Using Words and Things ― Language and Philosophy of Technology

This book offers a systematic framework for thinking about the relationship between language and technology and an argument for interweaving thinking about technology with thinking about language. The main claim of philosophy of technology—that technologies are not mere tools and artefacts not mere things, but crucially and significantly shape what we perceive, do, and are—is re-thought in a way that accounts for the role of language in human technological experiences and practices. Engaging with the work of Searle, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Ihde, Latour, and Ricoeur, the author critically responds to, and constructs a synthesis of, three "extreme", ideal-type, untenable positions: (1) only humans speak and neither language nor technologies speak, (2) only language speaks and neither humans nor technologies speak, and (3) only technology speaks and neither humans nor language speak. The construction of this synthesis goes hand in hand with a narrative about subjects and objects that become entangled and constitute one another. Language and Philosophy of Technology thus draws in central discussions from other subdisciplines in philosophy, such as epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language, to offer an original theory on the relationship between language and technology.

Mark Coeckelbergh is Professor of Philosophy of Media and Technology at the Philosophy Department of the University of Vienna, Austria, and (part-time) Professor of Technology and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University, UK. He is the author of 8 books including Growing Moral Relations (2012), Human Being @ Risk (2013), Money Machines (2015), Environmental Skill (2015), and numerous journal articles in the field of philosophy of technology.