The Great Reversal: How We Let Technology Take Control of the Planet

The Great Reversal: How We Let Technology Take Control of the Planet PDF Author: David Tabachnick
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0802094694
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Every day, we are presented with new technologies that can influence human thought and action, such as psychopharmaceuticals, new generation performance enhancing drugs, elective biotechnology, and gastric bypass surgery. Have we let technology go too far in this respect? In The Great Reversal, David Edward Tabachnick contends that this question may not be unique to contemporary society. Through an assessment of the great works of philosophy and politics, Tabachnick explores the largely unrecognized history of technology as an idea. The Great Reversal takes the reader back to Aristotle's ancient warning that humanity should never allow technical thinking to cloud our judgment about what makes for a good life. It then charts the path of how we began to relinquish our deeply rooted intellectual and practical capacities that used to allow us to understand and regulate the role of technologies in our lives. As the rise of technology threatens our very humanity, Tabachnick emphasizes that we still may have time to recover and develop these capacities – but we must first decide how far we want to allow technology to determine our existence and our future.

The Great Reversal: How We Let Technology Take Control of the Planet

The Great Reversal: How We Let Technology Take Control of the Planet PDF Author: David Tabachnick
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0802094694
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

Get Book Here

Book Description
Every day, we are presented with new technologies that can influence human thought and action, such as psychopharmaceuticals, new generation performance enhancing drugs, elective biotechnology, and gastric bypass surgery. Have we let technology go too far in this respect? In The Great Reversal, David Edward Tabachnick contends that this question may not be unique to contemporary society. Through an assessment of the great works of philosophy and politics, Tabachnick explores the largely unrecognized history of technology as an idea. The Great Reversal takes the reader back to Aristotle's ancient warning that humanity should never allow technical thinking to cloud our judgment about what makes for a good life. It then charts the path of how we began to relinquish our deeply rooted intellectual and practical capacities that used to allow us to understand and regulate the role of technologies in our lives. As the rise of technology threatens our very humanity, Tabachnick emphasizes that we still may have time to recover and develop these capacities – but we must first decide how far we want to allow technology to determine our existence and our future.

The Great Reversal

The Great Reversal PDF Author: David Tabachnick
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442664088
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

Get Book Here

Book Description
Every day, we are presented with new technologies that can influence human thought and action, such as psychopharmaceuticals, new generation performance enhancing drugs, elective biotechnology, and gastric bypass surgery. Have we let technology go too far in this respect? In The Great Reversal, David Edward Tabachnick contends that this question may not be unique to contemporary society. Through an assessment of the great works of philosophy and politics, Tabachnick explores the largely unrecognized history of technology as an idea. The Great Reversal takes the reader back to Aristotle’s ancient warning that humanity should never allow technical thinking to cloud our judgment about what makes for a good life. It then charts the path of how we began to relinquish our deeply rooted intellectual and practical capacities that used to allow us to understand and regulate the role of technologies in our lives. As the rise of technology threatens our very humanity, Tabachnick emphasizes that we still may have time to recover and develop these capacities – but we must first decide how far we want to allow technology to determine our existence and our future.

The Metaphysics of Technology

The Metaphysics of Technology PDF Author: David Skrbina
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134757425
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
What is technology? Why does it have such power in our lives? Why does it seemingly progress of its own accord, and without regard to social or environmental well-being? The quest for the essence of technology is an old one, with roots in the pre-Socratic philosophy of ancient Greece. It was then that certain thinkers first joined the ideas of technê and logos into a single worldview. The Greeks saw it as a kind of world-force, present in both the works of men and in nature itself. It was the very creative power of the cosmos. In the 20th century, German thinkers like Dessauer, Juenger, and Heidegger sought the metaphysical basis of technology, with varying success. French theologian Jacques Ellul argued persuasively that technology was an autonomous force of nature that determined all aspects of human existence, but he neglected the metaphysical underpinnings. Recent writers in the philosophy of technology have generally eschewed metaphysics altogether, preferring to concentrate on constructivist models or pragmatic analyses. In the present work, Skrbina returns to a classic metaphysical approach, seeking not so much an essence of technology but rather a deep and penetrating analysis of the entire technological phenomenon. Drawing on the Greeks, he argues for a teleological metaphysics in which increasing order in the universe is itself defined as a technological process. On this reading, all of reality constitutes a technical sphere, a "pantechnikon," of universal scope. This work — the first-ever book-length treatment of the topic — breaks new ground by providing an in-depth and critical study of the metaphysics of technology, as well as drawing out the practical consequences. Technology poses significant risks to humanity and the planet, risks that can be mitigated through a detailed philosophical analysis.

Thinking about Technology

Thinking about Technology PDF Author: Gil Germain
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498549543
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
The world we make reflects the way reality is perceived, and today the world is perceived primarily in technological terms. So argues Gil Germain in Thinking About Technology: How the Technological Mind Misreads Reality. Given the connection between perception and action, or thinking and doing, Germain first highlights the central features of technological worldview to better understand the contemporary drive to master the conditions of human existence. He then boldly proposes that the technological worldview seriously misreads the nature of the world it seeks mastery over, and shows how this misinterpretation invariably leads to the technologically-related challenges currently vexing the contemporary social order, from the drift toward a posthuman future to the anti-globalization backlash. Germain closes Thinking About Technology by articulating an alternative worldview to the technological perspective and illustrating how this re-reading of reality might help us inhabit the technological landscape in ways better attuned to the human condition.

Ecological Wisdom

Ecological Wisdom PDF Author: Bo Yang
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811305714
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
This book offers an introduction to the theory and practice of ecological wisdom (EW). EW is the integration of robust contemporary science with proven cultural and historical practices to identify long-term, sustainable solutions to problems of environmental management and urban design. The book combines theoretical concepts with specific case studies, illustrating the opportunities for interdisciplinary approaches combining historical experience, cultural context, and contemporary science as effective strategies for addressing complex problems confronting metropolitan and rural environmental and resource management in areas such as land use, water management, materials and building engineering, urban planning, and architecture and design. EW transcends the limitations in these fields of the normative approaches of modernity or traditional wisdom by offering a new, synthetic strategy to address socio-ecological issues. By presenting these ideas both theoretically and through existing case studies, the book provides researchers, practitioners and students with a powerful new perspective in developing long-term, resilient solutions to existing socio-environmental challenges. It is intended mainly for those working or interested in the fields of sustainable environmental and resource management, city and regional planning, architecture and design, civil engineering, landscape architecture, and the philosophy of science, particularly those with an ecological or sustainability focus.

On Oligarchy

On Oligarchy PDF Author: David Edward Tabachnick
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442640111
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
"Economic power is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few, even as democratic movements worldwide allow for political power to be dispersed among the many. With their access to influence, the wealthy can shape and constrain the political power of the rest of the world. As the economic dominance of an elite minority coincides with the forces of globalization, is oligarchy becoming the dominant political regime? This collection explores the renewed relevance of oligarchy to contemporary global politics. By drawing out lessons from classic texts, contributors illustrate how the character of oligarchical regimes informs contemporary political life. Topics include the relationship between the American government and corporations, the tension between republican and oligarchical regimes, and the potential conflicts that have opened up between economic management and political life. On Oligarchy deftly illuminates the significance of this regime in the context of pressing global economic and political issues."--Publisher's website.

1968 in Canada

1968 in Canada PDF Author: Michael K. Hawes
Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
ISBN: 077663707X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
The year 1968 in Canada was an extraordinary one, unlike any other in its frenetic pace of activities and their consequences for the development of a new national consciousness among Canadians. It was a year when decisions and actions, both in Canada and outside its borders, were thick and contentious, and whose effects were momentous and far-reaching. It saw the rise of Trudeaumania and the birth of the Parti Québécois; the articulation of the new nationalism in English Canada and an alternative vision for Indigenous rights and governance; a series of public hearings in the Royal Commission on the Status of Women; the establishment of the Canadian Radio and Television Commission, nation-wide Medicare and CanLit; and a striving for both a new relationship with the United States and a more independent foreign policy everywhere else. And more. Virtually no segment of Canadian life was untouched by both the turmoil and the promise of generational change. Published in English with chapters in French.

Canadian Conservative Political Thought

Canadian Conservative Political Thought PDF Author: Lee Trepanier
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100085888X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
This book corrects an imbalance in Canadian political literature through offering a conservative account of Canadian political thought. Across 15 chronologically organized chapters, and with a mixture of established and rising scholars, the book offers an investigation of the defining features and characteristics of Canadian conservative political thought, asking what have Canadian conservative political thinkers and practitioners learned from other traditions and, in turn, what have they contributed to our understanding of conservative political thought today? Rather than its culmination, Canadian Conservative Political Thought will be the beginning of conservative political thought’s recovery and will spark debates and future research. The book will be a great resource for courses on Canadian politics, history, political philosophy and conservatism, Canadian Studies, and political theory.

Citizenship and Multiculturalism in Western Liberal Democracies

Citizenship and Multiculturalism in Western Liberal Democracies PDF Author: David Edward Tabachnick
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498511732
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
This volume explores some of the tensions and pressures of citizenship in Western liberal democracies. Citizenship has adopted many guises in the Western context, although historically citizenship is attached only to some variant of democracy. How democracy is configured is thus at the core of citizenship. Beginning in ancient Greece, citizenship is attached to the notion of a public sphere of deliberation, open only to a small number of males. Nonetheless, we take from these origins an understanding of citizenship that is attached to friendship, preservation of a distinct community, and adherence to law. These early conceptions of citizenship in the west have been dramatically altered in the modern context by the ascendancy of individual rights and equality, expanding the inclusiveness of definition of citizenship. The universality of rights claims has led to debate about the legitimacy of the nation state and questioning of borders. A further development in our understanding of citizenship, and one that has shifted citizenship studies considerably in the last few decades, is the backlash against the universalism of rights in the defense of cultural recognition within democratic polities. Multiculturalism as a broad spectrum of citizenship studies defends the autonomy and recognition of cultural, and sometimes religious, identity within an overarching scheme of rights and equality. This collection draws upon the many threads of citizenship in the Western tradition to consider how all of them are still extant, and contentious, in contemporary liberal democracy.

Challenging Theocracy

Challenging Theocracy PDF Author: David Tabachnick
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442619902
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Commonly perceived as a direct threat to the practice of liberal democracy, the global reemergence of theocratic claims to political rule is a misunderstood development of twenty-first-century politics. Analyzing the relationship between religion and politics throughout the Middle East, Africa, and the United States, as well as classical and medieval political philosophical sources, Challenging Theocracy critiques the contemporary formation of theocracy. Providing an account of the origins and influence of theocracy, the chapters in this volume explore ancient texts that articulate the theocratic political ideas that continue to bubble under the surface of political life today. In an effort to consider how regimes extend beyond their immediate institutional and legal forms and find their foundation in timeless ideas, the contributors examine ancient and modern political thought to better understand their persistent power and impact on global politics.