Conference Agenda

In the Anthropocene, globalised technology is impacting planetary systems to the point of climate crisis and biodiversity collapse. A new generation of geo-engineering and sustainable technologies (GESTs) is being implemented to combat these impacts. GESTs thus add the goal of planetary preservation to technology’s traditional repertoire of practical purposes, from transportation to energy to entertainment; they are meant to maintain the Earth system in a state close enough to Holocene conditions to remain amenable to human life.

However, the question remains if GESTs can reach the goal of planetary preservation by the same means – those of globalised, extractive technology – that led to the Anthropocene in the first place. Classical philosophers of technology would claim that they cannot; according to Heidegger, for instance, all technology reduces the whole of being to a ‘standing reserve’ (Bestand) of energy and resources, in an ontological event he calls ‘Enframing’ (Gestell). If this is true, new technologies could never solve the ontological crisis behind the Anthropocene.

In this contribution, we investigate whether GESTs are indeed unsuited to the goal of planetary preservation, or whether GESTs have revolutionary potential, in the sense that they can disprove Heidegger’s absolutism about technology and allow us to think technology beyond Gestell. In order to do so, we first develop a philosophical understanding of ‘planetary preservation’ in terms of planetary limits or boundaries and an interpretation of Gestell as limitlessness. Then, we offer a definition of ‘planetary technology’ as such, and develop the hypothesis that GESTs offer an opportunity to think technology beyond extractive practices in principle, thus disproving the essentialist claims of classical philosophy of technology, but do not in fact manage to live up to this guiding ideal, because the limits they recognize remain global and abstract, as opposed to grounded in always already localised planetary reality.

Pressing global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion are increasing the demand for sustainable solutions. These include AI and digital twins as well as nature-based technologies and sustainable design practices such as biomimicry and bioinspired design. While it is hard to deny that technology can play an important role in addressing environmental challenges, these innovations involve numerous social, ethical, and ecological costs and consequences. Ethicists of technology have started to pay attention to the environmental costs of technology in terms of materials and energy use, but it is still a relatively small minority (Kaplan 2017, Thompson 2020, van Wynsberghe et al. 2022). If one accepts the premise that technology has played a significant role in enabling the environmental crisis, then sustainable technologies fall into an awkward ambiguity: how can technology undo and repair what technology has arguably contributed to cause in the first place? This ambiguity has led to charges of techno-solutionism, an attitude towards technology that treats it as the default solution to most societal problems (Sætra 2023, Siffels & Sharon 2024). This paper argues that techno-solutionism in the context of sustainable technologies is characterized by a combination of technological instrumentalism and technocratic tendencies, which lead to a tendency to ignore local contexts, marginalizing public values and framing complex societal problems as engineering challenges. These concerns raise the question of whether sustainable technologies can be more than simple technological fixes, and under what conditions. To formulate a response, this paper argues that it is fruitful to re-evaluate the philosophy of technology of Ivan Illich. While Illich is nowadays a relatively minor figure in philosophy of technology, his work on conviviality has regained popularity in the context of degrowth and conservation discourses (Büscher & Fletcher 2023, Pansera & Owen 2018). The paper aims to show how Illich’s convivial critique of exploitative technologies can provide a timely and necessary contrast to the political and ecological risks of techno-solutionism. Convivial technologies are technologies that support autonomy and creativity, and foster the enjoyment of communal life. By building upon Illich’s convivial critique and showing its implications for technology design and participatory design methods, the paper shows how conviviality can lead to a re-politicization of technology and technology ethics.

References

Büscher, B. and R. Fletcher (2020). The conservation revolution: radical ideas for saving nature beyond the anthropocene. London, Verso.

Kaplan, D. M. (2017). Philosophy, technology, and the environment. Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press.

Pansera, M. and R. Owen (2018). "Innovation for de-growth: A case study of counter-hegemonic practices from Kerala, India." Journal of Cleaner Production 197: 1872-1883.

Sætra, H. S. (2023). Technology and Sustainable Development: The Promise and Pitfalls of Techno-Solutionism. New York, Routledge.

Siffels, L. E. and T. Sharon (2024). "Where Technology Leads, the Problems Follow. Technosolutionism and the Dutch Contact Tracing App." Philosophy & Technology 37(4): 125.

Thompson, P. B. (2020). Food and Agricultural Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective, Springer.

Van Wynsberghe, A., Vandemeulebroucke, T., Bolte, L., & Nachid, J. (2022). Special Issue "Towards the Sustainability of AI; Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Investigate the Hidden Costs of AI". Sustainability, 14(24).

Why is philosophy of technology so separate from philosophy of the environment? In 1999, Maria Banchetti explained the division between them in a way critical of both: “Environmental ethics overemphasizes wilderness and views human technological activity negatively,” and on the other side, “Philosophy of technology displays a “naïve anthropocentrism,” focusing the role of devices and machines on social, political, and economic affairs to the exclusion of ecological concerns” (Banchetti, cited in Kaplan, 2017: 2). Despite the efforts of Banchetti (and others) in the meantime to bring these fields into closer contact, philosophy of the environment and philosophy of technology remain largely separate, although philosophers of technology more recently have paid closer attention to technologies’ material and environmental impacts, and environmental philosophers have become more embracing of the technological aspects of the environments we inhabit and create. In this talk, I explore the growing subfield of maintenance and repair in philosophy of technology as a promising approach for bringing environment and technology together. In philosophy of technology, maintenance and repair move the emphasis from technological development, innovation, and ideal functioning to how technologies are kept up, reconstructed, and creatively transformed over their lifespans (Young & Coeckelbergh, 2024). That all things are time-bound and vulnerable to malfunction and breakdown is foregrounded, and relations and practices of care and attentive labor are central. How might maintenance and repair then forge connections between philosophy of technology and philosophy of the environment? In this talk I focus on developing and illustrating one claim about this, that maintenance and repair puts focus on what both environmental philosophy and philosophy of technology have often neglected: labor.

References

Banchetti, Maria. 1999. ‘Introduction [to Philosophies of the Environment and Technology].’ Research in Philosophy and Technology 18:3-12.

Kaplan, David M., ed. 2017. ‘Philosophy, Technology, and the Environment’. In Philosophy, Technology, and the Environment. The MIT Press.

Young, Mark Thomas, and Mark Coeckelbergh. 2024. Maintenance and Philosophy of Technology: Keeping Things Going. New York: Routledge.