This article focuses on tracing and extending Michel Foucault's contributions to the philosophy of technology. At first sight his work on power seems the most relevant. In his later work on subjectivation and ethics technology is absent. However, notably by recombining Foucault's work on power with his work on subjectivation, does his work contribute to solving pertinent problems in current approaches to the ethics of technology. First, Foucault's position is compared to critical theory and Heidegger, and associated with the approach of "technical mediation" (Latour, Ihde, Verbeek). Next, a detailed study of Discipline and Punish, results in the identification of two distinct "figures of technical mediation". Finally, Foucault's later work on ethics and subjectivation is employed to elaborate an ethics of technology that focuses on care for the quality of the interactions and fusions with technology. Hybridization is central in the approach: it is not to be rejected, neither is it the greatest danger, but it does deserve the greatest care.
What can the art of living after Foucault contribute to ethics in relation to the mediation of human existence by technology? To develop the relation between technical mediation and ethics, firstly the theme of technical mediation is elaborated in line with Foucault’s notion of ethical problematization. Every view of what technology does to us at the same time expresses an ethical concern about technology. The contemporary conception of technical mediation tends towards the acknowledgement of ongoing hybridization, not ultimately good or bad but ambivalent, which means for us the challenge of taking care of ourselves as hybrid beings. Secondly, the work of Foucault provides elements for imagining this care for our hybrid selves, notably his notions of freedom as a practice and of the care of the self. A conclusions about technical mediation and ethics is that whereas the approaches of the delegation of morality to technology by Latour and mediated morality by Verbeek see technical mediation of behavior and moral outlook as an answer in ethics, this should rather be considered the problem that ethics is about.
With ICTs increasingly influencing the built environment, it becomes ever more important to analyse the impact of smart city technologies on citizens' behaviour. To explore this impact, the philosophy of technical mediation is used. This philosophy implies that our way of living is always, to some degree, constituted and transformed by technologies. This study's objective is to assess the applicability of Dorrestijn's model of human-technology relationships when exploring the impact of smart city technologies on citizen's behaviour. Based on Dorrestijn's model of figures of technical mediation, an argumentative literature review is conducted and mediating effects of smart city technologies categorized.
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