This book argues for a unified worldview of moral cosmology that will allow us to be truly at home in the universe, a view that was disrupted by the European Enlightenment. The author contends that a basic understanding of quantum physics and relative theory offers the widest possible background for the renewal of a moral cosmology.

Blending social analysis and philosophy, Albert Borgmann maintains that technology creates a controlling pattern in our lives.

In this eloquent guide to the meanings of the postmodern era, Albert Borgmann charts the options before us as we seek alternatives to the joyless and artificial culture of consumption. Borgmann connects the fundamental ideas driving his understanding of society's ills to every sphere of contemporary social life, and goes beyond the language of postmodern discourse to offer a powerfully articulated vision of what this new era, at its best, has in store. "[This] thoughtful book is the first (...) remotely realistic map out of the post modern labyrinth."—Joseph Coates, _The Chicago Tribune_ "Rather astoundingly large-minded vision of the nature of humanity, civilization and science."—_Kirkus Reviews_. (shrink)

Holding On to Reality is a brilliant history of information, from its inception in the natural world to its role in the transformation of culture to the current Internet mania and is attendant assets and liabilities. Drawing on the history of ideas, the details of information technology, and the boundaries of the human condition, Borgmann illuminates the relationship between things and signs, between reality and information. "[Borgmann] has offered a stunningly clear definition of information in Holding On to (...) Reality.... He leaves room for little argument, unless one wants to pose the now vogue objection: I guess it depends on what you mean by nothing."—Paul Bennett, Wired "A superb anecdotal analysis of information for a hype-addled age."—New Scientist "This insightful and poetic reflection on the changing nature of information is a wonderful antidote to much of the current hype about the 'information revolution.' Borgmann reminds us that whatever the reality of our time, we need 'a balance of signs and things' in our lives."—Margaret Wertheim, LA Weekly. (shrink)

America is a wonderful and magnificent country that affords its citizens the broadest freedoms and the greatest prosperity in the world. But it also has its share of warts. It is embroiled in a war that many of its citizens consider unjust and even illegal. It continues to ravage the natural environment and ignore poverty both at home and abroad, and its culture is increasingly driven by materialism and consumerism. But America, for better or for worse, is still a nation (...) that we have built. So why then, asks Albert Borgmann in this most timely and urgent work, are we failing to take responsibility for it? In Real American Ethics , Borgmann asks us to reevaluate our role in the making of American values. Taking his cue from Winston Churchill—who once observed that we shape our buildings, and then our buildings shape us—Borgmann considers the power of our most enduring institutions and the condition of our present moral makeup to propose inspired new ways in which we, as ordinary citizens, can act to improve our country. This, he shows, includes everything from where we choose to live and what we spend our money on to daunting tasks like the reshaping of our cities—habits and actions that can guide us to more accomplished and virtuous lives. Using prose that is easy and direct throughout, Borgmann’s position is grounded neither by conservative nor liberal ideology, but in his understanding that he is a devoted citizen among many. In an age in which the blame game is the only game in town, this patriotic book is an eloquent reminder of the political strength we all wield when we work together. (shrink)

Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management is a wide-ranging and expert analysis of the ethics of the intentional management of solar radiation. This book will be a useful tool for policy-makers, a provocation for ethicists, and an eye-opening analysis for both the scientist and the general reader with interest in climate change.

We live in the anthropocene, the era of global warming. How are Americans responding to this predicament? To answer the question we need a philosophical concept of a collective mood and then empirical support to make it concrete. The result is a collective ground state. It has gone through the stages of confident prosperity, the dissolution of that confidence, the present state of anxious disorientation, and the hopeful prospect of grounded responsibility.

Martin Heidegger and Vincent Scully, writing from very different positions, agree that the enclosure of human life and the disclosure of a moral universe are the chief functions of architecture, and they agree further that the traditional house best exemplifies the first function and the Greek temple the second. The culture of technology has emptied the home of many substantial engagements, and it has reduced the monumental structures, the high-rises and expressways, to instrumental status. Architects need to understand the cultural (...) force of technology, the ways buildings shape the conduct of our lives, and the responsibilities that follow from the comprehension of contemporary culture. (shrink)

The Internet has become a field of dragon teeth for a person’s identity. It has made it possible for your identity to be mistaken by a credit agency, spied on by the government, foolishly exposed by yourself, pilloried by an enemy, pounded by a bully, or stolen by a criminal. These harms to one’s integrity could be inflicted in the past, but information technology has multiplied and aggravated such injuries. They have not gone unnoticed and are widely bemoaned and discussed. (...) The government and private watchdogs are working to protect the identity of citizens though at least in the United States both the government and individuals all too often side with prosperity when it conflicts with privacy. Still, these information-technological threats to identity have been recognized and can be reasonably met through legislation, regulation, and discretion. There is another kind of danger to our identity that is more difficult to define and to meet, for it has no familiar predecessors, has no criminal aspects, and exhibits no sharp moral or cultural contours. Still that threat to our identity haunts us constantly and surfaces occasionally in conversations and the media. It makes us feel displaced, distracted, and fragmented at the very times when to all appearances we seem to be connected, busy, and energetic. At the same time, the culture of technology, and of information technology particularly, has opened up fields of diversity and contingency that invite us to comprehend our identities in newly responsible, intricate, and open-minded ways. (shrink)

This topically organized, interdisciplinary anthology provides competing perspective on the claim that western culture faces a moral crisis. Using clearly written, accessible essays by well-known authors in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities, the book introduces students to a variety of perspectives on the current cultural debate about values that percolates beneath the surface of most of our social and political controversies.

We live in the anthropocene, the era of global warming. How are Americans responding to this predicament? To answer the question we need a philosophical concept of a collective mood and then empirical support to make it concrete. The result is a collective ground state. It has gone through the stages of confident prosperity, the dissolution of that confidence, the present state of anxious disorientation, and the hopeful prospect of grounded responsibility.

Contemporary discussions of gender and nature are likely to suffer from two vexations, the conflict of constructivism and naturalism and the conflict ofnativism and rationalism. As a solution to the first I propose postmodern realism and as a remedy for the second a notion of careful scholarship. With the solutions laid out, I will illustrate and test them by discussing friendship and fidelity within the scope of gender and nature.

At its centennial in 2001, the American Philosophical Association bravely proclaimed: “Philosophy Matters.” But does it? It won’t unless it reaches the concreteness of everyday life. To do so was Martin Heidegger’s ambition, and one can read Saul Kripke’s books as an attempt to get mainstream American philosophy beyond its abstractions. At length, Kripke’s efforts, on one reading, failed while Heidegger’s remained incomplete. A theory of commodification can get us closer to the things that matter to us in everyday life.

Friesen has presented an articulate and detailed account of the injuries of virtualized education and a convincing brief for the value of education that is face-to-face and engaged with tangible reality.

This book deals with the philosophy of language and with what is at issue in the philosophy of language. Due to its intensity and diversity, the philosophy of language has attained the position of first philosophy in this century. To show this is the task of Part Two. But the task can be accomplished only if it is first made clear how language came to be a problem in and for philosophy and how this development has influ enced and has (...) failed to influence our understanding of language. This is done in Part One. What is at issue in the philosophy of language today is the question regarding the source of meaning. More precisely the question is whether we have access to such a source. Again Part One presents the necessary foil for Part Two in showing how meaning was thought to originate in Western history and how the rise of the philosophy of language and the eclipse of the origin of meaning occurred jointly. Today the question of meaning has come to a peculiarly elaborate and fruitful issue in the philosophy of language, and the fate of the philosophy of language is bound up with the future possibilities of meaning. (shrink)

?Disclosing New Worlds? represents an extraordinarily fruitful response to the radically changed social and intellectual conditions of the late twentieth century. Its focus on skillful practice yields a social theory thicker than most. Yet in remaining aloof of material reality it retains an ambiguity that contemporary culture prevailingly resolves into a style of life largely devoid of skill and excellence. Consideration of material reality, however, discloses hopeful if inconspicuous practices as well, practices that are at the center of the good (...) life and constitute the wellspring of solidarity. University teaching can be a vigorous introduction to that sort of life. (shrink)

The sacred has survived where religion has not. The sacred is acknowledged by prominent atheists and agnostics. They emphatically agree that the person is sacred and less clearly that nature is as well. Closer examination of their remarks shows that today the sacred comes in two versions, the rightful sacred, best known under the heading of human rights, and the graceful sacred of concrete reality?things and practices of nature and art particularly. The division of the sacred into its rightful and (...) graceful versions (a division that is mirrored in the distinction philosophers make between the right and the good) is the crucial cultural event of the modern era. The two are distinct at least and sometimes thought to be incompatible. Yet they can and must be reconciled and seen as complementary?a general requirement of human well-being. And for a Christian like me they find their perfect union in the truly sacred person?God. (shrink)

In this eloquent guide to the meanings of the postmodern era, Albert Borgmann charts the options before us as we seek alternatives to the joyless and artificial culture of consumption. Borgmann connects the fundamental ideas driving his understanding of society's ills to every sphere of contemporary social life, and goes beyond the language of postmodern discourse to offer a powerfully articulated vision of what this new era, at its best, has in store. "[This] thoughtful book is the first (...) remotely realistic map out of the post modern labyrinth."—Joseph Coates, _The Chicago Tribune_ "Rather astoundingly large-minded vision of the nature of humanity, civilization and science."—_Kirkus Reviews_. (shrink)

Central figures of American mainstream philosophy have at crucial points in their work been concerned with the concreteness of actual reality, but have in various ways been deflected to primarily technical issues of philosophical analysis. It is possible, however, to see in these concerns a line of inquiry that leads to an examination of what is characteristic of actual reality today and of what is troubling and what is hopeful in it. Technology is a helpful term for the character of (...) contemporary reality, commodification for what is questionable and moments of completeness for what is promising in it. (shrink)

Agrarianism, according to Paul B. Thompson, is an environmental philosophy focused on agriculture and the nurturing of food, fuel, and fiber. Agrarianism hopes to re-establish our fundamental connection to the land, helping us approach a tenable understanding of sustainability. Thompson enlists Albert Borgmann’s notion of “focal practices” to discuss farming and the culture of the table. With this comes a critique of “the device paradigm,” the modern technological way of life that alienates us from quotidian beauty, lifecycles and seasonality, (...) and vital place-based insights embedded in focal practices and obscures how techno-industrial capitalism limits our opportunities for rich, intimate experiences with our biotic communities. In this paper, the author will outline the contours of Thompson’s agrarian philosophy in light of Borgmann’s focal practices, noting the enduring wisdom in this position. But the author will evoke Sylvia Wynter’s critique of the hegemonic techno-industrial order of things to conjure alternative conceptions of decolonial agrarian futures (that will not foreground bucolic settler-colonial farms). (shrink)

Postmodernism -- Classical pragmatism : waiting at the end of the road -- Pragmatism, postmodernism, and global citizenship -- Classical pragmatism, postmodernism, and neopragmatism -- Technology -- Classical pragmatism and communicative action : Jürgen Habermas -- From critical theory to pragmatism : Andrew Feenberg -- A neo-Heideggerian critique of technology : Albert Borgmann -- Doing and making in a democracy : John Dewey -- The environment -- Nature as culture : John Dewey and Aldo Leopold -- Green pragmatism : (...) reals without realism, ideals without idealism -- Classical pragmatism -- What was Dewey's magic number? -- Cultivating a common faith : Dewey's religion -- Beyond the epistemology industry : Dewey's theory of inquiry -- The homo faber debate in Dewey and Max Scheler -- Productive pragmatism : habits as artifacts in Peirce and Dewey. (shrink)

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 ...

Hubert L. Dreyfus's engagement with other thinkers has always been driven by his desire to understand certain basic questions about ourselves and our world. The philosophers on whom his teaching and research have focused are those whose work seems to him to make a difference to the world. The essays in this volume reflect this desire to "make a difference"--not just in the world of academic philosophy, but in the broader world.Dreyfus has helped to create a culture of reflection--of questioning (...) the deep premises that inform and shape work in artificial intelligence and cognitive science. He has also been the primary introducer and interpreter of Martin Heidegger's work to the world of information technology. The essays in this volume represent the fruitful application of deep philosophical analysis to the concerns of our modern technological world.The sections are Coping and Intentionality; Computers and Cognitive Science; and "Applied Heidegger." In addition to cognitive science and artificial intelligence, topics include everyday skills, religion, business practices, and medical care. The book concludes with Dreyfus's responses to the essays.Contributors : Daniel Andler, Patricia Benner, Albert Borgmann, Harry Collins, George Downing, Fernando Flores, Sean Kelly, Joseph Rouse, Theodore R. Schatzki, John Searle, Robert C. Solomon, Charles Spinosa, David Stern, Charles Taylor, Terry Winograd, Mark Wrathall. (shrink)

Larry A. Hickman and Albert Borgmann have carried on a decades-long debate about the status and value of technological practices. Hickman’s work develops from the thought of John Dewey. A recent essay alleges that Hickman’s engagement with Borgmann has been superficial, particularly because full engagement would involve admitting that Dewey’s instrumentalist theory of inquiry and his aesthetics are at odds. This paper argues not only that Hickman has attended to the full scope of Borgmann’s thought but also (...) that Dewey is innocent of the criticism charged. Along the way, I develop a critique of the traditionalistic nostalgia implicit in accounts like Borgmann’s. This all serves to address the longstanding concern that pragmatism can be reduced to a crass form of instrumentalism. (shrink)

Energy consumption is central to both a number of pressing environmental issues and to people’s attempts to improve their well-being. Although typically understood as essential for people to thrive, this paper sketches a theoretical foundation for the possibility that the form and amount of energy consumption in modern society may inhibit rather than enable human flourishing. It achieves this goal by connecting and critically assessing the writings of Ivan Illich and Albert Borgmann, which offer a number of concepts that (...) enable a qualitative discussion on energy practices. For different reasons, both authors are highly critical of the societal tendency to command ever-increasing amounts of energy. Illich focuses on negative effects of high energy consumption at the societal level, whereas in my particular re-reading of Borgmann, one finds reasons why high energy consumption fails to realize intended positive effects. It is argued that therefore, energy transition should involve a re-appreciation of the function of energy consumption: to support, rather than to be central to life. (shrink)

Traditional human–computer interaction (HCI) allowed researchers and practitioners to share and rely on the ‘five E’s’ of usability, the principle that interactive systems should be designed to be effective, efficient, engaging, error tolerant, and easy to learn. A recent trend in HCI, however, is that academic researchers as well as practitioners are becoming increasingly interested in user experiences, i.e., understanding and designing for relationships between users and artifacts that are for instance affective, engaging, fun, playable, sociable, creative, involving, meaningful, exciting, (...) ambiguous, and curious. In this paper, it is argued that built into this shift in perspective there is a concurrent shift in accountability that is drawing attention to a number of ethical, moral, social, cultural, and political issues that have been traditionally de-emphasized in a field of research guided by usability concerns. Not surprisingly, this shift in accountability has also received scarce attention in HCI. To be able to find any answers to the question of what makes a good user experience, the field of HCI needs to develop a philosophy of technology. One building block for such a philosophy of technology in HCI is presented. Albert Borgmann argues that we need to be cautious and rethink the relationship as well as the often-assumed correspondence between what we consider useful and what we think of as good in technology. This junction—that some technologies may be both useful and good, while some technologies that are useful for some purposes might also be harmful, less good, in a broader context—is at the heart of Borgmann’s understanding of technology. Borgmann’s notion of the device paradigm is a valuable contribution to HCI as it points out that we are increasingly experiencing the world with, through, and by information technologies and that most of these technologies tend to be designed to provide commodities that effortlessly grant our wishes without demanding anything in return, such as patience, skills, or effort. This paper argues that Borgmann’s work is relevant and makes a valuable contribution to HCI in at least two ways: first, as a different way of seeing that raises important social, cultural, ethical, and moral issues from which contemporary HCI cannot escape; and second, as providing guidance as to how specific values might be incorporated into the design of interactive systems that foster engagement with reality. (shrink)

The paper focuses on Albert Borgmann’s philosophy of technology. We argue in support of Borgmann’s “Churchill principle” (“we shape our buildings, and afterwards they shape us”) as presented in Real American Ethics (RAE) (2006) by comparing it to findings within behavioral economics in general and to the “libertarian paternalism” of Cass R. Sunstein and Richard H. Thaler in particular. According to our interpretation of it, the Churchill principle implies that because our material environment in fact influences our choices, (...) this environment can and should be rearranged so that we “automatically” will tend to make better decisions. Having defended the Churchill principle, we go on to discuss how this principle is related to Borgmann’s approach in Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life (TCCL) (1984). In this earlier work, Borgmann suggests we reform technology by making room for focal practices, that is, meaningful practices in which we develop our skills and excellences. We argue that while these two works have different basic approaches—rearranging the material environment in RAE and developing certain skills and excellences in TCCL—they can and ought to be seen, not as mutually excluding, but as supplementing one another. Together they form a highly salient critique of technology that takes into consideration questions of the good life without becoming overly paternalistic. (shrink)

The paper focuses on Albert Borgmann’s philosophy of technology. We argue in support of Borgmann’s “Churchill principle” as presented in Real American Ethics by comparing it to findings within behavioral economics in general and to the “libertarian paternalism” of Cass R. Sunstein and Richard H. Thaler in particular. According to our interpretation of it, the Churchill principle implies that because our material environment in fact influences our choices, this environment can and should be rearranged so that we “automatically” (...) will tend to make better decisions. Having defended the Churchill principle, we go on to discuss how this principle is related to Borgmann’s approach in Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life. In this earlier work, Borgmann suggests we reform technology by making room for focal practices, that is, meaningful practices in which we develop our skills and excellences. We argue that while these two works have different basic approaches—rearranging the material environment in RAE and developing certain skills and excellences in TCCL—they can and ought to be seen, not as mutually excluding, but as supplementing one another. Together they form a highly salient critique of technology that takes into consideration questions of the good life without becoming overly paternalistic. (shrink)

Borgmann's views seem to clarify and elaborate Heidegger's. Both thinkers understand technology as a way of coping with people and things that reveals them, viz. makes them intelligible. Both thinkers also claim that technological coping could devastate not only our environment and communal ties but more importantly the historical, world-opening being that has defined Westerners since the Greeks. Both think that this devastation can be prevented by attending to the practices for coping with simple things like family meals and (...) footbridges. But, contrary to Borgmann, Heidegger claims further that, alongside simple things, we can affirm technological things such as autobahn bridges. For Borgmann, technological coping produces things like central heating that are so dispersed they inhibit skillful interaction with them and therefore prevent our being sensitive to ourselves as world-disclosers. For Heidegger, so long as we can still relate to non-technological things, we can affirm relations with technological things because we can maintain both our technological and the non-technological ways of world-disclosing. So Borgmann sees revealing as primarily directed to things while Heidegger sees it as directed to worlds. If Heidegger is right about us, we have more leeway to save ourselves from technological devastation than Borgmann sees. (shrink)

Albert Borgmann's new book Holding onto Reality. The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium (1999) continues the interrogation of the epochal significance of new information technology he began in Crossing the Postmodern Divide (1992). For Borgmann, the postmodern divide involves, among other things, a shift from involvement with "focal" things and practices (i.e. activities such as eating, gardening, running, and the like), to immersion in media fantasies, or the thrills of cyberspace and virtual reality. (...) class='Hi'>Borgmann continues his defense of "reality" against the champions of the hyper or virtual realities of cyberspace and new technologies, focusing on the concept of information and its vicissitudes under the impact of new computer and information technology. (shrink)

In his major works, Albert Borgmann has explored in depth and detail the role of technology in contemporary life and provided compelling critical, philosophical perspectives. In this study, I primarily discuss Crossing the Postmodern Divide (1992) in relation to the themes of his earlier Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life (1984). While appreciating Borgmann's attempt to provide distinctions between modernity and postmodernity as historical epochs, I challenge his analysis of a postmodern divide and sketch out an alternative (...) conception of technology that critically engages some of Borgmann's positions. My argument will be that while technology threatens democracy, community, individual sovereignty, and other values many of us hold in common, it also provides the potential for a positive reconstruction of social life and an enhancement of human life. My provocation will be to deconstruct what I take to be a too sharp distinction in Borgmann's text between a "hyperreal" technosphere contrasted to a "real" world of concrete human interaction and focal activities. I attempt to show that some of Borgmann's own positive values can be realized in the cyberspaces of the new technologies and provide some examples. These reflections will force us to rethink the concepts of the public sphere, democracy, community, and technology. (shrink)

Like much of his work, Albert Borgmann’s Real American Ethics defies easy categorization. Neither analytic nor Continental in style, it bridges these traditions while remaining firmly connected to the issues and concerns facing real people in contemporary life. In particular, the book is of deep relevance to the development of an ethics that attends to the material conditions of human existence. In its attention to the physical, social, and technological dimensions of moral life, the book emphasizes issues of central (...) importance to environmental ethics. Professor Borgmann integrates philosophy, culture, and everyday life into his work in an original spirit that counters much of the contemporary philosophical orthodoxy. Borgmann exchanges the abstractness typical of mainstream Anglo-American philosophy for a theoretically-informed but practically-grounded philosophy that takes seriously both popular culture and the mundane aspects of everyday life. In doing so, Borgmann invites us to a philosophy that is engaged rather than detached, and more synthetic than analytic. Real American Ethics exemplifies this practical and engaged approach to philosophy in its clarity of style, breadth of sources, and use of specific, real world examples, many of which are grounded in Borgmann’s own experience. The book interweaves philosophical theory with vignettes recalling Saturdays at the Missoula, Montana farmer’s market, observations on architecture, design, and ways of life, and reflections on the distractions faced by writers in the internet age. These features give the book a refreshing and down-to-earth quality. Rather than attempt to construct an impenetrable fortress of argument, Borgmann lays out for his readers a framework for thinking about ethics in the 21st century United States. While critical, he is also constructive, and he refrains from the temptation to rant and to polarize, instead appealing to a set of ideals that he believes will resonate with most, if not all, Americans. As signalled by the title, Borgmann opens his book by arguing that ethics must be made real, and that neither theoretical nor practical ethics has achieved this task. In the theoretical ethics of Kant, Mill, and Rawls, we find frameworks for approaching moral decisions and moral life. But theoretical. (shrink)