This volume details the philosophical propositions of technology, illustrates its impact on various facets of social life, and demonstrates how the disruptive effects of technology can be reduced by providing it with a new philosophical base. Philosophical principles that will help to foster the responsible use of technology are developed. The contributors deal specifically with the ways in which technology shapes a person's view of politics, capital punishment, education, health and illness, work, communications, and the human body. They argue that technology tends to deanimate these aspects of life, thereby purging society of its creativity and spontaneity. Collectively, they suggest ways in which this trend can be reversed by the creation of a socially responsible technology.

The Underside of High-Tech: Technology and the Deformation of Human Sensibilities (Contributions in Sociology)

Politics & Social Sciences

Mickunas, Algis

Murphy, John W.

Pilotta, Joseph J.

Social Sciences

Praeger

This book addresses the issues of communication from the vantage point of phenomenology or nonreductive awareness. The authors contend that phenomenology and its various developments offer a depth of analyses of interrelated processes of awareness, inclusive of language, images, gestures, theoretical systems, expressions, and institutions without any "explanatory" speculations. Written with the least technical terminology and yet without the sacrifice of phenomenological contributions to the science of communication, the text presents the essential functions of awareness that would be relevant to any scientific research of communicative theory, methodology, and practice.

Science of Communication: Its Phenomenological Foundation (Routledge Communication Series)

Philosophy

Routledge

Existential philosophy has perhaps captured the public imagination more completely than any other philosophical movement in the twentieth century. But less is known about the phenomenological method lying behind existentialism. In this solid introduction to phenomenological philosophy, authors David Stewart and Algis Mickunas show that phenomenology is neither new nor bizarre but is a contemporary way of raising afresh the major problems of philosophy that have dominated the traditions of Western thought. The authors carefully lead the reader trough the maze of terminology, explaining the major problems phenomenology has treated and showing how these are a consistent extension of the traditional concerns of philosophy. In concise, uncluttered, and straightforward terms, the history, development, and contemporary status of phenomenology is explained with a copiously annotated bibliography following each chapter. Nothing in print combines the extensive introductory materials with a guide to the massive literature that has been produced by phenomenological and existential studies.

Exploring Phenomenology: A Guide to the Field & Its Literature

Stewart, David

Ohio University Press

Existential philosophy has perhaps captured the public imagination more completely than any other philosophical movement in the twentieth century. But less is known about the phenomenological method lying behind existentialism. In this solid introduction to phenomenological philosophy, authors David Stewart and Algis Mickunas show that phenomenology is neither new nor bizarre but is a contemporary way of raising afresh the major problems of philosophy that have dominated the traditions of Western thought. The authors carefully lead the reader trough the maze of terminology, explaining the major problems phenomenology has treated and showing how these are a consistent extension of the traditional concerns of philosophy. In concise, uncluttered, and straightforward terms, the history, development, and contemporary status of phenomenology is explained with a copiously annotated bibliography following each chapter. Nothing in print combines the extensive introductory materials with a guide to the massive literature that has been produced by phenomenological and existential studies.

Exploring Phenomenology: A Guide To The Field and Its Literature

Two pervading factors in any life-world that are discussed, but never explicated are time and concrete action. No doubt, social theory (as well as every other theory) accepts time in the form of change, but the issue is as follows: There is a presumption that time is some sort of continuum in which things take place one after the other. The sciences take this for granted as a basis for their explanations of causal sequence, and even historians take this sequence for granted as a condition for dating historical events. The authors do not discard this theoretical construct, but rather, they point out that social life specifically in the modern world (which is, by now, global) involves time as multiple horizons of possibilities. Furthermore, the way these horizons comprise time reflexes in time is unavoidable in the multiple layers of social activities and plans, including economic, technical, educational, value systems, and in the selectivity of what will be counted as relevant facts and their interpretations. Indeed, such time reflexes disclose what a given society can and cannot do; that is, they determine what that societys limits are. This aspect of such limits is a continuous self-explication of social life, and time reflexes are coextensive with both social theory and method. The authors go on to illustrate the ways in which the practical world is constituted by concrete kinesthetic activity in practices such as the formation of implements, the building of edifices, and the engagement in other common intercorporeal activities, which become differentiated and mutual. Such activities precede abstract theoretical constructs and reveal what individuals and groups can do. The theoretical/methodological aspect of this level of analysis reveals that we know the others via direct perception not as physiological entities, but as makers of the entire oriented architectonic of any life-world. At this level, there is a primary understanding of the others, which is given in direct awareness of what they can do and what we cannot do, and which we also understand as something that we could also do. It is within this domain that one finds universal praxis.

The Lived World of Social Theory and Methods (Contemporary Cultural Studies)

Pilotta, Joseph

Sociology

Nova Science Pub Inc

The debates concerning global terrorism focus on "radical Islam" and the way it can be "moderated" or pacified by appeals to its peaceful side. These debates include the discussion of the clash of civilisations, tolerance and its limits, and military means to defeat the perpetrators. Such cultural clashes appear in various parts of the globe, including India, Pakistan, and even among sects of the same civilizations. This monograph explores the nature of these cultural clashes and the resurgence of global terror to look at a more fundamental set of issues, including the misguided search for truth, resulting in Western post-modernism and "post-truth", spanning the globe in the guise of multi-culturalism. The analysis of this context leads to questioning the basic composition of civilisations, their compatibility, and radical differences, leading to a dimension of awareness that has not been addressed by scholars studying civilisations. What is at issue is the inevitable "anarchistic terror," which includes most unpredictable acts by "unsuspected" individuals, not only from Islam, but also by those emboldened by a specific mode of awareness. This level "dissolves" the various claims that the fundamental clash is among civilizations and points to two, modern, Western levels of this dissolution: literature and theory. The former calls for the collapse of anything resembling features of the world that are accessible to human awareness. The second level places the world at an arbitrary service for human "needs". The result is made manifest by the claims from anarchistic terrorists that the modern West is "Satanic" and destructive of the created order of all things, which is a totally anarchistic point of view, while the answer from the modern West points to the fundamental anarchism of those who terrorise "Western" ways. The analysis of this context shows that both sides are anarchistic and face an inevitable collision without any possible justification. The collision is designed to unfold into a final domain that requires an "ontological" account of how such a collision in human life is possible, without relying on previously inadequate explanations. The text includes contemporary "turmoil" in global relationships, the various trends toward "autocracy" and "strong man" solutions to our predicaments. Such tendencies appear in the phenomenon of the conjunction of state and religion, so well pronounced in Russia, in Confucian China, the Middle East, the United States, and in European nations. It is to be noted that such solutions do not depend only on personality cults, but above all, on "legitimating" their stories. The point is that such stories are equally anarchistic.

Anarchies in Collision

Politics & Government

The usual notion of incarceration suggests specific locations in a given society: prisons or, in gentler form, psychiatric institutions. This notion will be incorporated in the text in various and much broader contexts. We investigate civilizations and their specific cultures in terms of their compositions which may "incarcerate" a person without specific facilities: More recent and still continuous examples are Fascistic and Communist empires, or traditional autocratic and theocratic systems. In addition, there are civilizations which, while open and democratic, might exclude various groups from participation due to education, race, or class status-and such exclusion may not be regarded as "incarceration." One prevalent form of autocratic incarceration is the control of education and literature available to the citizens. There are other forms which subject a group, or an entire civilization, to "incarceration" due to colonialisms and their usual "monological" imposition of totalizing discourse as a criterion for what is civilized and what is not, all the way to what is human and what is not adequate to be regarded as human. The monological form also applies to totalizing discourses in modern "sciences" and technical fields, offering "explanations" of every facet of human behavior. The trend is a push for "education" only in technical fields. It is also imperative to investigate the various contemporary trends in cultural theories which propose multi-cultural "methods" without attending to the issue of the illogical nature of such methods. Finally, we address the current debates of global migrations, immigrations, and the issues as to the status of persons caught in such movements with regard to "legal" questions. This issue is confronted by the emergence of "populisms" and "nationalisms" worldwide, and a usually avoided question, "Why there is a denouncement of the West by members of various civilizations and their cultures, and yet the demand that only the West should welcome "the others."

Carceral Civilizations (1)

Anthropology

The usual notion of incarceration suggests specific locations in a given society: prisons or, in gentler form, psychiatric institutions. This notion will be incorporated in the text in various and much broader contexts. We investigate civilizations and their specific cultures in terms of their compositions which may "incarcerate" a person without specific facilities: More recent and still continuous examples are Fascistic and Communist empires, or traditional autocratic and theocratic systems. In addition, there are civilizations which, while open and democratic, might exclude various groups from participation due to education, race, or class status -- and such exclusion may not be regarded as "incarceration." One prevalent form of autocratic incarceration is the control of education and literature available to the citizens. There are other forms which subject a group, or an entire civilization, to "incarceration" due to colonialisms and their usual "monological" imposition of totalizing discourse as a criterion for what is civilized and what is not, all the way to what is human and what is not adequate to be regarded as human. The monological form also applies to totalising discourses in modern "sciences" and technical fields, offering "explanations" of every facet of human behaviour. The trend is a push for "education" only in technical fields. It is also imperative to investigate the various contemporary trends in cultural theories which propose multi-cultural "methods" without attending to the issue of the illogical nature of such methods. Finally, we address the current debates of global migrations, immigrations, and the issues as to the status of persons caught in such movements with regard to "legal" questions. This issue is confronted by the emergence of "populisms" and "nationalisms" worldwide, and a usually avoided question, "Why there is a denouncement of the West by members of various civilisations and their cultures, and yet the demand that only the West should welcome "the others".

Carceral Civilizations (2)

Book by Mickunas, Algis, Pilotta, Joseph, Michunas, Algis

Technocracy Vs. Democracy: Issues in the Politics of Communication (Hampton Press Communication Series)

Michunas, Algis

Hampton Pr

This text focuses on the potential conflict between the emancipatory function of communicative politics and the control effects that derive from communications, and discusses its relationship to the politics of liberation, democracy and market economy.

Technocracy Vs. Democracy: Issues in the Politics of Communication (Hampton Press Communication Series: Critical Bodies)

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