pragmatism) are, according to Ihde and
Irrgang, based on a theory which affirms the importance of „perception and em-
bodiment.”
The anthology „Bernhard Irrgang: Critics of Technological Lifeworld: Collec-
tion of Philosophical Essays” didn’t appear without the intensive support and
philosophical guidance of Irrgang and his penchant mentoring on the philosophy
of technology. Editor wants to put Irrgang’s philosophy of technology between
European and American pragmatism.
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Bernhard Irrgang, who is a proponent and interlocutor of the diversity of in-
tellectual cultures, is widely acknowledged as one of the most important German
phenomenologist philosopher, have been working in the tradition of Heidegger’s
hermeneutics and Ihde’s phenomenology.
Editor would put Irrgang in the tradition of Euro-American phenomenology
and hermeneutics. Along with long „Paradigmatic Shifts in the Contemporary
philosophy of technologies” this anthology contains 8 essays by Bernhard
Irrgang on „Social and Ethical Aspects of Biotechnological Practice”, „Techno-
logical Development and Social Progress”, „Technology transfer as a transcul-
tural modernization: What Can Philosophers of Technology Contribute?”,
„Ethical Action in Robotics”, „Epistemology of Biotechnology”, „Justified Trust
in Technology”, „Postphenomenological investigations to brain research and
human-embodied mind”, and „Visions of Technology.” The anthology has an
epilogue „Questions Concerning Technology” by upcoming Dutch philosopher
of technology, Peter-Paul Verbeek.
Editor Arun Tripathi, who himself has been working with Bernhard Irrgang
for last 8 years sincerely thankful for all the support he received from him. If
Bernhard Irrgang didn’t exist, then this editor has to discover him in the tradition
of philosophy of body and technology.
Arun Kumar Tripathi
TU Dresden, November 10th, 2010

9
Acknowledgments
Editor Arun Kumar Tripathi and Prof. Bernhard Irrgang want to express their
sincere gratitude to Ms. Claire Shadwell, University of Gloucestershire for her
help in reading and correcting the translations and making amendments wher-
ever necessary. Editor is very grateful to Ms. Martina Polster of Peter Lang Ver-
lag for her patience and timely assistance.
Editor also wants to express his deep indebtedness to Mr. Michael Funk (BA),
Research Assistant (Department of Philosophy of Technology, Institute for Phi-
losophy, Dresden University of Technology, Germany) for his sincere help and
assistance in formatting the texts.
Another version of the Chapter 2 „Social and Ethical Aspects of Biotechno-
logical Practice” is published in the ACM Ubiquity. Part of the Chapter 3
„Technological Development and Social Progress” is published in the Seminar-
ios de Filosofia, pp. 1-52, Vol.12-13, 1999-2000.
Another version of the Chapter 5 „Ethical Action in Robotics“ is published in
the Conference Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of Computer
Ethics: Philosophical Inquiry „Ethics of New Information Technology”
(CEPE2005, July 17-19, 2005, Enschede, TheNetherlands) eds. Philip Brey,
Frances Grodzinsky and Lucas Introna, CEPTES, Enschede, pp. 241-250. (pp.
241-250).
Another version of the Chapter 6 „Epistemology of Biotechnology” is ap-
peared in German language as „Epistemologie der Bio –und Gentechnologie”
(pp. 285-297) in Klaus Kornwachs (Hg.) Technik – System – Verantwortung,
LIT Verlag, 2004 (Technikphilosophie Bd. 10).
Another version of Chapter 9 „Visions of Technology” is published in the
Ubiquity: Volume 8, Issue 10 (March 13, 2007 - March 19, 2007).