philosophy of technology

Artifacts are ubiquitous and influential in our world, but their nature and existence are controversial. Several theories have been proposed to explain the ontology of artifacts. Drawing on Popper's theory of three worlds, this paper suggests a metaphysics for artifacts along the line of a critical rationalist (CR) approach. This theory distinguishes between three realms of reality: the physical world (World 1), the mental world (World 2), and the world of objective knowledge (World 3). The paper argues that artifacts have different ontological components that correspond to these three realms, and that each component is real and causal. The paper shows how this perspective can account for the intentional and functional aspects of artifacts, as well as their dependence on plans that influence different realms of reality. The paper explains how this pluralistic ontology, compared to the rival theories, enables one to explain the relevant ontological problems of artifacts. The paper also explores how this proposal can lead to a research program encompassing a broader range of technologies, such as social artifacts. In sum, the paper suggests that Popper's three worlds theory provides a rich and comprehensive framework for understanding the metaphysics of artifacts.

The accelerated integration of digital technologies into education has renewed longstanding philosophical debates concerning the nature, role, and consequences of technology in schooling. While international scholarship has increasingly emphasized the importance of interrogating the philosophical assumptions underpinning teachers’ engagement with technology, little work has examined such orientations in the Iranian context. This qualitative study explores Iranian secondary school teachers’ implicit philosophies of educational technology and critically evaluates them through the conceptual frameworks of Andrew Feenberg’s philosophy of technology and Bernard Stiegler’s pharmacological perspective. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with twelve teachers and employing a hybrid deductive–inductive thematic analysis, this study identifies four Philosophical–Pedagogical Themes in Educational Technology (PPTET), each of which is revealed through the binary logic inherent in the pharmacological integration of technology in education. Through a Stieglerian reading, such dualisms are shown to obscure the constitutive and ambivalent nature of technological mediation in processes of teaching, learning, and individuation. The findings reveal a need to move beyond access-oriented and utilitarian narratives toward cultivating critical digital judgment and fostering pedagogical practices grounded in care, attention, and reflective technological engagement.

Clinical reasoning lies at the heart of medical practice, yet its teaching remains one of the most conceptually complex challenges in medical education. Contemporary approaches, largely informed by cognitive science, have illuminated the mental mechanisms underlying diagnosis but have simultaneously reduced reasoning to an individual, decontextualized act of information processing. This reduction has led to a subtle yet pervasive dehumanization of clinical reasoning, obscuring its social, embodied, and interpretive dimensions. This paper argues that a comprehensive understanding of clinical reasoning requires a philosophical reframing that integrates insights from the philosophy of science, medicine, and technology, i.e. TRI-P model. In this sense, Medicine is best understood as a scientific practice realized through the mediation of technology, yet always oriented toward its ultimate telos: the care and healing of the patient. Through this synthesis, the study shows that reasoning in medicine is not a neutral cognitive operation but an interpretive, dialogical, and technologically mediated form of human understanding. Accordingly, a rehumanized pedagogy—grounded in epistemic pluralism, dialogical humanism, and critical technological literacy—is essential for cultivating responsible clinical judgment. From this perspective, clinical reasoning cannot be captured by cognitive models alone but must be reframed as phronesis: a form of practical wisdom enacted in moral and interpretive contexts. Drawing on Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy and Kenneth Sharpe’s conception of phronetic practice, the paper situates clinical reasoning as an embodied, dialogical, and ethically responsive activity. It concludes that medical education should nurture reflective judgment and moral discernment rather than mere analytical accuracy.