SPT
Newsletter
Volume 29, Number 2 – Summer
2005
Contents:
1. SPT 2005 Conference
2. News from the APA Divisions
3. Conferences and Workshops
4. Recent Publications of Interest
5. Philosophy of Technology Around the World
6. Membership and Dues
7. SPT Officers
SPT 2005
Conference
Dear SPT members,
Our next SPT conference this summer in
The schedule with the sessions with the
contributed papers is at this point still changing because some authors had to
cancel their papers, and some did not yet inform us whether they will give
theirs. This requires some improvisation on our side. But the conference is
getting shape and we hope to offer you an exciting event.
Pieter Vermaas
News from
the APA Divisions
From the
Eastern Division
Society
for Philosophy and Technology Session for December 2005
American Philosophical Association meeting,
Date and time to be announced.
Topic:
Author Meets Critics. Heidegger and Marcuse:
The Catastrophe and Redemption of History (Routledge
2004), by Andrew Feenberg.
Speakers:
Daniel Dahlstrom,
Robert Scharff,
With a reply by Andrew Feenberg,
Chair: John Farnum,
From the
Pacific Division
The SPT along with the American Philosophical
Association’s committee on Computers and Philosophy, held a special session at
the Pacific Division APA meeting
Unfortunately the Pacific APA was marred by
the fact that it was held in a hotel that was under strike. At the last minute,the Philosophy department at the
Andrew Feenberg
argued that online communities are best seen as real communities even given the
fact that these communities share little physical resemblance to traditional
communities. To prove this point he
presented numerous examples of how these communities have achieved real world
ends in politics and social activism.
John Sullins
discussed how robotics technology, in the form of teleroboticly
operated machines is working to expand and conflate the problematic mind body
distinction. He traced the sometimes
explicitly stated values of those who build these technologies that emphasize
the desire to transcend bodily limitations to the point of replacing one’s own
body with that of a robot’s. This
presentation was illustrated with many examples of professional and amateur
robotics technology.
John Sullins
Conferences
and Workshops
ETHICAL
CHALLENGES IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM –
EIGHTH ANNUAL ETHICS AND TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
The primary purpose of this conference is to
foster interdisciplinary dialogue on the social, professional and ethical
challenges accompanying the rapid development of technology and its application
to modern life. This year’s conference theme is “Ethics at Work: Technology
Reshaping the Workplace.” The term “technology” is broadly applied in this
conference. Topics include but are not limited to:
·
Technology’s
influence on the workplace, the organization, and the individual.
·
The
emergence of new work, trends in the division of labor, and work-life
conflicts.
·
Workplace
surveillance, the employer-employee relationship, and the influence of
technology on leadership.
·
Data
mining its use and abuse.
·
Medical
information management and HIPPA (i.e., Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996).
·
Legal
issues surrounding technology.
·
Technology
as an aid or threat to privacy.
·
Genetics,
biotechnology, robotics, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, new frontiers
of technology and their impact on society in general and work in particular.
For conference details, see: http://ethicstech.net/
CEPE
2005: ETHICS OF NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY –
SIXTH
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF COMPUTER
ETHICS: PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRY,
The CEPE conference series is recognized as
one of the premier international events on computer and information ethics
attended by delegates from all over the world. Conferences are held about every
24 months, alternating between
Information technology is currently moving
well beyond the familiar mainframe, PC and laptop computer paradigms. We are
witnessing the mobile revolution, the ubiquitous computing revolution, as well
as revolutionary new uses of IT in biomedicine, education, the fight against
crime and terrorism, entertainment and other areas. We are anticipating a
nanotechnology revolution, as well as a convergence between information
technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology. These new developments require
ethical reflection, possibly even before their consequences become visible.
The special theme of CEPE2005 is ethics of
new information technology. Topics include:
- Virtual and augmented reality and shared
virtual environments
- Nanotechnology and nanocomputing
- Ubiquitous computing and ambient
intelligence
- Converging technologies (the convergence of
nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science)
- New surveillance technologies and new
technologies for security and privacy
- New uses of information technology in
biomedicine and bioengineering
- New military applications of IT
- New uses of information technology in
education
- New IT solutions to environmental problems
- New communication technologies and mobile
computing devices
- New developments in artificial
intelligence, artificial agents, embedded systems and artificial life
- Models for the ethical assessment of new
and future information technologies
CEPE 2005 will take place in conjunction with
the 14th Biennial International Conference of the Society for Philosophy and
Technology (SPT), which will be held from July 20-22 at Delft University of
Technology,
DIFFUSION
OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY THROUGHOUT HISTORY –
XXIInd INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE,
GLOBALIZATION AND DIVERSITY
24-30
July 2005,
The general theme of the conference is “Globalization
and Diversity”. Discussions will focus on the diffusion of science and
technology between different cultures in the past, and its impact on the world
today, as well as its prospects for the future advance of human civilization.
Scientific sections and symposia on other topics will also have their place.
The following plenary lectures will be held:
·
S. M. Razaullah Ansari (
·
Christopher
Cullen (
·
Peter Galison (
·
Khalid Salim Ismael (
·
Evelyn
Fox Keller (
·
Eberhard Knobloch (
·
Xiaochun Sun (
·
Chen Ning Yang (USA/China, Nobel laureate): Modern Physics since
Albert Einstein (Provisional)
More information: http://2005bj.ihns.ac.cn/index.htm
NA-CAP
2005 CONFERENCE
4-6
August, 2005,
Each year, thinkers and creators gather to
investigate the ways that information technology is transforming our world. Philosophers,
engineers, historians, computer scientists, cognitive scientists, and IT
professionals across the spectrum meet for three days of discussion and
exploration. Their topics include:
·
Artificial
Intelligence
·
Computing
Ethics
·
Information
Technology in Education
·
Electronic
Publication
·
Philosophy
of Information
·
Artificial
Morality
·
Robotics
·
Social
Responsibility
The attendance is international, the milieu
is collegial, the interaction is dynamic.
Jon Dorbolo,
4140 Valley Library,
Jon.Dorbolo@orst.edu; http://osu.orst.edu/groups/cap/
PHILOSOPHICAL
PERSPECTIVES ON SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING
Thursday
25 August -
This conference centers around the theme of
'scientific understanding'. The notion of scientific understanding is closely
related to that of scientific explanation, but while explanation is widely
discussed in philosophy of science, not much work has focused explicitly on
understanding. One reason is that traditional philosophers of science have long
regarded it as 'merely' a psychological notion, and thereby as philosophically
irrelevant. This attitude, however, is slowly disappearing, and interest in the
topic of understanding is growing. With this conference we hope to stimulate
the development of philosophical research into scientific understanding.
The conference is intended for philosophers
of science working on the topic of scientific understanding itself, or on
related topics such as explanation, modeling, representation, etc.; and for
historians and sociologists of science, cognitive scientists, and others having
an interest in philosophical questions regarding scientific understanding. We
aim at a varied program, in which philosophical questions about the nature of
scientific understanding will be approached in different ways. In addition to
contributions of a general philosophical nature, we hope to be able to present
studies focused on a wide range of sciences, both natural and social. Although
the conference has a philosophical orientation, contributions by historians and
sociologists of science, cognitive scientists, and others, are welcome, as long
as they are relevant to the general philosophical theme. Possible topics are:
§ The relation between explanation and
understanding in science
§ Understanding and types of scientific explanation
(causal, mechanistic, functional, unifying, etc.).
§ Is understanding epistemic, pragmatic, or
both?
§ Models, analogies, and intelligibility
§ Cognitive science and scientific
understanding
§ Is understanding individual or social?
§ Understanding in the various sciences:
similarities and differences
§ Case studies from the practice and history of
science
invited
speakers
Hasok Chang (
Peter Lipton (
Margaret Morrison (
organization
Henk W. de
Regt, Sabina Leonelli, and Kai Eigner
(Faculty of Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam)
Contact: understanding@ph.vu.nl
Website: http://www.ph.vu.nl/~understanding
CHEMISTRY,
TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY: 5TH
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY
Work
Group (WP) on History of Chemistry of the European Association for Chemical and
Molecular Sciences,