Albert Borgmann (1987) is widely credited as transforming Heidegger’s abstract accounts of technology into more concrete terms by addressing actual devices such as televisions, central heating systems, cars, etc. (Coyne, n.d.; Verbeek, 2005, p. 174). For Walker (2011, p. 107), Borgmann has made significant contributions towards addressing a gap that exists between technological artefacts and “more profound understandings of meaning and human purpose”. Like Heidegger, Borgmann views technological thinking as a mode in which we approach reality and similarly views “things” as powerfully enhancing human wellbeing, also distinguishing them from mere objects, which he terms “devices”. Devices are technological artefacts that encourage disengaged ways of dealing with the world as they require little thought or input whilst providing what we want, when we want it – whilst obscuring their ecological and social relations (Davison, 2001, p. 112). Devices make commodities readily available and promote consumption of them – moreover the device paradigm sanctions commodities and their consumption as being ends-in themselves (Borgmann, 1987, p. 61). For Borgmann (1987, p. 247) however, it is difficult to see how the claim of technology to enrich people’s lives by fostering availability contributes to a
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meaningful human existence. Borgmann (1987, p. 3) therefore suggests that technology contributes “a characteristic and constraining pattern to the entire fabric of our lives [which is] visible first and most of all in the countless inconspicuous objects and procedures of daily life in a technological society”. Borgmann (1987, p. 40) refers to this pattern as the device paradigm.
The device paradigm is the most consequential event of the modern period because whilst it fundamentally shapes the world, its “everydayness” and the way it has come into being allows it to go unnoticed and evade scrutiny (Borgmann, 1987, p. 3). The central premise of the device paradigm is that our lives are being filled with an overload of entertaining, distracting and disburdening devices (Borgmann, 2014, p. 246). Borgmann’s (1987, p. 4) concern about the device paradigm is that devices are endangering “focal things” and “focal practices”, which “center and illuminate our lives”. Like Heidegger, “things” are important to Borgmann but he criticises Heidegger for paying only scant attention to the practices associated with “things” (1987, p. 200). A “focal thing” for Borgmann is instead “inseparable from its context, namely, its world, and from our
commerce with the thing and its world, namely engagement” (1987, p. 41). A “focal thing” requires engaged “focal practices” for its welfare and prosperity (Borgmann, 1987, p. 200). Importantly, focal practices cannot simply be mere leisure diversions; they must be “totally engaging activities that unite means and ends, effort and accomplishment, labour and leisure” (Borgmann, 1987, p. 219):
[A focal thing is] concrete, tangible, and deep, admitting of no functional equivalents; they have a tradition, structure and rhythm of their own. They are unprocurable and finally beyond our control. They engage us in the fullness of our capacities. And they thrive in a technological setting. A focal practice, generally, is the resolute and regular dedication to a focal thing. It sponsors discipline and skill which are exercised in a unity of achievement and enjoyment, of mind, body, and the world, of myself, and others, and in social union. (Borgmann, 1987, p. 219)
Borgmann distinguishes focal things from devices by comparing for example, the traditional domestic hearth with a central heating system, and a conventional oven with a microwave oven. A domestic hearth is a focal thing because it relies upon focal practices that provide opportunities for thinking about and caring for one’s family. Furthermore, the hearth
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requires the skills and attention to build and sustain a fire including sourcing, drying and chopping wood (Borgmann, 1987, p. 41). By contrast, a central heating system instantly delivers heat from an unknown and unseen source with minimal effort, thought and attention required from the user – warmth therefore becomes a readily available
commodity (Borgmann, 1987, p. 42). Borgmann’s philosophy of technology suggests that the modern obsession with efficiency is draining life of meaning because individual involvement with nature and with other people is reduced to a bare minimum whilst
possession and control have become the highest values (Borgmann, 1987, p. 44). In the case of the central heating system, efficiency comes at the expense of building a fire, which arguably provides a richer, more meaningful experience because warmth is procured
through engaged activity which unites means with ends. Consequently, the domestic hearth creates a central place in the home and provides rich sensory experiences as it gathers and rewards the family whilst the central heating system is dispersed, invisible, uniform and instant. For Borgmann (2000, p. 299), uniting means with ends provides richer, more meaningful experiences whereas the rewards of a meaningful life are lost when one becomes a mere operator of smoothly functioning machinery4.
For Borgmann (1987, p. 155) the device paradigm can be restrained by abandoning familiar design objectives such as efficiency, disburdenment, availability and ease of use to instead emphasise focal things and focal practices. This would consign technology to the background of focal things and practices where technology operates in a supportive role to focal things and practices (Borgmann, 1987, p. 220). Focal things and practices provide the basis for a reform of technology by becoming the new ends that technologies serve
(Borgmann, 1987, p. 219). This challenges modern inclination to control as it does not involve “imposing a new and unified master plan on the technological universe but in discovering those sources of strength that will nourish principled and confident beginnings” (Borgmann, 1987, p. 199-200). Moreover, “orientation to a focal reality is possible within a world dominated by devices [and] provided they do not define our ultimate ends, devices
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4 See also Feenberg’s (2011) theory of Social Rationality, which attempts to explain why people experience a
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may illuminate, heighten, and facilitate our opportunities for focal encounters with the things that truly sustain us” (Borgmann, 1987, p. 200).