Social Philosophy, Technology, and Modern Life

Four Philosophies of Technology

• "A creative activity of conceptual inquiry which frees us of attachment to specific models and doctrines in order to develop more appropriate cultural practices."
• "...a way of life..."
• "...a sort of jazz played with concepts."

• Characteristic of the 19th Century, and still, perhaps, international development.
• Technology and technological knowledge are good and benefit humanity (produce wealth, power, and tames nature).
• Ends justify the means.
• Rapid development, and technology as a central force in social processes.

• Technology as an end in itself.
• Our "life game."
• Identification with technology- it becomes an extension of ourselves.
• Creates an infrastuctural web in which we and the technics we create are enmeshed.
• Paradoxical frustration of human values- it begins to dominate us.
• Technocracy.
• Threat to existence.

• Realization of the need to return to human values and autonomy.
• Rejection of technology: self-sufficiency.
• Revitalization human scale/based technologies: arts, crafts, etc.
• Realization of the relationship between technology and ourselves: control and spontaneity.

• A maturing of the reciprocal relationships between people, technology, and the world.
• Reflection on values and goals prior to the development of new technologies.
• Preservation of diversity.
• Promotion of interaction between people, technics, and the environment.
• "Thermodynamically sound in the generation and use of energy."
• Balanced use of resources.
• Promotion of human development through the use of technics.
• 4 levels of innovation:
  1. Technological modification: gradual improvement.
  2. Technological hybridization: combining existing technologies.
  3. Technological mutation: transformation of technology to another form or for another purpose.
  4. Technological mastery and creation: transcends technology and our dependence on it.

Back to Basics: Science and Technology- Similarities, Differences, and Interdependence

• Outputs: Technics and related constructs versus knowledge and theoretical explanation.
• Function: Expansion of the realm of humanly possible versus enhance our understanding of nature.
• Processes:
  1. Technology: Need or desire, design, production and use.
  2. Science: The Scientific Method.

• Ancient World: little connection at all, technology precedes science.
• Through the 1600's: Different paths, typically technology influencing scientific development.
• Development of scientific instruments, etc.
  1. Exception: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).
  2. Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626): Ground technological development in scientific understanding.
• 17th- Early 19th Centuries: Interdependence, but still technology==> science.
  1. Scientific instruments: Lenses, Clock, Telescope.
  2. New world view for science: Technological Metaphor- The Machine, Understand the Whole through its parts.
  3. Scientific research agenda: Problems of technological practice- especially for emerging industries.
  4. Technological devices==> Scientific "Revolutions" (static electrical generator- battery- discovery of magnetic fields).
  5. Science==> Technology: Steam engine.
• 19th Century:
  1. Rise of Science Based Industry (dyes and electrical).
  2. Birth of the Industrial Research Laboratory ( Faraday's electromagnetic induction and subsequent public power station==> Edison and the residential electrical lighting system).
• Early 20th Century:
  1. Growth of the Industrial Research Laboratory: 692 in USA by 1918.
  2. Growing dependence of technology on science, yet not total: Economic and political concerns- propeller design, flight suits, even the A-bomb relied on trial and error.
  3. Growing dependence- perhaps even symbiosis.

Modern Technology

(Hans Jonas. 1978. Toward a Philosophy of Technology. Hastings Center Report: 1979. (local copy)

• An enterprise and process versus a possession and a state.
• Continuing, and typically conscious progress.
• Movement away from equilibrium: technological solutions become new starting points.
• Rapid spread and global reach.
• Ends/Means circularity: New technologies==> produce new needs and desires.
• "Progress" as an inherent drive:
  1. Competition.
  2. War.
  3. Stability.
  4. Demographic trends.
  5. Search for even more improvement: unlimited possibilities.
  6. Capitalism.
  7. Force and relationship with Science.
• Drain of resources: multiplication of goods and the growth of technological apparatus.
• Artificiality (The city: John McDermott).
• Abstractness:
  1. Technics that cater to the senses and the mind.
  2. Growth from electronic technology to electronics==> Information.
     • Question of the obsolescence of man: automation and work, AI and decision making.
     • Produces a strain on Nature itself.

Contemporary Science and Technology As Activity-Forms

Robert E. McGinn. 1991. Science, Technology and Society. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

• Massive, Institutionally based and lone practitioners
• "Applied science" and T&E
• Rigorous quantitative experimentation and qualitative description

Technology's Products

• Complexity- many parts and hierarchal arrangement (interdependent and differentiated): not just the number of parts.
• System-embeddedness- including sociotechnical support systems
• Production specialization and incomphrensibility
• Formalized Technical Procedures- becoming a dominant product (as compared to technics): computer programs
• Socio-technical Systems Analysis: studies of how things fit together.

Scientific Products

• Abstract
• Theory dependent
• Growth

"...(a) characteristic feature of science and technology in the twentieth century is the tremendous expansion and consolidation of the housing of scientific and technological activities in an extensive network of firmly established, substantial-sized formal organizations."

• Institutionalization
• Organizational structure
• Formal /professional associations
• Formalized training

Input Resources

1. Materials:

   • Increasingly large and diverse stock.
   • Natural, yet more and more artificial.
   • Products of the technological enterprise themselves.
   • Globalization.
   • More Natural Phenomena are Becoming Scientifically Investigated and Manipulated (improvements in technics).
   • Money.

Transformative Resources

1st Order (those with which inputs are transformed)

• Wide variety, and increasing complexity: power tools.
• Tremendous growth and proliferation.

2nd Order (those which direct the use of 1st order resources)

• Focus on technological "knowledge" (a second kind- "methods").
• Sources: observation, experimentation, scientific understanding, intuition.
• Contemporary: formal scientific research dominates- still tempered with experimentation and intuition.
• Technological knowledge is created often without specific practical application: A "Global technological knowledge bank."

Practitioners

• Numbers increasing, as a proportion of the population. No sign of stabilization. Today approximately 1:25.
• Collaboration and Teamwork (still room for the individual).
• Scientists and engineers as Managers.
• Increased Training and Specialization.

Increasing Scale

Big everything: Number of products, organizational size, overall impact.

International Character

• Airbus, Space Shuttle, WWW
• International consortiums
• Outsourcing

Rationalization

Symbiotic Interdependence

Technological Determinism Jacque Ellul: The Technological Order

URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/280/tecsoc2.html
Owner: Robert O. Keel: rok@umsl.edu
Last Updated: Monday, January 18, 2016 14:11