New Academic Journal Focuses on Research and Development in the Philosophy of Technology

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Elizabeth Lamark, Educational Technology Center

Evan Selinger

Technologies are changing the world at an increasing pace, with ever expanding scope and unprecedented impact, radically modifying how we interact with, shape, and make sense of our world and changing how we look at ourselves and understand our position and responsibilities in the universe. While many technological innovations have brought enormous benefits and opportunities, they have also raised new and vital challenges, whose complexity and global dimensions are rapidly expanding and evolving.

Philosophy and Technology, a new academic, peer-reviewed journal published by Springer, will address such challenges, in order to improve critical understanding of the conceptual nature and practical consequences of technologies, and provide the conceptual foundations for their fruitful and sustainable development. One of the journal’s editors will be Evan Selinger, associate professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology and an internationally recognized expert in technological development, ethics and public policy.

“Through this publication, philosophers, scientists and engineers from across the spectrum of institutions and professional organizations will work together to impact a broad readership by expanding societal understanding of the most pressing conceptual, ethical and political issues related to innovation,” Selinger states. “Philosophy and Technology is an ambitious and timely forum, one that can be expected to directly enhance the quality of discourses and policies that determine how technology will impact both private and public life.”

Selinger notes that the journal will publish high-quality research articles in all areas where philosophy and technology meet, while maintaining a balanced and open approach to all important topics, valuable methodologies and different schools in the philosophy of technology, sustainability and environmental ethics and technological change. Particular attention will be paid to new areas of interest such as nanotechnologies, genetic and biotechnologies, information and communication technologies and the philosophy of engineering, as well as pressing issues such as environmental risks, globalization, security and biological enhancements.