3D Printing in Dialogue With Four Thinkers

Abstract

Although public awareness of the implications of 3D printing has been growing at a steady clip, prominent philosophers have barely begun to take stock of what this emerging technology might mean. This chapter starts by considering an important cautionary article on 3D printing by Rachel Armstrong. After giving an account of the materialist and relationist suppositions of Armstrong's approach, the author compares it with possibly different approaches illuminated by the thought of three prominent thinkers: Bruno Latour, Marshall McLuhan, and Timothy Morton.