Overview

Technology, Time and the Conversations of Modernity takes as its impetus the idea that technology is an embodiment of our uneasiness with finitude. Lorenzo Simpson shows how technology has succeeded in granting our wish to domesticate time. He addresses the consequences of this attitude for our self-understanding and for our ability to discover differences and discern meaning in our lives. By confronting issues raised in the various theoretical discourses concerning modernity with those engendered by a critical assessment of technology, Simpson elaborates a systematic critique of technological rationality. In the course of this, he provides a critique of philosophical nihilism, an account of the affinities between postmodern sensibilities and the technological attitude toward the world - illustrated by a discussion of Virtual Reality technology - as well as critical discussion of the work of Rorty, Habermas, MacIntyre and Sabina Lovibond.

Full Product Details

Author:   Lorenzo C. Simpson
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.460kg
ISBN:  

9780415907729

ISBN 10:   0415907721
Pages:   246
Publication Date:   11 November 1994
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Part 1 Introduction; Chapter 1 The Question of Technology; Chapter 2 The Idea of Technological Rationality; Part 2 Science, Language and Experience; Chapter 3 Science, Language and Experience: Reflections on the Nature of Self-Understanding; Part 3 Technology, Meaning and Time; Chapter 4 Meaning and Time: An Essay on Technology; Part 4 On the Use and Abuse of Repetition for Critique; Chapter 5 The Use of Repetition for Critique; Chapter 6 The Abuse of Repetition for Critique; Chapter 7 Notes Towards the Trivialization of a Distinction: An Interlude on the Conversations of Modernity; Part 5 Conclusion; Chapter 8 Technology and the Conversations of Modernity: Postmodernism, Technology, Ethics and Time;

Reviews

This is an important book. Lorenzo Simpson has given us a tough-minded, cool-eyed, warm-hearted critique of the technological perspective and of the post-modernist response . . . extraordinarily rich in language and subtle in conception. <br>-Marx W. Wartofsky, Baruch College <br> This book is an excellent contribution both to cultural theory and to substantive moral philosophy. Lorenzo Simpson offers a subtle and scholarly account of the eclipse of imminent by instrumental value in the 'postmodern' world; at the same time, his distinctive voice brings home to us how our lives are impoverished by this development and how we can resist it. <br>-Sabina Lovibond, Worcester College <br> Lorenzo Simpson's major new work on technology, temporality, and ethics is clearly the product of wide reading and mature reflection. . . . His discussions of Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas, Rorty and a host of other major theorists are uniformly first-rate. <br>-Thomas McCarthy, Northwestern University <br>

This is an important book. Lorenzo Simpson has given us a tough-minded, cool-eyed, warm-hearted critique of the technological perspective and of the post-modernist response . . . extraordinarily rich in language and subtle in conception. -- Marx W. Wartofsky, Baruch College This book is an excellent contribution both to cultural theory and to substantive moral philosophy. Lorenzo Simpson offers a subtle and scholarly account of the eclipse of imminent by instrumental value in the 'postmodern' world; at the same time, his distinctive voice brings home to us how our lives are impoverished by this development and how we can resist it. -- Sabina Lovibond, Worcester College Lorenzo Simpson's major new work on technology, temporality, and ethics is clearly the product of wide reading and mature reflection. . . . His discussions of Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas, Rorty and a host of other major theorists are uniformly first-rate. -- Thomas McCarthy, Northwestern University

Author Information

Lorenzo C. Simpson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Richmond.

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