Winner of the 2020 S.I. Hayakawa Book Prize presented by The Institute of General Semantics
Winner of the 2020 Susanne Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Symbolic Form presented by the Media Ecology Association
The Beauty of Detours proposes a new way of understanding and defining technology by reading systems thinker Gregory Bateson in the framework of contemporary philosophy of technology. Although ‘technology’ was not an explicit focus of Bateson’s oeuvre, Yoni Van Den Eede shows that his thought is permeated with insights directly relevant to contemporary technological concerns. This book provides a systematic reading of Bateson that reveals these under-investigated elements of his thought. It also critiques the field of philosophy of technology for still reifying ‘technology’ too much despite its attempt to de-reify it, arguing instead that it should incorporate Bateson’s insights and focus more on processes of human knowing. Sketching a Batesonian philosophy of technology, Van Den Eede calls for greater attentiveness to the
purpose of technology and its role in our lives.
قائمة المحتويات
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Laying the Groundwork
1. Gregory Bateson’s “Ecology of Mind”
2. Philosophy of Technology
Part II. Bateson and Technology
3. Between One and Two: Epistemology/Ontology
4. Conscious Purpose
5. Remediating Conscious Purpose
Part III. The Art of Living with Technology
6. Toward Batesonian Philosophy of Technology
7. The Art of Living with Technology
Notes
References
Index
عن المؤلف
Yoni Van Den Eede is Lecturer and Researcher in Philosophy at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. He is the author of
Amor Technologiae: Marshall Mc Luhan as Philosopher of Technology.