SPT Newsletter
Volume 30, Number 2 – Summer 2006
Contents:
1. SPT 2007 Conference
2. Conferences, Workshops, and Lectures
3. Recent Publications of Interest
4. Membership and Dues
5. SPT Officers
SPT 2007
Conference: Call for Papers
Call for
Papers
Society
for Philosophy and Technology 2007 Biennial Meeting
Conference
Theme: Technology and Globalization
The globalization of the world is a phenomenon which
has always depended on technology.
Although much of the recent attention to globalization focuses on it as
a recent development, escalating since the end of World War II and exploding in
the post-Cold War period, the world’s diverse societies have been drawn into
complex inter-connections throughout the modern period, and even before with
the great ancient empires. Yet the
phenomenon of globalization involves technology and the distribution of power,
and is therefore a topic which cries out for the attention of
philosophers. As philosophers, we have
much to say about the ways technologies interact with, affect and are affected
by society. Inspired by the
international popularity of Thomas L. Friedman’s book The World is Flat, the
2007 meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Technology will be focused on
the ways that technology shapes and is shaped by the multidimensional
phenomenon of globalization.
For millennia technologies have transported people
and goods, though more recently communication technologies have been playing
the key role. Military, manufacturing,
and educational technologies are also key vectors and tools of globalization. These global technologies serve as vectors to
bring peoples and cultures together—sometimes in cooperation, sometimes in
conflict, sometimes in competition—but they also carry social values, beliefs
and ethics. From this perspective,
globalization is clearly as much a political as a technological phenomenon, and
is ripe for considered, philosophical examination.
The conference will begin with a plenary session and
reception on the evening of July 8th, 2007.
Sessions will be held on July 9, 10, and 11. At this point, scheduled speakers include:
·
Heather Widdows, Acting Director of
the Centre for Global Ethics,
·
Peters Kroes, SPT President
The Society for Philosophy and Technology has
sponsored conferences on philosophical aspects of technology since the late
1970s. Current conferences are held
every other year, rotating between
·
Philosophical Dimensions of
Globalization, including the Impact of the Internet
·
The metaphysics, epistemology and
ontology of globalization
·
The Ethics of Outsourcing in a
Global Economy
·
The changing nature of space and
time in a global economy.
·
The Internet, globalization and
changes in economics
·
The globalization of higher
education, especially engineering education
·
The ethics of hegemony and empire,
with particular attention to the role of technologies
·
Following Thomas Friedman’s lead,
comparisons between older versions of globalization and the current phenomenon.
·
Technology and population movements
The Program Committee is still being finalized, but
will be chaired by Joseph Pitt of Virginia Tech. Currently, other confirmed members include:
David Kaplan,
SUBMISSIONS
Submissions to the conference may be made with an
abstract of 200-400 words. Proposals for full sessions are also welcome; please
include abstracts for all papers to be included in sessions. Proposals should be made electronically as a
Word (.doc), Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Portable Document Format (.pdf)
attachment to: jcpitt@vt.edu. The
deadline for submissions is January 1, 2007.
Notifications will be made around March 1, 2007. Papers will be due to commentators on June 1,
2007. If you are interested in serving as a commentator, please send a short
email to jcpitt@vt.edu.
Conferences, Workshops, and Lectures
Scientific
Workshop “Engaging science and society in the ethics of genome research:
analyses, reflections and perspectives”
21st to 23rd of September 2006, Kleiner Festsaal,
The dynamic development of genome research raises
fundamental ethical and social questions concerning its implications for our
societies, a fact which equally applies to other emerging technosciences such
as nanotechnology or “converging technologies”. Over the past decades, methods
have been developed to reflexively engage with the implications of new
technoscientific knowledge for social order. Ethical reflection and public
engagement with the social dimensions of technoscientific development are two
traditions dealing with these issues. Though both may be argued to share common
goals, their relation to each other is unclear and often controversial as is
reflected in the debate around “empirical ethics”.
This workshop is the concluding event of a project, which
aimed at experimenting with a cross-over between these two traditions: engaging
both scientists and members of the public with the ethical dimensions of genome
research. Over the period of one year, a group of people met with genome
researchers at seven Round Tables to discuss the ethical and social dimensions
of their concrete project and genome research in general. To develop a better
understanding of this engagement and possible mutual learning processes is the
central goal of our project.
The workshop aims at sharing and discussing the
results of our analysis with the scientific community and practitioners working
on similar issues. It will be organised around four thematic foci:
Possibilities and limits of addressing ethics of
genome research in a public engagement exercise
(Non)Participating in which kind of governance?:
Reflecting the Round Table as a participatory setting
Talking science: Images, imaginations and
conceptions of science/scientists as discursive elements
Public engagement as mutual learning: Situated
perspectives and learning processes
In order to allow for ample discussion time, the
workshop will be organised around four plenary sessions, an opening and a
closing panel as well as a poster session. Each plenary session will have an
input from one invited speaker as well as from a member of our research team
The Workshop is organised by the Department of
Social Studies of Science,
No workshop fee; registration is mandatory.
Contact address for registration, poster submission
and inquiries:
projekt.wissenschaftsforschung
(at) univie.ac.at
Updated Workshop Programme: http://www.univie.ac.at/virusss/workshops/
IR 7.0:
INTERNET CONVERGENCES
International
and Interdisciplinary Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers
The Internet works as an arena of convergence.
Physically dispersed and marginalized
people (re)find themselves online for the sake of sustaining and extending
community. International and interdisciplinary
teams now collaborate in new ways. Diverse cultures engage one
another via CMC. These technologies
relocate and refocus capital, labor and
immigration, and they open up new possibilities for political,
potentially democratizing, forms of discourse. Moreover, these technologies themselves converge in multiple
ways, e.g. in Internet-enabled mobile phones, in Internet-based telephony, and
in computers themselves as "digital appliances" that conjoin
communication and multiple media forms. These technologies also facilitate
fragmentations with greater disparities between the information-haves and
have-nots, between winners and losers in the shifting labor and capital
markets, and between individuals and communities. Additionally these
technologies facilitate information filtering that reinforces, rather than
dialogically challenges,'narrow and extreme views. Topics of interest include:
- Theoretical and practical models of the Internet
- Internet convergence, divergence and fragmentation
- Networked flows of information, capital, labor,
etc.
- Migrations and diasporas online
- Identity, community and global communication
- Regulation and control (national and global)
- Internet-based development and other economic
issues
- Digital art and aesthetics
- Games and gaming on the Internet
- The Net generation
- E-Sectors, e.g. e-health, e-education, e-business
Prior to the conference, there will be a limited
number of pre-conference workshops which will provide participants with
in-depth, hands-on and/or creative opportunities.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Program Chair: Dr Fay Sudweeks,
Conference Chair: Dr Axel Bruns, Queensland University
of Technology, Australia: a.bruns [at] qut.edu.au
President of AoIR: Dr Matthew Allen, Curtin
University of Technology, Australia: m.allen [at] curtin.edu.au
Association Website: http://www.aoir.org
Conference Website: http://conferences.aoir.org
The
First Biennial CEPTES Symposium
Location: Drienerburght,
The Department of Philosophy is proud to enounce the
establishment of the Centre for Philosophy of Technology and Engineering
Science (CEPTES). CEPTES is a new centre at the Faculty of Behavioural
Sciences. Its First Biennial Symposium will be held
Speakers:
Prof. Dr. Ir. D. Reinhoudt,
Prof. Dr. A. Johnson, Department of Philosophy,
Dr. Ir. M. Boon, Philosophy Department,
Prof. Dr. W. Kruijer, Department Molecular Cell
Biology,
Dr. Tsj. Swierstra, Philosophy Department,
Dr. I. Bante, CTIT (Institute for Information
Technology,