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Critical Constructivism: An Exposition and Defense

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The Necessity of Critique

Part of the book series: Philosophy of Engineering and Technology ((POET,volume 41))

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Abstract

In this paper, I explain in detail Critical Constructivism, which I situate as a political philosophy of technology that draws from the Frankfurt School, Heideggerian phenomenology, Marxist labour process theory, and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Critical constructivism thus addresses the study of specific designs and the public controversies they provoke, while at the same time reconstructing aspects of the Heideggerian and Frankfurt School critiques of instrumental reason. Critical constructivism “de-ontologizes” these philosophies of technology, capturing their critique of rationality while affirming nevertheless the value of modern science and technology. To clarify my approach to technology and to address a number of misunderstandings regarding my approach to technology, this paper is organized around different aspects of my theory, including Marxism, technology and political theory, operational autonomy, the democratization of technology, formal bias, and instrumentalization theory.

This essay first appeared in Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture 19(2), 2020. http://logosjournal.com/2020-vol-19-no-2/. Thank you to the editors for allowing us to republish it.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For example, see the criticisms and my replies in Veak (2006), Arnold and Michel (2017), Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 17:1 (Winter, 2013); Thesis Eleven (2017), Vol. 138(1). See also Kirkpatrick (2020).

  2. 2.

    For a recent summary of the theory, see my contribution to the fourth edition of the Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (Feenberg, 2017b), republished as chapter 2 in Feenberg (2017a).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada

    Andrew Feenberg

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  1. Andrew Feenberg
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Correspondence to Andrew Feenberg .

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  1. Philosophy Department, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Darryl Cressman

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Feenberg, A. (2022). Critical Constructivism: An Exposition and Defense. In: Cressman, D. (eds) The Necessity of Critique. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 41. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07877-4_2

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