SPT v3n2 - Preface

PREFACE

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In September, 1997, the Society for Philosophy and Technology held its tenth international conference in D�sseldorf, Germany. The proceedings of that conference make up the contents of volume 3 of the SPT quarterly electronic journal. Volume 3, number 1, which focuses on Dutch philosophers' contributions at D�sseldorf, has already been published under the guest editorship of Pieter Tijmes of Twente University in The Netherlands.

This number (3:2) represents the second installment of the Düsseldorf proceedings, with the third (3:3) and fourth (3:4) to follow shortly. As always with conference papers, the proceedings actually published represent only a selection. It is always risky to say that the published papers are the best in the set; too many variables intervene for that ever to be literally true. And it is not true in this instance. Nonetheless, we hope that the papers published are up to the usual SPT standards, and that they give a flavor of what went on in the D�sseldorf conference. As it happens, another set of philosophy of technology proceedings�in this case, papers from another 1997 conference, at the University of Karlsruhe under the auspices of the International Academy of Philosophy of Science and edited by Evandro Agazzi and Hans Lenk�is being published almost simultaneously in the SPT electronic journal. These papers constitute the contents of volume 4 (4:1-4), and the first number (4:1) will appear very shortly after this number (3:2). We hope to conclude volume 3 by late 1998, and volume 4 by the middle of 1999.