Problem-Solving Technologies: A User-Friendly Philosophy

by Sadjad Soltanzadeh

Overview

From hammers to robots, this book embarks on a comprehensive metaphysical exploration of how we should understand and study technological objects and systems. It reconstructs the metaphysics of technology and offers a unique perspective on the identification and functional classification of objects. Arguing that universal and static approaches are ill-suited to capture relational properties like usefulness, the book introduces a novel approach, called activity realism, which recognises the dynamic identities that objects acquire by playing roles in different activities.

How can the role and impact of technologies on human activities be incorporated into the metaphysical study of technologies? How do technologies affect the reality of scientifically postulated entities? How can we functionally distinguish between different types of technologies? Problem-Solving Technologies: A User-Friendly Philosophy engages with such fundamental questions. In this thought-provoking book, the study of objects and their categorisations is paired with an examination of the activities in which they play a role. The result is a practically useful philosophy that helps to navigate the conceptual complexities of modern technology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538157879
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/31/2022
Series:	Philosophy, Technology and Society
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Sadjad Soltanzadeh is a researcher at the Asser Institute, University of Amsterdam.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Part I: The General Categorisation

1. Artificial Categorisations

1. A User-Friendly Metaphysics

1. Problem Solving Technologies

1. The Conditions for the Possibility of Technologies

Part II: The Particular Categorisation

1. A Taxonomy of Function Theories

1. Conservative Functions vs. Authentic Functions

1. A User-Friendly Theory of Function

Part III: Ontology

1. Existence of Artefacts

1. Reality of Technologies

Part IV: Activity Realism in Practice

1. Scientific Reality

1. The Human, the Technological and the Limitations of Autonomous Systems

References

Index

Editorial Reviews

Soltanzadeh offers a contribution to the metaphysics of technology…. The result is a useful intervention in long-running conversations within the philosophy of technology. The exposition is clear, although it necessarily proceeds at a high level of abstraction at certain points and demands some familiarity with the philosophical traditions with which it engages. Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

Choice Reviews

As technology continues to dominate our lives in ever more invasive ways, it is imperative that we improve our understanding of it. Soltanzadeh’s thought-provoking study is a further welcome and important step. His problem-solving account of technology is clearly and persuasively argued. It should prove valuable to researchers, students and anyone interested in the current direction of technological development.

John Weckert

What is technology? Sadjad Soltanzadeh develops an original answer to this perplexing question. His activity realist approach to the metaphysics of technology is clearly articulated and the case he makes for preferring it to available alternatives is rigorously developed. Required reading for anyone interested in the philosophy of technology.

Steve Clarke

Soltanzadeh offers a contribution to the metaphysics of technology. In this, his first book, he seeks to bridge from traditional, abstract, metaphysical considerations about what technology is to a more recent philosophical focus on the practical and ethical dimensions of technologies in use. The approach is taxonomic, offering both a general consideration of how to define and characterize technology and a more particular scheme categorizing technologies in terms of their functions. By way of conclusion, readers get an application of the book's framework to wider philosophical and ethical questions. The result is a useful intervention in long-running conversations within the philosophy of technology. The exposition is clear, although it necessarily proceeds at a high level of abstraction at certain points and demands some familiarity with the philosophical traditions with which it engages. Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

Choice