Download or read book The Truth of the Technological World written by Friedrich A Kittler and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-17 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-three essays that document the intellectual itinerary of the philosopher and cultural historian, one of the most original thinkers in recent times. Friedrich Kittler (1943–2011) combined the study of literature, cinema, technology, and philosophy in a manner sufficiently novel to be recognized as a new field of academic endeavor in his native Germany. “Media studies,” as Kittler conceived it, meant reflecting on how books operate as films, poetry as computer science, and music as military equipment. This volume collects writings from all stages of the author’s prolific career. Exemplary essays illustrate how matters of form and inscription make heterogeneous source material (e.g., literary classics and computer design) interchangeable on the level of function—with far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the humanities and the “hard sciences.” Rich in counterintuitive propositions, sly humor, and vast erudition, Kittler’s work both challenges the assumptions of positivistic cultural history and exposes the over-abstraction and language games of philosophers such as Heidegger and Derrida.
Download or read book Philosophy in a Technological World written by James Tartaglia and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy has come to seem like a specialist interest with little or no influence on our lives. On the contrary, argues James Tartaglia, it was the philosophy of materialism which taught us to turn from the gods to seek practical assistance from the titans, thereby reversing the moral of an ancient Greek myth to inspire the building of today's technological world. As the largely unreflected belief-system it has now become, materialism continues to steer the direction of technological development, while making us think this direction is inevitable. By drawing on neglected idealist traditions of philosophy, Tartaglia argues for a new way of looking at reality which asserts our freedom to choose, reaffirms and builds upon our ordinary, everyday understanding, and motivates us to convert technological innovation into a process driven by public rationality and consent. With discussions ranging from consciousness, determinism and personal identity, to post-truth culture, ego-death and video games, this clear and accessible book will be of wide interest.
Download or read book The Technological Introject written by Jeffrey Champlin and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Technological Introject explores the futures opened up across the humanities and social sciences by the influential media theorist Friedrich Kittler. Joining the German tradition of media studies and systems theory to the Franco-American theoretical tradition marked by poststructuralism, Kittler’s work has redrawn the boundaries of disciplines and of scholarly traditions. The contributors position Kittler in relation to Marshall McLuhan, Jacques Derrida, discourse analysis, film theory, and psychoanalysis. Ultimately, the book shows the continuing relevance of the often uncomfortable questions Kittler opened up about the cultural production and its technological entanglements.
Download or read book Big Disconnect written by Giles Slade and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2012-08-07 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smart phones and social media sites may be contemporary fixations, but using technology to replace face-to-face interactions is not a new cultural phenomenon. Throughout our history, intimacy with machines has often supplanted mutual human connection. This book reveals how consumer technologies changed from analgesic devices that soothed the loneliness of a newly urban generation to prosthetic interfaces that act as substitutes for companionship in modern America. The history of this transformation helps explain why we use technology to mediate our connections with other human beings instead of seeking out face-to-face contact. Do electronic interfaces receive most of our attention to the detriment of real interpersonal communication? Why do sixty million Americans report that isolation and loneliness are major sources of unhappiness? The author provides many insights into our increasingly artificial relationships and a vision for how we can rediscover genuine community and human empathy.
Download or read book Human Flourishing in a Technological World written by Jens Zimmermann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-23 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human Flourishing in a Technological World addresses the question of human identity and flourishing in the light of recent technological advances. The chapters in Part I provide a philosophical-theological evaluation of changing major anthropological assumptions that have guided human self-understanding from antiquity to modernity: How did we move from a religious and mostly embodied anthropology of the person to the idea that we can upload human consciousness to computing platforms? How did we come to imagine that machines can actually be intelligent, or even learn in human fashion? Moreover, what metaphysical changes explain our mostly uncritical embrace of a technological determination of being and thus of how reality "works"? In Part II, the focus turns to the practical implications of our changing understanding of what it means to be human. Covering some of the most pressing current concerns about human flourishing, these chapters deal with the impact of technology on education, healthcare, disability, leisure and the nature of work, communication, aging, death, and the nature of wisdom for human flourishing in light of evolutionary biology. The volume includes the text of a lecutre by virtual reality engineer and computer scientist Jaron Lanier, and a discussion between Lanier and other contributors.
Download or read book Discourse Networks 1800 1900 written by Friedrich A. Kittler and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a highly original book about the connections between historical moment, social structure, technology, communication systems, and what is said and thought using these systems - notably literature. The author focuses on the differences between 'discourse networks' in 1800 and in 1900, in the process developing a new analysis of the shift from romanticism to modernism. The work might be classified as a German equivalent to the New Historicism that is currently of great interest among American literary scholars, both in the intellectual influences to which Kittler responds and in his concern to ground literature in the most concrete details of historical reality. The artful structure of the book begins with Goethe's Faust and ends with Vale;ry's Faust. In the 1800 section, the author discusses how language was learned, the emergence of the modern university, the associated beginning of the interpretation of contemporary literature, and the canonization of literature. Among the writers and works Kittler analyzes in addition to Goethe's Faust are Schlegel, Hegel, E. T. A. Hoffman's 'The Golden Pot', and Goethe's Tasso. The 1900 section argues that the new discourse network in which literature is situated in the modern period is characterized by new technological media - film, the photograph, and the typewritten page - and the crisis that these caused for literary production. Along the way, the author discusses the work of Nietzsche, Gertrude Stein, Mallarme;, Bram Stroker, the Surrealists, Rilke, Kafka, and Freud, among others.
Download or read book The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays written by Martin Heidegger and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 1982-01-19 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "To read Heidegger is to set out on an adventure. The essays in this volume--intriguing, challenging, and often baffling to the reader--call him always to abandon all superficial scanning and to enter wholeheartedly into the serious pursuit of thinking.... "Heidegger is not a 'primitive' or a 'romanitic.' He is not one who seeks escape from the burdens and responsibilities of contemporary life into serenity, either through the re-creating of some idyllic past or through the exalting of some simple experience. Finally, Heidegger is not a foe of technology and science. He neither disdains nor rejects them as though they were only destructive of human life. "The roots of Heidegger's hinking lie deep in the Western philosophical tradition. Yet that thinking is unique in many of its aspects, in its language, and in its leterary expression. In the development of this thought Heidegger has been taught chiefly by the Greeks, by German idealism, by phenomenology, and by the scholastic theological tradition. In him these and other elements have been fused by his genius of sensitivity and intellect into a very individual philosophical expression." --William Lovitt, from the Introduction
Download or read book Morality in a Technological World written by Lorenzo Magnani and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-08-13 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The technological advances of contemporary society have outpaced our moral understanding of the problems that they create. How will we deal with profound ecological changes, human cloning, hybrid people, and eroding cyberprivacy, just to name a few issues? In this book, Lorenzo Magnani argues that existing moral constructs often cannot be applied to new technology. He proposes an entirely different ethical approach, one that blends epistemology with cognitive science. The resulting moral strategy promises renewed dignity for overlooked populations, both of today and of the future.
Download or read book Writing in a Technological World written by Claire Lutkewitte and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-14 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing in a Technological World explores how to think rhetorically, act multimodally, and be sensitive to diverse audiences while writing in technological contexts such as social media, websites, podcasts, and mobile technologies. Claire Lutkewitte includes a wealth of assignments, activities, and discussion questions to apply theory to practice in the development of writing skills. Featuring real-world examples from professionals who write using a wide range of technologies, each chapter provides practical suggestions for writing for a variety of purposes and a variety of audiences. By looking at technologies of the past to discover how meanings have evolved over time and applying the present technology to current working contexts, readers will be prepared to meet the writing and technological challenges of the future. This is the ideal text for undergraduate and graduate courses in composition, writing with technologies, and professional/business writing. A supplementary guide for instructors is available at www.routledge.com/9781138580985
Download or read book Shaping a Digital World written by Derek C. Schuurman and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Digital technology has become a ubiquitous feature of modern life. Our increasingly fast-paced world seems more and more remote from the world narrated in Scripture. But despite its pervasiveness, there remains a dearth of theological reflection about computer technology and what it means to live as a faithful Christian in a digitally-saturated society. In this thoughtful and timely book, Derek Schuurman provides a brief theology of technology, rooted in the Reformed tradition and oriented around the grand themes of creation, fall, redemption and new creation. He combines a concise, accessible style with penetrating cultural and theological analysis. Building on the work of Jacques Ellul, Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman, and drawing from a wide range of Reformed thinkers, Schuurman situates computer technology within the big picture of the biblical story. Technology is not neutral, but neither is there an exclusively "Christian" form of technological production and use. Instead, Schuurman guides us to see the digital world as part of God's good creation, fallen yet redeemable according to the law of God. Responsibly used, technology can become an integral part of God's shalom for the earth.
Download or read book God Technology and the Christian Life written by Tony Reinke and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2021-12-09 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What Does God Think about Technology? From smartphones to self-driving cars to space travel, new technologies can inspire us. But the breakneck pace of change can also frighten us. So how do Christians walk by faith through the innovations of Silicon Valley? And how does God relate to our most powerful innovators? To build a biblical theology of technology, journalist and tech optimist Tony Reinke examines nine key texts from Scripture to show how the world's discoveries are divinely orchestrated. Ultimately, what we believe about God determines how we respond to human invention. With the help of several theologians and inventors throughout history, Reinke dispels twelve common myths in the church and offers fourteen ethical convictions to help Christians live by faith in the age of big tech. Biblical, Informed Look at Technology: Written by the author of 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You and Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age Gathers Ideas from Industry Experts and Theologians: Interacts with Christian and non-Christian sources on technology and theology including John Calvin, Herman Bavinck, Wendell Berry, and Elon Musk Educational: Discusses the history and philosophy behind major technological innovations
Download or read book Philosophy in a Technological World written by James Tartaglia and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-04-21 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preface -- Introduction: Disturbed by the Thought of Philosophy -- 1. A World Without Philosophy -- 2. The Materialist Philosophy -- 3. When Philosophy Lost its Mind -- 4. A New Idealism -- 5. Technoparalysis -- 6. Freedom -- 7. Soul -- 8. Truth -- Bibliography -- Index.
Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Humanism and Literature written by Michael Bryson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-03-31 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Companion to Humanism and Literature provides readers with a comprehensive reassessment of the value of humanism in an intellectual landscape. Offering contributions by leading international scholars, this volume seeks to define literature as a core expressive form and an essential constitutive element of newly reformulated understandings of humanism. While the value of humanism has recently been dominated by anti-humanist and post-humanist perspectives which focused on the flaws and exclusions of previous definitions of humanism, this volume examines the human problems, dilemmas, fears, and aspirations expressed in literature, as a fundamentally humanist art form and activity. Divided into three overarching categories, this companion will explore the histories, developments, debates, and contestations of humanism in literature, and deliver fresh definitions of "the new humanism" for the humanities. This focus aims to transcend the boundaries of a world in which human life is all too often defined in terms of restrictions—political, economic, theological, intellectual—and lived in terms of obedience, conformity, isolation, and fear. The Routledge Companion to Humanism and Literature will provide invaluable support to humanities students and scholars alike seeking to navigate the relevance and resilience of humanism across world cultures and literatures.
Download or read book Heidegger on Technology written by Aaron James Wendland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-10 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection offers the first comprehensive and definitive account of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of technology. It does so through a detailed analysis of canonical texts and recently published primary sources on two crucial concepts in Heidegger’s later thought: Gelassenheit and Gestell. Gelassenheit, translated as ‘releasement’, and Gestell, often translated as ‘enframing’, stand as opposing ideas in Heidegger’s work whereby the meditative thinking of Gelassenheit counters the dangers of our technological framing of the world in Gestell. After opening with a scholarly overview of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology as a whole, this volume focuses on important Heideggerian critiques of science, technology, and modern industrialized society as well as Heidegger’s belief that transformations in our thought processes enable us to resist the restrictive domain of modern techno-scientific practice. Key themes discussed in this collection include: the history, development, and defining features of modern technology; the relationship between scientific theories and their technological instantiations; the nature of human agency and the essence of education in the age of technology; and the ethical, political, and environmental impact of our current techno-scientific customs. This volume also addresses the connection between Heidegger’s critique of technology and his involvement with the Nazis. Finally, and with contributions from a number of renowned Heidegger scholars, the original essays in this collection will be of great interest to students of Philosophy, Technology Studies, the History of Science, Critical Theory, Environmental Studies, Education, Sociology, and Political Theory.
Download or read book Speechsong written by Richard Cavell and published by punctum books. This book was released on 2020 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Speechsong is a work of imaginative musicology that addresses the engimas of Schoenberg and Gould, of singing and speaking, of Moses und Aron, of technology and being. Its point of departure is Gould's last public performance, given at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, where a number of Schoenberg's works were performed during his California exile. It is here, after that last performance, that Gould encounters a spectral Schoenberg in a staged conversation that explores Schoenberg's travails in rethinking the fundamentals of Western music. This first part of Speechsong recalls Schoenberg's operatic masterpiece, Moses und Aron, in which the divinely inspired Moses seeks the help of his brother to relate his vision: Moses speaks and Aron sings. Written as a twelve-tone composition, the opera produces an involution of harmonics that was Schoenberg's response to Richard Wagner's diatribes about synagogue noise. For Gould, Schoenberg's is a formalist revolution; Schoenberg's life, however, suggests that it was a search for personal and political freedom.The second half of Speechsong is a critical essay in twelve "moments" that re-articulates the staged conversation as an inquiry into the intersections of music and mediation. Gould's turn to the recording studio emerges as a post-humanist inquiry into recorded music as a repudiation of the virtuoso tradition and a liberation from unitary notions of selfhood. Schoenberg's exodus from musical tradition likewise takes his twelve-tone invention beyond musical performance, where it emerges, along with Gould's soundscapes, as a prototype of acoustic installations by artists such as Stephen Prina and Cory Arcangel. In these works, music abandons the concert hall and the exigencies of harmony for an acoustic space that embraces at once the recordings of Gould and the performances of Schoenberg that have found their home on the internet. Richard Cavell has written extensively on Marshall McLuhan and on media theory generally. He is the co-founder of the Media Studies program at the University of British Columbia and the curator of the website Spectres of McLuhan. Speechsong, his second critical performance piece, was preceded by Marinetti Dines with the High Command (2014).
Download or read book Digital Is Destroying Everything written by Andrew V. Edwards and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every year, perhaps even every week, there is some new gadget, device, service, or other digital offering intended to make our lives easier, better, more fun, or more instantaneous--making it that much harder to question how anything digital can be bad for us. Digital has created some wonderful things and we can hardly imagine life without them. But digital—the most relentless social and economic juggernaut humanity has unleashed in centuries—is also destroying much we had taken for granted. And what is your place in this brave new world? In Digital Is Destroying Everything, futurist and digital marketing consultant Andrew Edwards tours the “blasted heath” digital is leaving behind and takes a fearless look at the troubled landscape that may lie ahead. The book is not, despite its title, a dystopian rant against all things digital and technological. Instead, expect to find a lively investigation into the ways digital has opened us to new and sometimes quite wonderful experiences, driven down costs for consumers, and given information a chance to be free. But the book also takes a clear-eyed look at many of the good (and sometimes bad) things—businesses and behaviors—digital has destroyed, and how the world may be diminished, compromised, and altered forever in its wake. This tour of the effects of digital technologies on our lives is sure to raise questions, touch a nerve, and enlighten even the most dedicated digital enthusiasts.
Download or read book Technological Man the Myth and the Reality written by Victor C. Ferkiss and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
