Søren Riis

The ultimate technology: The end of technology and the task of nature

One of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), died prior to the remarkable cloning of the sheep Dolly and before Dr. Venter started his experiments on creating synthetic life, and he never explicitly discussed living technologies. However, by reinterpreting his notion of “modern technology,” this article shows how it is possible to philosophically assess living technologies and to recognize ways in which Heidegger anticipated this phenomenon with his notion of cybernetics. The interpretation elucidates the fundamental process of technology becoming living and simultaneously presents living technology as the ultimate technology. The thesis of this article is that living technology is not just one more technology; rather, it is the perfection of technology as understood by Aristotle. Aristotles thinking is in this way a key example of a profound reassessment of nature and technology. Aristotle clearly separates these two domains of being in his definition, but in doing so, he also connects them to one another in a highly influential way. Following this line of thought, the article finally offers an original perspective involving renewed respect for the perpetual self-unfolding nature of living technology.

The Question Concerning Thinking

Martin Heidegger’s thought-provoking essay ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ (1977a) placed technology at the heart of philosophy. Heidegger tried to show that the essence of technology provokes humans to think about the world in a very dangerous way. Yet if we follow Heidegger’s analysis of technology, what role does that ascribe to philosophy? To be able to understand the programmatic scope of Heidegger’s question ‘concerning’ technology, we need to see it as inseparable from his famous thesis about the end of philosophy (1977c) and what he considers to be the ideal kind of thinking. However, by doing so, we will in the end realize two important things. First, that Heidegger’s declaration of the end of philosophy in fact also means the end of anything we can meaningfully call thinking. Second, that Heidegger’s own thinking is completely different from his own ideal of thinking. Our question concerning thinking reflects these consequences and finally strives to find another way to think about thinking — a way that brings us back to another of Heidegger’s thoughts and that makes it possible to appreciate the work of thought.1

A Sense of Postphenomenology: a Review of Don Ihde's three recent Books

Edmund Husserl developed the phenomenological method of inquiry before it was known that the universe extended beyond the Milky Way, prior to the division of the atom, and before the conception of the first digital computer. Why should discoveries and innovations such as these however, be of importance to phenomenology, which understands itself as a priori strict science?1 This is one of the key questions concerning the division between phenomenology and postphenomenology, which I shall return to shortly in the following review. In Don Ihde’s three recent and relatively short books: Ironic Technics (2008), Postphenomenology and Technoscience: The Peking University Lectures (2009) and Embodied Technics (2010), the author takes the reader on a number of fascinating philosophical journeys in the borderlands between phenomenology and what he has coined postphenomenology. These three books belong to a series in progress, which Ihde has entitled Late Life Little Books (LLLB). Ihde’s LLLB experiment, alter and expanded upon the methods of inquiry and questions which he has worked on throughout his life as a philosopher. In the following review, I shall dedicate the most attention to the volume which samples Ihde’s lectures on postphenomenology at the Peking University, because of its programmatic character. I will also strive, however, to give a flavour of a number of arguments and insights presented in the various chapters of the other two

Toward a theory for the design of human technologies

Design is increasingly becoming a part of the university curriculum and research agenda. A theory about the process and practice of design might be important to establish design as a main subject at universities. We believe it is in the interest of many design communities -- not least the Participatory Design (PD) community -- to engage in theorizing design, on the basis of our understanding of design and design practices. This theory could be positioned as an alternative to other attempts to theorize design, for example the influential efforts of the Information Systems (IS) community. We urge the PD community to engage in collective theory building, and we present a framework intended to support our shared reflections on the design of human technologies.

THE LIVING-DEAD AND THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

The authors claim that Bruno Latour’s re-definition of scientific practices as ontological construction processes enables an alternative understanding of the existence and reality of God. As a consequence a Latourian inspired God breaks down the a/theism-dichotomy by denying that belief is central to the God question. In this process Nietzsche is transformed into a new church father just as a polytheistic space opens up in so far as gods can be constructed differently. The second part of the paper demonstrates how a Latourian God can be said to be religious, and how our understanding of religious practices changes accordingly. This part draws on the thoughts of Dietrich Bonhoeffer whose views on God as suffering makes it possible to claim that a Latourian God comes to life in death. As a living-dead, a Latourian God is capable of re-orienting the religious towards this life and creating what the authors call a ‘brotherhood of actors’.