Towards a Hermeneutics of the Technological World (Athens 2010)

Towards a Hermeneutics of the Technological World: From Heidegger

to Contemporary Technoscience

(Athens 2010)



CONTENTS

Acknowledgements p.13

Introduction p. 15

 

PART ONE

I. HEIDEGGER AND THE CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY  p. 31

1. Phenomenology of technology as the “interface” between philosophy of science and philosophy of technology p. 35

2.Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology: the onto-historical priority of modern technology over modern science p. 42

3. Modern technology as a hermeneutic phenomenon: towards a “material hermeneutics” (Don Ihde) p. 49

II. PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY AND PHENOMENOLOGY:

THE HISTORICAL DIMENSION   p. 56

1.Ernst Kapp and Friedrich Dessauer: the beginnings of the philosophy of technology p. 56

2. Oswald Spengler: modern technology as a historical destiny   p. 56

3. Ernst Jünger: modern technology as the “total mobilization of life”   p. 76

4. Edmund Husserl: the crisis of European sciences as “technicization”   p. 83

5. Jan Patočka: the “unthinkable” of Edmund Husserl’s crisis   p. 100

III. MARTIN HEIDEGGER’S HERMENEUTICS OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY AS A CRITIQUE OF CONTEMPORARY TECHNOSCIENCE   p. 111

1. What is “technoscience”?   p. 111

2. Martin Heidegger on technoscience p. 117

3. Contemporary philosophy of technology between determinism and constructivism   p. 136

4. Martin Heidegger’s hermeneutics of technology beyond technological determinism and constructivism   p. 150

PART TWO

I. THE QUESTION OF TECHNOLOGY FROM THE EARLY HERMENEUTICS OF FACTICITY TO BEING AND TIME AND BEYOND   p. 167

1. A hermeneutics of technology in Being and Time?  p. 167

2. The ontology of presence-at-hand in Being and Time (I): the pragmatist dimension  p. 184

3. The ontology of presence-at-hand in Being and Time (II): the realist dimension   p. 199

4. The ontology of presence-at-hand in Being and Time (III): the historical dimension  p. 213

II. THE FOUNDATION OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY ON THE HISTORY OF WESTERN METAPHYSICS   p. 222

1. Greek techne and modern technology   p. 222

2. Roman imperium and Christian creatio p. 235

3. From Descartes to Nietzsche: “will to truth” as will to power  p. 248

a. Descartes: subjectivity and representation  p. 248

b. Leibniz: perceptio and appetitus p. 256

c. From Kant to Hegel: the philosophy of German Idealism as a metaphysics of the will    p. 260

4. Nietzsche: the completion of Western metaphysics in modern technology  p. 271

a. Will to power as “will to will”   p. 271

b. The eternal return of the same as the metaphysical possibility of modern machine   284

c. The overman as “homo laborans”  p. 289

d. Authentic nihilism, inauthentic nihilism, and technology   p. 294

PART THREE

I. MODERN TECHNOLOGY AS THE ESSENTIAL DENIAL OF HUMAN FINITUDE   p. 301

1. The overman as the “form of the worker”: Nietzsche and Jünger   p. 301

2. “Machination” and “lived experience” at the end of metaphysics   p. 312

3. Being-towards-death, finitude, technology    p. 325

II. THE RECOVERY OF HUMAN FINITUDE AS “RELEASEMENT TO THINGS”   p. 352

1. “World” and ‘thing”: the “fourfold”    p. 352

2. “Framing” and “standing reserve”: the destruction of the originary unity of “world” and “thing” by modern technology  p. 358

3. Technological domination and “releasement to things”: the “danger” and the “turn”   p. 372

Afterword     p. 380

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

a. Works by Martin Heidegger  p. 395

b. Other works  p. 397

c. Secondary bibliography  p. 401

INDEX OF CONCEPTS   p. 427

INDEX OF NAMES   p. 437

Habermas and the Neoaristotelians (Athens 2006)

Habermas and the Neoaristotelians. The Ethics of Discourse in Jürgen Habermas and the Challenge of Neoaristotelianism (Athens 2006)



CONTENTS 

Acknowledgements ……..13

Introduction ……………..15

 

PART ONE

1. NEOARISTOTELIANISM: ETHICS AND POLITICS  …. 41

1. “Old conservatives”, “young conservatives”, “neoconservatives”………………………………. 47
2. Neoaristotelianism and Neohistoricism ……….... 60
3. The ethics of discourse between “moral”

      and “ethical” questions…….……………………. 75

2. NEOARISTOTELIANISM AS A PHILOSOPHY

      OF THE WORLDVIEWS   …………………………….. 79

1. Virtue and autonomy: why the program of the

       enlightenment “had to fail”?……………………. 79

2. Justice and virtue: the rationality of traditions in Alasdair MacIntyre  ………………………………………... 94
3. Authenticity and autonomy in modern ethics  …. 102
4. Towards a “universalist theory of the good”

       in Charles Taylor …………………………………112

5. The weltanschauunglich character of Neoraristotelianism: Moralität and Sittlichkeit  …………………………120

3. NEOARISTOTELIANISM AND NEOCONSERVATISM: THE CRITIQUE OF JÜRGEN HABERMAS..………………..133

1. John Rawls’ theory of justice and Jürgen Habermas’

      controversy with communitarian

      Neoaristotelianism ………………………………….133

2. Neoaristotelianism and conventional moral

      consciousness ……………………………………….136

3. Neoaristotelianism as the

      “ideology of phronesis”  ……………………………145

 

PART TWO

1. MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND COMMUNICATIVE ACTION (1983): JÜRGEN HABERMAS’ CONFRONTATION WITH MORAL SKEPTICISM  …………………………………………….149

1. Neoaristotelianism as the“salvatory farewell to philosophy” ………………...150
2. The seven rounds of confrontation with moral skepticism …………………… 154
3. The ethics of discourse faced up against the reconstructive sciences: Laurence Kohlberg’s moral psychology …165
4. The critique of moral formalism and the  “problem of application” ………… 175

2. KLAUS GÜNTHER: THE CRITERION OF ANGEMESSENHEIT IN THE ETHICS OF DISCOURSE …………………………… 184 

1. Action, normative principle, and situation in the ethics of discourse … 184
2. “Discourses of justification” and “discourses of application”  …..…… 188
3. Angemessenheit and the “problem of application”................................ 193

3. REMARKS ON THE ETHICS OF DISCOURSE (1991): JUSTIFICATION AND APPLICATION IN JÜRGEN HABERMAS’ REVISED ETHICS OF DISCOURSE …………………………………………… 198

a. “Moral discourses” versus “ethical discourses”: the priority of the “right” over the “good”   …………………………………… 199

b. The ethics of discourse between Kant and Hegel  ……... 210

c. From the discursive theory of ethics to the

discursive theory of law  ……………………………………. 220

Excursus: The “problem of application” in Karl-Otto Apel’s

ethics of discourse  ………………………………………….. 227

PART THREE

1.      CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE ETHICS OF DISCOURSE........... 235

I.                   Albrecht Wellmer  .......................................235

a.      The “negativist” orientation of the ethics of discourse  ....... 236

b.      The non-applicability of the ethics of discourse  ................... 245

c.       Jürgen Habermas and the ideal of communitarian freedom...255

II. Seyla Benhabib ......... 259

a.      Towards an “interactive post-metaphysical universalism” ...... 259

b.      Hegel’s shadow over the ethics of discourse ....... 265

2. THE “PROBLEM OF APPLICATION” BETWEEN NEOARISTOTELIAN ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND THE ETHICS OF DISCOURSE ...... 271

a.      Intersubjectivity and consensus  ........... 271

b.      Hermeneutics versus critique of ideology: the heritage of a controversy .... 297

c.       Hermeneutic understanding and application  ..... 306

d.      Moral judgment as phronesis: Kant and Aristotle ..... 319

Conclusion    ...........330

APPENDIX ONE

Stelios Virvidakis, The Metaethical horizons of Jürgen Habermas’ ethics of discourse  .....343

  

APPENDIX TWO

Konstantine Kavoulakos,  The self-overcoming of formalism in Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics    ....... 375

BIBLIOGRAPHY    ....... 385

INDEX OF NAMES ........ 407

INDEX OF CONCEPTS ......411

La justice de la pensée (Paris 1997/Athens 2011)

La justice de la pensée – La critique de la métaphysique de la subjectivité dans le différend heideggérien avec Nietzsche (Paris 1997/Athens 2011)

Introduction to: Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche. The Will to Power as Art, Plethron, Athens 2011

Introduction to: Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche. The Will to Power as Art, Plethron, Athens 2011

 

 

«A Critique of Ethical Egoism: Nietzsche in Max Horkheimer’s Early Thought», in: Critical Theory: Tradition and Perspectives.

«A Critique of Ethical Egoism: Nietzsche in Max Horkheimer’s Early Thought», in: Critical Theory: Tradition and Perspectives, edited by Konstantine Kavoulakos, Nissos Publishers, Athens 2003.



Preface to: Leto Katakouzenos, Conversations with Albert Camus, Aggelos & Leto Katakouzenos Foundation, Athens 2011

«Albert Camus: the absurd as a tragic affirmation of life», Preface to: Leto Katakouzenos, Conversations with Albert Camus, Aggelos & Leto Katakouzenos Foundation, Athens 2011

Martin Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretations to Aristotle (Athens 2011)

Martin Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretations to Aristotle

(Athens 2011)