Which stance does philosophical thinking, namely practical philosophy, take in the face of the ever-growing challenge by science and technology? The central aim of this essay is to evaluate whether there are unexhausted resources that can be used to incorporate and cope with science and technology in the framework of a global experience of meaningfulness. The essay proceeds through an analysis of the state of present thinking under the conditions of technology and leads to a discussion about the possibilities for (...) knowledge of “practical” action in modernity. In order to account for the particularities of practical action in contrast to homogenous scientific methods and the scientific ideal, the concept of a “practical” knowledge as introduced by hermeneutics with reference to basic intuitions of Aristotelian practical philosophy will be developed. (shrink)

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A form of metaphysical humanism in the field of philosophy of technology can be defined as the claim that besides technologies’ physical aspects, purely human attributes are sufficient to conceptualize technologies. Metaphysical nonhumanism, on the other hand, would be the claim that the meanings of the operative words in any acceptable conception of technologies refer to the states of affairs or events which are in a way or another shaped by technologies. In this paper, I focus on the conception (...) of technologies as problem-solving physical instruments in order to study the debate between the humanist and the nonhumanist ways of understanding technologies. I argue that this conception commits us to a hybrid understanding of technologies, one which is partly humanist and partly nonhumanist. (shrink)

This book interrogates the ways in which new technological advances impact the thought and practices of humanism. Chapters investigate the social, political, and cultural implications of the creation and use of advanced forms of technology, examining both defining benefits and potential dangers. Contributors also discuss technology's relationship to and impact on the shifting definitions we hold for humankind. International and multi-disciplinary in nature and scope, the volume presents an exploration of humanism and technology that is both racially (...) diverse and gender sensitive. With great depth and self-awareness, contributors offer suggestions for how humanists and humanist organizations might think about and relate to technology in a rapidly changing world. More broadly, the book offers a critical humanistic interrogation of the concept of "progress" especially as it relates to technological advancement. (shrink)

Before his death in 1989, Gilbert Simondon wrote two major books consisting of his principal and complementary theses, both defended in 1958. The complementary thesis on the mode of existence of technical objects was published in 1958, while it was only in 1964 that sections of his principal thesis on individuation were made available to the public (and even then only the chapters dedicated to the regimes of physical and vital individuation, excluding those dealing with psychic and collective individuation.) Over (...) the course of his career, Simondon produced other major texts, but only in the form of unpublished courses or conference presentations published in poorly distributed journals. Some of these texts have .. (shrink)

One is entirely justified in regarding a humanist perception of the world in which we live as a manifestation of the place held in our consciousness by concerns for the fate, needs, and designs of humankind, both as a biological species in its various forms of community and as individual persons.

My purpose is to examine two of the foundations of medical ethics: the principle of autonomy and the concept of the human. I also investigate the extent to which health technology makes autonomy and humanness possible. I begin by underlining Illich's point that the same health technology designed to promote health and autonomy also is pathogenic. I proceed to analyse the Kantian concept of autonomy, a concept which is closely associated with health and which continues to determine current ethical thinking. (...) In so doing, I uncover an unexpected ontological function of health technology, a function described in Heidegger's work on technology. Based on this discovery, I suggest that calls for Kantian autonomy may often be self-defeating or even sometimes harmful. I conclude by calling for continued ethical vigilance, but also for a questioning of the hitherto virtually unquestionable concepts of ethics and humanness which may themselves play a role in our era's greatest problems. (shrink)

본 논문의 목적은 새롭게 떠오르고 있는 메타버스 기술이 인간의 삶에 어떤 유용성이 있을지를 인문학적 관점에서 살펴보고 우려할 만한 점들을 비판적으로 검토하고자 하는 것이다. 오늘날 메타버스라는 새로운 기술 영역에 대한 관심이 높아지고 있다. 실제로 몇몇 대형 글로벌 IT기업들은 메타버스 기술의 선점이 무엇보다 중요하다는 이유로 메타버스 관련 플랫폼을 개발하면서 동시에 관련 기술들을 연구하는 신진 기업들을 사들이고 있다. 그러나 정작 메타버스에 대한 명확한 규정이나 설명도 제대로 이뤄지지 않았을 뿐 아니라, 메타버스 기술의 효용성, 즉 이 기술이 어떤 방식으로 우리의 삶에 기여를 하는가에 대한 판단 (...) 역시도 모호한 상태이다.BR 새롭게 등장하는 메타버스 플랫폼들은 기존의 물리적 세계와는 다른 법칙들을 가진 세상에 대한 인식을 가능하게 하며, 이로 인해 우리는 기존의 사유방식과는 전혀 다른 새로운 활동 방식과 판단 능력을 필요로 하게 될 것이다. 이러한 문제는 단순히 기술적 접근만으로 해결하기 어렵다. 메타버스 기술 개발이 추구하고 있는 방향이나 영향을 생각해 볼때, 이 기술의 발전이 인간의 삶에 미칠 영향에 대한 인문학적 고찰은 지금부터라도 본격적으로 다뤄보고 고민해야 할 필요가 있다. 무엇보다 메타버스의 발전의 방향성을 예측하고 이 기술이 인간의 삶에 어떤 긍정적인 혹은 부정적인 영향을 미칠지를 파악해야 앞으로의 기술 개발의 방향성을 제시하고 위험성을 대비할 수 있을 것이기 때문이다.BR 앞으로의 기술 발전을 통해서 더 실감나는 메타버스 세계가 구현된다면, 우리는 진정으로 메타버스 세계 안에서 현실과 거의 경계의 구별 없이 경제 활동과 사회 활동을 할 수 있게 될 뿐 아니라 물리적 세계와의 상호 연결 역시도 더욱 강화될 수 있을 것이다. 그런 상황에서 다양한 문화적 관계에 대한 올바른 이해와 건전한 교류가 제대로 이뤄지지 않는다면, 메타버스 기술은 우리 사회에 오히려 더 큰 위험이 될 수도 있을 것이다. 이러한 문제 해결을 위해 인문학은 메타버스 기술이 인간에게 미칠 영향 뿐 아니라 새로운 문화적 관계에 대해 더 깊이 탐구해야 할 것이다. (shrink)

"... Dr. Ihde brings an enlightening and deeply humanistic perspective to major technological developments, both past and present." —Science Books & Films "Don Ihde is a pleasure to read.... The material is full of nice suggestions and details, empirical materials, fun variations which engage the reader in the work... the overall points almost sneak up on you, they are so gently and gradually offered." —John Compton "A sophisticated celebration of cultural diversity and of its enabling technologies.... perhaps the best (...) single volume relating the philosophical tradition to the broad issues raised by contemporary technologies." —Choice "... important and challenging... " —Review of Metaphysics "... a range of rich historical, cultural, philosophical, and psychological insights, woven together in an intriguing and clear exposition... The book is really a pleasure to read, for its style, immense learning and sanity." —Teaching Philosophy The role of tools and instruments in our relation to the earth and the ways in which technologies are culturally embedded provide the foci of this thought-provoking book. (shrink)

Humanism in nursing: the emergence of the lightThis paper examines Western nursing practices by focusing on their spiritual aspect. The transformation of the informal and poorly trained nurse into the trained and uniform persona of the modern nurse is the subject of many nursing histories and part of nursing mythology. Using the work of Michel Foucault and Marcel Mauss, the nursing that preceded the 19th century reformers is re‐examined and continuities between current and quite ancient practices of nursing are (...) explored. The development of practices or technologies for care of the sick originated with the establishment of hospitals in the 4th century as part of pious Christian practice. Current practices of care and the discourse of holistic nursing are argued to have grown from these traditional Christian technologies of care. Humanist or holistic nursing represents the enshrinement of the Christian edios – freed of doctrine; the discourse of caring a redrafted Christian discipline of love. (shrink)

Advances in commercialism, materialism, and especially the exponential growth of telecommunication and social media, have dramatically altered the way human beings relate to one another and their environment. New means for providing access to education have arisen including online courses and programs thereby enhancing opportunities for participation in educational offerings and collaborative exchanges across the globe. This paper proposes to examine the online learning and its connection to the ultimate principle governing the values—integrity.

Humanism has appeared intermittently in the nursing literature as a concept that can be used in understanding nursing. I return to the concept in response to noticing the term appearing in the context of health humanities, where it is loosely associated both with humanities and being humane. I review the usage and critiques of humanism in both nursing and medical literature and then re‐evaluate what the idea of humanism might hold for nursing, trying to avoid the traps (...) of an over‐determination of the human subject, or dichotomizing nursing as art or science, technology or caring. I draw on writings on humanism primarily from Emmanuel Levinas and Edward Said to emphasize strands in humanism of obligation towards others and of critical discernment within history and culture directed towards democratic practices. I discuss in passing the strong association in the UK particularly between humanism and scientism as a note of caution about the plurality of the term humanism. I conclude that humanism is a tradition that does offer productive ways of thinking about nursing with the proviso that it ought to be treated carefully as a problematic tradition and not as a new essence for nursing. (shrink)

Digital humanism emerges from serious concerns about the way in which digitisation develops, its impact on society and on humans. While its motivation is clear and broadly accepted, it is still an emerging field that does not yet have a universally accepted definition. Also, it is not always clear how to differentiate digital humanism from other similar endeavours. In this article, we critically investigate the notion of digital humanism and present its main principles as shared by its (...) key proponents. These principles include the quest for human dignity and the ideal of a better society based on core values of the Enlightenment. The paper concludes that digital humanism is to be treated as a technical endeavour to shape digital technologies and use them for digital innovation, a political endeavour investigating power shifts triggered by digital technology, and, at the same time, as a philosophical endeavour including the quest to delineate its scope and to draw boundaries for the digital. Methodologically, digital humanism is an interdisciplinary effort to debate a broad range of digitisation shortfalls in their totality, from privacy infringements to power shifts, from human alienation to disownment. While it overlaps with a range of established fields and other movements, digital humanism reflects a new academic, engineering, and societal awareness of the challenges of digital technologies. (shrink)

The world of sports today is grappling with dehumanizing tendencies. New technologies are changing sport as we know it, altering the experience of being an athlete in radical ways. These tendencies call for new approaches to sport that consider the human elements of sport. To this end, and as a response to transhumanist and posthumanist arguments, I propose and draw the contours of a humanist theory of sport. I argue that it complements prevailing theories of sport like formalism, broad internalism (...) (or interpretivism), and conventionalism and is better equipped to tackle the pressing concerns of dehumanization in sports. It is rooted in a humanism of embodiment and underscores our corporeal embeddedness in a natural and social world. Taking this into the context of sport, I argue that sport humanism can inform an understanding of sport as a human engagement that involves embodiment, ambiguity, and repetition. On this basis, I outline an ethics of embodiment that can throw new light on moral questions and actions concerning dignity, freedom, and ecology to direct sport toward more sustainable and humane forms of practice. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to highlighting the concepts of humanism, neohumanism, posthumanism, transhumanism, their reading through the prism of pedagogical science and practice. The text is based on analysis of Ukrainian, French, and Polish sources, as well as own considerations. It has been found that the classical interpretation of humanism during the last decades has been subject to revision by various researchers due to the growing contradictions between the social, economic, and spiritual needs of society and the consideration (...) of humanism with its anthropocentric attitude towards man as the measure of all things. It was found that they led to an expanded and modified understanding of it, which was called neohumanism (new humanism). The article describes the researchers’ interpretation of neohumanism, which is based on moral and ethical ideas and ideals that relate to philosophical, ecological, pedagogical and other aspects of human life. It was noted that because of the sharp growth of new technologies, two concepts critical to humanism/ neohumanism emerged – posthumanism and transhumanism. The text reveals the concept of posthumanism, which, according to the researchers, considers man in unity, merging with machines, technological devices, that is, human and non-human. The main characteristics of post-humanist trends are provided, which testify to the gradual disappearance of man as an active and self-sufficient effective person. It is noted that, accordingly, transhumanism, as a radicalized branch of posthumanism, is focused on the use of technologies with the aim of creating a physically and mentally perfect person (Homo Perfectus), when the difference between man and machine is erased. It is shown how these processes affect the modern education system, which absorbs new technologies at an accelerated pace, replacing its traditional tools for teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, aimed at the formation of «long» memory, with technological devices. The article also raises the issue of neo-humanism, which is biocentric in nature, and in the pedagogical aspect manifests itself as a humane attitude towards nature, living beings, primarily animals. Such a trend becomes especially relevant in the context of ecocide caused by Russia’s military actions against Ukraine. A conclusion was made about the need to get acquainted with these processes, taking them into account for the development of the modern domestic educational space. (shrink)

Background: Humanistic nursing practice which is dominated by technological advancement, outcome measurement, reduced resources, and staff shortages is challenging in the present work environment. Objective: To examine the main concern in humanistic nursing area and how the way it is solved and resolved by Iranian nurses in acute care setting. Research design: Data were collected from interviews and observations in 2009–2011 and analyzed using classic grounded theory. Memos were written during the analysis, and they were sorted once theoretical saturation (...) occurred. Participants and research context: In total, 22 nurses, 18 patients, and 12 families from two teaching hospitals in Tehran were selected by purposeful and theoretical sampling. Ethical considerations: The research was approved by the Ethics Committee of the university and hospitals. Results: The main concern for the nurses is the violation of their rights. They overcome this concern when there is a synergy of situation–education/learning, that is, a positive interaction between education and learning of values and sensitivity of the situation or existence of care promotion elements. They turn to professional values and seeking and meeting others’ needs, resulting in “success and accomplishment” of nurse/nursing manager and patient/family. Conclusion: This theory shows that professional values, elements of care promotion, and sensitivity of the situation have a key role in activation of humanistic approach in nursing. Violation of the nurses’ professional rights often leads to a decrease in care, but these factors make the nurses practice in an unsparing response approach. It is necessary to focus on development of professional values and provide essential elements of care promotion as changeable factors for realization of humanistic nursing although there is a context in which the nurses’ rights are violated. (shrink)

Background Critical medical humanities critique the traditional medical humanities’ focus on producing humane doctors, arguing that it plays only a supplementary role in medical education, and advocate for understanding health, disease, and humanity from a biocultural perspective. Essentially, they emphasize structural inequalities in modern medicine. Methods This study analyzes Sally Wiener Grotta’s “One Widow’s Healing” from the perspective of critical medical humanities. In line with this critical perspective, this study highlights the human alienation and oppression caused by biopower and technology-driven (...) medicine in “One Widow’s Healing.” Results This story presents a dystopian vision of future healthcare systems in the highly technologically advanced and hyper-connected societies of 2100 and advocates for a reorientation of medicine toward a holistic, culturally informed practice that prioritizes human well-being and empathy. Conclusions By analyzing the literary response to the dystopian future, this study explores the potential dangers at the intersection of capitalism and technocentric healthcare, reflecting on the future direction of humanistic medicine. (shrink)

How has the globalization of technology contributed to the globalization of the war against the Enlightenment liberal humanism of Western civilization—in particular, to the globalization of the war between religion and science—and with what problematic moral, cultural, and spiritual consequences? Liberal-humanist and Heideggerian perspectives on this issue are considered. The latter is chosen because it constitutes an enduring philosophical and political challenge to liberal humanism. For Heidegger, liberal humanism, far from providing a solution to the problems of (...) global technology, is an inherent part of the problem. A case in point is liberal democracy’s use of technology to produce and purvey a humanly degrading mass culture which it also uses technology to export abroad, in effect, to globalize. The author sets forth a defense of liberal humanism against these criticisms. (shrink)

Medical education at the Colombian School of Medicine has undergone a reconceptualization and reorganization so as to encompasses three fundamental elements of medical practice: 1) development of general abilities and standards necessary for appropriate professional medical practice; 2) technical education which makes it possible to utilize the bases that science and technology have provided for the development and application of knowledge, and in turn, to expand this base through research and development; and 3) humanistic education to guide students into ethical (...) professional practice. (shrink)

_Humanesis_ critically examines central strains of posthumanism, searching out biases in the ways that human–technology coupling is explained. Specifically, it interrogates three approaches taken by posthumanist discourse: scientific, humanist, and organismic. David Cecchetto’s investigations reveal how each perspective continues to hold on to elements of the humanist tradition that it is ostensibly mobilized against. His study frontally desublimates the previously unseen presumptions that underlie each of the three thought lines and offers incisive appraisals of the work of three prominent thinkers: (...) Ollivier Dyens, Katherine Hayles, and Mark Hansen. To materially ground the problematic of posthumanism, _Humanesis_ interweaves its theoretical chapters with discussions of artworks. These highlight the topos of sound, demonstrating how aurality might produce new insights in a field that has been dominated by visualization. Cecchetto, a media artist, scrutinizes his own collaborative artistic practice in which he elucidates the variegated causal chains that compose human–technological coupling. _Humanesis_ advances the posthumanist conversation in several important ways. It proposes the term “technological posthumanism” to focus on the discourse as it relates to technology without neglecting its other disciplinary histories. It suggests that deconstruction remains relevant to the enterprise, especially with respect to the performative dimension of language. It analyzes artworks not yet considered in the light of posthumanism, with a particular emphasis on the role of aurality. And the form of the text introduces a reflexive component that exemplifies how the dialogue of posthumanism might progress without resorting to the types of unilateral narratives that the book critiques. (shrink)

Technology is even more than our world, our form of life, our civilization. Technology interacts with the world to change it. Philosophers need to seriously address the fluidity of a smartphone interface, the efficiency of a Dyson vacuum cleaner, or the familiar noise of an antique vacuum cleaner. Beyond their phenomenological description, the emotional experience acquires moral significance and in some cases even supplies ethical resources for the self. If we leave this dimension of modern experience unaddressed, we may miss (...) something of value in contemporary life. Combining European humanism, Anglophone pragmatism, and Asian traditions, Michel Puech pleads for an "ethical turn" in the way we understand and address technological issues in modern day society. Puech argues that the question of "power" is what needs to be reconsidered today. In doing so, he provides a three-tier distinction of power: power to modify the outer world ; power over other humans ; power over oneself. (shrink)

Foundations of Humanism is a primer on secular humanism written by one of the leading figures in the movement. J.P. van Praag writes that the modern world is shaped by a central paradox: the technology that provides us with unprecedented possibilities at the same time imposes an oppressive organization on society. This organization, with its trappings of overspecialization and overcentralization, promotes feelings of impotence and alienation and a spirit of rebellion, especially in the young. In this book, van (...) Praag examines the ways in which the philosophy of humanism can be applied to this paradox of modern life. Humanism holds that the purpose of life is life itself. Van Praag demonstrates how, through the application of this principle, the paradox can be transcended and how personal fulfillment and social creativity can be achieved. Foundations of Humanism is designed to give the reader a comprehensive view of secular humanism, including its historical roots in classical Greece and the Renaissance, its elaboration as a formal philosophy, and its practical aspects as a social philosophy. Finally, it explores the application of humanist principles in counseling and education. (shrink)

How did we end up here, masters of scientific insight, purveyors of ever more powerful technologies, astride the burning planet that created us, and now responsible for cleaning up the mess and determining the future direction of all of life? And what do we do about it? Technology is Dead attempts to answer both of those questions. It is a book of both challenge and hope, written for those who are able or willing to lead us out of our global (...) predicament. It is for the politicians, CEOs, community leaders, everyday parents and young people who understand that we must change our ways to ensure a sustainable future for all living things and the planet we rely on. The book's premise is that technology (like capitalism) has been an unprecedented force for prosperity, while at the same time bringing unrelenting, and unplanned downsides. Technology has insinuated itself into every nook and cranny of modern society, ignoring many of our human truths while preying on our vulnerabilities. It has resulted in both profound economic progress and a multitude of troubling unintended consequences, from deepening divides and loss of collective responsibility to a growing list of existential threats. The only viable response is to reconnect with our collaborative roots and undertake what the authors call a humanist revolution, a global effort to redefine human progress, rebuild our core systems to contribute to that progress, and reset our all too human behaviors and aspirations, while becoming the active, careful human-first stewards of technology itself. The revolution, guided by what the authors call a 21st Century Humanist Code asks all of us to work towards the world we want to live in - for each and every human to become the center and source of change in their lives, in their communities and the world beyond. The future of humankind and our planet depends on it. (shrink)

This book presents the current thinking of some of the most famous people in the intellectual world. Two opening essays by Lewis Mumford and Robert Theobald dis­cuss the role of technology in history, man and technology, and technological possi­bilities for the future. Other contributors include such well-known figures as Max Lerner, Edgar Z. Friedenberg, Seymour Melman, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Ash­ley Montagu. Essays center around key is­sues in the study of technology, its rela­tionship to authority or leadership elites, its (...) potential impact on forms of social organization, its effect in producing counter-culture alternatives and its relationship to humanism. (shrink)

The article explores the concept of humanism both in modern discourse and in historical retrospective. Human has always been at the center of philosophy, regardless of what spheres of being were studied. Anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, philosophy, and many other sciences explore various manifestations of a person, all of which are ultimately designed to answer perhaps one of the most critical questions – what makes us human? However, this discourse significantly changed over the course of two thousand years. For (...) example, Martin Heidegger points out an important nuance of the emergence of the concept of humanism, namely, as a kind of chauvinism – the division into humans (Romans) and non-humans (barbarians). This point of view is often overlooked, but it is critical to understanding the essence of this phenomenon. In the subsequent era of the Middle Ages, human was understood as the opposite of the divine, but in such realities, there were humanistic ideals and values. Already in the Renaissance, a return to the traditions of antiquity was announced, but the understanding of a person acquired a romantic character. Humanism clearly saw something more in a person than a person himself could demonstrate. It is for this metaphysical image that many critics of humanism have criticized this phenomenon. However, where there is criticism, there is progress, which is why this concept has gained a new round of discourse, which is why new trends have appeared that have brought the concept of humanism to a new theoretical level. As a historical phenomenon, humanism is faced with certain difficulties of new eras; because of these collisions, humanism is modified and adapted. Among humanism’s problems are multiculturalism, technological breakthroughs, and the need to search for new theories. In its development, the course of humanism takes on various forms and iterations. It is worth mentioning transhumanism (the idea of becoming someone more than just a human), posthumanism (philosophical views on human nature as a posthuman), and global humanism. (shrink)

In this article, the author explores some possible applications of Wittgenstein’s humanistic psychology, epistemology and philosophy of culture for the philosophy of technology, and more particularly, for the question of valuing a possible future technocracy over contemporary democratic systems. Major aspects of the article involve a discussion of some of Wittgenstein’s key views on certainty, cultural relativism, the problem of other minds, and gradual socio-cultural change. In order to examine these problems, the author draws from both a wide range of (...) Wittgenstein’s works, as well as secondary sources in Wittgenstein studies. An analogy is made between socio-cultural change over time and gradual visual loss. The author has incorporated important elements of Wittgenstein’s biography, both as a philosopher and as an engineer and architect, underlining the profound link between his life and thought. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore a new perspective on digital humanism, emphasizing the centrality of multi-stakeholder dialogues and a bottom-up approach to surfacing stakeholder values. This approach starkly contrasts with existing frameworks, such as the Vienna Manifesto's top-down digital humanism, which hinges on pre-established first principles. Our approach provides a more flexible, inclusive framework that captures a broader spectrum of ethical considerations, particularly those pertinent to the digital realm. We apply our model to two case studies, comparing the (...) insights generated with those derived from a utilitarian perspective and the Vienna Manifesto's approach. The findings underscore the enhanced effectiveness of our approach in revealing additional, often overlooked stakeholder values, not typically encapsulated by traditional top-down methodologies. Furthermore, this paper positions our digital humanism approach as a powerful tool for framing ethics-by-design, by promoting a narrative that empowers and centralizes stakeholders. As a result, it paves the way for more nuanced, comprehensive ethical considerations in the design and implementation of digital technologies, thereby enriching the existing literature on digital ethics and setting a promising agenda for future research. (shrink)

Realities of the formed information society made actual for inclusive education a problem of formation of professionals of the new directions capable to apply information technologies to improvement of interaction between participants of process of distance learning. Until recent time the institute of distance learning had no analogs in our educational system. It has to become one of the most important elements of the organization of remote education. Inclusive education becomes the new strategic direction of modern education in Russia, its (...) program of development to 2020 is designated by the Federal law ‘About the education in the Russian Federation‘ which has come into force on September 1, 2013. Ideas of inclusive training were born from a pressing need of society to help children to be integrated with features of development into society. Without it a creation of a new civilized society, the education system that meets the requirements of the humanistic principles is not possible. In this connection, creation of a substantial and technological basis of the organization of inclusive education of children in the mode of distance learning is an extremely important for today social, moral and pedagogical problem. In its center are the development of the subject, granting equal opportunities to each pupil to build the individual educational trajectory, culturological cultivation of the person capable to take an independent position in relation to external conditions. Distance learning serves as strong and active technology of socialization of such children. However, in the theory and a technique of training, the problem of distance learning of children with disabilities is insufficiently solved that is caused by unavailability of most of teachers to apply these technologies. There is a contradiction between objective practical need of distance learning for children with disabilities and insufficient readiness of a theoretical and technological basis. This is a main problem discussed in the study. In theoretical plan, it is a problem of development of the practical-focused theoretical and technological basis of distance learning of children with disabilities. On the practical level, it is a problem of formation of the subject information and education environment, designing of the contents, definition of methods, pedagogical technologies, the conditions of formation promoting achievement of the planned educational results and development of cognitive independent activity without prejudice to health of children on the basis of the accounting of their individual abilities. Technological effectiveness of the purposes is provided with prediction of educational results, their expression through requirements to actions of pupils. Recent time, children only start studying and mastering remote technologies therefore, first of all, they have to seize rational ways of educational activity and learn to work with information, i.e. priority value has to be allocated for formation of informative and logical and informative and information universal educational actions. (shrink)

Cosgrove, Mary-Anne Below are 'talking points' based on an article in AH No. 121, 'AI on the Go: Notes on the current development and use of Artificial Intelligence', by Carl Mahoney. Carl is a Humanist Society of Victoria member, and was professor and Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Building, University of Technology, Papua New Guinea.

Social scientific and humanistic research on synthetic biology has focused quite narrowly on questions of epistemology and ELSI. I suggest that to understand this discipline in its full scope, researchers must turn to the objects of the field—synthetic biological artifacts—and study them as the objects in the making of a science yet to be made. I consider one fundamentally important question: how should we understand the material products of synthetic biology? Practitioners in the field, employing a consistent technological optic (...) in the study and construction of biological systems, routinely employ the mantra ‘biology is technology’. I explore this categorization. By employing an established definition of technological artifects drawn from the philosophy of technology, I explore the appropriateness of attributing to synthetic biological artifacts the four criteria of materiality, intentional design, functionality, and normativity. I then explore a variety of accounts of natural kinds. I demonstrate that synthetic biological artifacts fit each kind imperfectly, and display a concomitant ontological ‘messiness’. I argue that this classificatory ambivalence is a product of the field’s own nascence, and posit that further work on kinds might help synthetic biology evaluate its existing commitments and practices. (shrink)

The article discusses the relationship of the axiological foundations of modern bioethics with casual and even incidental effects of the activity of scholars in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The author examine the ability of humanists to influence the formation of values system as well as the possibility of instrumentalizing these values in social practices. The study determines the entire causal complex that led to the formation of a special tradition of non-religious substantiation of values associated with the (...) teaching and study of ancient languages in the context of the functioning of political and legal institutions and cultural and historical traditions of European states. The author considers the origins and meaning of humanism and the gradual change of its content as well as the transformation of humanistic experience into a tool of constructing ideals and values and an element of social technology. A special place is given to the analysis of attempts to form meta-ethics and bioethics within the framework of the value system of post-Soviet Russian society and the role of humanistic ideas in this process. On the example of the development of modern European philosophical thought, the controversial and problematic nature of various interpretations of humanism is shown, and the thesis of the historical conditionality of the ideals of humanism and its connection with some certain paradigms of metaphysic is confirmed. The central theme of the article is the problem of the relationship between the historical and conceptual, conditional and unconditional, contextual and universal in the heritage of the late medieval humanism. Technologization paths and contexts for the interpretation of humanistic ideas in modern Russia are outlined. The paper determines the ways of harmonization of humanitarian values and the system of their social and legal legitimation. On the example of the educational policy of higher education in recent decades, achievements and failures in the process of forming a new value system are analyzed. This value system could be used as a basis for legislative practice and state policy that would allow determining the basis of modern bioethics, which is of great importance for the development of Russian society and further improvement of the moral and legal foundations of its existence. (shrink)

This article uses the work of Friedrich Kittler to address the ways in which media technologies underpin and structure the basis of ‘human’ existence and understanding. Kittler’s ‘media materialism’ is explored through four main influences: the information theory of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, the media analysis of Marshall McLuhan, the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault’s work on power and discourse. These figures are used, in turn, to draw into question the materiality of information technology, and, following (...) this, to develop a post-human approach to media analysis. The final section of this article considers the challenges such an approach poses to the humanistic bias of mainstream sociology and media studies. (shrink)

The Dark Posthuman: Dehumanization, Technology, and the Atlantic World explores how liberal humanism first enlivened, racialized, and gendered global cartographies, and how memory, ancestry, expression, and other aspects of social identity founded in its theories and practices made for the advent of the category of the posthuman through the dimensions of cultural, geographic, political, social, and scientific classification. The posthuman is very much the product of world-building narratives that have their beginnings in the commercial franchise and are fundamentally rooted (...) in science, governance, and economics around the hegemonic appropriation of environments and commodification of bodies that initially fuelled white settler life worlds and continue to be operational in the way we conceive of these worlds as continuous ontological formations. The want has always been for ownership of any of these dimensions of being without regard to condition, to not remain stranded as the subsidiary of another's being, to another's claim to humanity, and finally, to escape the suffocating confines of an instrumental ontology that suggests a subcategory of humanity without rights onto itself. The Dark Posthuman distinguishes the posthuman's place within both the liberal and neoliberal imaginary and reveals how its appearance first entrenched itself through the avarice of English settler colonialism, and subsequently, through the paranoia of American slavery. This same figure of the posthuman played a crucial role in the functional adaptation of Cold War behavioural cybernetics, and thereafter, in the fetishization of technology within the era of global financialization. The shadowing of this arrangement during and beyond the long duration of humanity's domination of this world becomes the structural web work of this book. Stephanie Polsky is an interdisciplinary writer and academic working in the areas of Media Studies and Visual Culture. Her work explores the confluence of power around race and gender as technologies of governance. She has lectured widely in media and cultural studies, critical theory, and visual culture at a number of prestigious institutions including Goldsmiths University, Regent's University London, University of Greenwich, and Winchester School of Art. Most recently she has worked at California College of the Arts in Critical Studies and Diversity Studies. She holds a PhD in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London and an MA in Media Studies from the University of Sussex. Her books include The End of the Future: Governing Consequence in the Age of Digital Sovereignty (Academica Press, 2019), Ignoble Displacement: Dispossessed Capital in Neo-Dickensian London (Zero Books, 2015), and Walter Benjamin's Transit: A Destructive Tour of Modernity (Academica Press, 2009). (shrink)

Introduction -- Karl Marx's concept of alienation -- Objectification, alienation, and estrangement -- Other origins of alienation and objectification -- Marx's account of alienation : from early to late -- The alienated object of production : commodity fetishism -- The alienated means of production : machine fetishism -- Machines and the transformation of work -- Marx's energeticist turn -- The first law of thermodynamics -- From arbeit to arbeitskraft -- The second law of thermodynamics -- Machines in the communist future (...) -- Technology and the boundaries of nature -- Material wealth and value : the Grundrisse's fragment on machines -- The strife between technology and capital : the fall in the rate of profit -- Enjoyment not value : challenging the logic of exhaustion -- Man himself as fixed capital -- Class kinship and the redistribution of the means of production -- Machines in the capitalist reality -- Between thermodynamics and humanism : approaching capital -- Machinery as an historical category of production -- Machines, trains, and other capitalist monsters -- Rough, foul-mouthed boys : women's monstrous laboring bodies -- Wage labor and race -- Wage labor and sexuality -- Machinery and revolution -- Alienation beyond Marx -- Science and technology in Marx's excerpt notebooks -- Karl Marx and Charles Babbage -- Machines and temporality : the treadmill effect and free time -- Technophobia and technophilia -- Technophobia and twentieth-century theory. (shrink)

Cyborg and prosthetic technologies frame prominent posthumanist approaches to understanding the nature of race. But these frameworks struggle to accommodate the phenomena of racial passing and racial travel, and their posthumanist orientation blurs useful distinctions between racialized humans and their social contexts. We advocate, instead, a humanist approach to race, understanding racial hierarchy as an industrial technology. Our approach accommodates racial passing and travel. It integrates a wide array of research across disciplines. It also helpfully distinguishes among grounds of racialization (...) and conditions facilitating impacts of such racialization. (shrink)

A Confederacy of Dunces (Confederacy) by John Kennedy Toole portrays an interplay between competing definitions of humanism. The one school of humanism—called by some the Modernist Paradigm—saw the Italian Renaissance as the origin of nineteenth- and twentieth-century modernist views that celebrated science, technology, and individual human freedom. The other school, led by Paul Oskar Kristeller, sought to historicize humanism by establishing that Renaissance writers and thinkers were generally conservative and preserved the philosophical ideas of the medieval era. (...) Kristeller was the President of the Renaissance Society of America and was at the height of his influence at Columbia University during the late 1950s, when Toole studied for his Master’s degree there. The main character in Confederacy, Ignatius J. Reilly, presents a parody of Kristeller’s position, which he uses to critique modern society. Ignatius also plays the part of a child of the planetary god Saturn, both by acting out the ancient astrological tradition of associating Saturn with misfortune and disorder and by being a parody of the Renaissance concept of the Genius as a Child of Saturn begun by the Renaissance philosopher whom Kristeller studied most, Marsilio Ficino. Ignatius’s worldview is an antithesis of the Modernist Paradigm. Confederacy is critical of both Modernist humanism with its attendant materialism and its antithesis—Ignatius’s dysfunctional version of Kristeller’s Renaissance philosophy. When the community expels Ignatius as a scapegoat, Toole appears to gesture toward a dialectical synthesis of the two concepts of humanism in the novel’s happy ending. (shrink)

Transhumanism is a means of advocating a re-engineering of conditions that surround human existence at both ends. The problem set before us in this chapter is to inquire into what determined its appearance, in particular in the humanism it seeks to overcome. We look at the spirit of overcoming itself, and the impatience with the Self, in order to try to understand why it seeks a saving power in technology. We then consider how the evolutionary account of the production (...) of organisms does not set them against a perfect standard, but rather injects in them a contingency that seems to be near to the heart of the problem. We then try to assess the objective basis for improvements and manipulation of nature, and although we do not find it forbidden on all occasions, it seems that the criteria for such alterations are impossible to detach from a form of eugenics. We finally open a window toward a theological account of the problem, and find that the desire of autonomy and independence is inevitably going to be challenged by the Christian dogma of creation. (shrink)

Humanist sociologists are activists rooted in the reality of history and change and guided by a concern for the 'real life' problems of equality, peace, and social justice. They view people as active shapers of social life, capable of creating societies in which everyone's potential can unfold. Alfred McClung Lee introduces this volume with 'Sociology: Humanist and Scientific' and develops the theme that a sociology that is humanist is also scientific. The other nine selections are grouped into four parts: 'The (...) Individual and Social Life;' 'Social Institutions: Technology, Science, and Formal Organization;' 'Political Structures: Issues of Justice and Equality;' and 'Methodological Critiques and Counterproposals.'. (shrink)

I am focusing here on the main counterarguments that were raised against a thesis I put forward in my article “Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism” (2009), namely that significant similarities can be found on a fundamental level between the concept of the posthuman, as put forward by some transhumanists, and Nietzsche’s concept of the overhuman. The articles with the counterarguments were published in the recent “Nietzsche and European Posthumanisms” issue of The Journal of Evolution and Technology (January-July 2010). As several (...) commentators referred to identical issues, I decided that it would be appropriate not to respond to each of the articles individually, but to focus on the central arguments and to deal with the counterarguments mentioned in the various replies. I am concerned with each topic in a separate section. The sections are entitled as follows: 1. Technology and evolution; 2. Overcoming nihilism; 3. Politics and liberalism; 4. Utilitarianism or virtue ethics?; 5. The good Life; 6. Creativity and the will to power; 7. Immortality and longevity; 8. Logocentrism; 9. The Third Reich. When dealing with the various topics, I am not merely responding to counterarguments; I also raise questions concerning transhumanism and put forward my own views concerning some of the questions I am dealing with. (shrink)

This paper is a philosophical discussion about the link between utopianism and responsibility. It argues that our time demands a strong practice of political responsibility in both organizations and society based on what has been called ‘real utopianism’. It takes as a starting point Hans Jonas’ critique of utopianism. Keeping in mind the horrors of the Second World War this Jewish thinker disconnected the principle of responsibility from the idea of utopianism, and connected it to a ‘heuristics of fear’ – (...) we should be careful with ‘wild’ new technologies, but also with new utopian perspectives. In a second step Jonas’ predecessors and utopian thinkers Martin Buber, Ernst Bloch and Ernest Callenbach are revisited. They show that a fully conceptualized idea of utopianism includes at least three dimensions of responsibility: subsistence, justice and spirituality. I then argue that if one digs deeper into the work of Jonas, it seems that the concept of responsibility in fact implies the courage to overcome a heuristics of fear. This paper therefore argues that there is no need to radically disjunct responsibility from utopianism and that the concept of responsibility actually opens a path to ‘real utopianism’. Such a concept of responsibility can best be supported by a confessionally neutral but nonetheless spiritual eco-humanist worldview that develops a new attitude towards nature, in which (eco)asceticism, morality and spirituality become intertwined. (shrink)