Philosophies of Technologies

2From Power to Care: For an Object-Oriented Philosophy of Technology

2.1. Empirical and “thingly” turn in the philosophy of technology

A significant feature of the philosophy of technology over the last 20 years is the importance that has become attached to the concept of artifacts. Artifacts can be approached from either of two directions. On the one hand, there is a phenomenological study of artifactual mediations between humans and the world – this approach focuses on technological artifacts insofar as they actively contribute to configuring both human existence and human capacities, as well as human relations to the world (Verbeek 2005). On the other hand, there is an analysis of the components of technological artifacts, starting from the idea that they have a “dual nature” – material and intentional – and that we need to understand how the two are linked (Kroes and Meijers 2006). The “philosophy of technological artifacts” has followed both of these directions, namely post-phenomenological and analytical, simultaneously, in contrast to the so-called “classical” philosophies of technology (Brey 2010) – articulated by Heidegger, Marcuse, Jaspers, Ellul and others – that are less concerned with describing technical objects in themselves than with identifying the metaphysical and historical conditions of possibility for contemporary manifestations of technology. Through that “classical” lens, technology was seen as an expression of the desire for power, or as a reduction ...