Hermeneutics, History, and Technology: The Call of the Future

Description

For better and worse, the future is often conceived in technological terms. Technology is supposed to meet the challenge of climate change or resource depletion. And when one asks about the world in 20 or 100 years, answers typically revolve around AI, genome editing, or geoengineering. There is great demand to speculate about the future of work, the future of mobility, Industry 4.0, and Humanity 2.0. The humanities and social sciences, science studies, and technology assessment respond to this demand but need to seek out a responsible way of taking the future into account. This collection of papers, interviews, debates grew out of disagreements about technological futures, speculative ethics, plausible scenarios, anticipatory governance, and proactionary and precautionary approaches. It proposes Hermeneutic Technology Assessment as a way of understanding ourselves through our ways of envisioning the future. At the same time, a hermeneutic understanding of technological projects and prototypes allows for normative assessments of their promises. Is the future an object of design? This question can bring together and divide policy makers, STS scholars, social theorists, and philosophers of history, and it will interest also the scientists and engineers who labor under the demand to deliver that future. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Figures Contributors Preface Part I: Debating the Program 1. On the Road to Hermeneutic Technology Assessment - A Historic-Systematic Reconstruction Introduction Technologies of Hubris Ethics, the Future, and Nanotechnology The Case against Speculative Nanoethics Vision Assessment Two Responses - Biased Credibility and Opportunity Costs The Collingridge Dilemma Explorative Nanophilosophy The Hermeneutical Turn Forensics of Wishing From Vision Assessment to Visioneering Assessment Visioneering The Call for Visioneering Assessment Recapitulation Hermeneutic TA - A First Outlook Acknowledgements Notes References 2. Hermeneutic Technology Assessment - Why It Is Needed and What It Might Be Notes References 3. Future Conversations - A Topical Exchange On the Time, Times, and Temporality of Things No Ethics without a Future Mundane Futures Having a Future Prototyping The End of History and Politics Time as Subject and Subject as Time Anticipation-in-Action The Role for Hermeneutics within the Practice of TA Notes References 4. The Questions of Hermeneutic TA - Towards a Toolbox Hermeneutic TA and Its Objects Autonomous Weapon Systems, Nanotechnology, and Responsibility Questions to Be Asked - Understanding in Hermeneutic TA Broader Concerns Narrower Concerns Conclusions and Outlook Notes References Part II: Theory and Context 5. Technology in the Imagination of Society - A Conversation Notes References 6. On "Not Having a Future" Hermeneutic TA, Meaning and Public Awareness Elitist Visions and Profane Desires Forestalling Inequalities in Future Making Conclusions and Outlook - Pitfalls of Democratizing the Future Notes References 7. On Profane Futures and Profane Futures Literacy Introduction Beyond Deficits Official versus Vernacular Futures Profaning Futures Literacy References 8. Proactionary or Precautionary - A Debate Notes References Part III: Exemplary Explorations 9. Prototyping Futures - Towards a Hermeneutics of Artefacts and Technologies Hermeneutics of the Future Materiality of Futures Prototyping the Future Designing the Present Notes References 10. The Hermeneutic Perspective on Modeling in Technology Assessment Introduction Using Models for Creating and Assessing Futures Models for Orientating Decision-Making Models and Consequentialist Reasoning in Technology Assessment Hermeneutics of Model-Based Futures Asymmetric Temporality of Modeling Narratives in Modeling The hermeneutic perspective Model-Fix: Fixation of The Future by Underlying Models Towards Hermeneutically Informed Inclusive Modeling Conclusion Acknowledgement Notes References 11. Machine Hermeneutics Machine Imaginaries Lewis Mumford's Megamachines Otto Mayr's Centrifugal Governor Jessica Riskin's Wetware Richard Jones's Soft Machines Soft Governance in a Plastic World Notes References Index