Beyond the Empirical Turn: Elements for an Ontology of Engineering

Abstract

This paper aims to sketch a critical historicisation of the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology. After presenting Achterhuis’s definition of the empirical turn, I show how its final outcome is an ontophobic turn, i.e. a rejection of Heidegger’s legacy. Such a rejection culminates in the Mr Wolfe Syndrome, the metamorphosis of the philosophy of technology into a positive science which, in turn, depends on an engineerisation/problematisation of reality, i.e. the eclipse of the difference between ‘problem’ and ‘question’. My objection is that if Technology as such becomes nothing, then the paradoxical accomplishment of the empirical turn is the self-suppression of the philosophy of technology. As a countermovement, I propose an ontophilic turn, i.e. the establishment of a philosophy of technology in the nominative case whose first step consists in a Heidegger renaissance.