Agostino Cera Syllabus (title of the course: T ECHN OLOGY AS

P HILOSOPHICAL Q UESTION )

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Agostino Cera, PhD.

Qualifications:
- Adjunct Professor of Theoretical Philosophy (since 2014) at the Department of Humanities (DiSU),
University of Basilicata (Italy)
- Adjunct Professor of Phenomenology of Image (since 2018) at the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples
(Italy)
Email address: moonwatch1@libero.it
Areas of Interest: Continental philosophy between XIX and XX century (especially German
philosophy: Löwith, Heidegger, Anders, Nietzsche), philosophy of technology; philosophical
anthropology; philosophy of film.

My research career started with an anthropological interpretation of Karl Löwith’s philosophy, with a
specific focus on his phenomenological personalism (that I have defined Mitanthropologie). Thanks to a
three-semester study period at the Technische Universität Dresden as Gastdoktorand, I started to engage
with German philosophical anthropology of the 20th century. While deepening my knowledge in this
field I “met” the question of technology. Grounded on this basis, I developed an original theoretical
approach, i.e. a philosophical anthropology of technology that I defined “philosophy of technology in the nominative
case” (TECNOM). This approach focuses on the moral implications of technology conceived as
epochal phenomenon, i.e. current “subject of history”. Within such a hermeneutical framework
technology emerges as neo-environment that produces a feralization of human being as its anthropological
and ethical crucial consequence. Recently this work on philosophy of technology has brought me to
deal with the topics “Anthropocene” and “Environmental Ethics”.

You can find my cv, list of publications and further information about my work on my academia.edu
page: https://unibas-it.academia.edu/agostinocera
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OVERVIEW ON THE SYLLABUS AND MY TEACHING STRATEGY

Currently I am teaching as Adjunct Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Basilicata

(Italy) and as Adjunct Professor of Phenomenology of Image at the Academy of Fine Arts of Napoli
(Italy). The course I am presenting here has been thought as Theoretical Philosophy course for
graduate students.
I developed this syllabus on the basis of my experience as teacher and researcher as well, because from
several years (i.e. since 2007) I am working on the topic “philosophy of technology”. I tried to follow
the international standard models of university courses, in order to make my proposal as feasible as
possible by other teachers. The “innovative” approach of my proposal is expressed in the part 2 of my
syllabus (in particular, lessons 11-14). It is a direct and strict confrontation (namely, a real hermeneutical
exercise) with a classic of the philosophical literature: Martin Heidegger’s essay The Question Concerning
Technology (1953).

In my view the fundamental aim of every philosophical lecture/course is to make the students able to
live in first person the experience of philosophy. As Maurice Merleau-Ponty affirmed: “True
philosophy consists in relearning to look at the world”.
The pedagogical goals of my syllabus are to provide the students with the basic conceptual tools
(included a critical distance) in order to deal with the topic “technology” as crucial “hub” of the
philosophical thought (especially with reference to its modern and contemporary stages).

I firmly believe in few and simple pedagogical principles, which I try to apply/implement in my
teaching activity. Among them, the primacy of the relation, namely the idea that a lesson is first and
foremost a relation/encounter between teacher and students. This means that the teacher must design
and develop a lecture/course with specific reference to his/her class. That is to say, by finding a
compromise between his/her specific competence and the abilities and interests of his/her students. In
my view, a good university course must look like a made-to-measure-suit. As a consequence, I consider
a course as a constant work in progress. In order to apply this conviction, I try to get constant
feedbacks from my students, by creating “dialogical moments” during every lesson. They represent a
fundamental benchmark for my pedagogical agency and strategy, that is a compass to orientate and/or
re-orientate it. All my lessons (after the first) begins with a short summary (5-10 min.) of the previous
lesson. Little by little I try to engage the students in this practice and finally I let them the summary.
My favourite element of the syllabus is what I defined “hermeneutical exercise”, that is a direct
confrontation (namely, reading, explanation, interpretation, discussion of the text in the class) with a
philosophical classic (as said, in my syllabus this hermeneutical exercise concerns Martin Heidegger’s
essay The Question Concerning Technology). According to my teaching experience, the hermeneutical
exercise represents the students’ favourite element, too. They find very interesting the possibility of
making such an experience together in the class and thus acquiring (under the experienced guidance of
the teacher) a personal relationship with a philosopher and his/her ideas. For these reasons in every
course I taught, I tried to include an hermeneutical exercise.
Obviously, I don’t consider my teaching strategy complete or “perfect”. My teaching philosophy can be
summarized in the formula: “Teaching is learning”, that is “you can be a good teacher only if you learn to
teach”. Therefore I believe I can always learn something more about learning and thus that every
course can be improved. As a result, I hope I can always find something to change (improve) in my
courses.

My only advice/suggestion for those who hope to teach the course using my syllabus as a guide is
expressed by two keywords: competence and example. With “competence” I mean both the skills (i.e.
theoretical, historical, methodological) that a student needs to acquire in order to approach
philosophically a topic/question and the skills that a teacher must possess in order to be a solid and
credible guidance for the students. With “example” I mean the role of the teacher, namely that his/her
lectures must provide a constant example of the peculiarity of the philosophical approach to a certain
topic.

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SYLLABUS

Title of the course: T ECHN OLOGY AS P HILOSOPHICAL Q UESTION

[course for graduate students of 60 hours, namely 20 3-hours lessons]

Description: Starting from the complex historical-theoretical evolution of the topic “technology” (i.e.
from the idea of techné in the ancient Greek to modern and contemporary idea of
Machbarkeit/makeability), the course aims to highlight the importance of such a topic as philosophical
question.
Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of technology will emerge as the fundamental point of reference (in a
critical sense, too) for the idea itself of a philosophy of technology. At the same time the course will
deal with the problem of Heidegger’s legacy, that is the current options and future possibilities for the
philosophy of technology.
The course aims to provide the students with the basic conceptual tools in order to deal with the topic
“technology” as crucial “hub” of the philosophical thought (especially with reference to its modern and
contemporary stages). For this purpose a particular attention will be given to the direct confrontation
with the “classics”, chosen as reference literature.
The course is organized in 20 3-hours lessons. Obviously, this is only a proposal. It can also be
organized differently (for instance, in 30 2-hours lessons).

SYLLABUS OF THE 20 LESSONS

LESSON 1: GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Exposition of the structure of the course:
Part 1 (lessons 2-9): What is technology from a philosophical point of view?
Part 2 (lessons 10-15): Heidegger and the question of technology.
Part 3 (lessons 16-20): The Philosophy of Technology after Heidegger.

LESSON 2 (PART I.1): A DEFINITION OF TECHNOLOGY AS PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION

What is technology?; Why a philosophy of technology?; Technology as philosophical question;
Definitions of “technology” and “philosophy of technology” according to philosophical vocabularies;
Ancient and modern technology: from techne to makeability (Machbarkeit); Peculiarity of the modern
technology.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: R. Scharff, “Philosophy of Technology”, in J. Protevi (Ed.), The Edinburgh
Dictionary of Continental Philosophy, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2005, pp. 570-574; J. K. Berg
Olsen et al. (eds), A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology, Malden, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009].

LESSON 3 (PART I.2): THE “BIRTH” OF PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY

Ernst Kapp, that is „the absolute beginner“; Kapp’s theory of “Organprojection” (Organ Proiection).
Philosophy of technology and philosophical anthropology: Ernst Kapp and Paul Alsberg; Alsberg’s
principle of “Körperausschaltung” (body-liberation).
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. Kapp, Elements of a Philosophy of Technology (1877), Engl. transl. L. K. Wolfe,
Minneapolis/London; Unversity of Minnesota Press, 2018; P. Alsberg, In Quest of Man: A Biological
Approach to the Problem of Man’s Place in Nature (1922), Engl. transl. ed. by C. H. Waddington,
Oxford/New York, Pergamon Press, 1970].

LESSON 4 (PART I.3): TECHNOLOGY AT THE TURN OF XX CENTURY

Why technology becomes a philosophical priority in XX Century?; Technology and modernity;
Towards a technological society; Samples of (continental) philosophical inquiry concerning technology:
Arnold Gehlen, Günther Anders, Hannah Arendt, Hans Jonas, Herbert Marcuse, Lewis Mumford,
Jacques Ellul, Gilbert Simondon.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: V. Dusek, Philosophy of Technology: An Introduction, Malden, Blackwell, 2006; D. M.
Kaplan (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of Technology, Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, 2009; Ch. Hubig et
al. (eds), Nachdenken über Technik: Die Klassiker der Technikphilosophie und neuere Entwicklungen (3. Auflage),
Darmstadt, Sigma, 2013].

LESSON 5 (PART I. 4): ARNOLD GEHLEN

Gehlen, that is technology from a philosophical-anthropological perspective; Premise: the renaissance of
philosophical anthropology in Germany (Scheler, Plessner, Gehlen); Technology as anthropological
constant; Human being as “Mängelwesen” (deficient being); Human agency (technology) as “Entlastung”
(relief); The necessity of a “compensation”: Gehlen’s theory of institutions.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Gehlen, Man in the Age of Technology (1957), Engl. transl. P. Lipscomb, New
York, Columbia University Press, 1980].

LESSON 6 (PART I. 5): GÜNTHER ANDERS

Anders’ “philosophical anthropology in the age of technocray”; Technology as the new “subject of
history”; The three industrial revolutions; From the man without world to the world without man;
“Promethean gap” and “Promethean shame”; The “Antiquiertheit” (obsolescence) of man.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. Anders, Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen, 2 voll., München, Beck, 1956 and 1980]

LESSON 7 (PART I. 6): HANNAH ARENDT AND HANS JONAS

Arendt: the human condition in the age of technology; Vita activa vs. vita contemplativa; Homo faber vs.
animal laborans; Labor, work and action; The ancient polis as unsurpassed model; Jonas: technology and
ethic; Technology and ecological crisis; A new ethic for a brand new world; The imperative
responsibility.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Arendt, The Human Condition, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1958; H.
Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age (1979), Engl. transl. H.
Jonas and D. Herr, Chicago, University of Chicago Press 1985].
LESSONS 8 (PART I. 7): HERBERT MARCUSE AND LEWIS MUMFORD
Herbert Marcuse, that is technology between dystopia and utopia; The technological/capitalist society
and the “one dimensional man”; “Performance principle” and “surplus repression”; The socialist
revolution as technological revolution; Mumford: modern technology as “megamachine”; Organic
humanism against an overmanned world; A historical-theoretical periodization of technology (Eo-
technic; Paleo-technic; Neo-technic).
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud, Boston, Beacon 1955;
Id., One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society , Boston, Beacon, 1964; L.
Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, 2 voll., San Diego, Harcourt, 1967 and 1970].

LESSON 9 (PART I. 8): JACQUES ELLUL AND GILBERT SIMONDON

The ‘French way’ to the question of technology; Jacques Ellul: technology as epochal phenomenon
(and risk); Technology as “system”, “environment” and “myth”; Gilbert Simondon: an ontology of
technology from the perspective of the objects; Beyond the boundaries between man and animal and
between man and object: the “transindividual”.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Ellul, The Technological Society (1955), Engl. transl. J. Wilkinson, New York,
Vintage Books, 1964; G. Simondon, On the mode of Existence of Technical Objects (1958), Engl. transl. C.
Malaspina and J. Rogove, Minneapolis, Univocal, 2017; S. Loeve et al. (eds), French Philosophy of
Technology: Classical Readings and Contemporary Approaches, Heidelberg/New York, Springer, 2018].

LESSON 10 (PART II.1): MARTIN HEIDEGGER: AN INTRODUCTION TO HIS PHILOSOPHY

Heidegger as permanent benchmark for the philosophy of technology; Overview on Heidegger’s
philosophy; Philosophy as ontology; The first stage: Being and Time and the existential analytic; The
second stage: the “Kehre” (turn) and the question of technology.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. L. Dreyfus and M. A. Wrathall (eds), A Companion to Heidegger, Oxford,
Blackwell, 2005; M. Heidegger, Being and Time (1927), Engl. transl. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson,
Oxford, Blackwell, 2001]

LESSON 11 (PART II.2): “THE QUESTION CONCERNING TECHNOLOGY” 1

Heidegger’s manifesto in philosophy of technology: The Question Concerning Technology (1955); “The
essence of technology is by no means anything technological”; What means a “free relation” with
technology?; Critique of the instrumental-anthropological approach to technology.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology” (1953), in The Question
Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. W. Lovitt. New York &London, Garland 1977, pp. 3-35].
LESSON 12 (PART II.3): “THE QUESTION CONCERNING TECHNOLOGY” 2
Re-interpretation of the traditional four causes (materialis, formalis, finalis, efficiens); Cause as be
responsible; Poiesis as “Hervor-bringen” (bringing-forth); techne and physis as ways of poiesis/bringing-forth;
Bringing-forth and truth as aletheia.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”, cit.]

LESSON 13 (PART II.4): “THE QUESTION CONCERNING TECHNOLOGY” 3

From the bringing-forth (Hervor-bringen) to the “challenge” (Heraus-forderung); Being/entity as “standing-
reserve” (Bestand”); The essence of modern technology is the “Enframing” (Ge-stell); Enframing as
authentically historical event (the difference between Geschichte and Historie).
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”, cit.]

LESSON 14 (PART II.5): “THE QUESTION CONCERNING TECHNOLOGY” 4

History as “destining” (Geschick), “secret” (Geheimnis) and “danger” (Gefahr); “But where danger is,
grows the saving power, too” (Hölderlin); Technology as “way of revealing”; Recovering the ancient
meaning of poiesis between technology and art; Philosophy doesn’t give answers: “questioning is the pity
of thought”.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”, cit.]

LESSON 15 (PART II.6): HEIDEGGER’S PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY: A BALANCE

Lights and shadows in Heidegger’s philosophy of technology; The question of essentialism, namely the
problem of technological determinism; The question of “releasement” (Gelassenheit); Is it possible an
ethic and politics of technology according to Heidegger?;
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: R. Rojcewicz, Gods and Technology: A Reading of Heidegger, New York, State of New
York University Press, 2006; A. J. Wendland et al. (eds), Heidegger on Technology, New York, Routledge
2019].

LESSON 16 (PART III.1): PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY AFTER (AND BEYOND) HEIDEGGER: THE
EMPIRICAL TURN
Is it possible a philosophy of technology after/beyond Heidegger?; Hans Achterhuis’s idea of Empirical
Turn in philosophy of technology; Empirical turn, that is the American way to the philosophy of
technology; From “technology” to “technologies”.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY, H. Achterhuis, American Philosophy of Technology: The Empirical Turn (1999), Engl.
transl. R. P. Crease, Bloomington/Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 2001].
LESSON17 (PART III.2): SAMPLES OF AMERICAN PHILOSOPHIES/PHILOSOPHERS OF TECHNOLOGY 1
Albert Borgmann, namely the Heideggerean tradition towards the New World; Device paradigm, focal
things and practices; Carl Mitcham: technology in its essential relationship with engineering; Landgon
Winner: the politics (of artifacts) within a technological world.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry,
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1984; C. Mitcham, Thinking through technology: The Path between
Engineering and Philosophy, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994; L. Winner, Do Artifacts Have
Politics?, in “Daedalus”, 109: 1, 1980, pp. 121-136]

LESSON 18 (PART III. 3): SAMPLES OF AMERICAN PHILOSOPHIES/PHILOSOPHERS OF TECHNOLOGY 2

Andrew Feenberg: between Heidegger and Marcuse; The critical constructivism and the
democratization of technology; Don Ihde: between Husserl and Heidegger; The post-
phenomenological approach and the technological lifeworld.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Feenberg, Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason, Harvard University Press, 2017;
D. Ihde, Postphenomenology: essays in the postmodern context, Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1993]

LESSON 19 (PART III.4): CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY AFTER (AND BEYOND)

HEIDEGGER
Two samples: Bernard Stiegler and Peter Sloterdijk; Stiegler: Technology and temporality; Philosophy
of technology as a new form of philosophical anthropology; Sloterdijk: against Heidegger’s essentialism
and catastrophism; Farewell to humanism: the anthropotechnics.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: B. Stiegler, Technics and Time, 3 voll. (1994-2001), Engl. transl., Stanford, Stanford
University Press, 1998-2011; P. Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life: On Anthropotechnics (2009), Engl.
transl. W. Hoban, Malden, Polity Press, 2013].

LESSON 20 (PART III. 5): THE FUTURE OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY: FINAL COMMENTS
What is (today) technology? Why (today) a philosophy of technology?; The empirical turn and the risk
of an “ontophobic” over-reaction against Heideggger’s legacy; Franco Volpi’s definition of a
“Philosophy of Technology in the Nominative Case”; Can be the current philosophy of technology
considered a philosophy of technology in the nominative case?
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Franssen et al. (eds), Philosophy of Technology after the Empirical Turn,
Heidelberg/New York, Springer, 2016; F. Volpi, Il nichilismo, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2004; A. Cera, The
Technocene or Technology as (Neo)environment, in “Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology”, 21: 2-3,
2017, pp. 243-281].