Most human action has a technical dimension. This book examines four components of this technical dimension.
First, in all actions, various individual, organizational or institutional agents combine actional capabilities with tools, institutions, infrastructure and other elements by means of which they act. Second, the deployment of capabilities and means is permeated by ethical aspirations and hesitancies. Third, all domains of action are affected by these ethical dilemmas. Fourth, the dimensions of the technicity of action are typical of human life in general, and not just a regional or culturally specific phenomenon.
In this study, an interdisciplinary approach is adopted to encompass the broad anthropological scope of this study and combine this bigger picture with detailed attention to the socio-historical particularities of action as it plays out in different contexts. Hermeneutics (the philosophical inquiry into the human phenomena of meaning, understanding and interpretation) and social science (as the study of all human affairs) are the two main disciplinary orientations of this book.
This study clarifies the technical dimension of the entire spectrum of human action ranging from daily routine to the extreme of violent protest.
Ernst Wolff, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
