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Nanotechnology, Contingency and Finitude

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Abstract

It is argued that the social significance of nanotechnologies should be understood in terms of the politics and ethics of uncertainty. This means that the uncertainties surrounding the present and future development of nanotechnologies should not be interpreted, first and foremost, in terms of concepts of risk. It is argued that risk, as a way of managing uncertain futures, has a particular historical genealogy, and as such implies a specific politics and ethics. It is proposed, instead, that the concepts of contingency and of finitude must be central to any understanding of the ethical significance of nanotechnologies, as these concepts can be used to understand the basis of recent work in science and technology studies, and the sociology of knowledge more widely, which details the multi-dimensional social nature of technological uncertainty.

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Notes

  1. The concept of contingency articulated here has perhaps its closest philosophical antecedent in Hegel’s philosophy. See Hegel ([36]: 542-45) and the discussion in Žižek ([88]: 153-56).

  2. On how the BSE crisis demonstrated the unrealistic nature of policy-makers’ expectations of scientific advice, see Adam [1]: 164–91.

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  1. ESRC Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society, Cardiff University, 55 Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT, UK

    Christopher Groves

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Groves, C. Nanotechnology, Contingency and Finitude. Nanoethics 3, 1–16 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-009-0057-z

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