Nanotechnological Icons

Abstract

Modern microscopes create a capacity to see and act at the scale where unassisted human senses are powerless. Images of nanoscale phenomena represent a world that effectively intervenes in human life while remaining distant and ineffable. This combination of an unbridgeable distance between man and technology with a real power of the latter over the human condition is characteristic, not only of nanotechnology, but also of the theology of sacred icons that mediate in the knowledge of divine reality. We draw an anthropological analogy between nanotechnological images and sacred icons, and we employ it to analyze the functioning of such images in society. The questions that we study include: a) the art of mediation in representing the ineffable and its necessity; b) the effects provoked by such images; c) primitive comprehension of nanoscale images. This work has repercussions for a wide variety of disciplinary accounts and practices, from the anthropologist and the philosopher to the laboratory scientist, the art critic, and the engineer who conceives and designs nanoscale instruments.

Nanotechnology and Ethical Governance in the European Union and China

“…15 The years 2007-2010 covered general areas of ongoing concern, with articles on risk and regulation, enhancement, nanomedicine, NBIC, and public perceptions -in addition to other topics including justice, teaching nanoethics, green nanotechnology, intellectual property rights, ambivalence towards technology, Australian and Thai nanoresearch, and nanoethics. The same issue, via Grinbaum's ( 2011 ) article on the iconography of nanotechnology, picked up this issue of 'the unseen', describing the knowledge gap between scientist and layperson as a 'two-class system'. The journal has addressed the controversial issue of animal disenhancement -an interesting branch of the nanoenhancement debate (volume 6, April 2012).…”

What Is Nanotechnology, and What Should We Be Worried About?

“…Ruivenkamp and Rip's article ( 2011 ) on the speculative nature of nanoethics demonstrates how this problem is exacerbated by the essentially 'unseen' nature of the nanoscale. The same issue, via Grinbaum's ( 2011 ) article on the iconography of nanotechnology, picked up this issue of 'the unseen', describing the knowledge gap between scientist and layperson as a 'two-class system'.…”