Prospective Technology Assessment of Synthetic Biology: Fundamental and Propaedeutic Reflections in Order to Enable an Early Assessment.

Synthetic biology is regarded as one of the key technosciences of the future. The goal of this paper is to present some fundamental considerations to enable procedures of a technology assessment (TA) of synthetic biology. To accomplish such an early "upstream" assessment of a not yet fully developed technology, a special type of TA will be considered: Prospective TA (ProTA).

Technoscientia est Potentia?: Contemplative, interventionist, constructionist and creationist idea(l)s in (techno)science.

Within the realm of nano-, bio-, info- and cogno- (or NBIC) technosciences, the 'power to change the world' is often invoked. One could dismiss such formulations as 'purely rhetorical', interpret them as rhetorical and self-fulfilling or view them as an adequate depiction of one of the fundamental characteristics of technoscience. In the latter case, a very specific nexus between science and technology, or, the epistemic and the constructionist realm is envisioned.

Toward an epistemology of nano-technosciences: Probing technoscience from a historical perspective: on today's surprising prevalence and relevance of Francis Bacon.

This paper aims to contribute to the attempts to clarify and classify the vague notion of "technosciences" from a historical perspective. A key question that is raised is as follows: Does Francis Bacon, one of the founding fathers of the modern age, provide a hitherto largely undiscovered programmatic position, which might facilitate a more profound understanding of technosciences? The paper argues that nearly everything we need today for an ontologically well-informed epistemology of technoscience can be found in the works of Bacon-this position will be called epistemological real-constructivism. Rather than realist or constructivist, empiricist or rationalist, Bacon's position can best be understood as real-constructivist since it challenges modern dichotomies.

What is a problem?: On problem-oriented interdisciplinarity.

Among others, the term "problem" plays a major role in the various attempts to characterize interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity, as used synonymously in this paper. Interdisciplinarity (ID) is regarded as "problem solving among science, technology and society" and as "problem orientation beyond disciplinary constraints" (cf. Frodeman et al.