Workshop on Critical Philosophies of Technology
University of Florence
September 28-29, 2026
Organized by Dr. Federica Buongiorno (University of Florence) & Dr. Darryl Cressman (Maastricht University)
Critical philosophies of technology, as we use the term, are characterized by empirical descriptions of past or present socio-technical realities and the issue of what is desirable in light of these realities. They ask why we have the technologies we do, examining the historically contingent processes by which our world came into being while pointing to concrete potentials of what could be. Critical philosophies thus contain a political dimension and what defines them as critical is their challenge to the contemporary socio-technical world. Typically associated with Marx, the Frankfurt School (Horkheimer, Marcuse, Habermas, Feenberg), the tradition of phenomenological critique that followed from Husserl and Heidegger (Arendt, Anders), and the French tradition that developed from Simondon's work (Stiegler, Hui), critical philosophies of technology have persisted throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century through various themes: labor process theory, feminism, environmentalism, hermeneutics, post-colonialism, anthropology, history, psychoanalysis, and critical data and AI studies.
Despite this, critical philosophies of technology constitute only a minor stream of thought within the philosophy of technology. The time has come to encourage and promote critical work that challenges the dominant tendencies of our current techno-political world. Given the seemingly unchecked power of technology to shape the trajectory of education, health care, law, and industrial policy, relying on ethics, responsibility, or value-sensitive design is woefully insufficient for contemporary socio-technical challenges.
We want to reinvigorate the spirit of critical philosophy with this workshop through discussions about, but not limited to:
· technology and political economy
· the history of critical philosophies of technology
· surveillance capitalism
· critical theory and critical philosophies of technology
· feminist philosophies of technology
· automation and labor
· platform capitalism
· algorithmic bias
· digital colonialism
Keynote Speakers
Dr. Teresa Numerico (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)
Dr. Teresa Numerico is Associate professor of Logic and the Philosophy of Science at Roma Tre University, Italy. Her work focuses on philosophy of technology, the politics of AI, and the digital epistemology for human and social sciences. She is the author of Big Data e algoritmi (2021); The Digital Humanist (with D. Fiormonte and F. Tomasi, 2016); Alan Turing e l’intelligenza della macchine (2005).
Dr. Francois-Xavier Guchet (Université de technologie de Compiègne)
Dr. Guchet has written extensively across topics in the philosophy of technology, including work on Gilbert Simondon, Hans Jonas, and André Leroi-Gourhan. He also served as one of the editors for the book French Philosophy of Technology: Classical Readings and Contemporary Approaches (2018).
If you are interested in participating, please submit an abstract of 250-300 works + a short bio to (federica.buongiorno@unifi.it
and darryl.cressman@maastrichtuniversity.nl) by Monday 18 May.
We are grateful for financial support from the Society for Philosophy of Technology.