Technology, Time, and the Conversations of Modernity

by Lorenzo C. Simpson

Overview

Technology, Time, and the Conversations of Modernity takes as its impetus the idea that technology is an embodiment of our uneasiness with finitude. Lorenzo Simpson argues that technology has succeeded in granting our wish to domesticate time. He shows how this attitude affects our understanding of the meaning of action and our ability to discern meaning in our lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415907712
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/14/1994
Pages:	246
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Lorenzo C. Simpson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Richmond.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Introduction; Chapter 1 The Question of Technology; Chapter 2 The Idea of Technological Rationality; Part 2 Science, Language and Experience; Chapter 3 Science, Language and Experience: Reflections on the Nature of Self-Understanding; Part 3 Technology, Meaning and Time; Chapter 4 Meaning and Time: An Essay on Technology; Part 4 On the Use and Abuse of Repetition for Critique; Chapter 5 The Use of Repetition for Critique; Chapter 6 The Abuse of Repetition for Critique; Chapter 7 Notes Towards the Trivialization of a Distinction: An Interlude on the Conversations of Modernity; Part 5 Conclusion; Chapter 8 Technology and the Conversations of Modernity: Postmodernism, Technology, Ethics and Time;

Editorial Reviews

"This is an important book. Lorenzo Simpson has given us a tough-minded, cool-eyed, warm-hearted critique of the technological perspective and of the post-modernist response . . . extraordinarily rich in language and subtle in conception." — Marx W. Wartofsky, Baruch College
"This book is an excellent contribution both to cultural theory and to substantive moral philosophy. Lorenzo Simpson offers a subtle and scholarly account of the eclipse of imminent by instrumental value in the 'postmodern' world; at the same time, his distinctive voice brings home to us how our lives are impoverished by this development and how we can resist it." — Sabina Lovibond, Worcester College
"Lorenzo Simpson's major new work on technology, temporality, and ethics is clearly the product of wide reading and mature reflection. . . . His discussions of Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas, Rorty and a host of other major theorists are uniformly first-rate." — Thomas McCarthy, Northwestern University

From the Publisher