Philosophy, Engineering and Technology

Background on Keynote Speakers

Below are articles that may be worth reading in advance on our keynote speakers:

Minoru Asada: This paper addresses how artificial pain may introduce empathy, morality and ethics in conscious mind of robots. A wider background on his work can be found in his paper about the project of cognitive developmental robotics (2005-2011); this survey of the RoboCup project, of which Prof. Asada is founder; and his most recent paper on autonomy of humans and robots.

Donna Riley: In her work, she has explored linkages between Engineering and Social Justice. She seeks to incorporate social justice as an aspirational value in engineering ethics, while critiquing the role of institutional power in such efforts.

Ibo van ed Poel: As a preparation of his lecture about what engineering and philosophy can learn from each other, you might want to have a look at the introduction to the edited volume that was published after the first Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering in 2007:

Van de Poel, I. 2010. Philosophy and engineering: Setting the stage. In Philosophy and engineering. An emerging agenda, edited by Ibo Van de Poel and David E. Goldberg, 1-11. Dordrecht: Springer.

For what he argues on what philosophy can learn from engineering, the following book chapter is relevant:

Van de Poel, I. 2020. Should philosophers begin to employ new methods if they want to become more societally relevant? In Philosophy in the age of science. Inquiries into philosophical progress, method and societal relevance,, edited by Julia Hermann, Jeroen Hopster, Wouter Kalf and Michael Klenk, 231-44. London: Rowman & Littlefield.

For a more general introduction in his work and the ethics and philosophy of technology, any of the following might be useful:

Van de Poel, I. and L. Royakkers 2011. Ethics, technology and engineering. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Vermaas, P., P. Kroes, I. van de Poel, M. Franssen and W. Houkes 2011. A philosophy of technology: From technical artefacts to sociotechnical systems.

Franssen, M., G.-J. Lokhorst and I. Van de Poel 2018. Philosophy of technology. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta