Categories
Philosophy Technology

Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 11, “Devices, Means, and Machines”

Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book The point of this chapter, according to Borgmann, is to provide more rigor around what has thus far been an intuitive account of the device paradigm. He begins with the question of whether there are any competing analyses of […]

Categories
Philosophy Technology

Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 10, “The Foreground of Technology”

Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book In this chapter, Borgmann explores what he calls the Foreground of technology. This is essentially the world of the use (i.e., consumption) of technological devices, rather than the world of their construction or operation. As we are all aware, […]

Categories
Science Technology

Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 9, “The Device Paradigm”

Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book With chapter 9 we come to one of the most important chapters of TCCL. In it Borgmann elucidates the Device Paradigm, which is his way of explaining technology by reference to paradigmatic examples of it. The idea is that […]

Categories
Science Technology

Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 8, “The Promise of Technology”

Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book This chapter begins Part 2 (The Character of Technology), the first half of which (chs 8-12) aims to describe and articulate the paradigm of technology, and the second half of which (chs 13-16) aims to ask how we have […]

Categories
Philosophy Science Technology

Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 7, “Science and Technology”

Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book At this point in our exploration of the relationship between modern science and technology, what can we say with confidence? First, that modern science shows us that the world exists in a large matrix of possible states of affairs. […]

Categories
Philosophy Technology

Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 6, “The Scope of Scientific Explanation”

Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book In this chapter we examine how far the validity of scientific explanation (the style of explanation called deductive-nomological) extends. Can there be any objections to the claim that scientific explanation is the proper mode of explanation for every question? […]

Categories
Philosophy Technology

Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 5, “Scientific Explanation”

Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Chapter 5 of TCCL is concerned with the validity of scientific explanation. Borgmann contrasts this with the scope of scientific explanation, which will be discussed in the next chapter. The example which runs throughout the chapter is the process […]

Categories
Philosophy Technology

Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 4, “Scientific Theory”

Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book In this chapter we begin to look at the relationship of science and technology, by initiating an inquiry into the nature of science. Borgmann spends much of this brief chapter painting a rough picture of what people say and […]

Categories
Philosophy Technology

Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 3, “The Choice of a Theory”

Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book In this chapter, Borgmann is concerned to shore up the validity of the distinction between the substantive, instrumental, and pluralist views of technology. These distinctions carve up the possible theoretical space in a certain way, and Borgmann concedes that […]

Categories
Philosophy Technology

Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 2, “Theories of Technology”

Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Chapter 2 of TCCL consists of an overview of several existing theories of technology that Borgmann wants to use as partners in dialogue, in the process of constructing his own theory. The pre-theoretic, simplistic view of technology is pragmatic: […]