American Philosophy of Technology: The Empirical Turn (review)

Most readers of this journal will surely have noted ambiguity of the term "American philosophy." Should it be used to refer to the unique philosophical positions worked out by thinkers such as Edwards, Emerson, and the classical pragmatists, that is, positions that were developed in what is now the United States and that supplanted European ideas with ones that were more appropriate to the new environmental conditions? Or should it denote just any philosophical work done within the geographical area of North America, whatever its provenance or prospect? Or for that matter, perhaps the term should also cover the work of philosophers who have lived or are now living in Central and South America. After all, they are Americans too.

Although the issue is much larger than the space allotted for this essay, it is nevertheless pertinent to the book under review. The central argument of Dutch philosopher Hans Achterhuis and his colleagues is that the founding philosophical critiques of technology that flourished during the middle of the twentieth century were distinctly European in nature and that they have now been superceded by more empirical approaches whose practitioners reside in the United States. What's more, he and his colleagues think that it's about time that this happened.

As they see it, the problem is that the European "founders" of the philosophy of technology tended to view technology in "historical and transcendental" terms, as something with an essence and that was in danger of becoming autonomous (if indeed it had not already become so). Jacques Ellul, Hans Jonas, and Hannah Arendt all followed Martin Heidegger in terms of both his diagnosis and his prescription for modern ills. The trick would be to split "technology" off from "culture," or what humans ought to be about, and then to identify "culture" with the shepherding of Being by means of returning Sprache (especially poetry) to its former centrality. In short, "technology" was attempting to dominate "culture," and it was time for philosophy, as the champion of culture, to go on the counterattack.

But during the last couple of decades there has been a kind of linguistic U-turn. Constructivist philosophers of science such as Thomas Kuhn and historians such as David Noble didn't buy the alleged split between technology and culture. They were interested in language, of course, but not in its exalted sense as Sprache. They thought that there were other tools and artifacts that needed to be considered as well. In other words, their approach was more empirical. They refused to evaluate technology on the basis of a priori criteria.

Among those participating in this empirical turn have been the six American philosophers whose work is showcased in this book, with one chapter devoted to each. Albert Borgmann, Hubert Dreyfus, Andrew Feenberg, Donna Haraway, Don Ihde, and Langdon Winner, as Achterhuis tells us in his well-written and informative introduction, utilized the work of the European founders as a point of departure; but each has avoided earlier oversimplifications. Each of the six has attempted to "interpret and analyze philosophically the profound ways in which technology has transformed—and continues to transform—social networks and forms of life, human wants and possibilities, and the experience of our bodies and of nature" (1). In short, Achterhuis and his colleagues conclude that the center of gravity of the philosophy of technology has moved from Europe to America. Hence the title of their book.

The six Dutch contributors, Pieter Tijmes, Philip Brey, René Munnik, Peter-Paul Verbeek, Martijntje Smits, and Hans Achterhuis himself, have executed their assignments with great energy and care. Each chapter proceeds in more or less the same fashion. A brief biographical treatment is followed by a detailed analysis of...