Abstract

Feminist techno-science as it is presented in the writings of Donna Haraway and Karen Barad is taken as an invitation to critical thinking in a radical way. Their aim is to reveal that the practice of scientific research and a particular human rationality have largely neglected questions of power and responsibility. They employ puns, metaphors, and allusions to drama to pose radical questions of justice and responsibility. Thus, the cyborg stands for a new manner of looking at human beings, artifacts and technologies as material-semiotic ‘actors’: It should break with the ‘normal’ understanding of who and what matters in action. The focus shifts from constructivist analyses of representations to materiality, for the latter would be an equivalent instance of action comparable to human actors. Furthermore, social science should accentuate that material matter and its configurations would constitute human beings as knowing subjects rather than the other way around. This way of organizing critical thinking is put to the test with regard to fundamental psychological issues such as learning, experiencing responsibility, and personality growth. It is argued against the backdrop of Lev S. Vygotsky’s approach that ascribing human features to technology and materiality per se brings about an awkward peripeteia in understanding and tackling the problems of responsibility with regard to current technological developments.