Andrew Feenberg (born 1943) is an American philosopher. He holds the

Canada Research Chair Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a title given to certain Canadian university research professors by the Canada Research Chairs Program. Program goals The Canada Research Chair program was established in 2000 as a part of the Government of Canada ...

in the Philosophy of Technology in the School of Communication at

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located ...

in Vancouver. His main interests are

philosophy of technology The philosophy of technology is a sub-field of philosophy that studies the nature of technology and its social effects. Philosophical discussion of questions relating to technology (or its Greek ancestor ''techne'') dates back to the very dawn of ...

continental philosophy Continental philosophy is a term used to describe some philosophers and philosophical traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of analytic philosophy. However, there is no academic consensus on the definition of continental philosophy. Pri ...

, critique of technology and

science and technology studies Science and technology studies (STS) is an interdisciplinary field that examines the creation, development, and consequences of science and technology in their historical, cultural, and social contexts. History Like most interdisciplinary fie ...

Education

Feenberg studied philosophy under

Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse (; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German-American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Humboldt University ...

at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is ...

and was awarded his PhD in 1972. During this time Feenberg was active in the

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights ...

, founding a journal entitled ''Alternatives'' and participating in the May '68 events in Paris.

Feenberg's philosophy of technology

Compared to his predecessors in philosophy of technology, such as

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centu ...

and

Jacques Ellul Jacques Ellul (; ; January 6, 1912 – May 19, 1994) was a French philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian, and professor who was a noted Christian anarchist. Ellul was a longtime Professor of History and the Sociology of Institutions on ...

who have a dystopian view of technology, Feenberg's view is positive even though critical. For

Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...

and Ellul technology affects people's life but is for the most part beyond their control. For Feenberg technology and society influence each other. He separates himself from the instrumentalists who view technology merely as instruments which are within human's full control. Feenberg's primary contribution to the philosophy of technology is his argument for the democratic transformation of technology. From his book ''Transforming Technology,'' :"What human beings are and will become is decided in the shape of our tools no less than in the action of statesmen and political movements. The design of technology is thus an ontological decision fraught with political consequences. The exclusion of the vast majority from participation in this decision is profoundly undemocratic" (p.3). Feenberg provides the theoretical foundation for this idea through the Critical Theory of Technology which he develops over three books: ''The Critical Theory of Technology'' (1991) (re-published as ''Transforming Technology: A Critical Theory Revisited'' 002, ''Alternative Modernity: The Technical Turn in Philosophy and Social Theory'' (1995), and ''Questioning Technology'' (1999). The basis of Feenberg's critical theory of technology is a concept of dialectical technological rationality he terms instrumentalization theory. Instrumentalization theory combines the social critique of technology familiar from the philosophy of technology (

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

) with insights taken from the empirical case studies of

. Applications of his theory include studies of online education, the Minitel, the Internet, and digital games. Feenberg has also published books and articles on the philosophy of

Jürgen Habermas Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere. Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's wo ...

, Georg Lukacs, and

Kitarō Nishida was a Japanese moral philosopher, philosopher of mathematics and science, and religious scholar. He was the founder of what has been called the Kyoto School of philosophy. He graduated from the University of Tokyo during the Meiji period in 18 ...

Selected works

Books

Author * ''Lukacs, Marx and the Sources of Critical Theory'' (Rowman and Littlefield, 1981; Oxford University Press, 1986) * ''Critical Theory of Technology'' (Oxford University Press, 1991), later republished as Transforming Technology (Oxford University Press, 2002), see below. * ''Alternative Modernity'' (University of California Press, 1995) * ''Questioning Technology'' (Routledge, 1999). * ''Transforming Technology: A Critical Theory Revisited'' (Oxford University Press, 2002). * ''Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption of History'' (Routledge 2005). * ''Between Reason and Experience: Essays in Technology and Modernity'' (MIT Press, 2010). * ''The Philosophy of Praxis: Marx, Lukács and the Frankfurt School'' (Verso Press, 2014). * ''Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason'' (Harvard University Press, 2017). * ''The Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing: Nature and Revolution in Marcuse's Philosophy of Praxis'' (Verso Press, 2023). Editor * w/ R. Pippen & C.Webel, ''Marcuse: Critical Theory and the Promise of Utopia'' (Bergin and Garvey Press, 1988) * w/ A. Hannay, ''Technology and the Politics of Knowledge'' (Indiana University Press, 1995) * w/ T. Misa & P. Brey, ''Modernity and Technology'' (MIT Press, 2003) * w/ D. Barney, ''Community in the Digital Age'' (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004). * w/ W. Leiss, ''The Essential Marcuse: Selected Writings of Philosopher and Social Critic Herbert Marcuse'' (Beacon Press, 2007).

References

*Zachry, Mark (2007). "An Interview with Andrew Feenberg", ''Technical Communication Quarterly'', 16(4).

External links

Andrew Feenberg's homepage
online article by Andrew Feenberg discussing

, Habermas and Borgmann.
Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology Vol 9 No 3
Special Review Section Devoted to Andrew Feenberg's book ''Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption of History''.
Review of ''Community in the Digital Age''
by Arun Kumar Tripathi (ACM Ubiquity, Volume 5, Issue 28, Sept. 8 - Sept. 14, 2004).

online article by Andrew Feenberg discussing

Minitel The Minitel was a videotex online service accessible through telephone lines, and was the world's most successful online service prior to the World Wide Web. It was invented in Cesson-Sévigné, near Rennes in Brittany, France. The service w ...

. * at

The bursting boiler of digital education: critical pedagogy and philosophy of technology
interview with Petar Jandrić (Knowledge Cultures, 3(5), 132-148, 2015).
Andrew Feenberg in conversation with Laureano Ralón. Figure/Ground. August 18th, 2010
{{DEFAULTSORT:Feenberg, Andrew Philosophers of technology Canada Research Chairs Living people Simon Fraser University faculty 1943 births