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Container Technologies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

This paper goes beyond critiques of western philosophical notions of space as passive, feminine, and unintelligent by reconfiguring containment as an (inter-)active process. The author draws on work in the history of technology, on a cybernetic epistemology that emphasizes the interdependence of organism and environment, and on intersubjectivist psychoanalytic theories of the maternal provision. A more unexpected ally is found in Heidegger, whose writings on holding and supply are read in ways that contribute to the development of an urgently required philosophy of container technologies.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by Hypatia, Inc.

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