ANTHEM

The next biennial meeting (or the 16th International Conference) of the Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT) will take place on 8-10 July 2009 at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. Convergence and ethics figure heavily as recurrent themes among the 15 different tracks. The full call for papers is available here.  The deadline for abstracts is 5 January 2009 has been extended to 31 January 2009. SPT also publishes the journal Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology.

Depending on which part of China you come from, the number 4 for you is either auspicious or inauspicious. For Graham Harman it certainly must be his lucky number. Readers of Harman’s Tool-Being or Heidegger Explained will know that retrieving Heidegger’s notion of the fourfold is of crucial importance to him. There is however yet another intriguing quadrate Harman has (re)discovered for philosophy: Marshall and Eric McLuhan’s concept of the tetrad. In the coming weeks Harman will give three lectures on these fourfold structures: at the University of Twente on 17 January, at Bournemouth University on 4 February, and at the Open University on 7 February 2008. (more…)