Abstract

Albert Borgmann’s account of modern technology is considered to be one of the leading positions in the American philosophy of technology which is informed by continental philosophical “paradigms”, such as hermeneutics. In particular Martin Heidegger’s late hermeneutics of the technological world has been a powerful source of inspiration for Borgmann, as has become evident in his Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life. In our paper we will argue that, despite the strengths of Borgmann’s analysis both in the 1984 book as well as in his more recent studies, its obvious weakness pertains to the negligence or underestimation of Heidegger’s leading phenomenological line of thought. This negligence or underestimation compromises his approach to Heidegger’s account of technology, as becomes evident in the critiques addressed to him by phenomenologists, such as Hubert Dreyfus, and “postphenomenologists”, such as Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek.