It's the little things that do it
Description
Philosophical reflection on the rapid and widespread development of technologies of all kinds has become an important theme in the twentieth century, both inside and outside university philosophy. From the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, we see that the type of questions asked in the process have changed. Whereas at the beginning of the twentieth century, philosophers of technology were still mainly looking at 'the' technology as a complete system, more attention has now come to questioning the effects of different types of technologies. Moreover, new themes have been added to the agenda. Besides the impact of technologies on 'the' society, 'the' culture, 'our' values, and 'the' human (?), the consequences of outsourcing all kinds of tasks and responsibilities to machines and other technologies, for instance, are now being examined. Questions that arise here include, for example: (1) to what extent can, and should, we consider technological artefacts as (independent) actors?, (2) in what ways do technologies guide and influence our actions in everyday practices, both in practical and also moral terms? (3) in what ways can technologies be deployed to actively and passively regulate people's behaviour, (4) in what ways do users adopt technological artefacts, and to what extent do their usage practices match the intentions of their designers? and (5) what does all this say about the 'decisiveness' of things? In her lecture, Dr Van den Berg will discuss these questions, and address the ethical and legal implications of 'decisive things'
Speaker(s)
Dr B. (Bibi) van den Berg is a philosopher with a specialisation in philosophy of technology and philosophical anthropology. She studied Philosophy at Erasmus University, where she received her PhD from the Faculty of Philosophy in 2009 for a dissertation entitled "The Situated Self: Identity in a world of Ambient Intelligence".
Her areas of expertise include the following: identity and identity theory, Ambient Intelligence, philosophy of technology and sociology, neurophilosophy, social networking sites, online communities.
Van den Berg works at the research institute TILT (Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology an Society), where she participates in a large European research project investigating privacy and identity issues on the Internet. She also researches legal and ethical issues related to robotics and artificial intelligence.
In "De Ingenieur" of 22 August 2009, she published an article entitled: "People react to technology from the underbelly"
Location
Utrecht
Organiser
Philosophy & Technology
Name and contact details for information
Further information from drs.ing. Henk Uijttenhout (vz), tel: 070 - 3875293 / 06 - 42505844 or via the e-mail address below