International Relations

Hegel provided a powerful conception of human beings in the world and a rich conception of freedom. Key to that conception is the idea of self-creation through labor. Hegel had an "aesthetic" conception of labor: human beings confront the raw given of nature and transform it through intelligent effort into things they imagine that will satisfy their needs and desires. Alexandre Koj�ve's reading of Hegel is especially clear on Hegel's conception of labor and freedom. This is provided in Koj�ve's analysis of the Master-Slave section of Hegel's Phenomenology in his  Introduction to the Reading of Hegel . The key idea is expressed in these terms: The product of work is the worker's production. It is the realization of his project, of his idea; hence, it is he that is realized in and by this product, and consequently he contemplates himself when he contemplates it.... Therefore, it is by work, and only by work, that man realizes himself objectively as man. (Koj...

Is there such a thing as �philosophy of technology�? Is there a �philosophy of cooking� or a �philosophy of architecture�? All of these are practical activities � praxis � with large bodies of specialized knowledge and skill involved in their performance. But where does philosophy come in? Most of us trained in analytic philosophy think of a philosophical topic as one that can be formulated in terms of a small number of familiar questions: what are the nature and limitations of knowledge in this area? What ethical or normative problems does this area raise? What kinds of conceptual issues need to be addressed before we can discuss problems in this area clearly and intelligently? Are there metaphysical issues raised by this area -- special kinds of things that need special philosophical attention? Does "technology" support this kind of analytical approach? We might choose to pursue a philosophy of technology in an especially minimalist (and somewhat Aristotelian) way, along t...

image: Mondragon headquarters, Arrasate-Mondragon, Spain Consider some of the most intractable problems we face in contemporary society: rising inequalities between rich and poor, rapid degradation of the environment, loss of control of their lives by the majority of citizens. It might be observed that these problems are the result of a classic conundrum that Marx identified 150 years ago: the separation of society into owners of the means of production and owners of labor power that capitalism depends upon has a logic that leads to bad outcomes. Marx referred to these bad outcomes as "immiseration". The label isn't completely accurate because it implies that workers are materially worse off from decade to decade. But what it gets right is the fact of "relative immiseration" -- the fact that in almost all dimensions of quality of life the bottom 50% of the population in contemporary capitalism lags further and further from the quality of life enjoyed by the top ...

I view transport as a crucial structuring condition in society that is perhaps under-appreciated and under-studied. The extension of the Red Line from Harvard Square (its terminus when I was a graduate student) to Davis Square in Somerville a decade later illustrated the transformative power of a change in the availability of urban transportation; residential patterns, the creation of new businesses, and the transformation of the housing market all shifted rapidly once it was possible to get from Davis Square to downtown Boston for a few dollars and 30 minutes. The creation of networks of super-high-speed trains in Europe and Asia does the same for the context of continental-scale economic and cultural impacts. And the advent of container shipping in the 1950's permitted a substantial surge in the globalization of the economy by reducing the cost of delivery of products from producer to consumer. Containers were a disruptive technology. It is clear that transportation systems are a...

The marriage of science, technology, and national security took a major step forward during and following World War II. The secret Manhattan project, marshaling the energies and time of thousands of scientists and engineers, showed that it was possible for military needs to effectively mobilize and conduct coordinated research into fundamental and applied topics, leading to the development of the plutonium bomb and eventually the hydrogen bomb. (Richard Rhodes' memorable The Making of the Atomic Bomb provides a fascinating telling of that history.) But also noteworthy is the coordinated efforts made in advanced computing, cryptography, radar, operations research, and aviation. (Interesting books on several of these areas include Stephen Budiansky's Code Warriors: NSA's Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union and Blackett's War: The Men Who Defeated the Nazi U-Boats and Brought Science to the Art of Warfare Warfare , and Dyson's Turing...