Langdon Winner

Langdon Winner (1944) is Thomas Phelan Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York. He received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley.

Works

Books

• Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought, MIT Press, 1977, x+386 pp. Reviews: Layton Jr. (Isis), Heims (Theory & Research in Social Education), Byrne (Nature and System), Ferkiss (American Political Science Rev), Weinstein (Theory and Society, 1981), Auerbach (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists).
  • Tecnología autónoma: la técnica incontrolada como objeto del pensamiento político, trans. Ramón Font Segura and Alberto Cardín Garay, Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 1979, 383 pp. (Spanish)
  • 자율적 테크놀로지와 정치철학, trans. 강정인, Acanet, 2000, 499 pp. (Korean)
  • Zi zhu xing ji shu: Zuo wei zheng zhi si xiang zhu ti de shi kong ji shu [自主性技术: 作为政治思想主题的失控技术], trans. Haiyan Yang, Beijing: Bei jing da xue chu ban she, 2014, 305 pp. (Chinese)

• The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology, University of Chicago Press, 1986, xiv+200 pp.
  • La ballena y el reactor: una búsqueda de los límites en la era de la alta tecnología, trans. Elizabeth B. Casals, Barcelona: Gedisa, 1987, 208 pp; 2nd ed., rev.ed. Javier Bustamante, 2008, 285 pp. (Spanish)
  • Kujira to genshiro: gijutsu no genkai o motomete [鯨と原子炉: 技術の限界を求めて], Tokyo: Kinokuniyashoten, 2000, 306 pp. (Japanese)
  • La baleine et le réacteur : à la recherche de limites au temps de la haute technologie, trans. & intro. Michel Puech, Paris: Descartes & Cie, 2002, 210 pp. (French)
  • 길을 묻는 테크놀로지 : 첨단 기술 시대의 한계를 찾아서, 씨·아이·알, 2010, xxv+306 pp. (Korean)
  • Balea eta erreaktorea : mugen bilaketa goi teknologiaren aroan, trans. Julen Kaltzada, Donostia: Gaiak, 2011. (Basque)

• Political Ergonomics: Technological Design and the Quality of Public Life, Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum, 1987, 47 pp.

• editor, Democracy in a Technological Society, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992, vii+237 pp.

• editor, with Andrew Feenberg and Torben Hviid Nielsen, Technology and Democracy: Technology in the Public Sphere, Oslo: Center for Technology and Culture, 1997.

• editor, with Clive Dym, The International Journal of Engineering Education 19(1): "Social Dimensions of Engineering Design", Dublin: Tempus, 2003, 232 pp.

Book chapters, papers

• "Do Artifacts Have Politics?", Daedalus 109:1, Winter 1980, pp 121-136; repr. in The Social Shaping of Technology, eds. Donald A. MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman, London: Open University Press, 1985; adapted in Winner, The Whale and the Reactor, 1986.
  • "¿Tienen política los artefactos?", trans. Mario Francisco Villa, 1983. (Spanish)

• "Technologies as Forms of Life", in Epistemology, Methodology, and the Social Sciences, eds. Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky, Dordrecht: Springer, 1983, pp 249-263.
• "Engineering Ethics and Political Imagination", in Broad and Narrow Interpretations of Philosophy of Technology, ed. Paul T. Durbin, Dordrecht: Springer, 1990, pp 53-64. [1]
• "Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology", Science, Technology, & Human Values 18:3, Summer 1993, pp 362-378.
• "How Technology Reweaves the Fabric of Society", The Chronicle of Higher Education 39:48, 4 Aug 1993, pp B1-B3. [2]
• "Cyberlibertarian Myths and the Prospects for Community", Computers and Society 27:3, 1997, pp 14-19.
  • "Los mitos ciberlibertarios y sus prospectos para la comunidad", Contexto Educativo. Revista digital de educación y nuevas tecnologías 4, 2000. (Spanish)
• "Dos visiones de la civilización tecnológica", trans. Marta Dominguez Folgueras, in Ciencia, tecnología, sociedad y cultura en el cambio de siglo, eds. J.A. López Cerezo and J.M. Sánchez Ron, Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva/Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos, 2001, pp 55-65. (Spanish)
• "Subjektivität, Technik & Politik: jenseits von Mitteln und Zwecken; politische Dimensionen technologischer Wahl", trans. Anna von Behr and Ernst Schraube, Journal für Psychologie 9:1, 2001, pp 3-12. (German)
• "Are Humans Obsolete?", Hedgehog Review 4:3, Fall 2002, pp 25-44. [3]
• "Sow's Ears from Silk Purses: The Strange Alchemy of Technological Visionaries", in Technological Visions: The Hopes and Fears That Shape New Technologies, eds. Marita Sturken, Douglas Thomas, and Sandra Ball-Rokeach, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004.
• "Information Technology and Educational Amnesia", Policy Futures in Education 7:6, 2009, pp 587-591, HTML.
• "Ortega’s Tragicomedy of Technology: Our Starring Role", International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society 7:4, 2012, pp 109-118. [4]
• "Facing the Plague: Economic and Political Inequality", Teknokultura 11:3, Sep-Dec 2014, HTML.
• "The Cult of Innovation: Its Colorful Myths and Rituals", 2017.
• "Technological Investigations: Wittgenstein's Liberating Presence", Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 22:2, 2018, pp 296-313.

Literature

• Martijntje Smits, "Langdon Winner: technologie als schaduwconstitutie", in Van stoommachine tot cyborg: denken over techniek in de nieuwe wereld, ed. Hans Achterhuis, Ambo, 1997. (Dutch)
  • "Langdon Winner: Technology as a Shadow Constitution", in American Philosophy of Technology: The Empirical Turn, ed. Hans Achterhuis, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001, pp 147-170.

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