The primary purpose of this new editorial effort, will be to apply the methods typical of the historical-phenomenological approach to a setting - relating to the issues posed by the enormous development of the techno-sciences - that has come to be virtually monopolized by fields of study such as moral philosophy and applied ethics. Contemporary thinking is clearly no exception, and so much attention has been paid to this topic in recent times that it has sometimes seemed to exclude all others. The present series aims to step back a little from these recent developments, as concerns its starting point at least. Today’s “philosophy of technology”, and the related philosophical reconstructions are dominated by the idea of technology as a sort of compact, totalizing phenomenon with no internal distinctions, something that can be interpreted as a sort of general “world view” capable of pervasive effects and invariably classified as a “hazard”.
On the contrary, if we take a closer look at technology with an open mind (without first reading what the philosophers have already said on the matter), it becomes evident that we are looking at an area of such complexity that it can hardly be encompassed by such a generic name. “Technology” does not exist, neither as an essence, nor as a set of entities with a common denominator. If anything, there may be many different “technologies”. In our day-to-day experience of the technical world, we all have to do primarily with “objects”, “tools”, “machines”, and “devices”, that can be used according to different rules and within clearly-defined contexts of relations, interests and expectations.
Driving a car, and thereby reducing the distance from one place to another with the aid of a combustion engine, is a very different matter from sending an e-mail while sitting comfortably in front of a computer. These two actions differ particularly in the way in which they can induce changes in our attitude to, and relations with our living environment. Of course, there may be points of view from which the combustion engine and the computer can be seen as one and the same thing, but taking such an approach undeniably fails to accurately grasp the general meaning of specific phenomena that always occur as a result of technological innovations. The extent of the changes induced by the latest media technologies in our way of experiencing the world can hardly be expressed effectively by looking at the effects of the invention of the motor car engine. The philosophers’ analysis of the artificial worlds will have to cope increasingly with differential considerations, and expect results that are not immediately generalizable.
Our idea is that technology is not a threat, but neither is it a set of neutral means, which can be put aside without harm. It calls us for new existential styles: technology transforms environments, is itself a new environment where new forms of humanization are selected. The works hosted in the Tecnophilosopy series will be especially aimed at these changes and in the perspective of a phenomenology which look at the historical tradition.