The advent of machine technology has given rise to some of the deepest problems of modern thought. This newly packaged collection featuring Martin Heidegger's celebrated essay The Question Concerning Technology, is an essential landmark in the philosophy of science from one of the most influential and profound thinkers of the twentieth century.
Technology's impact on and implications for the social, ethical, political, and cultural dimensions of our world must be seriously considered and addressed. Philosophy of Technology is a clear introduction to one of philosophy's newest issues. Don Ihde critically examines the impact of technological developments on various cultures throughout history-from the earliest feats of engineering and architecture to the cutting-edge developments in artificial intelligence- with an aim to understanding the human implications within a world technological culture.
Technology matters, writes David Nye, because it is inseparable from being human. We have used tools for more than 100,000 years, and their central purpose has not always been to provide necessities. People excel at using old tools to solve new problems and at inventing new tools for more elegant solutions to old tasks. Perhaps this is because we are intimate with devices and machines from an early age—as children, we play with technological toys: trucks, cars, stoves, telephones, model railroads, Playstations. Through these machines we imagine ourselves into a creative relationship with the world. As adults, we retain this technological playfulness with gadgets and appliances—Blackberries, cell phones, GPS navigation systems in our cars.
Media philosopher Vilém Flusser proposed a revolutionary new way of thinking about photography. An analysis of the medium in terms of aesthetics, science and politics provided him with new ways of understanding both the cultural crises of the past and the new social forms nascent within them. Flusser showed how the transformation of textual into visual culture (from the linearity of history into the two-dimensionality of magic) and of industrial into post-industrial society (from work into leisure) went hand in hand, and how photography allows us to read and interpret these changes with particular clarity.
Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation presents a groundbreaking theory of contemporary culture in which signs and symbols no longer represent reality but generate their own self-referential systems. Departing from Marxist and Freudian frameworks, Baudrillard emphasizes cultural expenditure over production, arguing that simulation replaces representation in postmodern society. He distinguishes between different orders of simulacra, culminating in the hyperreal—where reality and its image collapse into one. Exploring media, consumer culture, and technology, the book reveals how meaning is destabilized in an age dominated by signs. It remains a foundational text for understanding postmodernism, cultural theory, and mediated experience.
N. Katherine Hayles’ Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious examines the vital role of cognitive processes that occur outside conscious awareness yet enable it to function. Drawing from neuroscience, biology, cognitive science, and literature, Hayles defines cognition as extending beyond humans to include all life forms—and even technical systems. She introduces the concept of “cognitive assemblages,” hybrid networks of humans and machines found in systems like traffic control, drones, and algorithmic finance. These assemblages shape a “planetary cognitive ecology,” where human and technical actors coevolve. Hayles challenges humanists and scientists to rethink cognition’s scope and its ethical implications.
Mark B. N. Hansen’s Feed-Forward: On the Future of Twenty-First-Century Media argues that media can no longer be understood as external tools we consume but as integral to human experience itself. Drawing on Alfred North Whitehead’s speculative philosophy, Hansen shows how twenty-first-century media—from data-mining to sensor technologies—operate largely beyond conscious perception while shaping every aspect of sensation and selfhood. This non-anthropocentric perspective reveals media as part of a broader ecology of sensibility, where human becoming is entangled with technological processes. Hansen proposes a radical rethinking of subjectivity, positioning media as constitutive of how we exist, perceive, and evolve in the world.
John Durham Peters’ The Marvelous Clouds reimagines media as the infrastructures that compose human life, blending nature and culture. He argues that environments themselves are media, shaping how we live and perceive the world. From oceans and skies to fire, calendars, language, and religion, Peters situates digital technologies within a long history of human practices. Rather than introducing novelty, new media extend civilization’s oldest methods of organizing life and meaning. Through wide-ranging examples—from navigation and farming to meteorology and Google—the book highlights how media underpin existence, urging a deeper appreciation of the ecological and cultural foundations of everyday life.
"Art & Cosmotechnics" delves into the intricate relationship between art, technology, and the cosmos. The book explores how technological advancements influence artistic practices and how these practices, in turn, shape our understanding of the universe. Drawing from various cultural and philosophical perspectives, the text challenges the Western-centric view of technology and art, emphasizing the importance of cosmotechnics – the alignment of technological development with cosmic principles. By weaving together art, technology, and cosmology, the book offers a profound reflection on humanity's place in the universe and the potential for art to bridge the gap between the earthly and the cosmic.