Maßgeschneiderte nanoskalige Systeme: Methodologische und ontologische Überlegungen

Focusing on ethical and social questions the recent philosophical debate on nanotechnology ignores the wide dimension of methodological and ontological questions. To complete the philosophical analysis in this sense nanotechnology here is observed with regard to the fact that all science is intervention. Two aspects of nanosystems were pointed out: First the double function of nanosystems as objects and instruments or tools of investigation, second the hybrid state of nanosystems as artifacts and as natural products. In both directions – from a methodological and from an ontological point of view – nanotechnology can be understood as a continuation of the modern sciences research program. For that reason it is confronted with the basic dialectics in the relation between intervening science and nature too. (Used with editor's permission, copyright Akademishche Verlagsgesellischaft, 2006)