The Zeitschrift für Europarechtliche Studien (ZEuS) is published by the Europa-Institut, law department, of Saarland University since 1998. The concept of ZEuS is a wide one: the journal addresses current aspects and fundamental problems connected with European Integration, European law and International law. Consisting of articles especially in German and English which commentate on current developments in the law, ZEuS offers an ideal forum for contributors of both academic and professional backgrounds. Moreover, ZEuS makes a conscious effort to provide young academics and students with the opportunity to have their work published. Finally, all speeches held at the Europa-Institut are published in ZEuS.
In the traditional philosophy of technology, the two main modus operandi found in conventional technology are categorised and described under the terms ‘control’ and ‘regulation’ as a way of differentiating between them. This occurs for two reasons: on the one hand, in order to specify the difference between the forms of technology that have been developed by since the Neolithic revolution and the ‘accidental’ technology (as discussed by Ortega y Gasset) of higher species or prehistoric man, and on the other to reveal the relationship between technology and (natural) science more precisely. In the meantime, however, modern technologies and new epistemic practices are challenging historical descriptions of the nature of technoscience and the dichotomy between ‘control’ and ‘regulation’ respectively. Bearing in mind the so-called new emerging sciences and technologies (NEST) and other developments in IT, cognitive technology, nanotechnology and biotechnology, this volume examines who or what can be conceptualised as the subject of processes of control and regulation. In terms of large-scale systems and the organisation of large social structures, methods of control are becoming increasingly problematic because digital information technologies especially are creating new, diverse ways of manipulating and regulating processes or conditions, for example monitoring, big data and profiling, while the counteractive consequences of the same development, for example the ever-increasing amount of data, acceleration, automatisation and the logic of sociotechnical infrastructures, are increasingly throwing the possibility of coordinated control into doubt.
Blumenbergs Philosophie ist eine Philosophie der Umwege und des Neuansetzens. Sie stellt einen Versuch dar, sich unter den Bedingungen der Moderne produktiv einzurichten, ohne ethische Ansprüche aus dem Blick zu verlieren. Das Provisorische kehrt bei Blumenberg implizit wie explizit wieder. Als Beschreibungskategorie macht es die Welt erklärbar und stiftet eine Orientierungsleistung. In Kombination mit einer positiven Umdeutung des Umweges erlaubt es Distanzierung von einem unübersichtlichen Verstricktsein in Weltzusammenhänge sowie ein Handeln als ob wir wüssten, was wir tun. Ziel ist ein Nachdenken, das der Vorläufigkeit moderner Wirklichkeiten gerecht wird. Der Band widmet sich der Figur des Provisorischen und der Umwegskultur und verbindet eine systematische Perspektive auf das Werk Blumenbergs mit philosophiehistorischen Einordnungen und der Diskussion bisher unbeachteter Anknüpfungspunkte.
