Social Philosophy, Technology, and Modern Life

Four Philosophies of Technology

Creative Philosophy:

• "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."

Attitudes towards technology: Shape it, the Society we construct, and Ourselves:

Technological Anarchy

• 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

Technophilia

• Technology as an end in itself
• Our "life game"
• Identification with technology- it becomes an extension of ourselves
• Creates a 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

Technophobia

• 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
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Appropriate Technology

• 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

Historical Relationship between Science and Technology

• 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)

• 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

Polymorphism:

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

Technology's Products

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

Scientific Products

The Setting of These Activities

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: # of products, organizational size, impact.

International Character

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

Rationalization

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: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 16:01