heidegger and foucault: escaping technological nihilism

Sawicki, Jana

doi:10.1177/019145378701300204

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…This is the context within which Heidegger () wrote the essay, “The Question Concerning Technology.” In this work, Heidegger problematizes the ontological dimensions of technology and interrogates its very essence: He describes technology as a means to reveal truth (Heidegger, ). In other words, from this standpoint technology is a set of practices and “a background of habits … against which objects appear [as] usable” (Sawicki, , p. 57). And as Dreyfus () argues, by integrating these practices through events of appropriation ( Ereignisse ), the human subject or Dasein is able to understand the world in which it evolves by means of an interpretive process.…”

Section: Heidegger and Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, technology is no simply a material apparatus in the instrumental sense, but is instead a way to reveal human ability (Heidegger, ). Following this logic, technology must be considered an independent entity and, consequently, human beings are unable fully to control its development or the direction it takes (Sawicki, ). Heidegger's approach to technology distances him decidedly from the Cartesian dualism of his contemporaries and allows him to differentiate between modern technologies based on modern science and other, older technological modes (Sawicki, ).…”

Section: Heidegger and Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding human enhancement technologies through critical phenomenology

2018

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Human enhancement technologies raise serious ethical questions about health practices no longer content simply to treat disease, but which now also propose to “optimize” human beings’ physical, cognitive and psychological abilities. These technologies call for a reassessment of our relationship to health, the human body and the body's organic, identity and social functions. In nursing, such considerations are in their infancy. In this paper, we argue for the relevance of critical phenomenology as a way to better understand the ethical issues related to human enhancement technologies (HET). In so doing, we seek to problematize HET and assess their influence on the future development of nursing science and practice. It is difficult to anticipate the concrete effects of HET, we suggest, because these practices reconfigure the meaning of normativity and disorient our conventional ethical landscape. In this context, we argue that the later work of Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault invites a critical perspective into how techno‐scientific discourses modify our relationship to care, to health and to our own social and corporeal identities. Despite the traditional philosophical opposition between phenomenology and critical theory, we maintain that a hybrid critical phenomenological approach opens new ways to assess the integration of technology and practice. Our analysis understands HET as a process of “hybridization” between technological objects and human subjects. Critical phenomenology thus effectively questions anthropocentric definitions of technology, challenges the dichotomy between curative treatment and enhancement and, finally, prompts valuable reflection on the implications of HET for nursing theory and practice.

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Section: Heidegger and Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Heidegger and Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding human enhancement technologies through critical phenomenology

2018

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“…In so doing, we will defend a particular conceptualization of power: largely, we follow Michel Foucault's trajectory of the study of power through processes of subjectification, to wit, Btechnologies of power,^which Bdetermine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or domination, [through] an objectivizing of the subject^ (Foucault 1997a, p. 225), and more precisely, the manner this conceptualization of power has been elaborated by the autonomist Marxists. While generally considered a historian and philosopher of discourse, attention has been drawn to the relevance of Foucault's work on power for philosophy of technology, Discipline and Punish in particular (Dorrestijn 2012;Gerrie 2003;Sawicki 2003;Verbeek 2011).…”

Section: The Power Of Technological Mediationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technological Mediation and Power: Postphenomenology, Critical Theory, and Autonomist Marxism

et al. 2015

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This article focuses on the power of technological mediation from the point of view of autonomist Marxism (Hardt, Negri, Virno, Berardi, Lazzarrato). The first part of the article discusses the theories developed on technological mediation in postphenomenology (Ihde, Verbeek) and critical theory of technology (Feenberg) with regard to their respective power perspectives and ways of coping with relations of power embedded in technical artifacts and systems. Rather than focusing on the clashes between the hermeneutic postphenomenological approach and the dialectics of critical theory, it is argued that in both the category of resistance amidst power-relations is at least similar in one regard: resistance to the power of technology is conceptualized as a reactive force. The second part of the article reads technological mediation through the lens of the antagonistic power-perspective on class struggle developed in autonomist Marxism. The outline of a provisional autonomist philosophy of technology is developed using Foucauldian dispositifs of biopower in contrast to the hermeneutic and dialectical approach. It is thus argued that resistance should here be understood in terms of practice that subverts the technically mediated circuit of production itself.

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“…This obscure claim invites us to focus less on technologies as beneficial instruments and more on non‐technical aspects of the social world implicated in technologies (see Coyne 1998, 342). A broader perspective requires us to question what background practices technologies might ‘reveal’ (see Sawicki 1987, 157) including injustices, power relations, ‘sociological and psychological influences’ (Dias 2003, 389). ‘Revealing’ is not manufacturing or manipulating; it is a ‘challenging’, a ‘bringing‐forth’, an ‘unconcealment’ (Heidegger 1949, 285–286) of background practices.…”

Section: Conceptual Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trappings of technology: casting palliative care nursing as legal relations

Larsen¹

2011

Nursing Inquiry

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Community palliative care nurses in Perth have joined the throng of healthcare workers relying on personal digital assistants (PDAs) to store, access and send client information in 'real time'. This paper is guided by Heidegger's approach to technologies and Habermas' insights into the role of law in administering social welfare programs to reveal how new ethical and legal understandings regarding patient information add to nursing's professional responsibilities. This qualitative research interprets data from interviews with twenty community palliative care nurses about clients' legal rights to informational privacy and confidentiality. It explores nurses' views of their nursing responsibilities regarding clients' legal rights, liability issues, bureaucratic monitoring and enforcement procedures. It concludes that nurses and clients are construed as legal subjects entrenched in legal relations that have magnified since these nurses began using PDAs in 2005/2006.

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heidegger and foucault: escaping technological nihilism

Cited by 9 publications

References 1 publication

Understanding human enhancement technologies through critical phenomenology

Understanding human enhancement technologies through critical phenomenology

Technological Mediation and Power: Postphenomenology, Critical Theory, and Autonomist Marxism

Trappings of technology: casting palliative care nursing as legal relations

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