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Katrina Burt
The Internet – Proposing an Infrastructure for the Philosophy of Virtualness
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This paper proposes a preliminary infrastructure for future philosophical discourse on the virtual, interactive, visual, top layer of the Internet. The paper begins by introducing thoughts on such words as real, virtual, reality, knowledge, and truth. Next, news summaries are provided illustrating some effects from the “real world” on the virtual part of the Internet, and vice versa. Subsequently, nine major categories of Internet variables are identified. Finally, over one hundred questions about the philosophical nature of the virtual part of the Internet are listed and are organized into fourteen categories.
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162.
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Bernadette Bensaude Vincent
Nanotechnology and Society:
Current and Emerging Ethical Issues
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163.
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Viktor Binzberger
Hermeneutic practices in software development:
the case of Ada and Python
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This paper shows the relevance of hermeneutic philosophy to understand how infocommunication technologies frame our contemporary lifeworld. It demonstrates that the programming languages are the result of collective interpretations of the general lifeworld of programmers, management and political decision-makers. By having been inscribed into the processes of language use, this general interpretation permeates the particular practices of understanding that are possible within the language framework.
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164.
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Ejvind Hansen
Communicative In-Betweens of Email Communication
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In this paper I seek to deconstruct internet-based communication. I highlight Derrida’s focus on the margins and in-betweens of communication, and relate it to the genre of e-mail. I argue (i) that the silence between the dialogic turns becomes more marked, while (ii) the separation of present and previous statements becomes less marked. The visibility of the silence between the turns (i) can be a resource for increased awareness of how communicative exchanges are shaped by selfarrangements and -presentations. The dissolution of the separation between present and previous statements (ii) can be a source for unfruitful quarrels.
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165.
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Vincent Bontems
Gilbert Simondon’s genetic “mecanology”and the understanding of laws of technical evolution
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Since the 1930’s, several attempts have been made to develop a general theory of technical systems or objects and their evolution: in France, Jacques Lafitte, André Leroi-Gourhan, Bertrand Gille, Yves Deforge, and Gilbert Simondon are the main representatives of this trend. In this paper, we focus on the work of Simondon: his analysis of technical progress is based on the hypothesis that technology has its own laws and that customer demand has no paramount influence upon the evolution of technical systems. We first describe the process Simondon called “concretization” and compare it with the process of “idealization” as defined by Genrich Altshuller. We then explain how the progress of technical lineages can be characterized as following a specific rhythm of relaxation and how it thus obeys a “law” of evolution in the industrial context. Simondon’s theoretical approach, although similar to some aspects of methodologies of conception, emphasized a more accurate understanding of technical progress over possible operational applications. Simondon never intended to optimize the engineer’s tasks from an economic point of view and, in fact, his conception of technical progress can be considered as independent from the capitalistic trend of innovation. However, the philosophy of Simondon provides a better understanding of what is at stake theoretically in the modeling of laws of technical evolution.
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166.
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Barbara Allen
Democratizing Technology:
Risk, Responsibility, and the Regulation of Chemicals
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167.
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Vladimir D. Thomas
Dorsality:
Thinking Back through Technology and Politics
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168.
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Deborah G. Johnson
Philosophy and Design From Engineering to Architecture
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169.
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Lynne Rudder Baker
The Metaphysics of Malfunction
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Any artefact – a hammer, a telescope, an artificial hip – may malfunction. Conceptually speaking, artefacts have an inherent normative aspect. I argue that the normativity of artefacts should be understood as part of reality, and not just “in our concepts.” I first set out Deflationary Views of artefacts, according to which there are no artefactual properties, just artefactual concepts. According to my contrasting view – the Constitution View – there are artefactual properties that things in the world really have. For example, there is a property of being a telephone per se; we apply our concept telephone to things that have that property. Things that have the property of being a telephone are constituted by, but not identical to, aggregates of particles. To be an artefact, an object must have an intended function, among other things. Telephones – in virtue of being the kind of objects that they are – are always subject to malfunction. And malfunctions, when they occur, are just as much part of the world as telephones are. The example of artefacts shows that what is in the world – what really exists – need not be “mind-independent” nor independent of our concepts.
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170.
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Marzia Soavi
Antirealism and Artefact Kinds
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Many realists on kinds deem it highly controversial to consider artefact kinds real kinds on a par with natural ones. There is a built-in tendency in realism to conceive of artefact kinds as merely a conventional classification used for practical purposes. One can individuate three main different approaches characterizing real kinds and accordingly three different types of arguments against viewing artefact kinds as real kinds: the metaphysical, the epistemological and the semantic arguments. The aim of this contribution is to undermine the thesis that it is possible to trace a clear distinction between artefacts and natural kinds in each of these approaches. As a consequence there are no metaphysical, epistemological and semantic bases for claiming that artefact kinds as opposed to natural ones are not real kinds.
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171.
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Qin Zhu
Pragmatism as Post-postmodernism:
Lessons from John Dewey
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172.
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Pawel Garbacz
What is an Artefact Design?
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The paper contains a first order formal theory pertaining to artefact designs, designs which are construed as the results of designing activities. The theory is based on a minimal ontology of states of affairs and it is inspired by the ideas of the Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden. After differentiating the philosophical notion of design from the engineering notion of design specifications, I then go on to argue that the philosophical category of artefact designs may be compared with Ingarden’s category of intentional states of affairs. At least some artefacts are found to be determined by more than one design. I also show how this ontological framework allows for the distinction between artefact tokens and artefact types. That leads to a proposal on how to define a criterion of identity for artefact types. The proposed theory serves as a basis both for a better understanding of what artefacts are and for the construction of computer-readable models of design specifications.
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173.
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Ulrich Krohs
Structure and Coherence of Two-Model-Descriptions of Technical Artefacts
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A technical artefact is often described in two ways: by means of a physicalistic model of its structure and dynamics, and by a functional account of the contributions of the components of the artefact to its capacities. These models do not compete, as different models of the same phenomenon in physics usually do; they supplement each other and cohere. Coherence is shown to be the result of a mapping of role-contributions on physicalistic relations that is brought about by the concept of function. It results a sandwich-like structure of the two models, which can be reconstructed as a two-sorted theory element.
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174.
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Paul T. Durbin
New Waves In Philosophy Of Technology
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175.
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Massimiliano Carrara
Relative Identity and the Number of Artifacts
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Relativists maintain that identity is always relative to a general term (RI). According to them, the notion of absolute identity has to be abandoned and replaced by a multiplicity of relative identity relations for which Leibniz’s Law does not hold. For relativists RI is at least as good as the Fregean cardinality thesis (FC), which contends that an ascription of cardinality is always relative to a concept specifying what, in any specific case, counts as a unit. The same train of thought on cardinality and identity is apparent among those – Artifactualists – who take relative identity sentences for artifacts as the norm. The aim of this paper is (i) to criticize the thesis (T1) thatfrom FC it is possible to derive RI, and (ii) to explain why Artifactualists mistakenly believe that RI can be derived from FC. The misunderstanding derives from their assumption that the concept of artifact – like the concept of object – is not a sortal concept.
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Wybo Houkes, Pieter E. Vermaas
Artefacts in Analytic Metaphysics:
Introduction
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177.
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Brandiff R. Caron
Participatory Democracy, Science and Technology
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178.
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Val Dusek
Engines of the Imagination:
Renaissance Culture and the Rise of the Machine
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179.
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Wybo Houkes, Pieter E. Vermaas
Produced to Use:
Combining Two Key Intuitions on the Nature of Artefacts
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In this paper we examine the possibilities of combining two central intuitions about artefacts: that they are functional objects, and that they are non-natural objects. We do so in four steps. First we argue that, contrary to common opinion, functions cannot be the cornerstone of a characterisation of artefacts. Our argument suggests an alternative view, which characterises artefacts as objects embedded in what we call use plans. Second, we show that this plan-centred successor of the function-focused view is at odds with the non-naturalness intuition. Third, we show that this intuition can be developed by defining artefacts as produced or human-made objects, but that the resulting definition might collapse into the plan-centred view, and has trouble distinguishing artefact types or kinds. Finally, we propose a division of labour between production and use plans: among objects in general, artefacts are distinguished as human-made objects; within the domain of artefacts, types or kinds are characterised by the use plans in which artefacts are embedded.
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George Teschner, Alessandro Tomasi
Technological Paradigm in Ancient Taoism
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Heidegger, Winner, and Ellul's critiques of Western technology focus on a notion of efficiency that subordinates to itself all non-instrumental values. An alternative conception of efficiency is proposed based on the Taoist theory of non-action (wu-wei). The ancient Taoist text, The Chuang Tzu, reveals a type of efficiency that is effective, resourceful, and entrepreneurial. It is a form of action which has an intimate rather than alienated relation to technology, and which is sensitive to the ethical and aesthetic values that Heidegger and Ellul claim are excluded from the Western conception of efficiency.
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