Research on which this publication is based was funded by the Austrian Science
Fund (FWF), grant number J 3448-G15 within the Erwin Schrödinger Programme.
The manuscript on which this book is based was first written over the course of
nearly three years between October 2011 and August 2014, with several intermissions. Part of it was written when I was working at the Department of Science
and Technology Studies at Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt (AAU) – but only
a small part of this part has been included in the present book. Most of what follows was researched and written, and everything was thoroughly rewritten, within
the context of my FWF Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship at the Munich Center for
Technology in Society (MCTS), Technical University of Munich (TUM). The full
manuscript was then submitted as a thesis for “habilitation”, that oddly Continental academic rite of passage for senior post-docs, with the Department of Philosophy at AAU, in late 2014. The manuscript has been heavily edited and revised
since then, on the basis of the reviews I received and the second thoughts I gave
to my initial ideas.
The contributions of those who supported and believed in my work, but also of
those who criticised it, shall be duly acknowledged here, beginning with those of
the reviewers of my thesis, Ursula Renz and Holger Lyre; those of Ruth Millikan,
who had no obligation to read and pick apart central parts of the draft manuscript
but generously did so anyway; those of my funding agency, FWF, and the anonymous reviewers who assessed the project proposal from which most of what follows grew; those of nine interview partners from the fields of computer science,
robotics and ergonomics at TUM who helped me to ground at least some of my
speculations about the nature of cognitive artefacts; those of the publishing house,
Routledge, with Robert Langham and Michael Bourne to be named in particular,
and the two anonymous reviewers they recruited for assessing the book proposal;
those of Alfred Nordmann, the series editor, who first provided me with a chance
of having my manuscript published with Routledge; those of several audiences
at several conferences upon whom I tried out earlier versions of what follows;
those of Arno Bammè, my former head of department in Klagenfurt, who first
encouraged me to embark on this project; those of the Department of Philosophy
at AAU, which took care of my habilitation project and proceedings after Arno’s
retirement; those of Klaus Mainzer, my host in Munich; and those of my other
Acknowledgements
Fund (FWF), grant number J 3448-G15 within the Erwin Schrödinger Programme.
The manuscript on which this book is based was first written over the course of
nearly three years between October 2011 and August 2014, with several intermissions. Part of it was written when I was working at the Department of Science
and Technology Studies at Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt (AAU) – but only
a small part of this part has been included in the present book. Most of what follows was researched and written, and everything was thoroughly rewritten, within
the context of my FWF Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship at the Munich Center for
Technology in Society (MCTS), Technical University of Munich (TUM). The full
manuscript was then submitted as a thesis for “habilitation”, that oddly Continental academic rite of passage for senior post-docs, with the Department of Philosophy at AAU, in late 2014. The manuscript has been heavily edited and revised
since then, on the basis of the reviews I received and the second thoughts I gave
to my initial ideas.
The contributions of those who supported and believed in my work, but also of
those who criticised it, shall be duly acknowledged here, beginning with those of
the reviewers of my thesis, Ursula Renz and Holger Lyre; those of Ruth Millikan,
who had no obligation to read and pick apart central parts of the draft manuscript
but generously did so anyway; those of my funding agency, FWF, and the anonymous reviewers who assessed the project proposal from which most of what follows grew; those of nine interview partners from the fields of computer science,
robotics and ergonomics at TUM who helped me to ground at least some of my
speculations about the nature of cognitive artefacts; those of the publishing house,
Routledge, with Robert Langham and Michael Bourne to be named in particular,
and the two anonymous reviewers they recruited for assessing the book proposal;
those of Alfred Nordmann, the series editor, who first provided me with a chance
of having my manuscript published with Routledge; those of several audiences
at several conferences upon whom I tried out earlier versions of what follows;
those of Arno Bammè, my former head of department in Klagenfurt, who first
encouraged me to embark on this project; those of the Department of Philosophy
at AAU, which took care of my habilitation project and proceedings after Arno’s
retirement; those of Klaus Mainzer, my host in Munich; and those of my other
Acknowledgements