Comment Philosophy of Technology (Theory and Application) (Score 2) 135
There really a large existing body of work concerning a philosophy of technology, whether you're in for the "Philosophy as it Should Be" (at the philosophy department of your local U) or "Philosopy as it Is" (the engineering department of your local tech company, the sales rep at your local quik-e-mart). I would actually be very interested in a reading list or beginners bibliography pertaining to either subject.
As it stands, here are a few resources I have found interesting and useful:
- Downey, Gary Lee : _The_Machine_In_Me_
This is a damn good book chronicling a slice of the rise and fall of CAD/CAM mania in the 80's- There are a lot of visions that parallel Mr. Katz's vision of Uncle Walt's vision, and some of the realities that conflicted with/resulted from that sort of thinking. This is a reallly in depth study of philosophy type B (quik-e-mart) - Heidegger, Martin : _The_Question_Concerning_Technology_
This is an essay of the other type (phil. department) and it is heavy- It took me weeks of reading and re-reading to get a foggy notion of what was going on, and my notion is still probably pretty foggy ("Engineers don't need that liberal-arts garbage" thunders a someone at a curriculum planning meating in my distant past...) But It has really changed the way I think about the work that I do in a fundamental way.
(Drifting off of the topic, I would really, really, *really* like to see a "philosophy department philosophy of technology for the rest of us" somewhere- maybe even here at