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Technical politics

Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology

By Graeme Kirkpatrick

Technical politics
Hardcover -
  • Price: £85.00
  • ISBN: 9781526105325
  • Publish Date: May 2020
  • Publisher: Manchester University Press
  • Buy Now £85.00

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    Book Information

    • Format: Hardcover
    • Pages: 176
    • Price: £85.00
    • Published Date: May 2020

    Description

    Technology often plays an ambiguous role in theories of social change. Viewed by Karl Marx as the driving force of historical progress, it has come to be associated with exploitation and alienation, thanks in large part to the work of Frankfurt School critical theorists such as Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.

    Andrew Feenberg is an unusual figure: a critical theorist with an essentially optimistic view of technology. His concept of 'technical politics' puts technology design at the heart of disputes over the future shape of society. This book provides the first sustained critique of Feenberg's work, describing how it has developed from the tradition of Marx and Marcuse and analysing the key ideas of formal bias, ambivalence, progressive rationalisation and primary and secondary instrumentalisation.

    Identifying the limitations resulting from Feenberg's attachment to critique, the book offers a utopian corrective that can provide a fuller account of the process of willed technological transformation and of the author's own idea of a technologically authorised socialism.

    An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

    Contents

    Introduction: from critical theory to technical politics
    1 Critical theory and technology
    2 The theory of bias and the ethics of technology design
    3 Technical politics
    4 Aesthetic critique
    5 From critique to utopia
    Beyond critique: utopia

    References
    Index

    Author

    Graeme Kirkpatrick is Professor of Social and Cultural Theory at the University of Manchester

    Technical politics

    By Graeme Kirkpatrick

    Hardcover £85.00 / $130.00

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