Care in Technology

Xavier Guchet is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Technology of Compiègne, France. His research focuses on the epistemological and ethical challenges of new technologies. He is also an expert on the thinking of Gilbert Simondon and the author of several books.

• Acknowledgments ixForeword xiBernard REBERIntroduction xviiChapter 1. Care and Technology: An Anthropological Question 11.1. From mastery to care 11.1.1. Making good use of technology, anticipating its potential risks: two possible examples of care in technology? 11.1.2. Do we need to learn to master our technological mastery? 111.1.3. The limits of the externalist approach to technological regulation 221.2. In what sense can technologies be “inherently” caregiving? 271.2.1. Can there be an intrinsic morality of technology? 271.2.2. Technology and care: a difficult articulation 351.3. Taking care of living beings 491.3.1. Care and technology: from ethics to anthropology 491.3.2. Caring about valuating living beings 561.3.3. The difficulty of thinking technology from life 721.4. Transition 87Chapter 2. Technology and Life: Analysis of a Divorce 892.1. Body, gestures, technology, production 892.1.1. Work without skill 892.1.2. Control and discipline of technology 992.1.3. A rupture in the conception of technology: the divorce of technology and life 1062.2. The intellectualist conception of technology: the Kantian turning point 1232.2.1. Difficulty in thinking of the artisan’s activity 1232.2.2. Technology excluded from the field of aesthetics 1302.2.3. Technology, a synthetic activity without representation and without rule 1342.3. Transition 150Chapter 3. The Conditions of Care in Technology 1513.1. Vitalist approaches to technology 1513.1.1. The concept of technological evolution: contributions and limits with regard to care 1513.1.2. Technology as an “organ projection”: contributions and limits with regard to care 1563.1.3. The utopia of Erewhon: analysis of an aporia. First condition of care in technology 1593.2. Philosophical anthropology, a promising way to articulate care and technology? 1753.2.1. Plessner’s biological anthropology: redefining the concepts of organ and organism 1753.2.2. Industrialization, work, and life. Critique of modernity in Gehlen 1833.3. The organ-instrument. Second condition of care in technology 1883.3.1. From the organ as part of the organism to the organ as an instrument with use-value 1883.3.2. Putting the individual point of view first in the ethical evaluation of technology 1933.4. From anthropology to aesthetics 2133.4.1. Is it enough to recognize that humans “belong to nature” to orient technology towards care for nature? 2133.4.2. Creating a new perception. Fourth condition of care in technology 2203.5. Transition 224Chapter 4. Design, Technology and Life 2274.1. At the sources of design for life 2274.1.1. The premises of design 2274.1.2. Overcoming the conflict of arts and industry: the rational aesthetics of Paul Souriau 2354.1.3. Industry and the fragmentation of experience: anthropology and instrumentality in Dewey’s work 2414.1.4. Life as judge of technology. Lewis Mumford 2464.1.5. Towards a design for life: László Moholy-Nagy 2574.1.6. Opening 2624.2. Towards responsible and caring innovation 2644.2.1. Technical activities and care: practical lessons from ancient China and Greece 2644.2.2. The square of care in technological design 272Conclusion 287References 293Index 311