This is the first volume about the Italian philosophy of technology written in English and including novel and translated contributions. The volume presents original research on emerging topics in the field, as well as an overview of the most distinguished Italian approaches to the philosophy of technology. While offering both historical and political perspectives and the contributions of the philosophy of law, philosophy of science, and aesthetics, Italian Philosophy of Technology promotes a novel view on the intersection between continental and analytic traditions in the philosophy of technology.

This book offers an extensive historical, philosophical and ethical discussion on the role of autonomous technologies, and their influence on human identity. By connecting those different perspectives, and analysing some practical case studies, it guides readers to dissect the relationship between machine and human autonomy, and machine and human identity. It analyses how the relationship between human and technology has been evolving in the last few centuries. Last, it aims at proposing an explanation on the reason/s why humans have been keen on developing their own autonomy’s perfect avatar.   

In Technology and Anarchy: A Reading of Our Era, Simona Chiodo argues that the technological era can be read as the most radical form of anarchism ever experienced. People are not only removing the role of the expert as a mediator, but also trying, for the first time in history, to replace the role of a transcendent god itself by creating, especially through computer engineering, a totally immanent technological entity characterized by the typical ontological prerogatives of the divine: omnipresence (by being everywhere), omniscience (by knowing everything, especially about us) and omnipotence (by having power, especially over us), as well as inscrutability. Chiodo proposes a novel view of our technological era by reading it as the last step of a precise trajectory of Western thought, i.e. as the most radical form of anarchism we have ever experienced, due to the crisis of the founding epistemological relationship between ideality and reality. By doing this, Chiodo helps fill the gap between technological innovation and the humanities, which is becoming an emerging research goal that is more and more urgent in order to face the greatest challenges of our present and future.

This is the first volume about the Italian philosophy of technology written in English and including novel and translated contributions. The volume presents original research on emerging topics in the field, as well as an overview of the most distinguished Italian approaches to the philosophy of technology. While offering both historical and political perspectives and the contributions of the philosophy of law, philosophy of science, and aesthetics, Italian Philosophy of Technology promotes a novel view on the intersection between continental and analytic traditions in the philosophy of technology.