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Critical Legal Theory and Local Social Thought
University of Pennsylvania Law Review FOUNDED 1852 Formerly American Law Register VOL. 133 APRIL 1985 No. 4 THE POLITICS OF REASON: CRITICAL LEGAL THEORY AND LOCAL SOCIAL THOUGHT JAMES BOYLEt TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .................................... 687 I. THE LINEAGE OF THEORY .......................... 691 Q Copyright 1985 by James Boyle. All rights reserved. t Assistant Professor, Washington College of Law, American University. LL.B. 1980, Glasgow University; LL.M. 1981, Harvard University. Some of the research for this project was completed while I was a Frank Knox Fellow at Harvard Law School. The Washington College of Law Research Fund gave valuable assistance throughout the preparation of the manuscript. Parts of this Article were prefigured in a set of introductory materials prepared for the Eighth National Conference on Critical Legal Studies, held in Washington, D.C., March 15-17, 1984. I would like to thank everyone who took the time to make comments on those materials. In particular, Anthony Chase and L.H. LaRue gave me the benefit of thoughtful written criticisms. Mark Tushnet, Burt Wechsler, and the rest of the D.C. Planning Group helped with suggestions, en- couragement, and deadlines. Andy Lichterman taught me about Habermas, and Gun- ther Frankenburg gave me the (probably misplaced) confidence to write about him. The Kennedys, Duncan and David, provided more help and support than I can ac- knowledge here. Gary Peller supplied endless reassurance, adrenalin, friendship, and a vision of Lukacs "on the wild side." He was also kind enough to show me his (as yet unpublished) manuscript, The Metaphysics of American Law, which greatly influenced this Article. -
Mastery and Enslavement As Themes in Modern Piscourses on Techno1ogy
Mastery and Enslavement as Themes in Modern piscourses on Techno1ogy by Nora Young A thesis submitted to Faculty of Graduate Studi~s and Research in partial fu1fillment of the requirements for the deqree of Master of Arts Department of P01itical Science MCGill university Montreal, Canada June, 1990 ® Nora Young 1 1990 ABSTRACT The auther caUs into question the primacy of the optimismjpessimism split within modern discourses on technology and suggests rather that the dominant thematic division in these discourses is that between mastery over and enslavement to technology. Each of these is cri ticized wi th respect te the faul ty conception of control i t implies. The author concludes wi th a view of technology as a social practice in order to move beyond mastery or enslavement. RESUME L'auteure remet en question la validité de l'un des prinGipaux débats au sein de la philosophie de technologie: celui qui dresse les optimistes contre les pessimistes. Elle soutient que le conflit fondamental est plutôt celui qui oppose les partisans du thème de la maîtrise de la technologie aux partisans du thème de l'asservissement à la technologie. Aucun de ces thèmes n'offre de moyen efficace par lequel la société pourrait contrôler la technologie, en admettant que cela soit possible. L'autcure propose une solution à ce dilemme: la technologie en tant que pratique sociale. -- - ---------------------------------------- 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 would like ta thank my supervisor, Professor James Tully, for the freedom he gave me, and for his gentle and thoughtful critical att.ention. My warmest thanlts to FarziT' Farzaneh for careful proofreading, Ravi Chimni for his support, and to Heather Finlayson for showing me how cool an elect:rical engineer can be. -
Freud and Critical Legal Studies: Contours of a Radical Socio-Legal Psychoanalysis David S
Indiana Law Journal Volume 66 | Issue 3 Article 1 Summer 1991 Freud and Critical Legal Studies: Contours of a Radical Socio-Legal Psychoanalysis David S. Caudill Washington & Lee University School of Law Follow this and additional works at: http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj Part of the Law and Psychology Commons, and the Legal History Commons Recommended Citation Caudill, David S. (1991) "Freud and Critical Legal Studies: Contours of a Radical Socio-Legal Psychoanalysis," Indiana Law Journal: Vol. 66 : Iss. 3 , Article 1. Available at: http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol66/iss3/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School Journals at Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Indiana Law Journal by an authorized editor of Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Freud and Critical Legal Studies: Contours of a Radical Socio-Legal Psychoanalysis DAVID S. CAUDILL* "The success of critical legal studies will be in part deternuned by the extent to which they succeed in bringing together the diverse theoretical traditions on which they seek to draw."' INTRODUCTION 2 In the growing literature associated with Critical Legal Studies ("CLS"), 3 one occasionally reads that the movement, in part, employs Freudian ideas. The same is said of the Frankfurt School, 4 but one can easily point to the writings of Herbert Marcuse' and Ench Fromm6 for unambiguous devel- opments and revisions of Freud's work. While numerous references to Freudian psychoanalysis or social. theory appear in CLS scholarship,7 the connection between Freud and CLS is not clear. -
Panel Proposal: the Necessity of Critique II Organizer: Darryl Cressman, Maastricht University
Panel Proposal: The Necessity of Critique II Organizer: Darryl Cressman, Maastricht University Functionalization and the World – Causality, Culture, and Planetary Technology Jochem Zweer University of Twente My contribution focusses on Feenberg’s recent rearticulation of his widely discussed instrumentalization theory, in which the pairing of primary and secondary instrumentalization is addressed in terms of causal and cultural functionalization. First, I show how this conceptualization of functionalization aligns with existing approaches in contemporary philosophy of technology and STS inasmuch as it departs from technological artefacts, but contrasts with such approaches inasmuch as it attends to how such artefacts reveal a world, which is to say a political world of formal biases, operational autonomy, and democratic potential. Secondly, in following Feenberg’s explicit association of philosophy of technology and environmental thought, I inquire after his understanding of the technological world as an outcome of social conditions. Via a phenomenological interpretation of the Anthropocene and associated planetary functionalization, I argue that Feenberg’s treatment of causal functionalization tends to reduce to cultural functionalization. While the resulting critical constructivist account of is both urgent and worthwhile in light of today’s ecological emergency, I suggest that it does not exhaust the implications of the advent of the Anthropocene. I therefore conclude by discussing causal functionalization in light of the analysis of causality that Heidegger develops in the Question concerning Technology, thereby drawing attention to the ontological conditioning of functionalization. I suggest that attending to such ontological conditioning must have a place in the critical constructivist project of uncovering the biases of contemporary functional rationality. -
Poster Meets Innis: Poststructuralism and the Possibility of Political Economy’ Robert Babe Western University
Western University Scholarship@Western FIMS Publications Information & Media Studies (FIMS) Faculty 2006 ‘Poster Meets Innis: Poststructuralism and the Possibility of Political Economy’ Robert Babe Western University Edward Comor University of Western Ontario, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/fimspub Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Citation of this paper: Babe, Robert and Edward Comor. "Poster Meets Innis: Poststructuralism and the Possibility of Political Economy." Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 16 (2006), 5-22. TOPIA 16 5 Robert E. Babe and Edward Comor Cultural Studies and Political Economy Column Poster Meets Innis: Poststructuralism and the Possibility of Political Economy This is the fifth and final column in the Topia series exploring intersections between political economy and cultural studies. The column inTopia 15 (Babe 2006: 91-101) documents the tendency on the part of mainstream American communication/me- dia scholars—from John Dewey in the first decades of the 20th century to postmod- ernist writers of today—to obscure to the vanishing point concerns and methods of political economy. The earlier column suggests that “readers should scrutinize carefully the writings of contemporary poststructuralist/postmodernist authoritative figures to determine just where they stand on issues of political economy” (98). That is precisely what we do here: we focus on the American poststructuralist Mark Poster and compare his writings to the media analysis of Canadian political economist Harold Innis. About seven years ago, a doctoral student in England suggested to one of us that an interest in Innis would make an interest in Poster something of a “natural fit,” as their theories are, from the student’s perspective, so similar. -
The Containment of Social Change in Western Capitalist Society: Technological Rationality and the Liberation of Humanity
University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor Major Papers Theses, Dissertations, and Major Papers 2019 The Containment of Social Change in Western Capitalist Society: Technological Rationality and the Liberation of Humanity Brittany R. Morris University of Windsor, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/major-papers Part of the Continental Philosophy Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, and the Other Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Morris, Brittany R., "The Containment of Social Change in Western Capitalist Society: Technological Rationality and the Liberation of Humanity" (2019). Major Papers. 117. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/major-papers/117 This Major Research Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, and Major Papers at Scholarship at UWindsor. It has been accepted for inclusion in Major Papers by an authorized administrator of Scholarship at UWindsor. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Containment of Social Change in Western Capitalist Society: Technological Rationality and the Liberation of Humanity By Brittany R. Morris A Major Research Paper Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies through the Department of Philosophy in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Windsor Windsor, Ontario, Canada 2019 © 2019 Brittany Morris The Containment of Social Change in Western Capitalist Society: Technological Rationality and the Liberation of Humanity by Brittany Morris APPROVED BY: ______________________________________________ R. Neculau Department of Philosophy ______________________________________________ J. Noonan, Advisor Department of Philosophy December, 11th 2019, DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY I hereby certify that I am the sole author of this thesis and that no part of this thesis has been published or submitted for publication. -
The Legacy of Althusser, 1918-1990: an Introduction
Studies in 20th Century Literature Volume 18 Issue 1 Special Issue on The Legacy of Article 2 Althusser 1-1-1994 The Legacy of Althusser, 1918-1990: An Introduction Philip Goldstein University of Delaware Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the French and Francophone Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Goldstein, Philip (1994) "The Legacy of Althusser, 1918-1990: An Introduction," Studies in 20th Century Literature: Vol. 18: Iss. 1, Article 2. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1334 This Introductory Material is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Legacy of Althusser, 1918-1990: An Introduction Abstract Introduction to the special issue. Keywords scientific, ationalistr features, Althusser, post-structuralist aspects, post-structuralism, Foucauldian, discourse, power, Pour Marx, normative, science, ideology, ideological history, formal, scientific ideals, totalizing approaches, Foucault, archaeological studies, Tony Bennett, Foucauldian critique, traditional aesthetic, Marxist aesthetic This introductory material is available in Studies in 20th Century Literature: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol18/ iss1/2 Goldstein: The Legacy of Althusser, 1918-1990: An Introduction The Legacy of Louis Althusser, 1918-1990: An Introduction Philip Goldstein University of Delaware Althusser's death in October of 1990 provided the occasion for these essays, which re-examine his work, its influence, and its recep- tion. -
Philosophy of Technology ‘Un-Disciplined’
Philosophy of Technology ‘Un-Disciplined’ William J. Davis III Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Science and Technology Studies James H. Collier, Chair Joseph C. Pitt Richard F. Hirsh Ellsworth R. Fuhrman 25 March 2016 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: Philosophy of Technology, Postphenomenology, Posthumanism, Science and Technology Studies Copyright 2016, William J. Davis III Philosophy of Technology ‘Un-Disciplined’ William J. Davis III Abstract Philosophy of technology (PoT) analyzes the nature of technology, its significance and consequences, and its mediation of human experiences of the world. Classical philosophers of technology describe mechanization as alienating: Technology causes humans to lose their connection with the natural world. Tehno-rationality replaces critical engagement and creativity. Failing to comprehend the essence/nature of Technology, and its consequences, portends disastrous social, political, and economic consequences. Such perspectives, however, neglect individual experiences of technologies. Filling that lacuna, contemporary philosophers of technology challenge the sweeping determinism of their intellectual forerunners and investigate how specific technologies mediate particular human experiences. Their descriptive prowess, however, lacks the normative engagement of classical PoT, and they emphasize micro effects of technologies to the detriment of macro implications. This dissertation describes an “un-disciplined” philosophy of technology (UPoT) that unites the macro and micro perspectives by providing narratives of human-technology symbiosis and co-development. Un-disciplined philosophers of technology present posthuman and transhuman perspectives that emphasize the symbiotic relationships between humans and technology. Thus, they deny disciplined philosophy’s first critical maneuver: define and demarcate. -
Some Notes on Theories of Technology, Society and Innovation Systems for S&T Policy Studies
1 Some notes on theories of Technology, Society and Innovation Systems for S&T policy studies Mónica Salazar-Acosta and Adam Holbrook CPROST Report 08-02 2 3 Some notes on theories of technology, society and innovation systems for science and technology policy studies Mónica Salazar-Acosta and Adam Holbrook, with editorial comments by Glenda Shaw-Garlock CENTRE FOR POLICY RESEARCH ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Vancouver BC Report 08-02 Introduction Does technology shape society, or does society influence our technological choices? Is technological determinism a theory of society or a theory of technology? The debate on Science, Technology and Society (STS) studies has been animated by two opposite views on technology: one that affirms that technology shapes society, and the other that society shapes technology. The former, is commonly associated with the notion of technological determinism; while the latter could be labeled ‘social shaping of technology’ which covers various approaches, such as social constructivism and actor-network theory. Neither provides an overall view: one looks at the forest and the other at the trees, but both have failed to give us a comprehensive view of technological change and the major forces driving social change. What follows is an examination of technological determinism – the shaping of society by technology - and the influence of society on the evolution of technology . It does not pretend to be exhaustive or representative of the most recent scholarship on the subject. A good, recent, -
CURRICULUM VITAE Andrew Lewis Feenberg Education Employment
CURRICULUM VITAE Andrew Lewis Feenberg Education 1973 University of California, San Diego Ph.D., Philosophy 1967-1968 University of Paris 1965-1967 University of California, San Diego M.A. Philosophy 1963-1964 University of Paris 1961-1965 The Johns Hopkins University B.A., Philosophy Employment January 2008 Ecole Normale de Lyon Visiting Researcher 2003-present Simon Fraser University Canada Research Chair School of Communication in Philosophy of Technology 1969-2003 San Diego State University Professor Department of Philosophy Spring 2002 University of Santa Clara Visiting Professor Austin J. Fagothey, S.J. Professor Department of Philosophy Fall 2001 Harvey Mudd College Visiting Professor Hixon-Riggs Professor Summer 2001 University of Tokyo Visiting Professor Department of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies March 1998, CETCOPRA, Visiting Professor January 1999, University of Paris I Feb. 2000, January 2001 January 2002 January 1996 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Visiting Professor Sciences Sociales, University of Paris May-June 1994 University of Oslo, Centre for Visiting Scholar Technology and Culture Spring 1993 University of California, San Diego Visiting Professor Department of Philosophy and Science Studies Program Spring 1989 Université de Paris-Dauphine Visiting Professor & Fall 1987 Département d'Economie Appliqué Fall 1985 New School for Social Research Adjunct Faculty Department of Media Studies (Online class) Winter University of California, Irvine Visiting Lecturer & Spring 1980 School of Social Science Summer 1976 University -
Appendix Theories of Technology
Brian Martin, Technology for nonviolent struggle (London: War Resisters’ International, 2001) Appendix Theories of technology This book is based on the idea that technolo- comings of certain approaches and help clarify gies can and should be developed and chosen my approach.1 because they are helpful for nonviolent strug- gle. This in turn is based on a number of Essentialist approaches assumptions about the nature of technology. In chapter 2 on militarised technology, I An “essentialist” approach to technology argued that the military influences the devel- assumes that it has essential or inherent fea- opment of technology in a number of ways, tures. Common essentialist views are that including through funding, applications, technology is good, bad, neutral or inevitable. employment and suppression of challenges, Some people think that technology is inher- plus via deep structures including the state, ently good. Military technology provides the capitalism, bureaucracy and patriarchy. In best example that it isn’t. Bullets and bombs later chapters, I outlined a variety of actual kill. People who are killed by bullets and bombs and potential technological developments that would not see these artefacts as good—not good would be of special value for nonviolent strug- for them, anyway. It is difficult to argue that gle. In making these arguments I have assumed weapons of mass destruction are inherently that: good. In fact, it was the development of • technology is shaped by a range of social nuclear weapons that made many technolo- factors; gists realise that not everything they produced • any given technological system is more was of benefit to humanity. -
Andrew Feenberg's Critical Theory of Technology
Technical politics Technical politics Andrew Feenberg’s critical theory of technology Graeme Kirkpatrick Manchester University Press Copyright © Graeme Kirkpatrick 2020 The right of Graeme Kirkpatrick to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative Commons (CC- BY-NC- ND) licence, which permits non- commercial use, distribution and reproduction provided the author(s) and Manchester University Press are fully cited and no modifications or adaptations are made. Details of the licence can be viewed at https:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by- nc- nd/ 4.0/ Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 0532 5 hardback ISBN 978 1 5261 0534 9 open access First published 2020 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third- party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset by Newgen Publishing UK Contents Acknowledgements vi Introduction: from critical theory to technical politics 1 1 Critical theory and technology 21 2 The theory of bias and the ethics of technology design 46 3 Technical politics 70 4 Aesthetic critique 96 5 From critique to utopia 122 Beyond critique: utopia 148 References 156 Index 161 v Acknowledgements I could not have written this book without the assistance of many people, principal among them Andrew Feenberg, who, ever since I first turned up on his doorstep in 2002, clutching an apple tart from one of the bakeries near his apartment in Paris, has been unstintingly generous with his time and unbelievably patient when listening to my criticisms of his ideas.