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Overview
"Hickman['s]... style of pragmatism provides us with flexible, philosophical 'tools'
which can be used to analyze and penetrate various technology and technological cultural problems of the present. He, himself, uses this toolkit to make his analyses and succeeds very well indeed." —Don Ihde
A practical and comprehensive appraisal of the value of philosophy in today’s technological culture.
Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture contends that technology—a defining mark of contemporary culture—should be a legitimate concern of philosophers. Larry A. Hickman contests the perception that philosophy is little more than a narrow academic discipline and that philosophical discourse is merely redescription of the ancient past. Drawing inspiration from John Dewey, one of America’s greatest public philosophers, Hickman validates the role of philosophers as cultural critics and reformers in the broadest sense. Hickman situates Dewey’s critique of technological culture within the debates of 20th-century Western philosophy by engaging the work of Richard Rorty, Albert Borgmann, Jacques Ellul, Walter Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, and Martin Heidegger, among others. Pushing beyond their philosophical concerns, Hickman designs and assembles a set of philosophical tools to cope with technological culture in a new century. His pragmatic treatment of current themes—such as technology and its relationship to the arts, technosciences and technocrats, the role of the media in education, and the meaning of democracy and community life in an age dominated by technology—reveals that philosophy possesses powerful tools for cultural renewal. This original, timely, and accessible work will be of interest to readers seeking a deeper understanding of the meanings and consequences of technology in today’s world.
Synopsis
Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture contends that technology—a defining mark of contemporary culture—should be a legitimate concern of philosophers. Larry A. Hickman contests the perception that philosophy is little more than a narrow academic discipline and that philosophical discourse is merely redescription of the ancient past. Drawing inspiration from John Dewey, one of America's greatest public philosophers, Hickman validates the role of philosophers as cultural critics and reformers in the broadest sense. Hickman situates Dewey's critique of technological culture within the debates of 20th-century Western philosophy by engaging the work of Richard Rorty, Albert Borgmann, Jacques Ellul, Walter Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, and Martin Heidegger, among others. Pushing beyond their philosophical concerns, Hickman designs and assembles a set of philosophical tools to cope with technological culture in a new century. His pragmatic treatment of current themes—such as technology and its relationship to the arts, technosciences and technocrats, the role of the media in education, and the meaning of democracy and community life in an age dominated by technology—reveals that philosophy possesses powerful tools for cultural renewal. This original, timely, and accessible work will be of interest to readers seeking a deeper understanding of the meanings and consequences of technology in today's world.
About the Author:
Larry A. Hickman is Director of the Center for Dewey Studies and Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. He is author of Modern Theories of Higher Level Predicates and John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology (Indiana University Press). He has edited Technology as a Human Affair and Reading Dewey (Indiana University Press), and is co-editor (with Thomas Alexander) of The Essential Dewey. He is general editor of the electronic edition of The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953 and The Correspondence of John Dewey, Volume I: 1871-1918.
Editorials
Choice
"Hickman offers a refinement of his earlier John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology (CH, Jun'90), with nine essays inviting consideration of some of the pivotal problems and prospects of our technological culture. The essays are concerned with the paradoxical fact that the techniques and technologies ostensibly developed as means of control are now viewed by many individuals as spinning out of control, or at the very least, as operating beyond their personal control. The author argues that not only is technology as culture the legitimate concern of philosophers, but that they can be cultural critics and reformers in the process. One of the most interesting chapters is devoted to ways in which a techno-scientific education might serve to confront antiscientific elements in modern society, including religious fundamentalism (Islamic as well as Christian) and the splintering effects of contemporary specialism. The author contrasts Dewey's own critique of technological culture with those of Jacques Ellul and Martin Heidegger. In the closing chapter he also provides his own program for the effective reform of technological culture. He puts philosophy to work so that productive pragmatism may transform technocracy to improve the present and enhance the potential for future growth of individuals and communities alike. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals; two—year technical program students." —J. W. Dauben, CUNY Herbert H. Lehman College, Choice, November 2001— J. W. Dauben, CUNY Herbert H. Lehman College