GSAP onlineAdministrationDegrees | ProgramsAvery LibraryLectures | EventsProjects | CoursesDiscourse ADMINISTRATION

    A4645 Philosophy of Technology

    Technology Elective
    Robert Silman

    GOALS
    To examine historical and contemporary notions of philosophical ideas regarding technology and its effect on the environment and on man. To develop a critical ability in observing technical elements of the built environment. By the end of the course to arrive at a personal philosophy and ethic regarding the use of technology for each student.

    METHOD
    Using seminar method, not lectures, to discuss the readings for the week. Examples of architectural technology will be used to illustrate concepts. Students must come to each class fully prepared; they must be able to complete each week s assignment prior to class. This is not a course in which a student can let the work slide for several weeks (or the entire semester) and then catch up all in one effort.

    THEME
    Each year a different sector of the philosophy of technology is explored in some depth. For Spring 1997 it will be the work of Martin Heidegger and some of his successors including Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas, that we will study. We will examine their attitudes toward technology and the industrialized world.

    TEXTBOOKS
    Mitcham, Carl, and Mackey, Robert, Philosophy and Technology: Readings in the Philosophical Problems of Technology , New York, The Free Press, 1983
    Freenberg, Andrew, and Hannay, Alastair, Technology and the Politics of Knowledge , Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1995
    Heidegger, Martin, Basic Writings , ed. David Farrell Krell, New York, Harper Collins, 1993

    TOPICS
    1. Introduction: philosophy of technology in the context of architecture, planning and preservation
    2. Technology and Ethics I
    3. Defining technology; differentiation from pure science; methods of analysis
    4. Classical notions of technology; early philosophical ideas
    5. Existentialist views of technology
    6. Heidegger I
    7. Heidegger II
    8. Heidegger III
    9. The Frankfurt School I
    10. The Frankfurt School II
    11. Pragmatism and Technology; the American contribution to philosophy
    12. Technology and ethics II
    13. Technology and visual images