Andrew Feenberg Research Articles

Teoria crítica da tecnologia: uma reflexão a partir das contribuições de Andrew Feenberg

The objective of this article is to present ways of understanding technologies based on Andrew Feenberg's critical theory. From a methodological point of view, this is a bibliographic study that addresses the foundations of instrumentalism, determinism and substantivism, as well as the influences that contributed to the formulation of the critical theory of technology. It is concluded that technologies can be understood as neutral, inevitable, faithful to the rules of efficiency, autonomous and capable of incorporating substantial values. The critical theory of technology adds that they can be considered the result of the technical knowledge of the experts involved in the technological project added to the experiences of its users. The democratic conception of technology emerges from this understanding, as a way for users to influence the technological project, in order to represent different interests and different contexts.

Andrew Feenberg, The Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing

In his new book, The Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing: Nature and Revolution in Marcuse’s Philosophy of Praxis (2023), Andrew Feenberg offers a critical reconstruction of the latter’s oeuvre that brings into focus the topicality and poignancy of his thinking. To this end, he examines significant aspects of Marcuse’s writings in an effort to determine the philosophical foundations and pioneering perspectives of his thought. He contends that Marcuse’s philosophy is now more relevant than ever because it profoundly critiques science and technology and urgently advocates the protection of nature from their destructive consequences. It calls into question the operationality and efficiency of control and monitoring, which are becoming more and more prevalent today. In this regard, as Feenberg argues, Marcuse’s approach is largely predicated on a rehabilitation of the everyday experience inspired by phenomenology, on the principle of potentiality highlighted by Aristotle and Hegel, and on Freud’s conceptions of Eros and the death drive, as well as his theory of the imagination. Marcuse endeavored to ascertain more precisely how existence is historically and socially situated and how a transformative practice may emerge.

Response to Andrew Feenberg

Response to Andrew Feenberg

Swedish nuclear waste management as an inert controversy: using critical constructivism to understand cold technological conflict

ABSTRACT Science and technology studies (STS) has long studied scientific controversies as a way to identify prospects for technical democracy. Contemporary STS tends to prioritize ‘overflowing’ controversies, where lay actors challenge experts’ technical frameworks by explicating the broader implications and so open up technological issues. Yet many controversies are not like this; they operate on a largely technical register within official procedures, so the broader implications remain implicit. In the case of Swedish nuclear waste management a major controversy did not overflow and so presents an opportunity to elaborate theoretically on such ‘inert’ controversies. Crucial insights can come from Andrew Feenberg’s critical constructivism – an alloy of STS and the Frankfurt School. It can help explain why some controversies remain inert and what is at stake there, regardless of the actors’ actions and statements. To make these contributions, critical constructivism needs to emphasize its critical heritage. As with many contemporary studies in STS, critical constructivism has increasingly come to study how change happens, at the expense of how the status quo is maintained. Through the STS idea of ‘structural closure’ – how controversies can be closed by hegemonic structures – inert controversies can be addressed by critical constructivism, thus enriching the study of controversies in STS.

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

This article aims at approaching urban design from a philosophical point of view, specifically through Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology. It attempts to present the politics of urban design, rejecting an urban-technological determinism that refers to a specific technical environment as the only one possible. If technology is an open process with social implications and consequences, the same holds for urban technologies and designs. This approach argues that contemporary cities are formed within a specific socio-technical context which is seemingly the most functional for the current social, political and economic world, but since environmental and urban crises rise, there seems to be a need for rethinking over the form of current cities. Thus, this article attempts to offer a theoretical contribution to the debate over alternative urban designs through Andrew Feenberg's insights. Drawing upon some of his most crucial notions, like the “technical code”, the “interpretative flexibility” and the “operational autonomy” and presenting their role in a philosophy of the city, I attempt to highlight that current urban forms could be replaced by other functional alternatives. The choice over one or another urban design is political hence the need for the relation between the philosophy of the city and technical politics.

Kritická teorie v kontextu informačních a komunikačních technologií a velkých dat

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.

Decolonial Approaches to Technical Design

Decolonial approaches to technical design are part of a broader category of design methodologies, which actualize unfulfilled sociotechnical potentialities. In this paper, I present some decolonial theory concepts and discuss three decolonial approaches to illuminate philosophical debates that: 1) Can find in them clear traces of a third set of elements that shape every design/technology, along with the well-analyzed technical-scientific and ethical-political ones. In dialogue with Walter Vincenti and some others, I call these elements structured procedures, imagery lexicon, and aesthetical values, which constitute the central aspects of Eugene Ferguson’s art of engineering; 2) Identify, starting from some Gilbert Simondon’s and Andrew Feenberg’s ideas, any invention as triply situated (in the physical environment, the established sociotechnical reality, and the inventor’s culture and knowledge); 3) Can be taught by these decolonial approaches about some of the mainstream philosophy of technology’s colonial limitations, becoming thus able to widen (or decolonize) it.

Reducing the Burden of Decision in Digital Democracy Applications: A Comparative Analysis of Six Decision-making Software

The more digital democracy applications lower the costs of political participation, allowing ordinary citizens to propose their own policy initiatives, the more they increase the burden of decision for the very same citizens, who are required to debate and vote on many issues. Drawing from this paradox, this article considers how the designers and administrators of six popular decision-making software (DMS) have introduced software features and norms of use whose function is to reduce the aggregate burden of decision for participants in digital democracy initiatives (DDIs). Building upon Andrew Feenberg’s definition of the design code of technology as a technical stabilization of social demands, this article considers how different DMS stabilize the democratic interventions of a plurality of actors, affecting political equality along two axes of the democratic process: the relationship between the exchange of opinions and the synthesis of opinion and the relationship between agenda setting and voting. This article concludes that the design code of digital democracy software reflects an ongoing tension between the need of governing actors to make the democratic process manageable and the pressure of social actors to make it more equal and inclusive.

Towards Ethics in Information Systems

Information Systems (IS) plays an essential role in shaping almost all sectors of society, such as, commerce, politics, services, entertainment, information, relationships, among others. Digital technologies have enabled a new dimension of products, transmission, storage, and access to information. The outcome of this whole transformation process is intended to provide improvement and facilitating the lives and practices of individuals in society. However, we have also to face its negative impacts. We argue that situations involving both the design and the adoption or use of IS should be analyzed from the point of view of Ethics through a well-defined process that might help the professional and/or the citizen in making decisions in sensitive contexts when conceptual conflicts show up. To justify the definition of this process, we discuss the significance of the new technologies based on Andrew Feenberg's Philosophy of Technology. Grounded on this theory, we highlight the benefits and problems of the new technologies in the contemporary world. Finally, we present the process proposal and analyze the results of its application in the context of two well-known real cases and discuss the results in light of the theoretical foundation.

The Discourse of Remote Teaching During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This paper examines the discourse of remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic based on its opposition to distance education. The terminological issues in this debate are identified; the main arguments of the opposition between remote teaching and distance education are addressed; and the common elements between the two educational modalities are analyzed. Based on Andrew Feenberg's Critical Theory of Technology, we argue that technological mediation in both distance and remote education has limitations as well as potentials that must be discussed.

BIOE and the Teaching of Physics: inferences from the Critical Theory of Technology

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.

Critical theory and the question of technology: The Frankfurt School revisited

Unlike the first generation of critical theorists, contemporary critical theory has largely ignored technology. This is to the detriment of a critical theory of society – technology is now a central feature of our daily lives and integral to the contemporary form of capitalism. Rather than seek to rescue the first generation’s substantive theory of technology, which has been partly outmoded by historical developments, the approach adopted in this article is to engage with today’s technology through the conceptual apparatus offered by the early Frankfurt School. This rationale is guided by the conviction that the core ideas of critical theory still offer a sound basis for assessing the nature of technology today. Through a reconstruction and engagement with some of the core concepts of first-generation critical theory, as well as the work of Bernard Stiegler and Andrew Feenberg, we can arrive at a more robust theory of technology, capable of critically interrogating the role of technology in contemporary society.

Andrew Feenberg and the proposal to democratize technologies: a critical look

Andrew Feenberg and the proposal to democratize technologies: a critical look

Reception of Heidegger’s Notion of the Essence of Technology in the “Empirical Turn” Philosophy of Technology

In this article some important aspects of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology is addressed. It is argued against Don Ihde’s observation that Heidegger’s philosophy of technology mostly concerns the large scale technological phenomena of industrial revolution – actually in Heidegger’s oeuvre we can find reflection on such micro-scale post-industrial technologies as cybernetics, biotechnologies etc. The critique of the essentialism of Heideggerian philosophy of technology by such authors as Andrew Feenberg, Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek is presented. It is suggested that earlier Heidegger’s concept of the essence of technology as “machination” (Machenschaft) is less susceptible to such criticism: whether technologies are exploitative and turning nature into “standing reserve”, or whether they are ecological and nature-friendly, whether they are understood as autonomous force, or democratically controlled process – it could be said that through contemporary technologies reality is increasingly turned into artifice and entities are revealed as makeable and producible.

The “Embodied Multi-Material Layering” of In Vitro Meat

In this article, I offer what I term a ‘embodied multi-material layering’ approach to study the phenomenon of laboratory or in vitro meat using insights from Don Ihde’s postphenomenological approach and Andrew Feenberg’s theory of critical constructivism. This approach offers a reflective, analytic, and normative model of technological analysis and critique that is indispensable to the study of the cutting edge technologies that combine bioinformatics with agrifood research and biomedical engineering.

Contingency and Potential

Unsatisfied with an intellectual history that divides the philosophy of technology into classical and empirical approaches, the following paper suggests a renewed attention to dialectical philosophies of technology. Drawing on the work of Andrew Feenberg, I argue that dialectical philosophies of technology are not essentialist holdovers from the past, but are empirically grounded approaches that direct researchers to ask why we have the technologies we do. From this, dialectical philosophies of technology open up ways to think about technology that prioritize the tension between the sociotechnical world as it is and concrete potentials of what it could be. Contrasting this against postphenomenology, I argue that avoiding these moments of potential can lead to a conservative and paternalistic philosophy of technology that fixes sociotechnical agency to a professional class of designers, engineers, and policy makers. I conclude by suggesting that Feenberg's dialectical philosophy of technology presents a modest alternative to the design imperatives that now guide the trajectory of postphenomenology.

Building Scaffolds

Critical Constructivism and postphenomenology are two possible ways of describing, analysing and evaluating the role and meaning of technology in contemporary society and world. Whereas Critical Constructivism looks at the way technologies are dealt with on a macro level considering systems and programs, then postphenomenology digs into the individual and personal appropriation and understanding of technology in everyday life. This means that there is a gap for what concerns levels, but also in relation to what they want to accomplish. The critical stance of Andrew Feenberg in conceiving societal and political problems as ripe for radical technological change is met by postphenomenology’s pragmatic focus on how to build appropriate and meaningful structures for handling of emergent and imminent problems together with and through technology. This paper tries to bridge this gap by introducing the concept of scaffolding, which is inspired by Heidegger’s “Gestell,” but re-read in a new and different way than the usual pessimistic and deterministic interpretation where exploitation and “enframing” is at hand. Scaffolding is read as a common enterprise where we stretch and reach out towards each other in order to create platforms for interventions and activism. The paper is an attempt to direct this common enterprise in specific directions, and this directedness is indicative for our aims and goals. It is the claim that Critical Constructivism and postphenomenology should meet, and perform a certain kind of Techno-Activism when confronted with problems in technological society.

Discovering Subjectivity in the Technosystem

Two of the main approaches of what is often referred to as the ‘empirical philosophy of technology’ are postphenomenology and critical constructivism. Critical constructivists charge postphenomenologists for paying too little attention to the fact that our society is co-constituted not only by technologies, but also by forms of rationality exercised on a political level. Postphenomenologists, then, charge critical constructivism for insufficiently recognizing that the way technologies are appropriated in the lifeworld often evades forms of institutionalized rationality. The goal of this paper is to show how these different approaches should not be juxtaposed, but can better be seen as complementary in the development of a political philosophy of technology. This will be made clear through a discussion of the role of STS in the work of Peter-Paul Verbeek, and in the work of Andrew Feenberg. I suggest that developing an ‘empirically informed’ political philosophy of technology requires to both recognize how technologies constitute particular forms of subjectivity and to understand the rational processes through which particular technologies are designed. When combining both of these insights, it becomes possible to articulate a normative position with regard to technological developments.

Ethics of socially assistive robots in aged-care settings: a socio-historical contextualisation

Different embodiments of technology permeate all layers of public and private domains in society. In the public domain of aged care, attention is increasingly focused on the use of socially...

No escape from the technosystem?

The main purpose of this article is to provide an in-depth review of Andrew Feenberg’s Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017). To this end, the analysis is divided into two parts. The first part gives an overview of its thematic structure and elucidates its key arguments. The second part discusses its most controversial aspects and grapples with its principal weaknesses and limitations. By way of conclusion, the article argues that Feenberg’s book demonstrates the pivotal role that the technosystem plays in shaping contemporary society.