What Things Do

Peter-Paul Verbeek is one of the up-and-coming philosophers of technology. He has been able to combine some of the best insights from both contemporary philosophy of technology and the newer strands of science studies. Looking at materiality, he extends the attentiveness to things that comes from these movements. His own original insights show forth in this book. Don Ihde,SUNYStony Brook This is really a good book. The goal is to advance our philosophical and cultural understanding of technology with a focused interpretation of artifacts or material culture. . . . Verbeek demonstrates a solid appreciation of what has gone before him, fairly explicates and criticizes (his criticisms are always judicious and acknowledge others), and then creatively extends the movement toward a fuller appreciation of artifacts. If I were to give this book my own title, it would be Artifacts Have Consequences (playing off the Richard Weaver book Ideas Have Consequences). Carl Mitcham,Colorado School of Mines In this insightful examination of the technological mediation in human action, he both poses new philosophical and societal questions, and offers a new way of bringing ethics into the practice of designing technical artifacts. Katinka Waelbers Science and Engineering Ethics

Peter-Paul Verbeek is a teacher and researcher in the philosophy of technology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. His book was originally published in Dutch under the title De daadkracht derdingen: Over techniek, filosofie en vormgeving (2000). Robert P. Crease is Associate Professor of Philosophy at SUNYStony Brook.

Contents Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction: To the Things Themselves 1. The Death of Things 2. The Thing About the Philosophy of Technology 3. Toward a Philosophy of Artifacts Part I: Philosophy Beyond Things 1. Technology and the Self 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Technology and Mass-Rule 1.3 Human Beings and Mass Production 1.4 Mass Existence 1.5 The Neutrality of Technology 1.6 Conclusion 2. The Thing about Technology 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Heideggers Philosophy of Technology 2.3 To Be or Not to BeThat Is the Question 2.4 Heidegger and Things 2.5 Conclusion Part II: Philosophy from Things 3. Postphenomenology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Empirical Research into Technology 3.3 Beyond Classical Phenomenology 3.4 Toward a Postphenomenology of Things 4. A Material Hermeneutic 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Relations Between Human Beings and Artifacts 4.3 Mediation and Meaning 4.4 Artifacts, Culture, and Science 4.5 Conclusion 5. The Acts of Artifacts 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Latours Amodern Ontology 5.3 Technical Mediation 5.4 Actor-Network Theory and Postphenomenology 5.5 Mediation of Action 5.6 Conclusion 6. Devices and the Good Life 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The Device Paradigm 6.3 Technology and the Good Life 6.4 Beyond Alienation 6.5 Mediated Engagement 6.6 Conclusion: The Mediation of Action and Experience Part III: Philosophy for Things 7. Artifacts in Design 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The Materiality of Things 7.3 Toward a Material Aesthetics 7.4 Durable Designs 7.5 Conclusion