Philosophy of technology as empirical philosophy
comparing technological scales in practice
pp. 292-314
in: Jan K. Berg Olsen, Evan Selinger, Søren Riis (eds), New waves in philosophy of technology, Berlin, Springer, 2009Abstract
Most everyday practices make use of, or try to create, scales to measure or contrast ‘goods’ and ‘bads’. This opens a space for an empirical philosophy. An ethnographic interest in practice can be combined with a philosophical concern with ‘the good’ to explore which ‘good/bad’ scale is being enacted, and how this is being done. (Law and Mol, 2002, p. 85)