Abstract
Technology is no stranger to the city. Cities are planned, built, maintained, governed, demolished, and destroyed by technical means. Yet, the city has yet to receive much attention within the philosophy of technology. This volume addresses this gap, and in doing so contributes to the much-needed discussion on technology-enabled urban futures from the perspective of the philosophy of technology. In this introductory chapter, the larger volume is introduced by reflecting on the rationale and need for such a collection, sketching the main themes analyzed throughout, and providing an overview of the contributions.
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Notes
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Within Philosophy of Technology there is also a large body of literature that focuses on technologies and technology-related issues that can be categorized as “smart” (e.g., cell phones and apps, sensors, wearable devices, drones, AI, big data, etc.). However, the scope of these investigations remains at the level of individual artefacts or specific use cases, and are to a lesser extent contributions to Philosophy of the City.
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Acknowledgements
The volume we present you has been initiated by three events in 2017 and 2018. In 2017, Michael Nagenborg and Shane Epting organized a session on “ITC and the City” at the Ethicomp/CEPE 2017 conference in Turin. Also in 2017 the editors (together with Remmon Barbaza) organized a special track on “Technology and the City” at the Society for Philosophy and Technology’s bi-annual conference in Darmstadt. In 2018, the first Summer Colloquium of the Philosophy of the City Research Group was held at the University of Twente. Various authors presented the first draft of their chapters at these three meetings and we are grateful for all the encouragement and valuable critique provided by the participants. We also express out gratitude to the 4TU.Center for Ethics and Technology for providing additional support for the Philosophy of the City Summer Colloquium, as well as covering some of the costs connected to the previous events. Finally, we would like to thank Brandt Dainow for his support in proof-reading and copy-editing, as well as many of the volume’s authors for providing written feedback on earlier drafts of their colleague’s chapters.
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Nagenborg, M., Stone, T., Vermaas, P.E. (2021). Introduction. In: Nagenborg, M., Stone, T., González Woge, M., Vermaas, P.E. (eds) Technology and the City. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52313-8_1
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