Politics of Technology: An Arendtian Reinterpretation of Political Philosophy of Technology

(Hardback)

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This monograph investigates technologies and their impact on our political sense making, focusing on Hannah Arendt's political theory. It goes beyond equating power with politics, which inevitably leads to a limited understanding of the political implications of technology. More specifically, this book investigates how technologies, by mediating our political interpretations and interactions, inform the way in which political communities are formed. Melis Bas shows that technologies do much more politically than just exert power over individuals. They condition, frame, create, and organize politics. Bas argues that Arendt's political hermeneutics is helpful in focusing on the interactional aspect of politics and thus enabling an understanding of politics beyond its manifestation as power. Furthermore, Arendt's understanding of intersubjectivity, based as it is on a dynamic relationship between the self, the world, and other people, leaves room to examine the role of material conditions in this intersubjectivity. Developing an alternative framework of politics of technology based on Arendt's political theory requires a perspective on technology that can address how the world becomes politically meaningful.

Author Bio

Melis Bas is Lecturer in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.