Vincent Blok
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 291086 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Vincent Blok |
| PRENOMES | Vincent |
| SOBRENOME | Blok |
| ASSINATURA | BLOK V |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Wageningen University & Research |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9086-4544 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 84 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 65 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 83 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2011 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Disruptive technologies and intra-value conflicts
Synthetic biology is a highly disruptive technology that particularly affects the agriculture and food production domains. Rather than using farmed animals or crops, synthetic biology allows for ‘cellular agriculture’—the production of agricultural commodities using cell cultures and host micro-organisms. In light of the possibility that cellular agriculture can enable sustainable food production, and considering that most people strongly prefer …
Making sense of the ‘Human’ in human-centered AI
In recent years, ‘human-centered artificial intelligence’ (HCAI) has emerged as a prominent framing device in the societal debate on the implications of AI. By adopting this phrase, AI ethics discourses make an appeal to the notion of the ‘human,’ while failing to critically reflect on its meaning. Against this background, we pose the question as to what ‘human’ is taken to mean in the context of HCAI. We apply a critical hermeneutic approach to …
Economics and Politics in the Age of AI
Technological advancements in digital technologies like AI raise societal concerns about the instrumentalization and datafication of human life. In order to understand the level of analysis that is required to consider these societal concerns, we first explore the role of innovations in the disruption of the World. Subsequently, we zoom in on the economic dimension of technological innovations as the explanatory factor for societal concerns. Alth…
Towards an Integrated Framework in the Philosophy of Technology
In the 1990s, various philosophers of technology shifted their focus from reflections on technology in general (Technology) to reflections on concrete technologies (technologies) and consequently lost sight of overarching issues such as climate change. However, proponents of the shift to concrete technologies rightly argue that concrete technologies need to be taken into account, as, for example, not all concrete technologies have the same climat…
Artificial intelligence and animal farming
In animal farming, there is the hope that artificial intelligence (AI) will improve efficiency and increase profits while providing solutions to reduce pollution and pesticide use and improve environmental sustainability, animal health and welfare. However, many are also concerned about AI’s ethical, legal, social, and economic impacts. These include the instrumentalisation of animals, bias caused by AI in how animals are portrayed, allowing the …
AI through the looking glass
This paper examines how professionals (N = 32) working on artificial intelligence (AI) view structural AI ethics challenges like injustices and inequalities beyond individual agents' direct intention and control. This paper answers the research question: What are professionals’ perceptions of the structural challenges of AI (in the agri-food sector)? This empirical paper shows that it is essential to broaden the scope of ethics of AI beyond micro…
Elsa Labs for responsible AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming our society, offering remarkable opportunities but also raising significant Ethical, Legal, and Social Aspects (ELSA) that should be addressed for responsible development. Some existing approaches to responsible AI successfully translate ELSA into concrete AI design practices but risk overlooking power dynamics and structural issues, while others excel at fostering dialogue yet struggle to turn…
Embedding RRI in competitive environments
This editorial introduces a special issue examining whether and to what extent Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) principles can take root within organisations operating in competitive environments. Drawing on Brecht's ‘food first and then morality’ maxim, we explore the fundamental tension between survival imperatives in competitive environments and the collaborative ideals of responsible innovation. The seven contributions span diverse g…
Digitalisation of Agri-Food Systems
Digitalisation in agri-food systems will have major concrete consequences for environmental, ethical, legal and social developments in decades to come. Because of the far reaching consequences of the event of digitalisation, recent developments in the data economy have been described as involving a paradigm shift. This paper offers a conceptual framework that aims to contribute to existing transition theory by enhancing the philosophical perspect…
Why putting artificial intelligence ethics into practice is not enough
Artificial intelligence (AI) ethics is undergoing a practical shift towards putting principles into design practices in developing responsible AI. While this practical turn is essential, this paper highlights its potential risk of overly focusing on addressing issues at the level of individual artifacts, which can neglect more profound structural challenges and the need for significant systemic change. Such oversight makes AI ethics lose its stre…
Materiality Versus Metabolism in the Hybrid World
The point of departure of this article is the trend towards hybridisation in new technology development, which makes classical dichotomies between machines, human life and the environment obsolete and leads to the post-human world we live in today. We critically reflect on the post-human concept of the hybrid world. Although we agree with post-humanists that human life can no longer be opposed to machines but appears as a decentralized human-tech…
Responsible innovation across societal sectors
To address societal challenges, research and innovation approaches, involving a wide range of actors, are increasingly promoted by policy communities. This paper explores the practice of Quadruple Helix collaborations for responsible innovation and how these implement the theoretical ambition of including actors from different societal sectors in innovation, including actors from the fields of arts, media and civil society, which is conceptualize…
Epistemic inclusion
Ten years after introducing the RRI concept, a reflection on its key ambitions seems called for, now that RRI enters the global arena.This paper focues on the key challenge that RRI is currently facing: epistemic inclusion.From the beginning, there has been the awareness that RRI must be open to multiple voices and perspectives, coming from academia, and also from society at large.Besides representing impressive bodies of knowledge, academic disc…
Path creation as a discursive process
When a technology is seen as the right solution to a recognized problem, the development of alternative technologies comes under threat. To secure much-needed resources, proponents of alternative technologies must, in these conditions, restart societal discussion on the status quo, a process at once technological and discursive known as ‘path creation’. In this article, we investigate discussion-restarting strategies employed by supporters of eme…
Putting Responsible Research and Innovation into Practice
This Open Access book highlights the potential of and opportunity in responsible R&I to conduct innovation in a socially responsible way.
Towards the Phenomenology of Hybrids as Regenerative Design and use – a Post-Heideggerian Account
Grasping the identity of hybrids, that is beings which cross the binarism of nature and technology (e.g. genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), synbio inventions, biomimetic projects), is problematic since it is still guided by self-evident dualistic categories, either as artefacts or as natural entities. To move beyond the limitations of such a one-sided understanding of hybrids, we suggest turning towards the categories of affordances and the j…
Regeneratieve technologie, of de grenzen van het mimetisch vermogen van de mens
Het overleven van de mens op aarde wordt bedreigd door de exploitatie van onzenatuurlijke leefomgeving
Ecomodernism and the Libidinal Economy
In this paper, we carry out a critical analysis of the concept of technology in the current design of the bio-based economy (BBE). Looking at the current status of the BBE, we observe a dominant focus on technological innovation as the principal solution to climatic instability. We take a critical stance towards this “ecomodernist” worldview, addressing its fundamental assumptions, and offer an underarticulated explanation as to why a successful …
What Does it Mean to Mimic Nature? A Typology for Biomimetic Design
In an effort to produce new and more sustainable technologies, designers have turned to nature in search of inspiration and innovation. Biomimetic design (from the Greek bios , life, mimesis , imitation) is the conscious imitation of biological models to solve today's technical and ecological challenges. Nowadays numerous different approaches exist that take inspiration from nature as a model for design, such as biomimicry, biomimetics, bionics, …
Stop re-inventing the wheel
Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects (ELSA) originated in the 4th European Research Framework Programme (1994) and responsible research and innovation (RRI) from the EC research agenda in 2010. ELSA has received renewed attention in European funding schemes and research. This raises the question of how these two approaches to social responsibility relate to one another and if there is the possibility to align. There is a need to evaluate the relatio…
A model of social responsibility for start-ups
In this paper, we cross-fertilise responsible innovation (RI), the Lean Start-up approach (LSA) and the Quadruple Helix approach (QH) within one model: the social responsibility for start-ups model (SRSM). SRSM aims to instil responsibility into the start-up innovation process by ensuring that the voices of stakeholders from all four helices are taken into account, whilst providing an assessment of current impacts in these areas compared with the…
It takes two to tango
This paper proposes a political concept of Responsible Innovation (RI). As a first step, we diagnose the RI discourse with a conceptual ambiguity, struggling to accommodate both private and public interests. To address this ambiguity, we distinguish between weak RI, which seeks to govern a techno-economic concept of innovation; and strong RI, which seeks to conceive a political concept of innovation beyond techno-economic ideology and practice. S…
Moral impact of technologies from a pluralist perspective
We propose and illustrate a model for evaluating the moral impact of technologies from a pluralist perspective. We conceptualize technological artefacts as having moral profiles that consist of the values served and disserved along five levels of decision-making: (1) problem, (2) strategy, (3) resources, (4) product and (5) design. The notion of complex equality, directly stemming from the pluralist philosophy of Michael Walzer, can function as a…
Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies
Technologies shape who we are, how we organize our societies and how we relate to nature. For example, social media challenges democracy; artificial intelligence raises the question of what is unique to humans; and the possibility to create artificial wombs may affect notions of motherhood and birth. Some have suggested that we address global warming by engineering the climate, but how does this impact our responsibility to future generations and…
Learning Organization for Corporate Social Responsibility Implementation
Because corporate social responsibility (CSR) is potentially beneficial for companies, it is important to understand the factors that improve a company’s CSR practice. Scholars hypothesize that facilitating learning organization characteristics, which are divided in characteristics at the organizational and the operational level, may improve CSR implementation. These characteristics stimulate companies and their members to be critical, learn from…
Ecological Innovation
In this article, we critically reflect on the concept of biomimicry. On the basis of an analysis of the concept of biomimicry in the literature and its philosophical origin, we distinguish between a strong and a weaker concept of biomimicry. The strength of the strong concept of biomimicry is that nature is seen as a measure by which to judge the ethical rightness of our technological innovations, but its weakness is found in questionable presupp…
The Ideal of a Zero-Waste Humanity
In this paper we inquire into the fundamental assumptions that underpin the ideal of the Bio-Based Economy (BBE) as it is currently developed . By interpreting the BBE from the philosophical perspective on economy developed by Georges Bataille, we demonstrate how the BBE is fully premised on a thinking of scarcity. As a result, the BBE exclusively frames economic problems in terms of efficient production, endeavoring to exclude a thinking of abun…
A Public Survey on Handling Male Chicks in the Dutch Egg Sector
In 2035 global egg demand will have risen 50% from 1985. Because we are not able to tell in the egg whether it will become a male or female chick, billons of one day-old male chicks will be killed. International research initiatives are underway in this area, and governments encourage the development of an alternative with the goal of eliminating the culling of day-old male chicks. The Netherlands holds an exceptional position in the European egg…
Responsible Innovation for Life
In this special issue we will investigate, from the perspective of agricultural ethics (e.g. animal welfare, agricultural and food ethics, environmental ethics etc.) the potential to develop a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach to agriculture, and the limitations to such an enterprise. RRI is an emerging field in the European research and innovation (R&I) policy context that aims to balance economic, socio-cultural and environment…
Big Food’s Ambivalence
In this article, we critically reflect on the responsibilities that the food industry has for public health. Although food companies are often significant contributors to public health problems (e.g., obesity, type 2 diabetes), the mere possibility of corporate responsibility for public health seems to be excluded in the academic public health discourse. We argue that the behavior of several food companies reflects a split corporate personality, …
Moral “Lock-In” in Responsible Innovation
The aim of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that will help in understanding and evaluating, along social and ethical lines, the issue of killing day-old male chicks and two alternative directions of responsible innovations to solve this issue. The following research questions are addressed: Why is the killing of day-old chicks morally problematic? Are the proposed alternatives morally sound? To what extent do the alternatives lead …
Establishing the Truth
Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies
Technologies shape who we are, how we organize our societies and how we relate to nature. For example, social media challenges democracy; artificial intelligence raises the question of what is unique to humans; and the possibility to create artificial wombs may affect notions of motherhood and birth. Some have suggested that we address global warming by engineering the climate, but how does this impact our responsibility to future generations and…
Seeing Through the Fumes
This paper offers a twofold ontological conceptualization of technology in the Anthropocene. On the one hand, we aim to show how the Anthropocene occasions an experience of our inescapable inclusion in the technological structuring of reality that Martin Heidegger associates with cybernetics. On the other hand, by confronting Heidegger’s thought on technology with Georges Bataille’s consideration of technological existence as economic and averted…
Technocratic Management Versus Ethical Leadership Redefining Responsible Professionalism in the Agri-Food Sector in the Anthropocene
In this contribution, we argue that three related developments provide economic, environmental and social challenges and opportunities for a new responsible professionalism in the food chain: (1) the Anthropocene; (2) the bio-based economy; (3) Precision Livestock Farming. These three interrelated developments indicate a transition in the way we understand the role and function of the food chain on the micro-, the meso- and the macro-level. This …
Contesting the Will
The starting point of this article is the undeniable experience of conscious willing despite its rejection by scientific research. The article starts a phenomenology of willing at the level of the (epi)phenomenon of willing itself, without assuming its embeddedness in a faculty of the soul, consciousness and so forth. After the introduction, a brief history of the philosophy of willing is provided, from which the paradoxical conclusion is drawn t…
Understanding political responsibility in corporate citizenship
In this article, we explore the debate on corporate citizenship and the role of business in global governance. In the debate on political corporate social responsibility it is assumed that under globalization business is taking up a greater political role. Apart from economic responsibilities firms assume political responsibilities taking up traditional governmental tasks such as regulation of business and provision of public goods. We contrast t…
Thinking the Earth
Quentin Meillassoux's call for realism is a call for a new interest in the Earth as un-correlated being in philosophy. Unlike Meillassoux, Martin Heidegger has not been criticized for being a correlationist. To the contrary, his concept of the Earth has to be understood as un-correlated being, as it is opposed to the world as correlated being. First, this interpretation of Heidegger's concept of the Earth solves various problems of interpretation…
The Human Glance, the Experience of Environmental Distress and the “Affordance” of Nature
The problem we face today is that there is a huge gap between our ethical judgments about the ecological crisis on the one hand and our ethical behavior according to these judgments on the other. In this article, we ask to what extent a phenomenology of the ecological crisis enables us to bridge this gap and display more ethical or pro-environmental behavior. To answer this question, our point of departure is the affordance theory of the American…
The Power of Speech Acts
Ethical oaths for bankers, economists and managers are increasingly seen as successful instruments to ensure more responsible behaviour. In this article, we reflect on the nature of ethical oaths. Based on John Austin's speech act theory and the work of Emmanuel Levinas, we introduce a performative concept of ethical oaths that is characterised by (1) the existential self-performative of the one I want to be, which is (2) demanded by the public c…
Towards the Rehabilitation of the Will in Contemporary Philosophy
(2013). Towards the Rehabilitation of the Will in Contemporary Philosophy. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology: Vol. 44, Life, Truth, Transcendence, pp. 286-301
An Indication of Being—Reflections on Heidegger's Engagement with Ernst Jünger
In the thirties, Martin Heidegger was heavily involved with the work of Ernst Jünger (1895-1998). He says that he is indebted to Jünger for the ‘enduring stimulus’ provided by his descriptions. The question is: what exactly could this enduring stimulus be? Several interpreters have examined this question, but the recent publication of lectures and annotations of the thirties allow us to follow Heidegger’s confrontation with Jünger more precisely.…
Path creation as a discursive process
When a technology is seen as the right solution to a recognized problem, the development of alternative technologies comes under threat. To secure much-needed resources, proponents of alternative technologies must, in these conditions, restart societal discussion on the status quo, a process at once technological and discursive known as ‘path creation’. In this article, we investigate discussion-restarting strategies employed by supporters of eme…
Moral impact of technologies from a pluralist perspective
We propose and illustrate a model for evaluating the moral impact of technologies from a pluralist perspective. We conceptualize technological artefacts as having moral profiles that consist of the values served and disserved along five levels of decision-making: (1) problem, (2) strategy, (3) resources, (4) product and (5) design. The notion of complex equality, directly stemming from the pluralist philosophy of Michael Walzer, can function as a…
A critical hermeneutic reflection on the paradigm-level assumptions underlying responsible innovation
The current challenges of implementing responsible innovation (RI) can in part be traced back to the (implicit) assumptions behind the ways of thinking that ground the different pre-existing theories and approaches that are shared under the RI-umbrella. Achieving the ideals of RI, therefore not only requires a shift on an operational and systemic level but also at the paradigm-level. In order to develop a deeper understanding of this paradigm shi…
Heidegger and Derrida on the Nature of Questioning
In this article, the Heidegger and Derrida controversy about the nature of questioning is revisited in order to rehabilitate questioning as an essential characteristic of contemporary philosophy. After exploring Heidegger's characterization of philosophy as questioning and Derrida's criticism of the primacy of questioning, we will evaluate Derrida's criticism and articulate three characteristics of Heidegger's concept of questioning. After our ex…
Establishing the Truth
An Indication of Being—Reflections on Heidegger's Engagement with Ernst Jünger
In the thirties, Martin Heidegger was heavily involved with the work of Ernst Jünger (1895-1998). He says that he is indebted to Jünger for the ‘enduring stimulus’ provided by his descriptions. The question is: what exactly could this enduring stimulus be? Several interpreters have examined this question, but the recent publication of lectures and annotations of the thirties allow us to follow Heidegger’s confrontation with Jünger more precisely.…
The Power of Speech Acts
Ethical oaths for bankers, economists and managers are increasingly seen as successful instruments to ensure more responsible behaviour. In this article, we reflect on the nature of ethical oaths. Based on John Austin's speech act theory and the work of Emmanuel Levinas, we introduce a performative concept of ethical oaths that is characterised by (1) the existential self-performative of the one I want to be, which is (2) demanded by the public c…
Towards the Rehabilitation of the Will in Contemporary Philosophy
(2013). Towards the Rehabilitation of the Will in Contemporary Philosophy. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology: Vol. 44, Life, Truth, Transcendence, pp. 286-301
Learning apart and together
Look who's talking
In this article, we develop a concept of stakeholder dialogue in responsible innovation (RI) processes. The problem with most concepts of communication is that they rely on ideals of openness, alignment and harmony, even while these ideals are rarely realized in practice. Based on the work of Burke, Habermas, Deetz and Levinas, we develop a concept of stakeholder dialogue that is able to deal with fundamentally different interests and value frame…
The Emerging Concept of Responsible Innovation. Three Reasons Why It Is Questionable and Calls for a Radical Transformation of the Concept of Innovation
Encouraging sustainability in the workplace
Moral “Lock-In” in Responsible Innovation
The aim of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that will help in understanding and evaluating, along social and ethical lines, the issue of killing day-old male chicks and two alternative directions of responsible innovations to solve this issue. The following research questions are addressed: Why is the killing of day-old chicks morally problematic? Are the proposed alternatives morally sound? To what extent do the alternatives lead …
The Human Glance, the Experience of Environmental Distress and the “Affordance” of Nature
The problem we face today is that there is a huge gap between our ethical judgments about the ecological crisis on the one hand and our ethical behavior according to these judgments on the other. In this article, we ask to what extent a phenomenology of the ecological crisis enables us to bridge this gap and display more ethical or pro-environmental behavior. To answer this question, our point of departure is the affordance theory of the American…
The Ideal of a Zero-Waste Humanity
In this paper we inquire into the fundamental assumptions that underpin the ideal of the Bio-Based Economy (BBE) as it is currently developed . By interpreting the BBE from the philosophical perspective on economy developed by Georges Bataille, we demonstrate how the BBE is fully premised on a thinking of scarcity. As a result, the BBE exclusively frames economic problems in terms of efficient production, endeavoring to exclude a thinking of abun…
Heidegger and Derrida on the Nature of Questioning
In this article, the Heidegger and Derrida controversy about the nature of questioning is revisited in order to rehabilitate questioning as an essential characteristic of contemporary philosophy. After exploring Heidegger's characterization of philosophy as questioning and Derrida's criticism of the primacy of questioning, we will evaluate Derrida's criticism and articulate three characteristics of Heidegger's concept of questioning. After our ex…
Barriers to the adoption and diffusion of technological innovations for climate-smart agriculture in Europe
Phenomenology and the Empirical Turn
This paper provides a phenomenological analysis of postphenomenological philosophy of technology. While acknowledging that the results of its analyses are to be recognized as original, insightful, and valuable, we will argue that in its execution of the empirical turn, postphenomenology forfeits a phenomenological dimension of questioning. By contrasting the postphenomenological method with Heidegger’s understanding of phenomenology as developed …
Ecological Innovation
In this article, we critically reflect on the concept of biomimicry. On the basis of an analysis of the concept of biomimicry in the literature and its philosophical origin, we distinguish between a strong and a weaker concept of biomimicry. The strength of the strong concept of biomimicry is that nature is seen as a measure by which to judge the ethical rightness of our technological innovations, but its weakness is found in questionable presupp…
Thinking the Earth
Quentin Meillassoux's call for realism is a call for a new interest in the Earth as un-correlated being in philosophy. Unlike Meillassoux, Martin Heidegger has not been criticized for being a correlationist. To the contrary, his concept of the Earth has to be understood as un-correlated being, as it is opposed to the world as correlated being. First, this interpretation of Heidegger's concept of the Earth solves various problems of interpretation…
Ernst Jünger’s Philosophy of Technology
This book examines the work of Ernst Jünger and its effect on the development of Martin Heidegger’s influential philosophy of technology. Vincent Blok offers a unique treatment of Jünger’s philosophy and his conception of the age of technology, in which both world and man appear in terms of their functionality and efficiency. The primary objective of Jünger’s novels and essays is to make the transition from the totally mobilized world of the 20th…
Innovation Systems for Transformations towards Sustainability? Taking the Normative Dimension Seriously
The aim of this article is to complement research on transformations towards sustainability by drawing upon the innovation systems (IS) framework. The IS framework already serves as a suitable and influential basis for research on processes of technological innovation and economic change. We argue that improving the capacity of an IS framework for dealing with wicked problems and the normative complexity of sustainability requires a fundamental p…
Lessons for Responsible Innovation in the Business Context
This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing conceptual debate on responsible innovation, and provides innovation practices and processes that can help to implement responsible innovation in the business context. Based on a systematic literature review of 72 empirical scholarly articles, it was possible to identify, analyse and synthesise empirical findings reported in studies on social, sustainable and responsible innovation practices in the bus…
Ernst Jünger's Philosophy of Technology
Establishing the Truth
When the going gets tough, the tough get going
In this article, we explore how responsible research and innovation (RRI) interacts with the current political context. We examine the (1) possible consequences for RRI and related agendas if values associated with ‘populist’ movements become more pervasive, (2) the role that a lack of RRI has potentially played in the development of this political context, and (3) how RRI as a concept, practice, and research agenda should respond. We argue that …
Understanding political responsibility in corporate citizenship
In this article, we explore the debate on corporate citizenship and the role of business in global governance. In the debate on political corporate social responsibility it is assumed that under globalization business is taking up a greater political role. Apart from economic responsibilities firms assume political responsibilities taking up traditional governmental tasks such as regulation of business and provision of public goods. We contrast t…
Big Food’s Ambivalence
In this article, we critically reflect on the responsibilities that the food industry has for public health. Although food companies are often significant contributors to public health problems (e.g., obesity, type 2 diabetes), the mere possibility of corporate responsibility for public health seems to be excluded in the academic public health discourse. We argue that the behavior of several food companies reflects a split corporate personality, …
Tempels et al. Respond
Sociology (48 obras) · Political science (43 obras) · Epistemology (41 obras) · Computer Science (40 obras) · Business (29 obras) · Philosophy (29 obras) · Economics (28 obras) · Public relations (28 obras) · Law (23 obras) · Engineering (20 obras)