Overview

How ought we to live with new technologies? What future do we want in light of the many changes they bring to human existence? At a time when responsible innovation is on everyone’s lips and academics turn to applied ethics to tackle these issues, this book questions the lack of a strong and coherent ethics of the self within the current discipline of the philosophy of technology. Drawing on Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential phenomenology, Michel Foucault’s biopolitics, and Bernard Stiegler’s philosophy of the amateur, Amélie Berger-Soraruff examines the crucial importance of developing a politics of the self in contemporary technoculture. Refreshingly original, this work frames Stiegler as a philosopher of the human and situates his contributions in continuity with those of Sartre and Foucault, while reasserting their relevance in a field of research that often prioritizes technological enhancement over individual emancipation. It presents Stiegler’s thought as a contemporary echo of Sartrean existentialism and reflects on the Foucauldian elements of his philosophy. Extending Stiegler’s views to the fields of media studies and STS, this book brilliantly nuances his portrayal of technoculture, which he perceived as increasingly alienating, yet not devoid of alternatives.

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9781350416178

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Reviews

This is a book for those inclined to go against the grain. It observes that recent philosophy of technology is broadly oriented towards an empirical horizon of actions, solutions, and innovations, thereby consistently favoring anticipation, construction, and design over introspection, speculative reason, and above all the existential question of the human subject. Against all proclamations of the latter being outmoded, deceased, and surpassed, Amelie Berger-Soraruff offers a thought-provoking discussion of human subjectivity and existence. -- Jochem Zwier, Managing Director 4TU Centre for Ethics and Technology, Wageningen University, Netherlands

Author Information

Amélie Berger-Soraruff is based at the Maison Française d’Oxford. She is an Associate Member of the Scottish Centre for Continental Philosophy at the University of Dundee, UK. Her latest publications include an article titled ‘The Decline of Innovation and the Rise of Contribution’ in the journal Cultural Politics (2024), the English translation of Raymond Ruyer’s La cybernétique de l’information (2023), and a book chapter titled ‘Foucault According to Stiegler: Technics of the Self’ in The Late Foucault: Ethical and Political Questions (Bloomsbury, 2020).

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