Sustainability beyond technology : philosophy, critique, and implications for human organization / Pasi Heikkurinen, Toni Ruuska.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Heikkurinen, Pasi, author.

Ruuska, Toni, author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sustainable development.

Green technology.

Industrial management--Environmental aspects.

Industrial management.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (318 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, New York State : Oxford University Press, [2021]

Summary:

Current debates on sustainability are building on a problematic assumption that technological advancement is a desired phenomenon, creating positive change in human organisations. This transdisciplinary book develops a new way to conceptualise and examine technology, and outlines feasible alternatives for sustainability beyond technology.

Contents:

Cover

Sustainability beyond Technology: Philosophy, Critique, and Implications for Human Organization

Copyright

Epigraph

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Contents

List of Tables and Figures

List of Contributors

1: Technology and Sustainability: An Introduction

Technological Optimism and the Decoupling Fallacy

Technological Neutralism and the Equity Fallacy

Technological Pessimism and the Autonomy Fallacy

Technological Holism and the Intellect Fallacy

Conclusion

Structure of the Book

References

PART I: CONCEPTUALIZING TECHNOLOGY

2: The Question of Technology: From Noise to Reflection

Introduction

Much Heat, Little Light: Outline of the Contemporary Debate about Technology

Diagnosis: Four Common Notions of Technology

Technology Is Progressive

Technology Is Unstoppable

Technology Is Neutral

Technology Is Natural

Beauty or Beast?

Discussion: A Path towards Self-Determination

Conclusion: The Consequences of Noise

3: Earthing Philosophy of Technology: A Case for Ontological Materialism

Does Nature Matter? Materialism as a Recognition of Nature

Philosophy of Technology: What Is Technology?

Instrumentalism: A Gift from the Other

Substantivism: A Call for the Sleeper to Awake

Critical Theory: A Political Struggle over the Technical Code

Actor-NetworkTheory: Machines as Social Actors

En Route to a Critical Ecological Philosophy of Technology

Ontological Materialism, Metabolism, and Dialectics

Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Exosomatic Organs

Ecologically Unequal Exchange and Machine Fetishism

The Technological Continuum

4: Atechnological Experience Unfolding: Meaning for the Post-Anthropocene

Experience and Technology

Technology as (Exosomatic) Instruments.

Technology as a Mode of Being

Conceptualizing the Atechnology Perspective

Part I Summary: What is Technology?

Suggested Readings

PART II: CONFRONTING TECHNOLOGY

5: Competition within Technology: A Study of Competitive Thought and Moral Growth

A Violent and Mechanistic Account of Nature

The Evolutive Mechanism, the Struggle for Existence,and Their Social Context

Economics, Scarcity, Liberalism, and UniversalistHuman Nature

Liberal and Communitarian Ideas of Freedom: TheFreedom to Compete and Freedom from Competition

Resources and Premodern Nature

Meritocratic Subject and Equality to Compete

6: Conditions for Alienation: Technological Development and Capital Accumulation

Alienation as an Experience

Loss of Control and Freedom: Marxist Alienation Theory

Technology, Capital, and Alienation

7: What Does Fossil Energy Tell Usabout Technology?

On the Zero Meridian

Nafthism

Hubris

Fire and Plastics

Technology and Sustainability

8 Reversing the Industrial Revolution: Theorizing the Distributive Dimensions of Energy Transitions

The Distributive Dimension of Energy Technologies

Technologies as Socionatural Phenomena

Machine Fetishism

Technology as Time-SpaceAppropriation

Towards a Transdisciplinary Concept of Power Density

The Industrial Revolution as Neutralized Colonialism

Problems with a Transition to Renewable Energy

Part II Summary: Why Confront Technology?

PART III: CHANGING TECHNOLOGY

9: An Economy beyond Instrumental Rationality

Unsustainability and Technology

Logic behind Environmental Impacts.

Instruments, Instrumentality, and Strong Sustainability

Ends and Means

The Conventional Economy

Values and Assumptions: EnvironmentalDimensions (Nature)

Values and Assumptions: Social Dimensions (Humans)

Values and Assumptions: Economic Dimensions

Conceptual Bases for Inappropriate Measures

A Proposed New Economy

Development: Idealized Stages and a Need for New Content

Change in Production and Consumption

Change in the Speed and Scale of the Economy

Change in the Organization of the Economy

10: Small, Local, and Low-TechFirms as Agents of Sustainable Change

Towards Sustainable Change

Agency: A Critical Realist Perspective

Firms' Agential Characteristics

Structural Barriers to Agency and Sustainable Change

Operationalization of Agency

Discussion

11: Creative Reconstruction of the Technological Society: A Path to Sustainability

Technology as a Root Cause

The Nature of Modern Technology

On Technological Determinism

Objections

Towards a Better Future

Bibliography

Part III Summary: How to Change Technology?

12: Technology and Sustainability: A Conclusion

Name Index

Subject Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-263407-0

0-19-189734-5

0-19-263406-2

OCLC:

1243274706