University of Twente

Faculty Member, Philosophy

Chair in Philosophy of Man and Technology / Socrates Chair

About

Peter-Paul Verbeek (1970) is professor of philosophy of technology at the Department of Philosophy, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands, and extraordinary professor of philosophy at Delft University of Technology (Socrates chair). Verbeek is chairman of the ‘Young Academy’, which is part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a member of the board of the Society for Philosophy and Technology. Verbeek is an editor of Tijdschrift voor Filosofie and De Academische Boekengids. He is also a member of the editorial board of SATS. Journal for Northern Philosophy and of the scientific advosory board of Philosophy & Technology.

Verbeeks research focuses on the social and cultural roles of technology and the ethical and anthropological aspects of human-technology relations. He recently published the book What Things Do: Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design (Penn State University Press, 2005), in which he elaborates an analysis of how technologies mediate human actions and experiences, with applications to industrial design. He also co-edited the volume User Behavior and Technology Design – Shaping Sustainable Relations between Consumers and Technologies (Springer, 2006) about the interaction between technology and behavior, and its relevance to technology design and environmental policy. He recently finished the project Technology and the Matter of Morality, about the moral significance of technologies, and its implications for ethical theory and the ethics of technology design (NWO VENI grant 2003).

Currently he is working on the project ‘Technology and the limits of humanity: the ethics and anthropology of posthumanism’, about human enhancement technology and its ethical and anthropological implications (NWO VIDI grant 2007). Beside this, he is working on the following projects:

- the IOP (Innovative Research Projects) project Design for Usability (co-applicant and –coordinator)

- the MVI (Responsible Innovation) project Telecare at Home (co-applicant)

- the NWO project The Performative and Relational Abilities of Things (pilot project, PhD in Fine Arts), conducted by Ms. Yvonne Dröge Wendel (supervisor / promotor)

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