Call For Papers: Special Issue of Techn

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Special Issue of Techn on Philosophy of Technology in the Age of the Anthropocene
Expected: Volume 21 Issue 2, 2017
Guest editors: Vincent Blok (Wageningen University, Netherlands), Pieter Lemmens
(Radboud University, Netherlands), Langdon Winner (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
USA), Jochem Zwier (Radboud University, Netherlands)
According to many climate and environmentalist scientists, we are about to enter a
phase in human history which will be characterized by huge changes in the earths
atmosphere and biosphere, global warming of course being the most pressing issue.
Humanitys largely destructive influence on its unique planetary life support system has
gained such a momentum lately that geologists have declared that we have entered a
new geological era, the so-called anthropocene, in which the human (anthropos) has
become the most influential geological (f)actor, trumping the natural ones in every
respect.
Whilst the anthropocene attests to the enormous if not uncanny power of a technoscientifically potentialized humanity to radically disrupt the earthly ecosystem upon
which it fundamentally depends for its very survival, it simultaneously reveals that utter
dependence and summons us to radically rethink our residence upon the planet as
thinkers like Jane Bennett, Bruno Latour, Timothy Morton, Peter Sloterdijk and Isabelle
Stengers have explicated each in their own way.
And as French philosopher Bernard Stiegler has pointed out, the anthropocene first of
all signals the toxic and entropic character of the process of capitalist industrialization
and the big challenge it imposes on us is how to exit from it and invent an alternative
negentropic, curative and more attentive technological modus vivendi. As such, it
presents us with a new and unconditional imperative of global extension: to radically
alter our modes of life in this planet in order to prevent our own self-destruction and
possibly that of the whole biosphere as well.
This special issue for Techn aims to explore the question of how philosophy of
technology should respond to the anthropocenic challenge. Possible questions to be
addressed may include:
What kind of world lays ahead of us given the truth of the new anthropocenic
condition?
How should we attune our technologies, for instance the global digital network
technologies or the NBIC technologies more generally, to this new situation?
What kind of new technologies and social institutions should be invented to deal with
the impending energy crisis and climate catastrophes and what kind of changes in our
technological thinking are needed for this new age?
What kinds of technopolitics and ecopolitics are needed and what can we already see
emerging on the horizon?

Should philosophy of technology assume a more ecological or even ecocentric focus,

instead of focusing on technical artefacts or (socio)technical systems only?
What should we think of proposed solutions like geo-engineering, ecotechnics and
atmo-design, and what of new technological paradigms like homeotechnology,
biomimicry and the biobased economy?
Contributors are invited to reflect on these and other issues from various perspectives
(e.g. ontology, epistemology, ethics, philosophical anthropology) and in particular to
ponder the question of what philosophy of technology should become or should focus
on in the age of the anthropocene.
Submission deadline: November 1, 2016
Papers should not exceed 7500 words, excluding notes and references, prepared for
blind review with no identifying references to you or your institution and accompanied
by an abstract of no more than 150-250 words plus 4-5 key words or phrases. For
detailed authors instructions please consult Techns submission guidelines:
https://www.pdcnet.org/techne/Submission-Guidelines.
Please submit your paper to: https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/techne and also send
an email to the guest editor(s) indicating the title of your paper: Vincent Blok:
vincent.blok@wur.nl, Pieter Lemmens: p.lemmens@science.ru.nl, Langdon Winner:
winner@rpi.edu or Jochem Zwier: j.zwier@science.ru.nl
Key references
Blok, V. (2015). Ecological Innovation: Critical Reflections on Biomimicry as a New
Way of Thinking and Acting Ecologically (In press 2016: DOI 10.1007/s10806-0159596-1)
Blok, V. (2015). The human glanze, the experience of environmental distress and the
Affordance of nature: Toward a phenomenology of the ecological crisis, Journal of
Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 28(5): 925-938 (DOI 10.1007/s10806-0159565-8)
Blok, V. (2014). Reconnecting with Nature in the Age of Technology. The Heidegger
and Radical Environmentalism Debate Revisited, Environmental Philosophy 11(2),
307-332 (DOI: 10.5840/envirophil20149913)
Bonneuill, C. & Fressoz, J-.B. (2016). The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth,
History and Us. London: Verso.
Hamilton, C. (2015). The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis:
Rethinking modernity in a new epoch. London: Routledge.
Latour, B. (2014). Agency at the time of the Anthropocene. New Literary History, Vol.
45, pp. 1-18, 2014

Lemmens, P. (2015) Philosophy of Technology in the Age of the Anthropocene.

Theorizing and Imagining the Emerging Geo-Technological Condition (working paper,
presented at the SPT 2015 Biannual meeting in Shenyang, China)
Lemmens, P. & Hui, Y. (2016). Peter Sloterdijk and Bernard Stiegler on the Emerging
Anthropocenic Condition, working paper for Krisis.
Morton, T. (2010). The Ecological Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Morton, T. (2013). Hyperobjects. Philosophy and Ecology after the End ofthe World.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Schwgerl, C. (2014). Anthropocene: A New Planet Shaped by Humans. Santa Fe:
Synergetic Press.
Sloterdijk, P. (1998-2004). Sphren Trilogie. Blasen, Globen, Schume. Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp.
Stengers, I. (2015). In Catastrophic Times. Resisting the Coming Barbarism. Lneburg:
Open Humanities Press.
Stiegler, B. (2014). The Anthropocene and Neganthropology, Keynote lecture
presented at the Nootechnics conference on general organology, Canterbury, November
2014.
Winner, L. (2013). A future for Philosophy of Technology Yes, But on Which
Planet?, Keynote Lecture at SPT Biannual meeting, Lisbon, Portugal
Zwier, J, Blok, V. & Lemmens, P. (2016). Phenomenology and the Empirical Turn: A
phenomenological analysis of postphenomenology, Philosophy of Technology (under
review)