Philosophy of Technology After the Empirical Turn

This volume features 16 essays on the philosophy of technology that discuss its identity, its position in philosophy in general, and the role of empirical studies in philosophical analyses of engineering ethics and engineering practices.

This volume is published about fifteen years after Peter Kroes and Anthonie Meijers published a collection of papers under the title The empirical turn in the philosophy of technology, in which they called for a reorientation toward the practice of engineering, and sketched the likely benefits for philosophy of technology of pursuing its major questions in an empirically informed way.

The essays in this volume fall apart in two different kinds. One kind follows up on The empirical turn discussion about what the philosophy of technology is all about. It continues the search for the identity of the philosophy of technology by asking what comes after the empirical turn. The other kind of essays follows the call for an empirical turn in the philosophy of technology by showing how it may be realized with regard to particular topics. Together these essays offer the reader an overview of the state of the art of an empirically informed philosophy of technology and of various views on the empirical turn as a stepping stone into the future of the philosophy of technology.

Maarten Franssen is associate professor at the Section of Philosophy at Delft University of Technology. His research interests include the relation between philosophy of technology and philosophy of science, the nature of normativity in relation to artefacts and their use, the metaphysics of artefacts, the analysis of technology as concerned with instrumental and sociotechnical systems, and the analysis of design as decision-making and its problems.

Pieter Vermaas is associate professor at the Department of Philosophy at Delft University of Technology. His research in the philosophy of technology includes analyses of the concepts of technical function and of technical artefacts, and more recently the study of the structure, aims, and validation of design methods and design thinking. He co-edits the journal Design Science, and edits two book series: Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, and Design Research Foundations. www.pietervermaas.nl

Peter Kroes is full professor at the Department of Philosophy of Technology at Delft University of Technology. His main interests in the field of the philosophy of technology are the dual nature of technical artefacts and the philosophy of engineering design. He is one of the co-editors of the book on the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology. http: //www.tbm.tudelft.nl/en/about-faculty/departments/values-technology-and-innovation/sections/ethicsphilosophy-of-technology/staff/profdrir-pa-peter-kroes/

Anthonie Meijers is full professor at the Department of Philosophy and Ethics of Eindhoven University of Technology. His main interests in the field of the philosophy of technology are the theory of artefacts, agency and artefacts, and the epistemology of technology. He is one of the co-editors of the book on the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology and the editor in chief of the Handbook Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences (2009).