By utilizing words, photographs, and motion pictures, this multimodal and multisited project traces a rhizomatic genealogy of Russian Cosmism—a nineteenth century political theology promoting a universal human program for overcoming death, resurrecting ancestors, and traveling through the cosmos—throughout post-Soviet techno-utopian projects and imaginaries. I illustrate how Cosmist techno-utopian, futurist, and other-than-human discourse exist as Weberian “elective affinities” within diverse ecologies of the imagination, transmitting a variety of philosophies and political programs throughout trans-temporal, yet philosophically bounded, communities. With a (...) particular focus on the United States and Ukraine, and taking an apophatic analytical position, I dissect how different groups of philosophers, technologists, and publics interact(ed) with Cosmism, as well as how seemingly disparate communities (re)shape and deterritorialize Cosmist political theology in an attempt to legitimize their constructed political imaginaries. (shrink)

This is the story of a seductive idea and its sobering consequences. The twentieth century brought a new cultural confidence in the social powers of invention – but also saw the advance of consumerism, world wars, globalisation and human-generated climate change. Techno-Fixers traces how passive optimism and active manipulations were linked to our growing trust in technological innovation. It pursues the evolving idea through engineering hubris, radical utopian movements, science fiction fanzines, policy-maker soundbites, corporate marketing, and consumer culture. It (...) explores how evangelists of technological fixes have proselytised their faith, and critically examines the examples and products of their followers. The new technological confidence mixed together beliefs that were simultaneously compelling and unsettling. As motor vehicles, electricity supplies and radio became part of modern life in the early decades of the century, it was hard to argue against the transformative effects and inevitability of such transitions. Like it or not, social consequences seemed to come inexorably with the Machine Age, the Space Age and the Information Age. This deterministic vision implied an ever more technological future with unavoidable social consequences. For many, innovative technologies promised appealing new lifestyles and powers. But for a narrower band of proponents – the first generation of technological fixers – wise engineering invention was touted as a guaranteed route to positive human benefits and societal progress. Socially-engaged engineers and designers argued that such improvements could be directed, hastened and amplified. These engineering adventurers argued that modern societies could be guided only by rational designers. They contended that adroit technological solutions could solve contemporary problems better than any traditional method, including economic initiatives, citizen education, political ideology, lifestyle changes, legal frameworks and moral guidance. Their seductive claims were tamed by more mainstream American enthusiasts, and eventually boiled down to the concept of the technological fix. Their shared confidence infused policy-makers, broadcasters and science popularisers. Trust in technological fixes shaped a new generation of managers and law-makers, engineers and educators, futurists and citizens – and continues to drive a new generation of techno-fixers today. This cultural wave, its promoters and detractors, have championed the promise and voiced concerns that we have inherited, still unresolved. This book tracks the hubristic influencers and weighs up the confidences and concerns associated with them: the dramatic potential for novel technologies to work alongside longer human traditions to meet our enduring ambitions – or to reshape society for the worse. (shrink)

Push: Software Design and the Cultural Politics of Music Production shows how changes in the design of music software in the first decades of the twenty-first century shaped the production techniques and performance practices of artists working across media, from hip-hop and electronic dance music to video games and mobile apps. Emerging alongside developments in digital music distribution such as peer-to-peer file sharing and the MP3 format, digital audio workstations like FL Studio and Ableton Live introduced design affordances that encouraged (...) rapid music creation workflows through flashy, "user-friendly" interfaces. Meanwhile, software such as Avid's Pro Tools attempted to protect its status as the "industry standard," "professional" DAW of choice by incorporating design elements from pre-digital music technologies. Other software, like Cycling 74's Max, asserted its alterity to "commercial" DAWs by presenting users with nothing but a blank screen. These are more than just aesthetic design choices. Push examines the social, cultural, and political values designed into music software, and how those values become embodied by musical communities through production and performance. It reveals ties between the maximalist design of FL Studio, skeuomorphic design in Pro Tools, and gender inequity in the music products industry. It connects the computational thinking required by Max, as well as iZotope's innovations in artificial intelligence, with the cultural politics of Silicon Valley's "design thinking." Finally, it thinks through what happens when software becomes hardware, and users externalize their screens through the use of MIDI controllers, mobile media, and video game controllers. Amidst the perpetual upgrade culture of music technology, Push provides a model for understanding software as a microcosm for the increasing convergence of globalization, neoliberal capitalism, and techno-utopianism that has come to define our digital lives. (shrink)

In an earlier paper published in a neutrosophic math journal (IJNS), we discussed a new approach to technology, which may be called as ‘opti-realism’ or ‘pess-optimism’ as alternative to utopianism based on technocracy, which may lead the world into global technototalitarianism. In this article, we submit a new approach to Nature and technology, which is more modest and humble, rather than a techno-utopianism version of reality that most futurists argue for. Our proposed approach resembles more to Myer-Briggs (...) 16 types of personality, including IJNS, IFNS etc. In our scheme, there are 8 characters of approach toward technology which can lead to many variations or we call it ‘Permutation.” Of course, if the readers ask one variation that we prefer, we would answer: Small Tech, High Touch. (shrink)

Social robots are marketed as human tools promising us a better life. This marketing strategy commodifies not only the labor of care but the caregiver as well, conjuring a fantasy of technoliberal futurism that echoes a colonial past. Against techno-utopian fantasies of a good life as one involving engineered domestic help, I draw here on the techno-dystopian television show Humans (stylized HUMⱯNS) to suggest that we should find our desires for such help unsettling. At the core of my (...) argument is a return of the “uncanny valley” problem, from its reformulation as an engineering/design problem to its origins as a psychosocial symptom of an unresolved, traumatic past. I conclude that our sense of the uncanny may be best understood as a moral capacity that should be honed rather than evaded. (shrink)

This article reflects on Collins’s classic work, The Credential Society, situating his critique of educational credentialism within broader ‘conflict sociology’. The discussion reappraises Collins’s work in the context of the ‘new credentialism’, ‘new learning’ and the race, gender and class concerns raised in current debates on higher education. The article characterizes contemporary higher education as being trapped in a Procrustean dynamic: techno-utopianism with job displacement and expansionism with declining public support. Collins attempts to escape the legacy of structural-functionalism (...) through conflict sociology or predictions of systemic crisis. This is contrasted with his contemporary, Herbert Gintis’s eclectic attempt to construct a transdisciplinary social science. The key problem of marketized inequality is linked to the sociology of absences in conflict sociology, and it is argued that inequalities of class, race, gender and coloniality in higher education and credentialism can no longer be ignored. (shrink)

What is techno-optimism and how can it be defended? Although techno-optimist views are widely espoused and critiqued, there have been few attempts to systematically analyse what it means to be a techno-optimist and how one might defend this view. This paper attempts to address this oversight by providing a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of techno-optimism. It is argued that techno-optimism is a pluralistic stance that comes in weak and strong forms. These vary along a number (...) of key dimensions but each shares the view that technology plays a key role in ensuring that the good prevails over the bad. Whatever its strength, to defend this stance, one must flesh out an argument with four key premises. Each of these premises is highly controversial and can be subjected to a number of critiques. The paper discusses five such critiques in detail. The paper also considers possible responses from the techno-optimist. Finally, it is concluded that although strong forms of techno-optimism are not intellectually defensible, a modest, agency-based version of techno-optimism may be defensible. (shrink)

One of the more debated topics in the recent realist literature concerns the compatibility of realism and utopianism. Perhaps the greatest challenge to utopian political thought comes from Bernard Williams' realism, which argues, among other things, that political values should be subject to what he calls the ‘realism constraint’, which rules out utopian arguments based on values which cannot be offered by the state as unrealistic and therefore inadmissible. This article challenges that conclusion in two ways. First, it argues (...) that the rationale for accepting Williams' original argument for the ‘realism constraint’ fails. Secondly, it argues that there is at least one genuinely political value of liberty available which is both compatible with realism and something that cannot be offered by the state, namely that of the political anarchist. This opens the way for far more ambitious and utopian forms of realist political thought and implies that the arguments of what we call political anarchists must be met by political argumentation, not simply ruled out by methodological stipulation. (shrink)

Does it count against a normative theory in political philosophy that it is in some important sense infeasible, that its prescriptions are unlikely to be complied with? Though a positive answer seems plausible, it has proved hard to defend against the claim that this is not how normative theories work - noncompliance shows a problem with the noncomplying agents, not with the normative theory. I think that this line of thought - this defense of Utopianism - wins the battle (...) but loses the war. It’s right about what does and what does not refute a normative theory. It’s wrong in misidentifying the problem. The right way to think about the feasibility worry is as essentially involving multiple agents, and how expected noncompliance by one agent may refute a normative claim addressed at another. Thus understood, feasibility problems may very well refute a theory in political philosophy. In this paper I develop this understanding of the feasibility worry, tie it to more general discussions in normative ethics, and in political philosophy. (shrink)

guest editors' introduction to a special issue on techno-anthropology.

Adorno’s subtle utopianism is often overshadowed by the sombreness of his work. In this article, I explore Adorno’s concept of utopia by reading him alongside Ernst Bloch, whose The Spirit of Utopia (1918) had a lasting influence on Adorno. Not least due to the unsteady nature of their friendship, the intellectual relationship between Bloch and Adorno has often been overlooked. I propose that Bloch’s utopianism can help us make sense of Adorno’s rare but distinct remarks on utopia and (...) argue that instead of being a pure negativist, Adorno entertains a “minimal utopianism” that is constitutive to his notion of critique. I conclude that reading Adorno with Bloch reveals utopia as an ineliminable focal point in Adorno’s work and urges us to rethink the importance of utopianism for any critical project. (shrink)

In a wide range of contemporary debates on Japanese cultures of technological practice, brief reference is often made to distinct Shinto legacies, as forming an animist substratum of indigenous spiritual beliefs and cosmological imaginations. Japan has been described as a land of Shinto-infused ‘techno-animism’: exhibiting a ‘polymorphous perversity’ that resolutely ignores boundaries between human, animal, spiritual and mechanical beings. In this article, we deploy instances of Japanese techno-animism as sites of theoretical experimentation on what Bruno Latour calls a (...) symmetrical anthropology of nature-cultures. In staging a dialogue between actor-network theory and Japanese techno-animism, we show how Shinto cosmograms provide an enlivening and alternative diffraction device on several of the ontological motifs manifested in Latour’s work. In particular, by mobilizing the territory of a ‘new’ animism debate in anthropology – manifested in the work of Philippe Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro – we attempt to infuse Latourian ‘multinaturalism’ with new, other-than-western analytical energy. Extending actor-network theory, we argue, Shinto cosmograms offer an interesting vantage point for interpreting the immanent, affective, enchanting and enabling powers of non-humans in contributing to collective life. By thus broadening the ‘cosmopolitical’ imagination beyond Latour’s own European-Catholic frame of reference, Shinto techno-animism offers up a wider reflection on contemporary entanglements of science, politics, ecology and cosmos. This reflection, we conclude, opens up a new intellectual territory, allowing us to trace techno-animist streams of thinking both ‘East’ and ‘West’, beyond the confines of the scientific naturalism indigenous to European thinking. (shrink)

Techno-colonialism, which I argue here to specifically mean the transfer of technology and its values and norms from one locale to another, has become a serious concern with the advancement of socially disruptive technologies1 of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), like artificial intelligence and robots. While the transfer of technology from one locale, especially economically advanced countries, to developing countries comes with economic benefits for both regions, it is important to understand that technologies are not value- neutral; they come (...) with the values, cultures, and worldviews of their designers. However, despite the nonvalue-neutrality of the technologies of the 4IR, they are still relevant for subSaharan Africa’s development. Thus, using a phenomenological approach, especially the sub-Saharan African experiences of past histories of colonialism, I prescribe cautionary measures that sub-Saharan Africans ought to take in approaching the current industrial revolution and its technologies. (shrink)

There are many debates about what constitutes a utopia. Are utopias benign or dangerous? Is the idea of utopianism essential to Christianity or heretical? What is the relationship between utopia and ideology? In this Very Short Introduction, Lyman Sargent, one of the leading scholars in the field of utopian studies, explores these issues and examines utopianism and its history, discussing the role of utopianism in literature and in the development of colonies and in immigration. The idea of (...) utopia has become commonplace in social and political thought, both negatively and positively. Sargent notes that some thinkers see a trajectory from utopia to totalitarianism, with violence an inevitable part of the mix. Others see utopia directly connected to freedom and as a necessary element in the fight against totalitarianism. In Christianity, utopia is labeled as both heretical and as a fundamental part of Christian belief, and such debates are also central to such fields as architecture, town and city planning, and sociology among many others. Sargent addresses all these issues in this clear, compact introduction. (shrink)

I comment on some of the points made in John Caiazza's thesis on techno‐secularism and offer some of my own further reflections on the subject. Tertullian's rhetorical question about Athens and Jerusalem has universal relevance, not just for Western culture, and, notwithstanding the many positive contributions of science and technology to human culture and civilization, they may not take the place of religion of one kind or another in the foreseeable future. What is needed is to transform religions in (...) ways that meet the challenges of a world drastically transformed by science and technology. (shrink)

The techno-moral scenarios approach has been developed to explore the interplay between technology, society and morality. Focused on new and emerging sciences and technologies, techno-moral scenarios can be used to inform and enhance public deliberation on the desirability of socio-technical trajectories. The article presents an attempt to hybridise this scenario tool, complementing the focus on ethics with an explicit acknowledgement of the multiple meanings of responsibility and of the plurality of its regimes, i.e. the institutional arrangements presiding over (...) the assumption and assignment of responsibilities. We call this integrated technique ‘rTMS’ to stress the continuity with the original technique and, at the same time, to highlight the additional element we aim to develop: responsibility. The article describes this approach and illustrates a loosely standardised procedure that can be used to organise and conduct public engagement workshops based on rTMS. (shrink)

In response to De Proost and Segers, we provide further reflections on how technologies induce moral change. We discuss moral changes at the societal level as distinguished from changes in bioethical principles or ethical concepts, impacts on theories of justice, and whether the transformations are negative or positive.

Dystopian and postapocalyptic narratives are often vectors for utopian hope in decidedly anti-utopian historical moments. The twenty-first century has, arguably, been such a moment. The association of utopianism with some of the most devastating political projects of the twentieth century, the plurality of existential threats looming over the globalized world, and the hegemony of global capitalism converge to form a cultural milieu inundated with grim visions of the future. These visions, however, have a stubborn tendency to gesture toward their (...) negation: the emancipated society. Optimism and pessimism are intermingled in contemporary narratives that frame the end of civilization as the precondition for a utopian... (shrink)

Otto Neurath’s empiricist methodology of economics and his contributions to politi- cal economy have gained increasing attention in recent years. We connect this research with contemporary debates regarding the epistemological status of thought experiments by reconstructing Neurath’s utopias as linchpins of thought experiments. In our three reconstructed examples of different uses of utopias/dystopias in thought experiments we employ a reformulation of Häggqvist’s model for thought experiments and we argue that: (1) Our reformulation of Häggqvist’s model more adequately complies with many (...) uses of thought experiments, especially with the open-ended discussions of utopias and dys- topias in thought experiments. (2) As a strict logical empiricist, Neurath is committed to a strictly empiricist account of thought experiments. John Norton’s empiricist argument view can indeed account for the justifications of empirical beliefs and genuine discoveries targeted by scientific utopianism in three distinct (yet connected) ways, all of which Neur- ath already contemplated: (2.I) Dealing with utopias and thought experiments on a regular basis increases creativity and inventiveness. (2.II) Particular ways of presenting knowl- edge facilitate scientific discovery and social progress. (2.III) The use of utopias in thought experiments can prompt conceptual change and allow access to new phenomena. We con- clude by highlighting that, even though thought experiments support a positive attitude for exploring new social possibilities, Neurath points out that active decisions are unavoidable. The exploration of alternatives and the awareness of a need for decisions in policy discus- sion avert a technocratic outlook in social science. (shrink)

Quantification is particularly seductive in times of global uncertainty. Not surprisingly, numbers, indicators, categorizations, and comparisons are central to governmental and popular response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This essay draws insights from critical data studies, sociology of quantification and decolonial thinking, with occasional excursion into the biomedical domain, to investigate the role and social consequences of counting broadly defined as a way of knowing about the virus. It takes a critical look at two domains of human activity that play a (...) central role in the fight against the virus outbreak, namely medical sciences and technological innovation. It analyzes their efforts to craft solutions for their user base and explores the unwanted social costs of these operations. The essay argues that the over-reliance of biomedical research on “whiteness” for lab testing and the techno-solutionism of the consumer infrastructure devised to curb the social costs of the pandemic are rooted in a distorted idea of a “standard human” based on a partial and exclusive vision of society and its components, which tends to overlook alterity and inequality. It contends that to design our way out of the pandemic, we ought to make space for distinct ways of being and knowing, acknowledging plurality and thinking in terms of social relations, alterity, and interdependence. (shrink)

This concept note was produced for a symposium held under the banner of Critical University Studies – South Africa (CUS-SA) at the University of Johannesburg in August 2022. The opening plenary session was addressed by Profs. Premesh Lalu, Sarah Mosoetsa and Sarah Nuttall. A summary of a paper prepared for this symposium by Michael Peters on the university in techno-rational times was presented as part of the panel. The rest of the symposium featured critical discussion in response to this (...) concept note and presentations of potential chapter contributions for a book on the theme. The concept note is followed below by six responses by South African higher education scholars in response to Michael Peters’ and the CUS-SA concept note. (shrink)

This article focuses on John Locke's understanding of the student as a natural learner and on the ambiguous utopia of childhood that underpins this understanding. It draws a parallel between the educational utopia of natural learning and colonization, and then investigates ethico-political implications. Locke politicizes natural learning in ways that normalize exclusions at the level of intersubjective ethical relations and naturalize colonial expansion at the level of cosmopolitan right. Thought through to its implications, this claim leads to exploring connections between (...) Locke's educational philosophy and his multiple and ambiguous utopianisms. Thus examined, the political operations of Locke's pedagogy bring to the fore the subtle though no less important performativity of Locke-inspired, modern educational utopianism that remains so far under- or non-theorized in educational philosophy. (shrink)

'At the beginning, with Thomas More, utopia sets out an agenda for the modern world. Today, five hundred years later, what are the uses of utopia?'. This paper provides an answer to this question by examining More's utopian 'method' which, it is suggested, offers a model way of thinking imaginatively and prospectively about the form and content of social reform in general and educational change in particular.

Otto Neurath’s empiricist methodology of economics and his contributions to political economy have gained increasing attention in recent years. We connect this research with contemporary debates regarding the epistemological status of thought experiments by reconstructing Neurath’s utopias as linchpins of thought experiments. In our three reconstructed examples of different uses of utopias/dystopias in thought experiments we employ a reformulation of Häggqvist’s model for thought experiments and we argue that: (1) Our reformulation of Häggqvist’s model more adequately complies with many uses (...) of thought experiments, especially with the open-ended discussions of utopias and dystopias in thought experiments. (2) As a strict logical empiricist, Neurath is committed to a strictly empiricist account of thought experiments. John Norton’s empiricist argument view can indeed account for the justifications of empirical beliefs and genuine discoveries targeted by scientific utopianism in three distinct (yet connected) ways, all of which Neurath already contemplated: (2.I) Dealing with utopias and thought experiments on a regular basis increases creativity and inventiveness. (2.II) Particular ways of presenting knowledge facilitate scientific discovery and social progress. (2.III) The use of utopias in thought experiments can prompt conceptual change and allow access to new phenomena. We conclude by highlighting that, even though thought experiments support a positive attitude for exploring new social possibilities, Neurath points out that active decisions are unavoidable. The exploration of alternatives and the awareness of a need for decisions in policy discussion avert a technocratic outlook in social science. (shrink)

Introduction. The human world is presented as an integrity — an organic unity of many inter- connected and interdependent centers (parts, sides, elements): natural and cultural, natural and artificial, animate and inanimate. When any center dominates over others (for example, technical and technological) and / or attempts to realize its claim to the status of a whole, the agreed and optimal ra- tio in the coexistence and synergistic development of all centers, and, consequently, of the whole, is violated. There arises (...) an ecosystem problem. The purpose of the study is to present and analyze the techno-technologized world in the context of current philosophical and scientific methodologi- cal principles: polycentricity, complexity, network- centricity, and ecosystem; to designate their theoretical and practical significance, interdepend- ence; to substantiate the principle of ecosystems as more general and fundamental and to present its effectiveness in preserving the integrity of man, his world and the full value of human being-in-the- world. Methods. The author uses methods of dialectics, synergetics and systemic approach in the philo- sophical understanding of the specifics of the modern techno-technological world and a person’s existence in it. The author also uses the methods of extrapolation and interpretation, the ideas of B. Latour’s actor-network theory, and ecosystem approach. Scientific novelty of the research. The author projects the key attitudes and concepts of the actual conceptual and paradigm principles on the techno-technological world, and formulates the main advantages and disadvantages. The author substantially justifies that the principle of ecosys- tem is the most effective in solving the problem of preserving and reproducing the integrity of the human world, the person himself and his being. Results. The author carries out theoretical and methodological analysis of the techno-technolo- gized world and a person’s existence in it. It has been determined that when solving the problem of preserving and reproducing the integrity of a person and his world, the principle of ecosystems is the most effective and preferable. The ecosystem principle implies the synergistic unity of all centers of human existence, their interdependence and interconnection, ensures the priority of the whole for the benefit of each center, expressed in mutual strengthening and expansion of their potential. Conclusions. The author comes to the conclusion that the application of relevant paradigm principles in studying and analyzing the techno-technological world will make it possible to obtain a more mul- tidimensional and accurate interpretation of the ways and means of achieving a full-fledged human being, with a focus on preserving his identity, origi- nality, subjectivity and integrity. (shrink)

Techno-Scientific Practices analyzes and helps readers to understand the role of instruments and technologies in the practice of science, and their partnership with human agents in producing knowledge about the world.

The thesis of this paper is that utopianism is a theoretical necessity—we couldn’t, for example, engage in normative political philosophy without it—and, further, that in consciously embracing utopianism we will consequently experience an enrichment of our political lives. Thus, the title of my paper has a double meaning: it highlights the fact that utopianism always plays a normative role in political philosophy, as its concern is inevitably the promotion of a certain vision of the good life; and (...) secondly it suggests that there normatively ‘ought to be’ a recognized and respectable role for utopianism within political philosophy. The first meaning, I believe, is self-explanatory. Regarding the second, it expresses my hope to— in short— take what is old, and through a modest process of rehabilitation, make it new again. (shrink)

There are many debates about what constitutes a utopia. Are utopias benign or dangerous? Is the idea of utopianism essential to Christianity or heretical?

A multitude of techno-natures emerge through discourses and practices of the new technosciences. While some philosophers and science studies scholars argue that model organisms and artefacts are getting more and more disembodied and decontextualised in the laboratory, I want to show how ontic dimensions of model organisms and artefacts are made invisible as well as visible in different practices of technosciences like Artificial Life and robotics.This analysis opens up possibilities for an understanding of how ontic dimensions of non-human actors (...) are made visible and invisible in technoscientific practices. At the same time it allows the development of a concept of nonhuman actors beyond reifying, velontriquist practices of representation as well as a critical intervention in the co-construction of our technoculture. German Mannigfaltige Techno-Naturen an der Schnittstelle von Sozialem, Technischem und Natürlichem entstehen in den und durch die Diskurse und Praktiken der neuen Technowissenschaften. Entgegen der verbreiteten These von der Entkörperung und Dekontextualisierung von Modellorganismen im Labor zeige ich in meinem Beitrag auf, wie auf je unterschiedliche Weise ontische Dimensionen von Modellorganismen und Technofakten in der Artificial Life-Forschung und Robotik sichtbar bzw. unsichtbar gemacht werden.Gerade die Untersuchung der Konstruktion der ontischen Dimension nichtmenschlicher Akteure in unterschiedlichen Forschungspraktiken eröffnet Möglichkeiten, nichtmenschliche Akteure ernst zu nehmen, erlaubt ein genaueres Verständnis des Un/Sichtbarmachens von spezifischen ontischen Dimensionen nichtmenschlicher Akteure und zeigt Wege für kritische Interventionen in unsere Technowissenschaftskultur auf. Sie vermeidet jene bauchrednerischen Erzählpraktiken, die mit der Stimme aus dem Off den nichtmenschlichen Akteuren Eigenschaften verordnen und sie damit einmal mehr zum Verstummen bringen. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to demonstrate that actual egalitarian social practices are unsustainable in most circumstances, thus diffusing Cohen’s conundrum by providing an ‘out’ for our rich egalitarian. I will also try to provide a balm for the troubles produced by continuing inequality, by showing how embracing a common conception of utopia can assist a society in its efforts towards establishing egalitarian practices. Doing so will first require an explanation of how giving, like any social practice, can be (...) thought of in terms of being externally suggested, internally willed, or some combination of the two. (shrink)

In this paper, we build on recent work on the role of the ‘utopian pedagogue’ to explore how utopian thinking can be developed within contemporary higher education institutions. In defending a utopian orientation on the part of HE lecturers, we develop the notion of ‘minimal utopianism’; a notion which, we suggest, expresses the difficult position of critical educators concerned to offer their students the tools with which to imagine and explore alternatives to current social and political reality, while acknowledging (...) the contingent ethical constraints of the system within which they and their students are working. While agreeing with utopian theorists such as Darren Webb who have defended the need for ‘blueprint utopias’ in education in the face of the reduction of the idea of utopia to a purely process-oriented pedagogy, our focus here is on the prior educational task of providing the conceptual and communicative tools for utopian thinking to emerge. The collaborative nature of this paper is ref... (shrink)

In Testo Junkie, Preciado briefly introduces the figure of the ‘techno-Barbie’. Contrasted with his own Testogel-fuelled pornographic experiments, the possibilities of oestrogen or progesterone seem somewhat uncharitably foreclosed upon. Though Preciado draws our attention to the gendered politics of chemical enhancement and hormonal justice, it begs the question: where do we draw the line between experimentation and chemical domination? We engage with the figure of the techno-Barbie to explore our own experiments with hormones and gendered agency in the (...) boundaries of advanced biocapitalism. Drawing on a range of allied texts, we explore the ambivalences of our own hormonal experimentation. What kinds of hormonal experiments are allowed to be cast as such? In response to this all-encompassing theory of domination, we ask: how might the techno-Barbie speak back? (shrink)

The idea that technologies can change moral beliefs and practices is an old one. But how, exactly, does this happen? This paper builds on an emerging field of inquiry by developing a synoptic taxonomy of the mechanisms of techno-moral change. It argues that technology affects moral beliefs and practices in three main domains: decisional (how we make morally loaded decisions), relational (how we relate to others) and perceptual (how we perceive situations). It argues that across these three domains there (...) are six primary mechanisms of techno-moral change: (i) adding options; (ii) changing decision-making costs; (iii) enabling new relationships; (iv) changing the burdens and expectations within relationships; (v) changing the balance of power in relationships; and (vi) changing perception (information, mental models and metaphors). The paper also discusses the layered, interactive and second-order effects of these mechanisms. (shrink)

This article examines some of the implications of technological optimism. I first contextualize, historically and culturally, some contemporary variants of techno-optimism in relation to the equally significant contemporary exemplars of techno-pessimism, skepticism and fatalism. I show that this techno-optimism is often instrumentalized in the sense that the optimistic outlook as such is believed to have some influence on the evolving state of affairs. The cogency of this assumption is scrutinized. I argue that in the absence of explicit (...) probabilities, such optimism presupposes some form of retro-causation, where the future is held to somehow have a retroactive effect on the past. This suggests that the underlying mechanism by which techno-optimism is supposed to be instrumental in bringing about the future is fundamentally superstitious. Such superstition, of course, goes against our common understanding of reason and rationality, for adopting rational expectations about the world requires that we avoid the emotional over-determination of our assessments. I show that applied reason is conceptually entangled with this superstitious optimism in the continued successes of technology. The article thus reveals a curious sense in which reason is intrinsically superstitious. I offer an evolutionary explanation for this, showing that the biological origins of reason will by nature tend to produce rational agents which are superstitiously bound to realism and causality, and thus implicitly optimistic about technology’s capacity to overcome contingency. (shrink)

This article examines the current state of foreign language education in Japanese universities as illustrative of the troubling conditions facing the liberal arts in a globalized neoliberal milieu. The utopian ideal in education has always insinuated, at the least, a pedagogy that inspires personal agency, creative investment, challenge to power and social change. This imagining of incalculable futures, however, has been undermined by the seemingly inevitable and confluent forces of a networked world, represented most forcefully by the socioeconomic reductionism of (...) neoliberal globalism. In the context of contemporary Japanese higher education, these forces are joined by Japan’s uniquely ambivalent relationship with the ‘outside’ world, and manifested in the rigid conceptualizations that motivate deeply problematic government and institutional initiatives for the ‘globalization’ of higher education. Within the frame of Bernard Stiegler’s work on transindividuation (ps... (shrink)

Utopianism is often rejected out of hand for one of two reasons: either it is thought to be politically dangerous, or it is thought to be a mere fantasy. It is nevertheless an important theme in contemporary political philosophy. This article reviews part of the political-philosophical career of ‘utopia’ as a concept by considering the different traditions that have been influential in shaping the way utopia and utopianism are perceived today. A brief reading of Thomas More’s Utopia is (...) followed by a consideration of the utopian socialist tradition and Karl Marx’s criticism of it. Their understanding of utopia continued into the twentieth century. Utopianism’s bad reputation is partly due to its association with the attempt to realize communism in the Soviet Union, but other factors include the Eastonian empirical turn in political theory and the onset of postmodern incredulity. It made a perhaps surprising comeback in the work of John Rawls, whose work was recently criticized by Amartya Sen for being overly ‘utopian’ – a criticism that is highly analogous to Marx’s onslaught against the utopian socialists. With the help of counterarguments devised by Pablo Gilabert, the article considers three ways in which utopianism can be useful to contemporary political thought. (shrink)

The development of the internet and other communications technologies over the past decade have seen a corresponding growth in the development and use of technologically-based research methodologies. This paper explores issues arising from the new technology which impact on ethics committees and how these might be addressed. Whilst some ethical issues are comparable in both online and offline worlds there are some elements of the techno-research which require extra consideration. Although ethics guidelines can be found on the worldwide web (...) the onus remains upon techno-researchers and ethics committee members to collaborate in deciding upon the ethical dilemmas and the rigour of proposed techno-research solutions. (shrink)

(2000). Utopianism and national identity. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 3, The Philosophy of Utopia, pp. 87-106.

I take up the challenge posed by John Caiazza (2005) to face down the religiously vacuous ethics of techno‐secularism. Techno‐secularism is not enough for human fulfillment let alone human flowering. Yet, communities of faith based on the Bible have a positive responsibility to employ science and technology toward divinely appointed ends. We should study God's world through science and press technology into the service of transforming our world and our selves in light of our vision of God's promised (...) new creation. This warrants invocation of the concept of the human being as the created co‐creator developed in the theology of Philip Hefner. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss Otto Neurath’s philosophy in the context of Vienna Circle modernism. Following recent scholarship, the discussion considers as a starting point Neurath’s participation at the fourth International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM IV). However, the image of Neurath’s modernism that results from this perspective is incomplete because it tends to overlook the importance of scientific utopianism in Neurath’s thought. Scientific utopianism is a methodology proposed by Neurath for the social sciences in technological contexts, in (...) which scientists elaborate and develop plans (utopias) for the transformation of society, thus contributing to an informed societal debate. Decisions are nevertheless kept outside the domain of scientific activity. I claim that recognizing the centrality of scientific utopianism in Neurath’s philosophy is fundamental to understand Neurath’s modernism. This interpretation highlights the affinities of Neurath’s philosophy of the social sciences with the modern utopianism of H. G. Wells. Both authors consider that there can be no ultimate solution to social problems but that a plural and constant debate of proposals is fundamental for the improvement of society. Therefore, Neurath’s modernism connects his philosophy of science to the literary utopian tradition. (shrink)

This paper aims to investigate some important elements of the thought of George Bernard Shaw, more commonly known as one of the most famous playwrights of the twentieth century. Shaw’s philosophy dwells on the relationship between man and nature and especially the concept of freedom. Among all his works, it was decided here to analyse Saint Joan. In re-imagining the historical Joan as a heroine in a play of ideas, Shaw made use of the known facts about Joan of Arc (...) and Joan’s statements at her trial. Nonetheless, he made changes to emphasize her personal dignity and independence by contrast with the tyranny of institutions. Although he departed from the historical background, whitewashed her adversaries, and condensed episodes in Joan’s biography, he sought to be true to her confidence, courage, integrity, and common sense. His theatrical presentation is, in some respects, at odds with the Preface that accompanies the published play. (shrink)

Sans en faire de quelque façon son thème ni un de ses messages, la musique techno, dans son bruyant silence, semble laisser entendre que les figures socio-historiques du Sens ne font plus sens, et ne peuvent plus en conséquence fragmenter le monde selon une partition ethnique et politique qui l'avait jusque là distribué en identités séparées ou opposées. Cette musique serait alors celle du commun du monde, musique éminemment cosmopolitique... Comme on peut s'en rendre compte dans les raves - (...) mais aussi dans de nombreuses pratiques artistiques contemporaines -, l'art et le politique ne sont plus séparés comme s'ils définissaient des champs opératoires hétérogènes, mais sont en quelque sorte soudés l'un à l'autre dans des agencements collectifs souples et éphémères se formant autour de sensations communes. Qu'il y ait toutefois une telle convergence de l'art (les arts et les techniques) et du politique, ne signifie pas pour autant que nous sommes renvoyés à une esthétisation du politique (la communauté comme œuvre d'art), ni même à une politisation de l'art (l'art social ou l'art critique). Cela nous indique peut-être seulement qu'il nous reste à mettre en oeuvre un art qui ne soit plus seulement représentation de l'Idéal, une technique qui ne soit plus finalisée exclusivement par les impératifs économiques, et un espace politique qui ne repose plus sur une quelconque vérité. Tout un programme qui renvoie, au fond, à la possibilité d'inventer singulièrement et collectivement une existence qui ne serait plus détournée de sa " finitude " et de son libre déploiement dans l'horizon d'une mondialité métissée et a-territoriale. Cela pourrait bien être pour notre temps, pour " nous " qui le partageons - n'en déplaise aux défenseurs de la pureté et de l'Idéal - à la fois notre tâche et notre destin. (shrink)

(2000). Scientific utopianism in Francis bacon and H.G. wells: From Salomon's house to the open conspiracy. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 3, The Philosophy of Utopia, pp. 172-188.

ABSTRACT In this article, we propose strategies for capturing polemical regions in a corpus of posts from Twitter, setting out from a theoretical framework that emphasises a dialogic perspective. Based on these strategies, we provide entry points for analysing the materiality of the techno-discursive universe that circulates in digital environments. By producing this research corpus, we acquired a clearer understanding of elements that compose discursive images surrounding Diego Maradona in circulation on Twitter following the player’s death. Towards this aim, (...) we formulated and critically considered techniques for extracting and producing a digital research corpus by delimiting a discursive space on Twitter surrounding Maradona’s death. The results obtained pertain to the conditions for use of these platforms by discourse analysts, the cartography of the regions configured in this space and the clashes that become consolidated within them. RESUMO Neste artigo, propomos estratégias de captação de regiões polêmicas em corpus produzido a partir de publicações do Twitter, partindo de quadro teórico que enfatiza a perspectiva dialógica. Com base nessas estratégias, fornecemos entradas para a análise da materialidade oriunda do universo tecnodiscursivo em circulação em ambientes digitais. Em razão da produção do corpus da investigação, avançamos na compreensão de traços que compõem imagens discursivas em torno de Diego Maradona em circulação no Twitter por ocasião de seu falecimento. Para tanto, explicitamos e problematizamos técnicas de captação e produção de um corpus digital de pesquisa, através da delimitação de um espaço discursivo no Twitter que circundou a morte de Maradona. Os resultados obtidos se dirigem tanto às condições de utilização dessas plataformas por analistas do discurso, quanto à cartografia das regiões do dizer que se configuram nesse espaço e dos embates que nelas ganham consistência. (shrink)

This paper places certain religious ideas of Eastern Christianity about our relationship to nature critically against techno-scientific thinking and practice. Specifically, the two focal issues of the discussion are the concept of religious sin, on the one hand, and the peculiarly modern fusion of science and technology, resulting in the novel phenomenon of techno-science, on the other. Two corresponding theses are advanced: that of sin as an epistemic, and not as a moral, error, and that of the “Eucharistic” (...) viz., celebratory relation with God. The paper then proceeds to trace significant parallels that may be discerned between the Orthodox theological view and Heidegger’s position on technology, and metaphysics more generally, culminating in the suggestion that the way out of the ‘danger’ of technology as techno-science must be found in art or religion. (shrink)

Technology takes an unprecedented position in contemporary society. In particular, it has become part and parcel of governmental attempts to manufacture life in new ways. Such ideas concerning the governance of life organize around the same contention: that technology and life are, in fact, highly interconnectable. This is surprising because if one enters the sites of techno-scientific experimentation, those visions turn out to be much frailer and by no means “in place” yet. Rather, they afford or enforce constant interfacing (...) work, a particular mode of manufacturing life, rendering disparate, sturdy, and often surprisingly incompatible things available for one another. Here, we contend that both of those aspects, pervasive rationalities of interconnectability and practices of interfacing mark the cornerstones of what we call a new techno-bio-politics of life. In order to grasp the government of life under the technological condition, we must understand how both human and non-human entities are being rendered interconnectable and re-worked through practices of interfacing. We take neuro-technology and care robotics as two illustrative cases. Our analysis shows that the contemporary government of life is not primarily concerned with life itself in its biological re-constitution but rather with life as it is interfaced with and through technology. (shrink)

The duality of standpoints makes its appearance in political theory with particular prominence as the root of an old and persistent problem – the problem of utopianism. A political ideal, however attractive it may be to contemplate, is utopian if reasonable individuals cannot be motivated to live by it. But a political system that is completely tied down to individual motives may fail to embody any ideal at all. The danger of utopianism comes from the political tendency, in (...) pursuit of the ideal of moral equality, to put too much pressure on individual motives or even to attempt to transcend them entirely through an impersonal transformation of social individuals. A nonutopian solution requires a proper balance between these two elements, and that requires knowing what they are and how they interact. (shrink)

Our historical study of Canada’s main research university illuminates the overlooked influence of national identities and interests as forces shaping the institutionalization of technology transfer. Through the use of archival sources we trace the rise and influence of Canadian technological nationalism—a response to Canada’s perceived dependency on the United States’ science and technology. Technological nationalism provided a symbol for producing a shared understanding of the desirability and appropriateness of technology transfer that legitimated the commercial activities of university scientists.