Technology and Cultural Values: On the Edge of the Third Millennium 9780824844967

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Technology, History, and the Contested Role of Cultural Difference
Modern Technologies and Perspectives of Civilization
Technology, Nature, and the Alleged Duty of Human Survival
Knowledge, Science, and Technology and the West-East Transition
Islām and the Challenge of Modernity: Divergence of Worldviews
2. Biotechnologies
Biomedicine, Bioethics, and Biotechnology: The Impact of Genetic Technologies
Methodological Considerations in the Development of a Global Bioethic
Biomedical Technology: A Theological Approach
Buddhist, Shinto, and Modern Japanese Views of Medicine and Terminal Care
Philosophy and Fear: Hans Jonas and the Japanese Debate about the Ethics of Organ Transplantation
Remaking the World or Remaking Ourselves? Buddhist Reflections on Technology
Toward a Broader Notion of Causation (and Technology)
3. Technology, Authority, and Dissent
How to Distinguish Friends from Enemies: Human Rights Rhetoric and Western Mass Media
Cultural Integrity, Globalization, and Technical Change: Further Thoughts on GMOs in the Food Supply
Women Carrying Water: Homeplace, Technology, and Transformation
Radical Catholicism, Popular Resistance, and Material Culture in El Salvador
Environmental Justice, Supererogation, and Virtue Ethics: The Case of Chernobyl
Gandhi’s Viable Vision of Relating Technology and Religion
Supreme Danger and Saving Power: Toward a Gandhian Response to Heidegger’s Analysis of Technology
4. Food Technologies and Transgenic Species
From Agriculture to Agribusiness: Transgenic Organisms in the New Millennium
Cultural Values and Diversity of Agro-biodiversity for Food Security and Poverty Alleviation
How Wholesome Is That Soup? or, The Political Contents of the Refrigerator
5. Technology and the Home
Of Greed, Gadgets, and Guests: The Future of Human Dwellings
Dwelling in Humanity or Free and Easy Wandering
Losing Place: The Risks of Cosmopolitanism
6. Technology and the Aesthetics of Embodiment
Art and Technology: The Touch of the Human
Technical Arts and Reality: Status of the Referent in Photography and Cinema
Healing: The Body as Site of Medical and Religious Interaction
Sensory Dimensions in Intercultural Perspective and the Problem of Modern Media and Technology
7. Technology, Communication, and Education
Thinking, Making, and Using: Technology and the Realization of Human Values
Cultural Collisions and Collusions in the Electronic Global Village: From McWorld and Jihad to Intercultural Cosmopolitanism
Online Education and the Choices of Modernity
The Fate of Creative Solitudes in the Age of Information Technology
The Emergence of Pure Consciousness: The Theater of Virtual Selves in the Age of the Internet
8. Critical Afterword
Critical Literacies: Technology and Cultural Values (Comparative Philosophy and Philosophy of Technology in Conversation)
Turning Away from Technotopia: Critical Precedents for Refusing the Colonization of Consciousness
Contributors
Name Index
Subject Index