Cultural Philosophy and History of Productive Life

This classical divide has been the foundation of both culture and productivity, understood in a pluralistic sense.
But at present, technology is encroaching on nature and most of all: on life. While the manipulation of living beings is already known from the ancient practice of breeding and is regarded as unspectacular, new technologies such as cell cultures, organ transplants, reproductive medicine and computer simulation of biological processes call into question our traditional distinctions between nature and technology. This is reinforced by the new bionanotechnologies and the so-called “Converging Technologies” (bio-, nano-, neuro-, information- and communication-technologies).
Traditionally, growth distinguishes something as “living”, and movement distinguishes something as “alive”. My talk will focus on this importance of growth and its modelling for science and technology in the context of application. It is about entities and types of entities developed by biotechnology in a broader sense, e.g. computer science. The phenomenon growth mediates between two different kinds of “worlds”: the scientific world of generating biofacts, and the life worlds of common sense, cultural heritage and everyday experience, suggesting hybrid identities of the living being.

Dr. rer. nat. phil. habil. Nicole Christine Karafyllis

 

PD Dr. rer. nat. phil. habil. Nicole C. Karafyllis, Frankfurt and Stuttgart, Germany

Dr. Karafyllis has been Assistant Professor at the Institute of Society and Policy-Analysis at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main since 1998, and temporary holder of the former Chair of Prof. (i.R.) Dr.-Ing. Günter Ropohl for General Technology and Philosophy of Technology since October 2004. She is also Lecturer at the Institute of Philosophy at Stuttgart University.

Her areas of specialization are philosophy of technology, including biotechnology and agriculture. Moreover she works on the history of science and technology, especially on the early modern period, and on gender aspects of technology. One of her scientific aims is to connect anthropology and philosophy of technology within a phenomenological approach. In Germany, her concept of “biofacts”, i.e. entities between artificial and living being, is well-known in the scientific community.

Parallel studies in Biology and Philosophy at the universities in Erlangen-Nuremberg (Diploma in Biology and Philosophy 1994), Stirling (Scotland, UK), Cairo (Ain Shams University, Egypt), Tübingen (doctorate, member of the postgraduate programme ‘Graduiertenkolleg’ ‘Ethiics in the Sciences’ 1999) and Frankfurt am Main.

Her Doctoral Thesis, Renewable Resources - Technology Assessment between the leading images of Growth and Sustainability (Tübingen 1999, publ. Leske+Budrich 2000), was awarded with the Franzke-Prize of the TU Berlin 2001 for an "outstanding dissertation on technology and responsibility" (foundation's text)

Topic of Habilitation Thesis: The Phenomenology of Growth. Philosophy and Epistemic History of Productive Life between the concepts of Nature and Technology. (Stuttgart 2006, forthcoming at transcript publ., edition panta rei, fall 2007)

Habilitation Lecture: Philosophy between the Orient and the Occident: Thomas Aquinas against the Averroists (1270)  (Stuttgart, Dec. 20th, 2006)

Books

Monographies:

1. Karafyllis, N.C. (2000). Nachwachsende Rohstoffe – Technikbewertung zwischen den Leitbildern Wachstum und Nachhaltigkeit. (Renewable Resources – Technology Assessment between the leading images of growth and sustainability). Soziologie+Ökologie, Bd. 5, Opladen: Leske+Budrich.
2. Karafyllis, N.C. (2001). Biologisch, natürlich, nachhaltig. Philosophische Aspekte des Naturzugangs im 21. Jahrhundert. (Biological, Natural, Sustainable. Philosophical approaches to nature in the 21st century) Ethik in den Wissenschaften, Bd. 14, Tübingen/Basel: A. Francke.
3. Karafyllis, N. C. (2006). Die Phänomenologie des Wachstums. Zur Philosophie und Wissenschaftsgeschichte des produktiven Lebens zwischen den Konzepten von „Natur“ und „Technik“. (The Phenomenology of Growth. Philosophy and Epistemic History of productive Life between the concepts of „Nature“ and „Technology“). Habilitationsschrift. Fakultät für Philosophie und Geschichte der Universität Stuttgart. (forthcoming: Bielefeld: transcript 2007, edition panta rei) 

Edited books:

In German

1. Karafyllis, N.C. and Schmidt, J.C. [Ed.] (2002). Zugänge zur Rationalität der Zukunft (Approaching rationality of the future). Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler.
2. Karafyllis, N.C. [Ed.] (2003). Biofakte. Versuch über den Menschen zwischen Artefakt und Lebewesen. (Biofacts. Essays on Man between Artefact and living Entity) Paderborn: Mentis.
3. Karafyllis, N.C. and Haar, T. [Ed.] (2004). Technikphilosophie im Aufbruch. (Philosophy of Technology on the way) Festschrift for G. Ropohl. Berlin: edition sigma.
4. Engel, G. and Karafyllis, N.C. [Ed.]. (2004) Technik in der Frühen Neuzeit – Schrittmacher der europäischen Moderne. (Technology in Early Modern Age – Pacemaker of European Modernity), Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
   
   
   In English
   
5. C. Zittel, R. Nanni, G. Engel and Karafyllis, N.C. [Eds.] (2007): Philosophies of Technology. Francis Bacon and his Contemporaries. Leiden: Brill (in review)
6. Ulshöfer, G. and Karafyllis, N.C. [Eds.] (2007): Emotional Intelligence and Elites: Sex, Gender and the Brain. (in review)

Committee work (selection):

Since 2001 curator in the advisory board "Plant Breeding and Public Opinion" of the KWS AG, Einbeck.

Since 2004 Permanent Fellow at the Center for Early Modern Studies (ZFN) at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.

Since 2006 Review Advisor for the Journal for Agricultural and Environmental Ethics (Springer Publ.).

Since 2007 member of the scientific advisory board of the Journal Deliberation Knowledge Ethics.