From Husserl to Ihde and Beyond - Some Evolutionary Lines in Contemporary Philosophy of Technology

My paper is the introduction to my next book in the series 'The humanist as Engineer'. In my work, I have been deeply influenced by Don Ihde and his postphenomenological approach to the philosophy of technology. As Ihde’s postphenomenology, my approach is historical and differs strongly from the 'pure' phenomenological approach in spite of being connected with it through many common references. Instead of this, I have chosen to move freely between the ideas arising after Kant, Hegel and Marx and I do not hesitate to make references to both Modern Art and Psychoanalysis. I understand that in the history of thought there have been paradigmatic problems and frontiers that characterised a period of time which can be considered as schools or traditions; however, these collapsed with the detonation of Postmodernism and Postphenomenology. In this frame, nobody lives up to this philosophical bricolage as Don Ihde and his postphenomenological project does. Don Ihde’s work is an example of the fertility of postmodern accounts especially when it is the consequence of a well-balanced administration of the eclectic elements within the project. There are certainly many similarities in Ihde’s and my own approach, and I will try to show some of those. I could remit myself to Albert Borgmann’ words when he wrote, 'the multiplicity of perspectives of Don Ihde’s work is essential for my own work and if I do not call my approach as 'postphenomenological' is only because I do not want to force my own views in his outstanding project.' Postmodernism has left behind lots of scattered modernist philosophical remnants. It left a chessboard with only few pieces to work with, and in this allegory, only as references. The philosophical schools remains, but the study of them is strictly for an education in the history of ideas. The situation is aggravating since the most important works from the 1960’s and forth, deliberately have avoided obvious identity patterns. A word in Rio de la Plata’s jargon language describes this situation, cambalache, a sort of 'flea market' where everything lies higgledy-piggledy. Deconstruction and the focus on differences are central to Postmodernism. Remaining is therefore the intersections, the contrasts, shadows, and sketches. When trying to orient in such an intellectual environment, the task reminds of patching scatterings, and building with tools of eclecticism. Not long ago, you could develop a problem from Marx as well as from Husserl. However, today it is necessary to build upon that which makes both Marx and Husserl jigsaw pieces in a totality – characterized by its lack of focus. This situation has also resulted in a demand, greater than ever, for competence in the field of history of ideas. In this article I suggest an eclectic philosophical tool which is centered on the idea of a historical phenomenology, understood as a bricolage of approaches which connect the ideological criticism of Kant with a philosophy of praxis in Marx, to a phenomenology of essences in Husserl and another of perceptions in Merleau-Ponty and to Heidegger’s anthropology. An eclectic background to phenomenology was anticipated by Merleau-Ponty when he wrote that phenomenology 'can be practiced and identified as a manner or style of thinking that existed as a movement before arriving at complete awareness of itself as a philosophy. It has been long on the way, and its adherents have discovered it in every quarter, certainly in Hegel and Kierkegaard, but equally in Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud

Philosophy Theory Into Entrepreneurial Education Practice: A Holistic Model

In the entrepreneurial education field, the “perfect” program of teaching entrepreneurship has been largely debated. In this paper, provocatively, we used only different philosophical thoughts in order to reconstruct a holistic pedagogical model suitable for entrepreneurial education. The model is based on two famous philosophical dichotomies, respectively the Kantian opposition of freedom versus determinism and the Aristotelian division into praxis and poiesis. These elements, specifically adapted to an entrepreneurial context, may lead educators and curricula developers in the “tangle forest” of contents and skills that should be transferred to students. In particular the model offers an easy tool that clearly defines areas of intervention to teach entrepreneurship. The final scope is to offer simultaneously appealing to students concerning entrepreneurial activities, as desirability, and tools for such activities as feasibility, articulated in two degrees of outcomes: one internal, as conduct and experience, and one pragmatic, as technical skills

Forum Debate on Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen's Postnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography Introduction

Is narrativism dead or still alive? Have all questions occasioned by the historical text been answered, so that philosophers of history must now turn to other problems? Or did narrativist philosophy of history have its blind spots that now demand their scrutiny? And if the historical text still has its secrets and mysteries, is narrativism capable of dealing with them? Or would we need for this a 'postnarrativist' approach? And, if so, what will this new approach look like and what can we expect from it? These are the questions put on the agenda by Kukkanen's Postnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography (2015). In this forum debate five scholars (Brian Fay, Eugen Zelenak, Anton Froeyman, Frank Ankersmit and Daniel Fairbrother) comment on Kuukkanen's book. Pragmatism proves to be an important clue to their findings

\u201cWhat is more important than love?\u201d. Parental attachment and romantic relationship in Italian emerging adulthood

Previous researches suggest that individuals with different attachment styles practice different styles of love, but these do not consider the role of trust, communication, and closeness to the father and mother separately. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship and the impact of parental attachment, through the analysis of the participants\u2019 self-reported account and 1. Department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism, University of Macerata. Postbox: Piazzale Luigi Bertelli (Contrada Vallebona) 62100, Macerata, Italy 2. Psychology of Communication department, University of Macerata, Angelo Carrieri. 3. University of Pablo de Olavide, (ES), Health Plus Parish Priest Mifsud Str. Hamrun, Malta 4. Health Plus Parish Priest Mifsud Str. Hamrun, Malta Accepted Manuscript 4 romantic styles in Italians emerging adulthood by using a multidimensional approach (trust, communication, closeness to father and mother). The 296 participants (19\u201329 years; 50.7% males) rated items of information on a questionnaire, regarding their perspective of their attachment to their mother/father and attitude toward love. Using a variable-centred approach and a person-centred approach, the results suggest that the respondents differed in levels of parental attachment or love styles and that the present parental attachment has a positive impact on their romantic relationship. It is possible to estimate romantic relationships and prevent manic relationships based on the individual\u2019s current perceptions of their attachment to the father or mother. The role of parents and paternal attachment, are still fundamental in Italian young adults. The role of communication with the mother, in particular, is controversial and should be further investigated

Broken Technologies

There are many possible definitions of “technology” and I will discuss some of these in this book. However, in this introduction let me use a definition of Svante Lindqvist who defines technology very intuitively as “those activities, directed towards the satisfaction of human wants, which produce change in the material world.” He says also “the distinction between human “wants” and more limited human “needs” is crucial, for we do not use technology only to satisfy our essential material requirements.” Consequently, from this perspective, a technology that is “broken” could be defined as those activities, directed towards the satisfaction of human wants that are intended to produce changes in the material world that either do not manage to satisfy these wants or do not produce changes in the material world, or both. This is the third edition, updated October 2015

Time, intersubjectivity, and musical relationship in Alfred Schutz

In questo lavoro, affronto alcuni aspetti della relazione tra tempo e intersoggettività in Alfred Schutz . Presento una sintesi dell’architettura metodologica del sociologo austriaco, delineando la specificità della relazione tra tempo e coscienza. Prendo in esame la trattazione dell’esperienza musicale come esempio di declinazione peculiare di una serie di dinamiche temporali connesse alla costituzione intersoggettiva dei significati. Infine, espongo alcune tesi di autori che si sono occupati della relazione tra tempo, intersoggettività e musica in Schutz. La relazione musicale è un esempio di contesto dotato di senso, non oggetto di concettualizzazione, che esemplifica la relazione tra senso soggettivo ed esperienza dell’altro. La teoria dell’appresentazione di Schutz è il centro del processo di costituzione dei significati della prensione dell’altro. L’emersione dei significati è legata alle dinamiche dei poli passivi e attivi della coscienza e alla costituzione, nella we-relation, di una dimensione radicalmente intersoggettiva nella quale si supera la distinzione cartesiana tra interno ed esterno.Time, intersubjectivity, and musical relationship in Alfred Schutz Riccardo Venturini In this work I tackle certain aspects of the relationship between time and intersubjectivity in Alfred Schutz. I present a summary of the methodological architecture of the Austrian sociologist, outlining the specificity of the relationship between time and consciousness. I discuss the treatment of the musical experience as an example of the peculiar declination of a series of temporal dynamics connected to the intersubjective creation of meanings. Finally, I set out some thoughts related to the debate on the relationship between time, intersubjectivity and music in Schutz. The musical relationship is a context endowed with meaning, not the object of conceptualization, that allows us to identify in a paradigmatic way the relationship between the subjective sense and experience of the other. The theory of appresentation of Schutz is the center of the process of constitution of meaning of the understanding of the other. The emergence of meaning is related to the dynamics of the passive and active poles of the consciousness and the constitution, in the we-relation, of a radically intersubjective dimension that exceeds the Cartesian distinction between inside and outside

The Conflictual Theory of Law

This article introduces the conflictual theory of law as a new way of understanding laws as struggles over meaning, in which actors create and circulate social knowledge to justify their interpretation of rights. The theory addresses law-production processes and underlying knowledge/power constructs, for example, in legislative deliberations and interactions between politicians and the media. It shares pragmatist commitments to a highly participative version of democracy, attained through the active involvement of all members of society in democratic processes and rejects claims of universally applicable legal “truths” in favour of the constant (re)negotiation of laws between members immediately affected by a law. Pragmatism’s antifoundationalism challenges the dualism between citizens and non-citizens, facilitating the inclusion of the latter in legislative deliberations.</jats:p

Reflections on Pragmatism as a Philosophy of Architecture

Two recent collections on architectural theory and practice invoke the name of pragmatism as marking the hope of a new more intimate alignment of theory and practice after a period of what I call ‘philosophical vampirism’.  This paper examines what role the philosophical tradition of pragmatism might play in relation to architecture. I argue that pragmatism is best understood as a method of overcoming intellectualist and metaphysical obstacles to clear thinking as opposed to a philosophical ideology of some kind. Against Rem Koolhaas’s argument for post-criticality I show that we are always already critical. Pragmatism’s task is to make criticism better. I end by invoking the craft ethos as articulated by Richard Sennett in his book The Craftsman (2008), as perhaps the best model of what a pragmatist architecture might look like

Towards a constructional approach to discourse-level phenomena : the case of the Spanish interpersonal epistemic stance construction

This study contributes to a better understanding of how constructional models can be applied to discourse-level phenomena, and constitute a valuable complementation to previous grammaticalization accounts of pragmatic markers. The case study that is presented concerns the recent development of the interpersonal epistemic stance construction in Spanish. The central argument is that the expanding use of sabes as a pragmatic marker can best be fully understood by taking into account the composite network of related expressions which Spanish speakers have at their disposal when performing a particular speech act. The diachronic analysis is documented with spoken corpus examples collected in recent decades, and is mainly informed by frequency data measuring the productivity, as well as formal properties of the construction and its instances