Tecnologia (colonial): a contribuição da culturologia lotmaniana para os estudos da colonialidade digital

Prosthetic Symbiosis

The study analyzes the theory presented in the book Critical Theory and Social Media: Between Emancipation and Commodification by Thomas Allmer. The primary goal of the study is to place this work in the broader context of the critical theory of technology. The first part analyzes the context and the requirement for the philosophy of technology in the current digital age. Subsequently, Allmer’s methodology is described as an offshoot of critical theory. This theory is set in the context of the book’s primary sources of thought, especially the critical theory of technology and Andrew Feenberg’s theory. Based on this theoretical understanding, research areas in critical media and technology theory are defined. The critical theory of technology shows that in the society of big data, there are similar contradictions of capitalism as we can find in the material world. Finally, there requirement for a political theory of technology is theorized, contrary to the widespread view that the current contradictions of digital capitalism can be solved by the ethics (design) of new technologies. In this context, critical theory is compared with the – so-called – ethics of new technologies.

Studies on critical pedagogy and technology have been on the rise in recent decades. However, bringing critical pedagogy and critical theory of technology together has been hardly studied in English language teaching (ELT) and English as a second language (ESL). This study aims to enable the researcher and learners to compare two different technologies by using participatory action research (PAR). The participants (n=35) were given two data collection tools composed of a questionnaire and semi-structured interview form. The researcher and the learners collaborated with each other in each stage of the online syllabus preparation. The findings show that the learners developed negative attitudes towards the non-interactive Versant English Test (VET) and the online platform provided by the textbook publishers. However, the learners developed positive attitudes towards the use of the interactive online Google discussion platform where they were able to debate sociopolitical issues within the framework of critical pedagogy. In addition, the findings also imply that familiarizing learners with critical pedagogy and critical theory of technology can endorse authenticity, agency, reflection, action and praxis via online platforms.

This study aims to gain a deep understanding of international baccalaureate (IB) primary years programme (PYP) teachers' perceptions about the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in IB PYP classes. Moreover, it seeks to critically identify the teachers' barriers and needs in order to integrate ICT into teaching and learning. Following a qualitative comparative case study research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with IB PYP teachers and coordinators in Sweden and Greece. Critical theory, critical pedagogy and critical theory of technology (CTT) were used as the theoretical framework for analysing teachers' perceptions. From a critical point of view, the study reveals that deskilling of teachers, intensification of teachers' work, low school's financial budget, parents' financial burden, commodification and privatisation of IB education are the fundamental factors that negatively intervene in teachers' work in both schools and perpetuate the status quo of teaching and learning processes through integration of ICT. Keywords: International baccalaureate (IB), international and comparative education (ICE), integration of ICT, critical pedagogy, critical theory of technology (CTT).

Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology is an underutilized, relatively unknown resource in technical communication which could be exploited not only for its potential clarification of large social issues that involve our discipline, but also specifically toward the development of a critical theory of illustrations. Applications of critical theory help strengthen our discipline by forcing us to delineate extant approaches and consider whether democratic goals are being achieved through those approaches. If a critical theory of illustrations can be built from Feenberg's critical theory of technology, it should be useful for classroom instructors and researchers as well as theorists.

This important collection of essays by Andrew Feenberg presents his critical theory of technology, an innovative approach to philosophy and sociology of technology based on a synthesis of ideas drawn from STS and Frankfurt School Critical Theory. According to critical theory of technology, technologies are neither neutral nor deterministic, but are encoded with specific socio-economic values and interests. Feenberg explores how they can be developed and adapted to more or less democratic values and institutions, and how their future is subject to social action, negotiation and reinterpretation. Technologies bring with them a particular "rationality," sets of rules and implied ways of behaving and thinking which, despite their profound influence on institutions, ideas and actions, can be transformed in a process of democratic rationalization. Feenberg argues that the emergence of human communication on the Internet and the environmental movement offer abundant examples of public interventions that have reshaped technologies originally designed for different purposes. This volume includes chapters on citizenship and critical theory of technology, philosophy of technology and modernity, and Heidegger and Marcuse, two of the most prominent philosophers of technology.

The politics of the city: Critical theory of technology and urban design(s)

This article reads from Andrew Feenberg's Critical Theory of Technology, analyzing the International Bank of Educational Objects (BIOE) in Physics teaching, investigating whether the Educational Objects (EO) available in BIOE contemplate a process of teaching and learning that is critical and reflexive and that articulates with one or more pedagogical conceptions linked to its educational objective. For this, the qualitative approach of the documentary type was used for data collection and content analysis to arrive at the results. Thus, we verify that the EO for Physics available in BIOE do not contemplate a critical and reflexive teaching and learning process articulated to one or more pedagogical conceptions linked to its educational objective; it does not broaden the problematization related to educational practices in physics towards the politicization of science and technology, in understanding the implications of an educational technology; and it is absent in the very understanding of human relations with such objects and the systems in which they operate, including the teaching and learning process.

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

Critical theory of technology (CTT) and postphenomenology (PostPhen) complement each other finely. Yet whereas CTT runs the risk of negating the interwovenness of humans and technology, a problem partly resolved by PostPhen, PostPhen itself threatens to neglect its very own base, i.e., the condition of technology and society being first and foremost human endeavors. This paper suggests not to decry these two approaches but to add a third component in order to compensate for their deficiencies. That third partner consists of a new-fledged version of philosophical anthropology elaborated on the basis of the media theory of Marshall McLuhan. I am here mainly concerned with how such an approach can supplement CTT, which it does by offering an account of technological mediation that harbors not only a relational-ontological but also—in contrast with PostPhen—a substantivist-ontological aspect, and in addition a proper theory of technological blindness, much needed to make sense of perceptive biases and meaning-constituting activities in everyday life. I will illustrate these issues by way of what I dub ‘the Mailman Problem’: a sketch of a very mundane instance of “deworlding” that is, however, not perceived as such.

O presente artigo objetiva o estabelecimento de relações entre a Teoria Crítica da Tecnologia – do filósofo Andrew Feenberg – e a educação em Engenharia. Ao entender que o universo social e o universo tecnológico se encontram em estreita relação, essa importante concepção de desenvolvimento tecnológico orienta um processo formativo mais crítico, reflexivo e comprometido com o bem viver coletivo. Como percurso metodológico usamos a pesquisa bibliográfica, e por meio dela construímos encaminhamentos sobre a efetivação dessa abordagem nos cursos de Engenharia. Nesse sentido, sugerimos: (a) práticas interdisciplinares que possibilitem aproximações entre filosofia da ciência e filosofia da tecnologia; (b) construção e consolidação de programas em torno do enfoque CTS; e (c) a criação – pela urgência desses assuntos – de uma disciplina de Tecnologia e Desenvolvimento com conteúdos que versem sobre a imbricada – e nunca linear – relação entre o homem, a sociedade, a ciência e a tecnologia.

The concept of function is a hinge between the material world and the cultural world. Analytic philosophy of function has made considerable progress in the conceptual analysis of function, but it has not considered the link between function and culture. That is the purpose of this chapter. We know from social constructivist investigations of technologies that the problems to which technical solutions are addressed depend on the interpretations of actors with the power to influence design. Corresponding functions are designed into technical artifacts. The interpretations and therefore the functions depend on the cultural framework within which the actors understand their own needs and the constraints of the environment. The theory of function must situate it in relation to the culture and way of life it serves. Heidegger and Lukacs offer perspectives on this relation. This chapter explains their approach as it has been appropriated in critical theory of technology.

In this article, I explore how transformative learning theory, an approach to educating drawn from adult education, can be used to provide access to the critical theory of technology for educators. Rather than focusing primarily on K–12 teachers and educational systems or higher education and other postsecondary instruction, I connect learning as a human capacity with the critical approach to technology. Beginning with a discussion of assumptions and how they structure our ability to make meaning within two common perspectives on technology, instrumentalism and substantivism, an overview of the basic framework of the critical theory of technology is shared and situated among the assumptions made by current perspectives toward technology. Transformative learning theory is then presented as a possible connective thread that could be used to assist educational researchers and practitioners embrace a more critical approach to technology in education.

The emergence of Bitcoin as a means to make electronic transactions directly across a peer-to-peer network has sparked interest from many fields, mostly due to its capability to handle such transactions on a large scale, with no recourse to centralised structures of management. This is achieved through its underlying technical architecture, the ‘block chain’: an impressively robust system of recording transactions on a network that’s security is guaranteed via the distribution of all transaction data (in blocks) to every node in the system on an ever-increasing chain. Last year saw the emergence of ‘Bitcoin 2.0’ applications, where vast amounts of investment capital flowed into projects that proposed to develop systems that offer a diverse range of applications beyond crypto-currencies, such as voting systems, electronic contracts, financial services, and identification recognition. What unifies these projects is the desire to replace centralised, human-run organisations, with cryptographically secure, automated peer-to-peer systems. Within this desire is a political vision, a vision that is not at all homogenous, nor harmonious, but nonetheless contains central elements that can be traced in the formation of Bitcoin. This paper seeks to explore this vision, drawing on primary research data to examine the technical politics of crypto-currencies. Bitcoin first appeared as a white paper published on The Cryptography Mailing List at metzdowd.com, an open mailing list associated with the internet subculture of cypherpunks – a subculture that fused concerns over increasing state intrusion into everyday life through rapidly growing electronic surveillance, with the open source principles that challenge proprietary software, declare digital technology to be a public good, and thus endeavour to provide alternatives. These values are indeed reflected in Bitcoin’s white paper, and through its public release as an open source project. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and ongoing revelations about coordinated programs of mass state surveillance, many have begun to see Bitcoin as a potentially important public tool. But how exactly, can radical values be embedded in technology? And how does its diffusion among different contexts, and development for different purposes, affect this radical potential? In these respects, I believe it is important to consider the work of Andrew Feenberg. At the crux of Feenberg’s critical theory is the concept of hegemonic technological rationality which, through a dominant form of reasoning, enframes how we understand technology; and through dominant systems of production, entails the exclusion of the interests of marginal social groups. This has the effect of reproducing dominant hegemonic social values through the practices that consequently prosper in this system, practices that structure much of social life and impinge on environments. Feenberg does however, identify two means for subverting this process: democratic intervention on the part of social groups campaigning for alternative technologies; and tactical practices in which marginal groups can reveal alternative potentialities for technology by finding new ways of appropriating the technologies around them. In the collective and voluntary efforts of disparate developers unified by the conviction that digital technologies are and should be a public good – and not proprietary tools of corporate profiteering and state surveillance – we see this latter form of tactical resistance embodied in the origins of Bitcoin. Bitcoin thus opens up alternative possibilities for technological progress, both in ideological and material ways. Materially, Bitcoin opens up further potentialities for tactical practices, as we are seeing with the various ways in which block chain technology is being adapted. Ideologically, Bitcoin introduces its users to systems of thought that challenge dominant understandings of financial technologies and the social structures they support. In this latter sense, Bitcoin has the potential to be a counter-hegemonic force. In this paper however, I will present data that suggests this is not the case, and that in fact Bitcoin is reinforcing the dominant ideals of neoliberalism. In presenting the details of this process, I aim to demonstrate the importance of understanding the development of ‘cultures of knowledge’ that emerge around contemporary technological practices. References and Notes Feenberg, A. (1991) A Critical Theory of Technology . Oxford: University Press Feenberg, A. (1999) Questioning Technology. London: Routledge

Andrew Feenberg is a pioneer in the development of the philosophy of technology. Before his retirement, he was the Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, where he also directed the Applied Communication and Technology Laboratory (ACTL). He is the author or editor of thirteen books on Critical Theory, Western Marxism, and the philosophy of technology, including Lukács, Marx, and the Sources of Critical Theory (1981), Critical Theory of Technology (1991), Technology and the Politics of Knowledge (ed with Alastair Hannay) (1995), Questioning Technology (1999), (Re)Inventing the Internet: Critical Case Studies (ed with Norm Friesen) (2012) and Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason (2017).