Being and Value in Technology

✍ Scribed by Enrico Terrone, Vera Tripodi

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 223
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Despite numerous publications on the philosophy of technology, little attention has been paid to the relationship between being and value in technology, two aspects which are usually treated separately. This volume addresses this issue by drawing connections between the ontology of technology on the one hand and technology’s ethical and aesthetic significance on the other. 

The book first considers what technology is and what kind of entities it produces. Then it examines the moral implications of technology. Finally, it explores the connections between technology and the arts.

✦ Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Part I: Ontology
What Are Technical Artefacts in Patent Practice? A Practice-Based Ontology
1 Toward a Practice-Based Meta-ontology
1.1 The Troubled (Non-)Existence of Artefacts
1.2 A Practice-Based, Easy Alternative
2 A Suitable Framework for Technical Artefacts: Patent Law
2.1 Patents: Basic Elements
2.2 Specific Features of Patentable Inventions
3 A Practice-Based Ontology: Artefacts as Abstract Types
4 Conclusion
References
The Cyberspace Strikes Back: An Ontological Account of Social Networks
1 What Is There?
2 Particulars, Universals, and Types
3 Types in Art and Technology
4 Technological Progress and Typification
5 Social Networks as Abstract Particulars
6 Languages and Spaces
7 Cyberspaces
8 Experiencing the Cyberspace
9 Comparing the Cyberspace with Virtual Reality
10 Addressing Koepsell’s Challenge
References
Cognitive Artifacts Between Cognitive Sciences and the Philosophy of Technology
1 Introduction: Cognitive Artifacts and the Philosophy of Technology
2 What Is a Cognitive Artifact?
3 The Ontology of Cognitive Artifacts
4 Taxonomies of Cognitive Artifacts
5 Ethical Issues and Cognitive Artifacts
6 Conclusion
References
Part II: Ethics
Anticipating Sex Robots: A Critique of the Sociotechnical Vanguard Vision of Sex Robots as ‘Good Companions’
1 Introduction
2 The Sociotechnical Vanguard Vision of Sex Robots as Good Companions
3 How Critical Are Philosophical Critiques of Sex Robots as Good Companions?
4 Sex-Robot-Anticipation and the Importance of Technological Groundedness
5 From Quasi-Human Agents to Distributed Systems
6 Conclusion
References
The Right and Unfair Aspects of Artificial Womb Technology
1 Prologue
2 Feminist Arguments in Favour of Ectogenesis and Artificial Wombs
3 Feminist Arguments Against Ectogenesis and Artificial Wombs
4 Ectogenesis as Free Reproductive Choice
References
Missed Opportunities: Feminist Grounds for Regulating Transnational Surrogacy, in the Anthropocene
1 Liberal Feminism and Transnational Commercial Surrogacy
2 Feminist Phenomenology and Transnational Commercial Surrogacy
2.1 Embodiment
2.2 Technology
3 Regulation
References
Part III: Aesthetics
Computer Art, Technology, and the Medium
1 Introduction
2 Two Approaches to Media
3 Binkley’s Criticism of Computer Art
4 Lopes on Interactivity
5 Two Worries
6 Do We Need Art?
References
Breaking the Fourth Wall in Videogames
1 Virtually Representing Fictional Worlds
2 A Virtual, Fourth Wall?
3 Misconceptions About the Fourth Wall
4 Fourth Wall Breaks in Videogames
5 A Unique Fourth Wall?
6 Two-Directional Fourth Wall Breaks
7 Appreciator-Initiated Fourth Wall Breaks
8 Conclusion
References
Games, Artworks, and Hybrids
1 Introduction: Videogames and Artworks
2 Games as Kinds Defined by Constitutive Rules
3 The Lusory and the Aesthetic Attitudes
4 The Possibility of Hybrids: A Rejoinder to Rough
References
Index