John Dewey and philosophy of technology: bridging the ethical, epistemic and political
Chair(s): Michał Wieczorek (Dublin City University, Ireland)
This symposium seeks to provide an opportunity for philosophers interested in pragmatism to reflect on the applicability of John Dewey’s (1929; 1957; 2008; 2016) ideas to today’s technological landscape. Dewey has long been recognized as an original philosopher of technology (Hickman, 1992; 2001) and he has been an influential figure in the early days of philosophy of technology, notably shaping the views of thinkers such as Don Ihde or Carl Mitcham. However, he has not been widely referenced in contemporary philosophical works dealing with technology – at least, until very recently. The last few years have brought an increasing interest in the application of Dewey’s philosophical ideas to today’s technologies, with authors discussing how data-intensive technologies affect users’ behaviour (Gerlek & Weydner-Volkmann 2022; Wieczorek, 2024), analysing how technologies change collectively held values (van de Poel & Kudina, 2022) and assessing the impact of technology on democracy and political deliberation (Coeckelbergh, 2024).
We argue that pragmatist approaches can provide further novel insights for our field and respond to contemporary developments in philosophy of technology. In recent years, philosophers have devoted attention to the epistemic, ethical and political impacts of new technologies, but Dewey’s pragmatism provides opportunities to integrate such considerations instead of studying them in isolation (Medina, 2013). For Dewey, the ways in which we create knowledge and use our tools is intimately connected to individual ethical considerations, collective deliberation on our values, or the power relations and institutions we rely on to distribute the burdens and benefits entailed by our ways of living together. Consequently, each of the authors participating in the symposium demonstrates different ways in which Dewey’s philosophy can help us analyze how contemporary technologies affect our epistemic practices, normative positions and political participation. Throughout the panel, authors will apply Dewey’s ideas to different technologies (e.g., generative AI, social media platforms) and consider their implications at the individual, interpersonal and political level. A subsequent discussion will ask the panel participants and audience members to discuss the reasons for the renewed interest in Dewey’s philosophy among philosophers of technology and propose suggestions for further philosophical problems posed by contemporary tools that are particularly well-suited for a pragmatist analysis. Consequently, the symposium will offer an opportunity to forge connections between (Deweyan) pragmatism and other strands in contemporary philosophy of technology and to establish a research agenda that will help navigate the complexities of today’s technological landscape.
References
Coeckelbergh, Mark. ‘Democracy as Communication: Towards a Normative Framework for Evaluating Digital Technologies’. Contemporary Pragmatism 21, no. 2 (31 July 2024): 217–35. https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10088.
Dewey, John. Experience and Nature. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1929.
Dewey, John. Human Nature and Conduct. New York: Random House, 1957.
Dewey, John. The Later Works, 1925-1953, Volume 7: 1932 Ethics. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston. The Later Works, 1925-1953 7. Carbondale (Ill.): Southern Illinois University Press, 2008.
Dewey, John. The Public and Its Problems: An Essay in Political Inquiry. Edited by Melvin L. Rogers. Athens, Ohio: Swallow Press, 2016.
Gerlek, Selin, and Sebastian Weydner-Volkmann. ‘Self-Tracking and Habitualization. (Post)-Phenomenological and Pragmatist Perspectives on Reflecting Habits with the Help of Digital Technologies’. Von Menschen Und Maschinen: Mensch-Maschine-Interaktionen in Digitalen Kulturen, 2022, 138–51. https://doi.org/10.57813/20220623-152405-0.
Medina, José. The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant Imaginations. Studies in Feminist Philosophy. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Hickman, Larry A. John Dewey’s Pragmatic Technology. 1. Midland Book ed., 2. [print.]. The Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Technology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.
Hickman, Larry A. Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture: Putting Pragmatism to Work. The Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Technology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.
Hickman, Larry A. ‘Postphenomenology and Pragmatism: Closer Than You Might Think?’ Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 12, no. 2 (2008): 6.
van de Poel, Ibo, and Olya Kudina. ‘Understanding Technology-Induced Value Change: A Pragmatist Proposal’. Philosophy & Technology 35, no. 2 (June 2022): 40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-022-00520-8.
Presentations of the Symposium
Intelligent writing habits: a Deweyan take on the postphenomenology of generative AI
Sebastian Weydner-Volkmann
Ruhr-University Bochum
Postphenomenology is closely related to John Dewey’s Pragmatism. It is, “in effect, precisely a pragmatic phenomenology” (Ihde 2016: 106), i.e. one that integrates Dewey’s anti-foundationalism, anti-essentialism, his skepticism towards universals and replacement with a means-ends-continuum, his functionalism and his perspectivism (Hickman 2008: 100). Something that is notably missing in this list is Dewey’s work on overcoming a dualist conception of body and mind and the important role that the intelligent transformation of habits plays in his philosophy.
Ihde and most postphenomenologists that follow him have traditionally focused on the mediating function of technologies as part of the “I–Technology–World” relation and, drawing from Merleau-Ponty, the role that habit and embodiment plays in this. “Postphenomenology examines concrete instances of human-technology interrelations, and an early discovery is that each technology engaged calls for nuanced embodiment skills” (Ihde & Kaminski 2020: 274). Robert Rosenberger’s concept of “abstract relational strategies” builds on that and describes how skills and deeply-sedimented habits of using one technology may be productively transferred to other technologies.
Dewey’s philosophy, on the other hand, emphasizes that the use of technology should be understood and evaluated in continuation with human practices and the formation of habits: technology use is part of the means-ends-continuum that, in Deweys ethics, characterizes human dealings with problematic situations in general; as such, it is an important aspect of our co-evolution with our environment. Here, Dewey proposes a much more active, transformational perspective on habits: in his ethics the conscious transformation of passive, potentially dysfunctional habits towards situatively functional, “intelligent” habits is central to forming our own character. This makes Dewey’s perspective on technology use highly intimate, as he raises the questions of how we can use technology to influence our character for the better, i.e. for personal growth.
This makes it worth to revisit the Deweyan roots of postphenomenology. I will show this based on the example of writing with generative AI tools. Here, Dewey’s ideas about intelligent habit formation can provide an evaluative perspective that complements postphenomenology’s description of what Ihde called the “latent telic inclinations” of technology use. In this sense, using ChatGPT as a writing tool raises questions about what character we aim to give ourselves.
References
Hickman, Larry A. 2008. “Postphenomenology and Pragmatism: Closer Than You Might Think?” Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 12 (2): 6.
Ihde, Don. 2016. Husserl’s Missing Technologies. First edition. Perspectives in Continental Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press.
Ihde, Don, and Andreas Kaminski. 2020. “What Is Postphenomenological Philosophy of Technology?” In Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie. Autonomie Und Unheimlichkeit, edited by Alexander Friedrich, Petra Gehring, Christoph Hubig, Andreas Kaminski, and Alfred Nordmann, 259–88. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748904861-259.
Dewey and the interaction between technology and morality
Ibo van de Poel
TU Delft
In my contribution to the panel, I will explore how Dewey’s (moral) philosophy and particularly his notion of experimentation can inform an account of the interaction between technology and morality. Experimentation plays an important role in Dewey’s philosophy. He believes that the ultimate test of beliefs, be they scientific, technological, or moral, is their application in practice. This means that both processes of technological development and of moral inquiry can be seen as experimental. Both are based on certain hypotheses about what will work or about what is morally good that need to be tested in practice through experimentation.
For technological development, this means that only through putting technologies in practice we will know whether they work and what their ultimate social consequences are. This makes technological development an iterative search process. Interestingly, Dewey makes similar claims about morality. Moral prescripts or values are not eternally given but are responses to morally problematic situations and might help to solve these, or not. To know whether they do so requires experimentation and the outcomes of such experiments might lead to new or better values or moral prescripts.
Taken together, these ideas suggest the following interaction between technological development and morality. Technological development, or at least responsible technological development, aims at the development of new technologies that do not just meet human needs, but also address existing moral problems. However, when put in practice, they might fail to do so or give rise to new moral problems. These new moral problems might give rise to new or changing values for technological development. Consequently, technological development might lead to changes in morality and these changes in morality in turn may lead to new technological developments. So conceived, technology and morality develop in constant interaction influencing each other’s course.
Democracy as communication: democracy from a Deweyan perspective and its implications for evaluating technology
Mark Coeckelbergh
University of Vienna
Are current digital technologies supporting democracy? Answering that question depends, among other things, on what is meant by democracy. This article mobilizes a communicative conception of democracy. While it is generally accepted that communication is important for democracy, there are directions in democracy theory that understand communication as not merely instrumental but as central to what democracy is and should be. Inspired by Dewey, Habermas, and Young, this paper articulates a conception of democracy as communication. It is then argued that this “deep-communicative” ideal of democracy, together with the usual ethical and epistemic norms of communication as sketched by O’Neill, offer a tentative normative framework for evaluating digital technologies in relation to democracy.
We should assess technologies’ compatibility and support for the communicative dimension of democracy based on the extent to which they 1) enable us to identify the originator of communication and the epistemic norms and standards held by them; 2) encourage lies, deception and sloppiness in regards to accuracy and evidence; 3) promote bullying, manipulation, plagiarism, and other violations; 4) foster a communicative climate in which virtues such as honesty, civility, openness, tolerance, and trustworthiness can flourish; 5) promote culture-specific and religion-specific norms and means of expression, as applicable to the given context) and 6) encourage patientce and openmindendness in listening to particular personal and communal narratives and passionate expressions. I argue that interventions in the development, use, and regulation of our digital technologies, and an appropriate kind of education of citizens, is required to ensure that digital technologies become communication technologies in this richer sense of the word: not just instruments to transfer and share data and information (to which then the usual norms of communication should be applied), but technologies that support the establishment, growth, and maintenance of democratic forms of life.
AI, the public, and its problems: a Deweyan perspective
Olya Kudina
TU Delft
This presentation explores the intersection of John Dewey's philosophical insights and the contemporary challenges posed by artificial intelligence (AI), particularly through his seminal works Experience and Nature and The Public and Its Problems. Helpful here will be several specific points from Dewey's scholarship.
First, his study of the experimental inquiry into morally problematic situations and positioning values here as preliminary responses to such situations in interaction with the social and material environment. Think of how the value of deliberation in elections takes shape in interaction with people, social media platforms, and the algorithmically curated content. Second, I will draw on Dewey's inquiry into democratic processes and the role of technology in creating publics through shaping communal interests and shared knowledge practices. Drawing on the same example, consider how the practices of AI-facilitated microtargeting on social media bring together groups of people aligned with a specific political content, boosting the visibility of this targeted content vis-à-vis alternative discourses.
Jointly, this will provide a framework for understanding AI's impact on society. I will propose that this impact can be understood as at least twofold: by meditating the content of the public discourse and the material means that facilitate access to information and public dialogue. I will wrap up by continuing to draw on Dewey and suggesting how AI can not only disrupt but also enhance collective experiences and advance public discourse, for example, through fostering inclusive dialogue and critical engagement with diverse perspectives on social media.
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