Editorial: Design Innovation and Philosophy of Technology : the Practical Turn

Collaboration between Design and Philosophy of technology can generate new insights in the complex interplay between humans and technology. These so-called human-technology relations are one of the key issues in design innovation and the shaping of our future. Design Innovation can use the frameworks of philosophers to theorize the findings from practice or to make sense of past developments, especially since Philosophy of Technology in the current of the so-called empirical turn is more focused on individual technologies and contexts. On the other hand, designing actual things provides a powerful laboratory to test philosophical frameworks in real life. You might say that through design innovation these conceptual frameworks can become ‘applicable’. So, in analogy with the empirical turn in philosophy of technology before, the present collaboration with design is termed a ‘practical turn’. Philosophy of Technology has a substantial track record in thinking about the impacts of technology and innovations on our daily lives and social behaviours. Combining this conceptual toolkit with design innovation, with its capability of actually changing things, promises a powerful approach to developing critical future-making practices. Our approach focuses on anticipating possibilities and consequences. As such, it is related to responsible innovation, social design and critical design, but also different in being more reflexive and explorative. We are seeking papers that either have applied philosophy of technology insights to real world problems and design innovations; or the other way around, papers that have used insights from philosophy of technology to reflect on innovations that were actually realised.