Andrew Feenberg

Andrew Feenberg
Simon Fraser University · School of Communication

PhD

About

362
Publications
208,881
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Introduction
Andrew Feenberg is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University where he directs the Applied Communication and Technology Lab. Interested in Critical Theory, philosophy of technology, and online education, Dr. Feenberg has authored several texts over his career. His most recent book, Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason, appeared with Harvard University Press in 2017. for more info: http://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/index.html
Additional affiliations
January 2003 - present
Simon Fraser University
Position
  • Canada Research Chair, Philosophy of Technology
January 1969 - January 2003
San Diego State University
Position
  • Professor (Full)

Publications

Publications (362)
Chapter
In this paper, I explain in detail Critical Constructivism, which I situate as a political philosophy of technology that draws from the Frankfurt SchoolFrankfurt School, the, Heideggerian phenomenology, Marxist labour process theory, and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Critical constructivism thus addresses the study of specific designs and t...
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O artigo elabora um modelo para a compreensão da pedagogia no ambiente dos fóruns educacionais online. O modelo identifica quatro componentes. Primeiro, o engajamento intelectual é o componente que revela os processos cognitivos de primeiro plano do aprendizado colaborativo. Em segundo lugar, os processos de comunicação que operam no plano de fundo...
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Dans la tradition de l’École de Francfort, le philosophe canadien soutient qu’Internet et les réseaux sociaux rendent possibles de nouveaux modes de résistance au capitalisme technologique.
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Critical constructivism adds a dimension of collective action to postphenomenology. This paper explains the intervention of collective subjects into technological design. That intervention presupposes communication between lay and expert actors which is made possible by the dependence of technical disciplines on the lifeworld. Understanding the pub...
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The Internet is unlike anything else in the history of technology. It is neither a tool nor a machine, but a network. As such, it is a new type of technical system. It resembles the telephone system in some respects, but it also has similarities to broadcast networks that distribute entertainment, shopping malls that distribute goods, and transport...
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This chapter presents interview with Andrew Feenberg, conducted by Armen Khatchatourov and Pierre‐Antoine Chardel. The supporters of Marxist revolutionary aspirations see in capitalist movement a one‐way journey towards dystopia and its brave new world, all the more as the industrialization and manipulation of culture are added to recuperation. Int...
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In 1844, Marx wrote that “Philosophy can only be realized by the abolition of the proletariat, and the proletariat can only be abolished by the realization of philosophy.”1 Adorno later commented, “Philosophy, which once seemed obsolete, lives on because the moment to realize it was missed.”2 What is the meaning of this strange concept of a “realiz...
Book
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In this new collection of essays, Andrew Feenberg argues that conflicts over the design and organization of the technical systems that structure our society are shaping deep choices for our future. A pioneer in the philosophy of technology, Feenberg demonstrates the continuing vitality of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and calls into q...
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Apresentamos aqui uma tradução para o português do artigo “The Online Education Controversy and the Future of the University”, de autoria de Andrew Feenberg, publicado pela Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht, em edição eletrônica, em dezembro de 2015, sob código identificador DOI 10.1007/s10699-015-9444-9. O resumo e as palavras-chave desse...
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In this reply to his critics, Andrew Feenberg takes up the issues of the articles in the volume with the intention of clarifying his positions with respect to epistemology, ontology, and methodology. The chapter is divided into three main parts. Part One is devoted to questions of democracy. Its subsections include (1) democracy, (2) environmentali...
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Les discours portant sur les implications de l’Internet sont souvent ambivalents, partagés entre des aspirations utopiques et des peurs dystopiques. Cette contribution vise à sortir la discussion de ce dilemme éculé. La place prépondérante de l’Internet et ses vastes implications pour la vie moderne ne peuvent être décrites adéquatement en termes d...
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Discussion of the wider implications of the Internet often situate it in relation to utopian aspirations or dystopian fears. In this paper I will attempt to break out of this by now hackneyed dilemma. The Internet does have broad implications for modern life, but neither utopia nor dystopia adequately describes it. Instead, elements of both show up...
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The neo-liberal reform of the university has had a huge impact on higher education and promises still more changes in the future. Many of these changes have had a negative impact on academic careers, values, and the educational experience. Educational technology plays an important role in the defense of neo-liberal reform, less through actual accom...
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In this reply I discuss Ellen Rose’s observations on online education as she has practiced it and Evan Selinger’s concerns about the introduction of big data in the university. Both authors are in agreement that neo-liberalism is restructuring the university, but add new considerations to the argument.
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The debate over the contribution of the Internet to democracy is far from settled. Some point to the empowering effects of online discussion and fund raising on recent electoral campaigns in the US to argue that the Internet will restore the public sphere. Others claim that the Internet is just a virtual mall, a final extension of global capitalism...
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In these replies I address criticism of my work on the grounds that I adopt a 'humanist' approach, underestimate the aesthetic potential of contemporary video games, overlook the role of the nation-state in resisting technological imperialism, fail to appreciate the risks of reactionary appropriations of technology, and introduce an extrinsic and d...
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Introduction This chapter summarizes the main ideas of critical theory of technology and shows how it relates to its two sources, Frankfurt School Critical Theory and early work in Science and Technology Studies (STS). 1 Critical theory of technology is concerned with the threat to human agency posed by the technocratic system that dominates modern...
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This chapter discusses the many uses and abuses of the Lukácsian theory and compares them with the actual content of Lukács’s early Marxist work. It presents the core of Lukács’s argument in something like its original meaning and considers its significance for the Frankfurt School, which drew on Lukács’s theory of reification despite strong reserv...
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This paper argues that Gilbert Simondon's philosophy of technology is useful for both science and technology studies (STS) and critical theory. The synthesis has political implications. It offers an argument for the rationality of democratic interventions by citizens into decisions concerning technology. The new framework opens a perspective on the...
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Walter Benjamin’s famous essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” came to mind as I read the chapters of this remarkable book. Benjamin’s essay responds to the emergence of photography and film, the advanced communication technologies of the early 20th century. He argues that these technologies respond to a democratic impulse t...
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The lectures now published in Transvaluation of Values and Radical Social Change show how Marcuse intended these words to be interpreted both philosophically and politically in the decisive decade of the rise and fall of the New Left. Like many of Marcuse’s lectures in this period, the text must be read at two levels. Superficially, the argument...
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The following text contains an account of my notes from René Girard’s graduate seminar on 20th Century French Literature, offered in the second semester of 1962. The notes were recently found tucked in a drawer in an old piece of family furniture.
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This article argues that Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of technology is useful for both science and technology studies (STS) and critical theory. The synthesis has political implications. It offers an argument for the rationality of democratic interventions by citizens into decisions concerning technology. The new framework opens a perspective on t...
Chapter
The concept of function is a hinge between the material world and the cultural world. Analytic philosophy of function has made considerable progress in the conceptual analysis of function, but it has not considered the link between function and culture. That is the purpose of this chapter. We know from social constructivist investigations of techno...
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The purpose of this chapter is to affirm the democratic potential of the Internet. Affirmation is called for by the context of contemporary critical theory, in which the Internet figures increasingly as the problem rather than the solution to the crisis of democracy. This marks a change from early optimistic assessments which still inspire a dimini...
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The concept of function is a hinge between the material world and the cultural world. Analytic philosophy of function has made considerable progress in the conceptual analysis of function, but it has not considered the link between function and culture. That is the purpose of this chapter. We know from social constructivist investigations of techno...
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Lukács's theory of reification, explained in his 1923 work, History and Class Consciousness, is often interpreted as a theory of ideology, but it is also a theory of social practice and a work of social ontology. Reification and dereification describe different types of social practice: individual technical practices aimed at adaptation, survival,...
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This commentary addresses criticism of Lukács’s early book Tailism and the Dialectic: A Defence of History and Class Consciousness.Two critiques published in Historical Materialismare analysed and alternative interpretations of Lukács’s theory developed. The commentary focuses on Lukács’s theories of class consciousness and his ideas on the social...
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Este artigo defende que a teoria da concretização de Gilbert Simondon é útil tanto para os estudos sobre ciência e tecnologia (ECT) quanto para a teoria política. Por "concretização", Simondon compreende o processo de multiplicação de funções propiciadas pelas estruturas de um dispositivo. Ele oferece o exemplo do motor com resfriamento a ar, que c...
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In this text I discuss the fundamental problem of human finitude. This is an issue that comes up in both sources of Western ethical tradition, both the Judaic and the Greek source. The ancient wisdom teaches human finitude and enjoins human beings to avoid hubris, the belief that they are gods. Despite, or rather because of the many advances in tec...
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In the era of social media, the notion of immaterial labor or free labor can be interpreted in different ways. On the one hand, Hardt and Negri argue, immaterial labor as labor creates immaterial products. On the other hand, free labor can be understood as unpaid labor that is voluntarily given. Fuchs combines the theories of free labor and Hardt a...
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This conversation explores the relationships between information technologies and education from the perspective of a Frankfurt School philosopher. The first part of the conversation provides a brief insight into distinct features of Andrew Feenberg's philosophy of technology. It looks into lessons from "stabilized" technologies, explores the role...
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The debate about the contribution of the Internet to democracy remains far from settled. Some observers point to the potential the Internet affords for restoring the public sphere, emphasizing the empowering effects of online discussions. Others claim that the Internet is little more than a virtual mall; an extension of global capitalism into every...
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Agency and Citizenship in a Technological Society Citizenship implies agency, but what is agency, and how is agency possible in a technologically advanced society where so much of life is organized around technical systems commanded by experts ? This article addresses these questions from the standpoint of philosophy of technology and constructivis...
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This article examines the framing of U.S. debates around securitization of the Internet and questions the need for a securitizing approach. Undoubtedly the Internet could be more secure, but we stress the importance of cyberspace as an open, global commons of information that has allowed innovation and rapid technological growth. We therefore discu...
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Prologue: the cold fusion fiasco On March 23rd, 1989 Martin Fleischman and Stanley Pons appeared at a press conference at the University of Utah where they announced the discovery of cold fusion. The President of the university and several other officials were also present and spoke to the press. The unaccustomed involvement of the press and these...
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Critical theory of technology brings technology studies to bear on the social theory of rationality. This paper discusses this connection through a reconsideration of the contribution of the Frankfurt School to our understanding of what I call the paradox of rationality, the fact that the promise of the Enlightenment has been disappointed as advanc...
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http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/41732-invasive-technification-critical-essays-in-the-philosophy-of-technology/
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Anthropology and the Question of Nature. Reflections on Philippe Descola’s L’Écologie des autres This article (original English translated to French by Ph. Chanial) discusses Philippe Descola’s latest book in the light of his original contribution to the eternal debate between universalism and relativism. How can we do justice to science while resp...
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In this reply I address problems identified by my critics in my concept of formal bias, my use of phenomenology, the relation between my work and McLuhan’s media theory, and the relation of science to technology.
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Research on and with digital technologies is everywhere today. This timely, authoritative Handbook explores the issues of rapid technological development, social change, and the ubiquity of computing technologies which have become an integrated part of people's everyday lives. This is a comprehensive, up-to-date resource for the twenty-first centur...
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Resumo: Este artigo explicita a filosofia da práxis presente em quatro pensadores marxistas: o jovem Marx, o jovem Lukács e os filósofos da Escola de Frankfurt, Adorno e Marcuse. A filosofia da práxis sustenta que os problemas filosóficos fundamentais são, na realidade, problemas sociais abstratamente concebidos. Este argumento tem duas implicações...
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This paper traces the theoretical background to the split between function and meaning in the modernity theories of Marx, Lukács, Weber and Marcuse. It then discusses attempts to overcome the split in the recent philosophies of technology of Simpson and Borgmann. These attempts fail but help to focus the issue. A discussion of contemporary struggle...
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What is the significance of the Internet for higher education? This question - the central concern of a vast, diverse and growing body of research and development spanning three decades - remains, despite the intense activity surrounding it, something of an enigma. Educators, enthusiastic about the promise of new technologies, have focused on testi...
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In response to the increasingly quotidian, even banal character of surveillant practices in postindustrial societies, this chapter explores the possibility of a theoretical and methodological re-alignment in surveillance studies. This realignment entails a move from broadly Foucauldian, macro-level, structural or poststructural analyses, to the exi...
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One of the fastest growing leisure activities of the new century, digital gaming has quickly developed from a marginalized children’s pastime into a multi-billion dollar global industry. According to recent estimates by PricewaterhouseCoopers (2008), the global digital games market generated $41.9 billion in sales in 2007, and is expected to surpas...
Book
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Although it has been in existence for over three decades, the Internet remains a contested technology. Its governance and role in civic life, education, and entertainment are all still openly disputed and debated. The issues include censorship and network control, privacy and surveillance, the political impact of activist blogging, peer to peer fil...
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This chapter focuses on the impact of a change in the use of a learning management system (LMS) at one university. Survey data captured faculty members' viewpoints on the transition from one LMS to another, specifically, their dispositions toward technology and change, preparation and prior experiences, need for support, and access to available res...

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