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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Serie: Blackwell Companions to Philosophy
- Sprache: Englisch
Drawing on essays from leading international and multi-disciplinary scholars, A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology is the first comprehensive and authoritative reference source to cover the key issues of technology’s impact on society and our lives.
- Presents the first complete, authoritative reference work in the field
- Organized thematically for use both as a full introduction to the field or an encyclopedic reference
- Draws on original essays from leading interdisciplinary scholars
- Features the most up-to-date and cutting edge research in the interdisciplinary fields of philosophy, technology, and their broader intellectual environments
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
I History of Technology
II Technology and Science
III Technology and Philosophy
IV Technology and Environment
V Technology and Politics
VI Technology and Ethics
VII Technology and the Future
Part I: History of Technology
Chapter 1: History of Technology
Definitions of “Technology”
Problems of Culture
Dilemmas of Determinism
Notes
References and Further Reading
Chapter 2: Definitions of Technology
What Is Technology?
Explicit Knowledge and Tacit Knowledge
References and Further Reading
Chapter 3: Western Technology
Chapter 4: Chinese Technology
References and Further Reading
Chapter 5: Islamic Technology
“Indian Agriculture”
Practical Astronomy, Surveying and Time-keeping
Gunpowder and Firearms
Philosophy of Technology
References and Further Reading
Chapter 6: Japanese Technology
References and Further Reading
Chapter 7: Technology and War
References and Further Reading
Part II: Technology and Science
Chapter 8: Technology and Science
References and Further Reading
Chapter 9: Science and Technology: Positivism and Critique
Note
References and Further Reading
Chapter 10: Engineering Science
Chapter 11: Technological Knowledge
1. Types of Knowledge in Technology
2. A Neglected Topic
3. Empirical Studies
4. Philosophical Explorations
References and Further Reading
Chapter 12: The Interplay between Science and Technology
References and Further Reading
Chapter 13: Instruments in Science and Technology
1. Science and Technology
2. Instruments in Science
3. New Experimentalism
4. Instruments in Scientific Practice
5. The Interwovenness of Science and Technology
References and Further Reading
Chapter 14: Social Construction of Science
References and Further Reading
Chapter 15: Social Construction of Technology
Constructivist Studies of Science and Technology
The Origin and Development of the Social Construction of Technology
The Social Construction of Technology as a Heuristics for Research
Some Philosophical Questions
Technology and Ideas
Conceptual Issues
Logic and Epistemological Issues
Ethical Issues
Issues of Political Philosophy
Religious Issues
References and Further Reading
Chapter 16: Theory Change and Instrumentation
References and Further Reading
Chapter 17: Biology and Technology
Introduction
History of Technology
Technology and Artifacts
Biology, Technology and Biotic artifacts
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 18: Nuclear Technologies
1. Introduction
2. The Physicists and the Bomb
3. Thermonuclear Weapons and the Cold War
4. Atoms for Peace
5. Deterrence, Détente, 9/11 and Dirty Bombs
6. Nuclear Waste
7. Climate Crisis
8. Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
References and Further Reading
Chapter 19: Engineering Design
General Characterization
A Design
The Design Process
Rationality and Creativity in Engineering Design
Acknowledgment
Note
References and Further Reading
Chapter 20: Cybernetics
References and Further Reading
Chapter 21: Chemistry and Technology
References and Further Reading
Part III: Technology and Philosophy
Chapter 22: Introduction: Philosophy and Technology
Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Technology
Phenomenology and Technology
Hermeneutics
Marxism, Critical Theory and Technology
Social Constructivism
Pragmatism and Technology
Toward an Integrated Philosophy of Technology
Chapter 23: Semiotics of Technology
References and Further Reading
Chapter 24: Critical Theory of Technology
Critical Theories of Technology
Technology and Democracy
Code and Bias
Modernity, Premodernity, Alternative Modernity
References and Further Reading
Chapter 25: Cyborgs
Chapter 26: Simulation
Chapter 27: Technology as “Applied Science”
References and Further Reading
Chapter 28: Technological Artifacts
1. Introduction
2. Definitions of Technological Artifacts
3. Technological Artifacts in Philosophy
References and Further Reading
Chapter 29: Technical Practice
References and Further Reading
Chapter 30: Technological Pragmatism
References and Further Reading
Chapter 31: Hermeneutics and Technologies
Notes
Chapter 32: Analytic Philosophy of Technology
References and Further Reading
Chapter 33: Technological Rationality
Notes
References and Further Reading
Chapter 34: Phenomenology and Technology
Notes
Chapter 35: Expertise
Chapter 36: Imaging Technologies
Notes
References and Further Reading
Chapter 37: The Critique of the Precautionary Principle and the Possibility for an “Enlightened Doomsaying”
Notes
Chapter 38: Technology and Metaphysics
Notes
Chapter 39: Large Technical Systems
Background
Concepts for Examining LTS Dynamics
Societal Implications of LTS
References and Further Reading
Chapter 40: Sociotechnical Systems
Chapter 41: Information Technology
The Evolution of IT
Understanding IT
IT in the Information Society
Conclusion
References and Further Reading
Part IV: Technology and Environment
Chapter 42: Technology and Environment
Notes
References and Further Reading
Chapter 43: The Precautionary Principle
General Background
Critical Debate
Practical Implications
Notes
Chapter 44: Boundary-work, Pluralism and the Environment
The Tension between Sustainability and Diversity and the Quest for Unity
Boundary-work
Conclusion
References and Further Reading
Chapter 45: Global Warming
The Science of Global Warming
The Impacts of Global Warming
Can We Believe the Evidence?
International Agreement Required
What Actions Can Be Taken?
Notes
Chapter 46: The Reinvention of CO
2
as Refrigerant for Both Heating and Cooling
The Breakthrough of the Refrigerant System
CO
2
Makes a Brief Appearance
The New Wonder Refrigerants
The Area of the HFC Gases
A New Technology Is Born – in Norway
The SHECCO Transcritical CO
2
Circuit
The CO
2
Paradox
Chapter 47: Environmental Science and Technology
Notes
References and Further Reading
Chapter 48: Agriculture and Technology
References and Further Reading
Chapter 49: The Built Environment
1. Environmental Impact
2. Built Environment versus Environment?
Notes
Part V: Technology and Politics
Chapter 50: Technology and Politics
Chapter 51: The Idea of Progress
Notes
Chapter 52: Technology and Power
Chapter 53: Technology and Culture
Chapter 54: Technology Management
What Is Technology Management/Management of Technology (MOT)?
Significance of Technology Management
New Endeavors in Management of Technology
References and Further Reading
Chapter 55: Technology Strategy
References and Further Reading
Chapter 56: Technology and Globalization
Technology and the Global Political Economy
The Global Political Economy and Technology
Chapter 57: Technology Transfer
Chapter 58: Technology and Capitalism
Technology and the Development of Capitalism
Monopoly and Welfare State Capitalism
Technology and Late Capitalism
Chapter 59: The Politics of Gender and Technology
References and Further Reading
Chapter 60: European Politics, Economy and Technology
Chapter 61: Asian Politics, Economy and Technology
Introduction
Recent History and Politics
The West: Politics, Economy and Technology
Nationalism, Modernization and Westernization
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 62: US Politics, Economy and Technology
American Liberalism
The Constitutional System
Federal Patronage
Looking Forward
Notes
Chapter 63: Energy, Technology and Geopolitics
References and Further Reading
Part VI: Technology and Ethics
Chapter 64: Technology and Ethics: Overview
1. From Cultural Criticism to Cultural Lag
2. Dramatic Tensions
3. Dramatic Theory
4. Theory and Description
5. Description Plus
References and Further Reading
Chapter 65: Agriculture Ethics
Health and Environment
Topsoil Erosion
Monocrops
Global Trade
Genetically Modified Food
Animals
Chapter 66: Architecture Ethics
References and Further Reading
Chapter 67: Biomedical Engineering Ethics
General Ethical Issues
Cellular, Genetic and Tissue Engineering
Biomaterials, Prostheses and Implants
Biomedical Imaging and Optics
Neural Engineering
References and Further Reading
Chapter 68: Bioethics
References and Further Reading
Chapter 69: Biotechnology: Plants and Animals
Intrinsic Value
Environmental and Health Risks
Human Hunger and Benefit-sharing
References and Further Reading
Chapter 70: Computer Ethics
Approaches in Computer Ethics
Topics in Computer Ethics
Moral Responsibility
Other Topics
References and Further Reading
Chapter 71: Consumerism
References and Further Reading
Chapter 72: Development Ethics
References and Further Reading
Chapter 73: Energy Ethics
Energy and Economic Growth
Transportation Access
Exhaustible Resources
Note
References and Further Reading
Chapter 74: Engineering Ethics
1. The Birth of a Discipline
2. Status and Stakes of Engineering Ethics?
3. The Moral Responsibility of Engineers
References and Further Reading
Abbreviations
Chapter 75: Environmental Ethics
1. Introduction
2. The Axiology of Environmental Ethics
3. Normative Theories and Environmental Ethics
Notes
Chapter 76: Food Ethics
Food Safety
Food Processing
Genetically Modified Food
Functional Food
Food Nanotechnology
Chapter 77: Future Generations
References and Further Reading
Chapter 78: Genethics
1. Genes, Identity and Ethics
2. Identity-affecting Genetic Interventions
3. Identity-preserving Genetic Interventions
4. Justice
References and Further Reading
Chapter 79: Technology and the Law
Chapter 80: Media Ethics
References and Further Reading
Chapter 81: Medical Ethics
History
Specific Features of Medical Ethics
Recent Developments
References and Further Reading
Chapter 82: Nanoethics
References and Further Reading
Chapter 83: Nuclear Ethics
Introduction
Ethics and the Use of Nuclear Weapons
Ethics and the Possession of Nuclear Weapons
Toward a Theory of Justified Deterrence
Applying Justified Deterrence Theory
References and Further Reading
Chapter 84: Religion and Technology
Historico-theological Debates
From History to Philosophy
Conclusions
References and Further Reading
Chapter 85: Technology and Personal Moral Responsibility
References and Further Reading
Chapter 86: Value-sensitive Design
References and Further Reading
Part VII: Technology and the Future
Chapter 87: Technology, Prosperity and Risk
1. Introduction
2. Technological Risks
3. Future Technology
4. Dealing with Technological Uncertainty
5. How Special Is Technology?
References and Further Reading
Chapter 88: World Risk Society
Notes
Chapter 89: Risk Analysis
Chapter 90: Prosperity and the Future of Technology
Economic Prosperity and Innovation
The Information Age
The Nanotechnology Age
Conclusion
Note
References and Further Reading
Chapter 91: Converging Technologies
The NBIC Fields
Philosophical Implications of Convergence
Conclusion
Note
References and Further Reading
Chapter 92: Nanotechnology
Notes
Chapter 93: Energy Forecast Technologies
Hubbert’s Oil Supply Forecast
Energy Forecast Methodology
Energy Forecast Trend
References and Further Reading
Chapter 94: Biotechnology
Decision-making about New Technologies
Case Studies for Biotechnology
Guidance from the Public
Notes
References and Further Reading
Chapter 95: Transportation
The Transportation System
Transportation System Benefits, Harms and Hazards
Conclusions and Further Questions
References and Further Reading
Chapter 96: Global Challenges
Cases of S&T Applied to the MDGs
Ways Forward
Notes
References and Further Reading
Chapter 97: Chemicals
Toxic Chemicals in the Arctic
Stratospheric Ozone Loss and Global Warming
References and Further Reading
Chapter 98: The Future of Humanity
References and Further Reading
Index
End User License Agreement
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Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
List of Illustrations
Chapter 43: The Precautionary Principle
Figure 43.1 Methodological responses to different aspects of incertitude
Figure 43.2 A framework articulating risk assessment and precautionary appraisal
Chapter 46: The Reinvention of CO
2
as Refrigerant for Both Heating and Cooling
Figure 46.1 The SHECCO flow circuit
Chapter 64: Technology and Ethics: Overview
Figure 64.1
Chapter 93: Energy Forecast Technologies
Figure 93.1 Oil forecast using Gaussian Curve
Chapter 94: Biotechnology
Figure 94.1 Convergence technologies to improve health and the environment
Chapter 96: Global Challenges
Figure 96.1 Achieving the MDGs
List of Tables
Chapter 2: Definitions of Technology
Table 2.1 Features of tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995)
Chapter 24: Critical Theory of Technology
Table 24.1
Chapter 43: The Precautionary Principle
Table 43.1 Key features of a precautionary appraisal process
Chapter 63: Energy, Technology and Geopolitics
Table 63.1 Huntington’s possible geopolitical paradigms
Table 63.2 Huntington’s major contemporary civilizations
Chapter 84: Religion and Technology
Table 84.1 Opportunities for collaboration and opposition
Chapter 94: Biotechnology
Table 94.1
Table 94.2
Chapter 95: Transportation
Table 95.1 Measures of transportation infrastructure per capita – selected regions (km/million inhabitants)
Table 95.2 Number and type of vehicles (per 1,000 people) – selected regions
*
Blackwell Companions to Philosophy
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Edited by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall
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Edited by Graham Bird
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Edited by Hugh H. Benson
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Edited by Janet Broughton and John Carriero
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Edited by Sahotra Sarkar and Anya Plutynski
A Companion to Hume
Edited by Elizabeth S. Radcliffe
A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography
Edited by Aviezer Tucker
A Companion to Aristotle
Edited by Georgios Anagnostopoulos
A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology
Edited by Jan-Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis, Stig Andur Pedersen, and Vincent F. Hendricks
A Companion to Latin American Philosophy
Edited by Susana Nuccetelli, Ofelia Schutte, and Otávio Bueno
A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature
Edited by Garry L. Hagberg and Walter Jost
A Companion to the Philosophy of Action
Edited by Timothy O’Connor and Constantine Sandis
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Edited by Steven D. Hales
A Companion to Hegel
Edited by Stephen Houlgate and Michael Baur
A Companion to Schopenhauer
Edited by Bart Vandenabeele
A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology
Edited by
Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis
Stig Andur Pedersen
Vincent F. Hendricks
This paperback edition first published 2013© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Edition history: Blackwell Publishing Ltd (hardback, 2009)
Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A companion to the philosophy of technology / edited by Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis, Stig Andur Pedersen, and Vincent F. Hendricks.p. cm — (Blackwell companions to philosophy)Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-1-4051-4601-2 (hardcover: alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-1183-4631-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)1. Technology–Philosophy. I. Olsen, Jan Kyrre Berg Friis. II. Pedersen, Stig Andur, 1943–III. Hendricks, Vincent F. IV. Title. V. Series.T14.C5745 2009601—dc22
2008044192
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Notes on Contributors
William Sims Bainbridge. Co-director of Human-Centered Computing at the National Science Foundation (NSF); part-time Professor of Sociology, George Mason University.
Ulrich Beck. Professor of Sociology, University of Munich; British Journal of Sociology; Visiting Centennial Professor, London School of Economics and Sciences.
Wiebe E. Bijker. Professor of Technology and Society, Maastricht University.
Mieke Boon. Associate Professor, Philosophy Department, University of Twente.
Nick Bostrom. Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University.
Francesca Bray. Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh.
Philip Brey. Associate Professor of Philosophy of Technology and chair of the department of philosophy, University of Twente; Director of the Centre for Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Science (CEPTES).
Louis L. Bucciarelli. Professor emeritus and former director of MIT’s Technology Studies Program.
Harry Collins. Distinguished Research Professor, Cardiff University.
Christelle Didier. Assistant Professor, Department of Ethics, Catholic University of Lille.
Jean-Pierre Dupuy. Professor of Social and Political Philosophy, École Polytechnique, Paris; director of research, CNRS (Philosophy), USA.
Val Dusek. Professor of Philosophy, University of New Hampshire.
Deni Elliott. Poynter Jamison Chair in Media Ethics and Press Policy, University of South Florida; Professor, Department of Journalism and Media Studies, University of South Florida.
John R. Fanchi. Professor, Department of Petroleum Engineering, Colorado School of Mines (now at Fanchi Enterprises, Houston, Texas).
Andrew Feenberg. Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University.
Luciano Floridi. Professor of Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire, where he holds the Research Chair in Philosophy of Information in the School of Humanities, and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford.
Warwick A. Fox. Reader in Ethics, Centre for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire.
Maarten Franssen. Associate Professor, Section of Philosophy, Delft University of Technology.
Jonathan L. Gifford. Professor of Public Policy, School of Public Policy, George Mason University; director of the Master’s in Transportation Policy, Operations and Logistics.
Thomas F. Glick. Professor of History and Geography, Boston University.
Bart Gremmen. Professor of Ethical and Social Aspects of Genomics, Director of the Centre for Methodical Ethics and Technology Assessment, Wageningen University.
Bart Hacker. Curator, Military Technology, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Kirsten Halsnæs. Senior Research Specialist, UNEP Risø Centre at Risø/DTU.
Sven Ove Hansson. Professor of Philosophy and head of department, Philosophy and the History of Technology, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm; editor-in-chief of Theoria.
David M. Hart. Associate Professor, School of Public Policy, George Mason University.
Larry Hickman. Director of the Center for Dewey Studies; Professor of Philosophy, Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Søren Holm. Professorial Fellow in Bioethics, Cardiff Law School, Cardiff University; Professor II, Medical Ethics, Section for Medical Ethics, University of Oslo.
Nils Holtug. Associate Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Centre for the Study of Equality and Multiculturalism, University of Copenhagen.
Sir John Houghton. President of the John Ray Initiative; Honorary Scientist, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.
Jan Hurlen. Vice-President, Shecco Technology.
Don Ihde. Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Stony Brook University; Director of the Technoscience Research Group, Philosophy Department, Stony Brook University.
Christian Illies. Professor, Technical University, Eindhoven.
Robert E. Innis. Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
Bruce E. Johansen. Frederick W. Kayser Professor of Communication and Native American Studies, University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Erik Jones. Professor of European Studies, SAIS Bologna Center, Johns Hopkins University.
David M. Kaplan. Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of North Texas.
Elisabeth K. Kelan. Research Fellow, Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business, London Business School.
Thomas Kesselring. Docent in Ethics, Institut Sekundarstufe l, PHBern.
Jozef Keulartz. Associate Professor of Applied Philosophy, Wageningen University and Research Centre; Special Chair for Environmental Philosophy, Radboud University, Nijmegen.
Helge S. Kragh. Professor of History of Science and Technology, Steno Institute, University of Aarhus.
Peter Kroes. Professor in Philosophy of Technology, Department of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology.
Jennifer Kuzma. Associate Professor, Center for Science, Technology, and Public Policy, Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota.
Keekok Lee. Honorary Research Fellow, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester.
Richard Li-Hua. Director of China Business and Technology Transfer, Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University.
Noëmi Manders-Huits. Junior researcher, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology.
Anthonie W. M. Meijers. Professor of Philosophy, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology.
Thomas J. Misa. Director of the University of Minnesota’s Charles Babbage Institute; ERA Chair in the History of Technology; faculty member, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Carl Mitcham. Professor of Liberal Arts and International Studies, Colorado School of Mines.
Keld Nielsen. Associate professor, head of department, Steno Department for Studies of Science and Science Education, University of Aarhus.
Alfred Nordmann. Professor of Philosophy and History of Science, Darmstadt Technical University; president of the Lichtenberg Society.
William J. Nuttall. University Senior Lecturer in Technology Policy, Judge Business School and Cambridge University Engineering Department.
Thomas Søbirk Petersen. Associate Professor of Practical Philosophy, University of Roskilde.
Andrew Pickering. Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology and Philosophy, University of Exeter.
Joseph C. Pitt. Professor of Philosophy, Virginia Tech.
John R. Porter. Environment, Resources and Technology Group, Department of Agricultural Sciences, KVL.
Hans Radder. Professor of Philosophy of Science and Technology, Faculty of Philosophy, VU University, Amsterdam.
Jesper Rasmussen. Environment, Resources and Technology Group, Department of Agricultural Sciences, KVL.
Jesper Ryberg. Professor of Practical Philosophy, University of Roskilde.
Daniel Sarewitz. Professor of Science and Society, Director of the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, Arizona State University.
Robert C. Scharff. Philosophy Department, University of New Hampshire.
Lucien Scubla. Researcher in anthropology at CREA, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris.
Evan Selinger. Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology.
Lorenzo Charles Simpson. Professor of Philosophy, Stony Brook University/State University of New York.
Andy Stirling. Science Director, SPRU (science and technology policy research), the University of Sussex; co-director of the joint SPRU/Institute for Development Studies ESRC-funded “STEPS” Centre (on “Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability”).
Richard Susskind. Honorary Professor and Emeritus Law Professor at Gresham College, London; IT adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England.
Iain Thomson. Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of New Mexico.
Paul B. Thomson. Professor, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University.
Mary Tiles. Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy, University of Hawaii.
Koos van der Bruggen. Faculty of Law, Department of International Public Law, Leiden University.
Jeroen van der Hoven. Professor of Ethics and Technology, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology; Professorial Fellow, Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Australian National University; Scientific Director, 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology.
Erik van der Vleuten. Universitair Docent, Department of Innovation Studies, Eindhoven University of Technology.
Peter-Paul Verbeek. Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Master Program Philosophy of Science, Technology, and Society, Department of Philosophy, University of Twente.
Pieter E. Vermaas. Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Delft University of Technology.
Marc J. de Vries. Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology; Affiliate Professor of Reformational Philosophy, Delft University of Technology.
Katinka Waelbers. Department of Philosophy, University of Twente.
John Weckert. Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University, Australia.
David Wittner. Associate Professor of East Asian History, Utica College.
Edward J. Woodhouse. Department of Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Introduction
JAN KYRRE BERG OLSEN FRIIS, STIG ANDUR PEDERSEN AND VINCENT F. HENDRICKS
No major reference work on the philosophy of technology is in existence. The aim of the Companion to the Philosophy of Technology is thus to provide an up-to-date review of the philosophy of technology, bringing it into close contact with cutting-edge technology and contemporary technology policy.
The philosophy of technology is highly interdisciplinary: it consists of insights from different kinds of technologies, from a variety of epistemological approaches, the humanities, social science, natural science, sociology, psychology, engineering sciences, different philosophical schools of thought, i.e. pragmatism, analytical philosophy, and phenomenology. The philosophy of technology taken as a whole is an understanding of the consequences of technological impacts relating to the environment, the society and human existence. The philosophy of technology is a newcomer in philosophy. As a constituted subject it has existed for about half a century. It is one of the fastest-growing philosophical disciplines. It is also an intercontinental philosophical discipline, drawing inspiration and building lasting bridges across the unfortunate divide between Continental and analytic strands of thought in philosophy.
This Companion is intended to be the primary navigator for understanding technology and its various roles in the modern complex society. “Technology” refers to many different concepts and phenomena, and it is therefore impossible to give a clear-cut definition of what is to be understood by the term. However, the Companion covers the main features of technology, its historical development, its future potentials and risks, etc. With these ambitions in mind, the Companion is organized in accordance with the following seven pillars, each covering major areas where technology plays a central role. Each part consists of several short encyclopedia-like case studies, or specialized chapters, describing all issues that add up to actual problems and insights, fleshing out how far technology has come in this particular area or field.
I History of Technology
This part describes technological development in Western culture as well as in other cultures. It brings into focus Islamic technology, Chinese and other developed technological societies. It is of paramount importance to see the extent to which these societies became dependent upon various technologies and what kinds of technologies were preferred. There is an intimate link between our societies today and the choices made in the past.
II Technology and Science
The focal point of this part is the close connection between technology and science – and their independence. Among other things, the old and still-present issue of technology as applied science will be discussed, the differences between epistemologies and methodologies fleshed out. The connection with the previous part is straightforward; modern science grew out of a society that put more and more emphasis on developing technologies to penetrate the core of nature’s secrets.
III Technology and Philosophy
This part reveals the story from the first attempts to create an engineering philosophy of technology to the more influential humanistic philosophy of technology, towards what today is labeled “philosophy of technology.”
IV Technology and Environment
Technology has had a tremendous impact on nature. Technologies have been, in the hands of man, a destructive tool. We are today facing the severest consequences imaginable. As forecasts go, it is only going to get worse. Rescue and damage control also lie in our best technologies at hand. Only by developing intricate instruments can we detect pollution and build complex enough models of the forthcoming developments caused by global warming, global dimming and the greenhouse effects. In this part, management, science and technology are intimately joined.
V Technology and Politics
Technology is highly political. Governments, the military, all have high hopes and expectations related to technological innovations. However, technology is also taking center stage in order to secure safety and prosperity for society. Therefore the political and economic dimensions of technology are studied in this part within specific contexts – “European Politics, Economy and Technology”; “Asian Politics, Economy and Technology”; “US Politics, Economy and Technology” – where differences in policy-making, in addition to differences in economic and cultural emphasis on technology, stand out with clarity. This is a tangled web that pulls in issues related to all the previous parts of the Companion and also extends to the next part.
VI Technology and Ethics
The development of technology has radicalized classical ethical problems and raised new ones. This part focuses on the responsibilities and values of engineers, scientists, policy-makers and others. Also included are consequences of technologies for the environment. Ethics and technology concern technology in agriculture; within stem cell research; in weapons research, etc.
VII Technology and the Future
Technologies are undergoing constant changes, and they influence all sides of human life. In order to assess new developments in technology it is necessary to discuss the expectations for the future with respect to human prosperity and possible risks involved therein. This part of the Companion discusses the extent to which new technologies contribute to the realization of a desirable future or whether it will be harmful or risky. Some steps have already been taken. The political decision-makers in the EU have drawn up “the Lisbon strategy for economic, social and environmental renewal.” Here a colossal emphasis has been put on the development of environmentally friendly technologies – cleaner technologies – that can make use of alternative energy sources like hydrogen. Another important area is nanotechnology, with both military and civilian applications.
Philosophers, and other scholars working with issues related to technology, often define technology differently. We come from different cultures and therefore emphasize certain things differently. All existing definitions of “technology” rest upon specific schools of thought. However, for “technology” there cannot be any simple definition pledging allegiance to one or other school. There are “metaphysical” complications that have to be overcome. The structure of the Companion will guarantee this diversity. Definitions are always related to the values of a tradition, of a specific group of thinkers, to a school of thought, and of course to whoever provides the definition. The problem is that “technology” is not one “thing” but a complex of practices, methods, hopes, intentions, goals, needs and desires, besides all the actual technologies in hand. The lack of unity is in turn due to the interdisciplinary nature of technology and technology studies. A single definition simply cannot fathom the complexity of technology in its entirety. In sum, a thorough definition of “technology” needs a “companion” – A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology.
Putting this companion together would not have been possible if it was not for all the authors and pillar editors who vividly, eruditely and with great expertise advised and contributed on the way. We should like to extend our gratitude to all our contributors, thank Rasmus Rendsvig for taking care of the logistics in the assembly part of the process, and finally thank Blackwell Publishing and in particular Nick Bellorini and Liz Cremona for taking on this project.
Part IHistory of Technology
Chapter 1History of Technology
THOMAS J. MISA
A generation ago, before the much-noted “empirical turn” in philosophy, it was unlikely that an assessment of the philosophy of technology would have prominently featured the history of technology. Put simply, there were relatively few common concerns, since historians of technology rarely engaged in the sort of questions that animated philosophers of technology. Consulting the published volumes of Research in Philosophy and Technology and Technology and Culture three decades ago suggests two divergent scholarly communities, separated by research methods and background assumptions, and pursuing largely independent investigations. At the time, historians of technology were insisting on technology being an ontologically and epistemologically separate category from science, and vigorously insisting that technology is not merely applied science, while philosophers were ready and more comfortable with sweeping normative assessments about the essential characteristics of technology and its impact on society. In the debates on technological determinism, philosophers of technology and historians of technology were nearly as far apart as possible: while historians of technology adamantly refuted any and all claims of technological determinism, philosophers of technology were as a discipline the most enthusiastic in exploring and embracing the notion that technology determines social and cultural change and that technology develops more or less autonomously of social and cultural influences (Winner 1977; Misa 2004b). In this climate, there was not so very much that the two specialist fields held in common.
In the last ten years or so, however, there has been increasing mutual interest in philosophy and history of technology (Achterhuis 2001; Ihde 2004). It has not been that a hybrid discipline such as the history of philosophy of science has emerged, but rather that some historians and some philosophers have discovered common interests and common concerns. The essays in this volume are testimony to this shared mutual interest, although the individual topics they explore do not really exhaust the range of shared topics and emergent themes (see Misa et al. 2003). The commissioned essays examine the cultural contexts of technology, notably in the specific contexts of Japan, Islam, China and the West, as well as examining the problem areas of defining technology and assessing military technology. These essays develop some of the shared concerns and concepts that are emerging between these two fields. Accordingly, this essay will provide a summary of their main findings but also attempt a wider assessment of these shared concerns and emerging problems. I shall do so by accenting three themes: the challenges of defining the term “technology”; the varied concepts and problems in defining “culture” as well as its relations to and interactions with technology; and the issue of technological determinism, a scholarly and practical problem that, for several decades, has merited philosophical reflection and historical analysis.
Definitions of “Technology”
Historians of technology have for many years pointedly resisted giving a prescriptive definition of the term “technology.” This stance, somewhat paradoxically, reflects the disciplinary maturity and confidence of their field. They have frequently observed that no scholarly historian of art today would feel the least temptation to try to define “art,” as if that complex expression of human creativity could be pinned down by a few well-chosen words. And similarly, as the noted historian of technology Thomas Hughes has written (2004: 2), “Defining technology in its complexity is as difficult as grasping the essence of politics. Few experienced politicians and political scientists attempt to define politics. Few experienced practitioners, historians, and social scientists try to inclusively define technology.” Most historians writing on technology have defined the term mostly by presenting and discussing pertinent examples. Many historians studying the twentieth century have focused on large technological systems, such as electricity, industrial production, and transportation, that emerged in the early decades and became more or less pervasive in the West during the second half of that century.
Other historians even of the twentieth century, however, would strongly prefer to examine technologies from the perspective of “everyday life” or from a user’s perspective. Even what might on the surface be considered the same technology can look quite different when viewed “from above” using a manager’s or a business executive’s perspective or, alternately, “from below” using a worker’s or an individual consumer’s perspective. Often, the view from above leaves the impression of large systems spreading more or less uniformly across time and space – as, for instance, maps showing the increasing geographical spread of railways and highways or statistical tables showing the increasing pervasiveness of such electrical consumer goods as irons, refrigerators and televisions. Conversely, locally situated studies of individual technologies, sometimes inspired by consumption studies, often find substantial variability in patterns of use and in the meanings these technologies have for subcultures that form around them. As studies inspired by the productive “user heuristic” have shown, there is a great deal of creativity and inventiveness that is uncovered when paying close attention to these local processes (Oudshoorn and Pinch 2003; Hippel 2005). Farmers invented new uses for Henry Ford’s classic Model T automobile when adapting it for use on the farm as a source of power. Even the widely popular invention of email was at the start “unplanned, unanticipated, and most unsupported” by the original designers of the Internet (Abbate 1999: 109). Japanese teenagers created new uses for mobile pagers and cell phones, and created a new culture in doing so (Ito et al. 2005). Many times these activities, not originally conceived by the system designers, can be taken up by the producers of these devices and systems and transformed into economically lucrative marketing strategies. This finding of substantial diversity has implications beyond merely complicating any tidy definition of technology; this diversity, especially the agency of users in divining and defining new purposes for a certain technology and new activities around it, also keeps open the question whether technologies can meaningfully be said to have “impact” on society and culture. Normative evaluations of technology, then, cannot assume that the meanings or consequences of technology can be easily comprehended; nor, as was once the case in the early days of the technology-assessment movement, can these characteristics be predicted from the technology’s “hardware” characteristics. Indeed, all assessments of technology need to grapple with these epistemological and methodological problems.
Indeed, recent research has productively treated the term “technology” as an emergent and contested entity. Technology is not nearly as old as we commonly think, especially if we have in mind the several technologically marked historical epochs, such as the Bronze Age or the Iron Age. Jacob Bigelow, a medical doctor and Harvard professor, is often credited with coining the term in his book Elements of Technology (1829). “The general name of Technology, a word sufficiently expressive … is beginning to be revived in the literature of practical men at the present day,” he wrote (Bigelow 1829/1831: iv–v). “Under this title it is attempted to include … an account … of the principles, processes, and nomenclatures of the more conspicuous arts, particularly those which involve applications of science, and which may be considered useful, by promoting the benefit of society, together with the emolument of those who pursue them.” Earlier than this, the term “technology” in English, as well as its cognates in the other principal European languages, referred most directly to the treatises and published accounts describing various technical crafts. Bigelow’s own coinage did not immediately catch on, however. His speech to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology more than three decades later helped recast the term as an aggregate of individual tools and techniques, an agent of progress, and an active force in history. “Technology,” he asserted in 1865, “in the present century and almost under our eyes … has advanced with greater strides than any other agent of civilization, and has done more than any science to enlarge the boundaries of profitable knowledge, to extend the dominion of mankind over nature, to economize and utilize both labor and time, and thus to add indefinitely to the effective and available length of human existence” (Segal 1985: quote 81).
Following Bigelow’s use, “technology” gained something of its present-day associations in the next several decades. Numerous institutes and colleges of technology in the United States took up the name: not only the flagship of MIT (founded 1861) but also other colleges, schools, or institutes of technology such as Stevens (1870), Georgia (1885), Clarkson (1896), Carnegie (1912), California (1921), Lawrence (1932), Illinois (1940) and Rochester (1944). Polytechnics in Europe, often modeled on the pioneering École Polytechnique (founded much earlier, in 1794) in Paris, provided broadly similar educational opportunities. In 1950, the Indian government founded Kharagpur Institute of Technology, the first in a national network of seven technical universities.
As Ruth Oldenziel (1999) has made clear, in these same decades “technology” took on a distinctly male-oriented slant. Earlier terms such as “the applied arts” or “the industrial arts” could be associated equally with the products of women’s work as with men’s; but “technology” after 1865 increasingly came to signify male-oriented machines and industrial processes. Oldenziel sees the emergence of technology in the personification of the (male) engineer as an instance of the gender-coding of the modern world. Eric Schatzberg situates the rise of “technology” as a keyword in the writings of social critic Thorstein Veblen, who drew heavily on the contemporary German discourse around “technik,” as well as of the popular historian Charles Beard. “Technology marches in seven-league boots from one ruthless, revolutionary conquest to another, tearing down old factories and industries, flinging up new processes with terrifying rapidity,” in Beard’s arresting and deterministic image (Schatzberg 2006: 509). Also following Raymond Williams’s method of keywords, Ronald Kline (2006) examines origins of “information technology” in the management-science community of the 1960s and its subsequent spread into the wider discourse.
Recently, the term “technoscience” has found favor in the writings of some, if not all, philosophers of technology and historians of technology. Advocates of the term maintain that the practices, objects and theories of science and technology, even if they once were separate professional communities, have blurred to a point at which they share many important features – indeed, to a point at which their similarities outweigh their differences. The term is not merely a recognition that biologists today frequently enough apply for patents and create start-up companies; it also draws attention to hybrid forms of knowledge and practices. (As such, the appeal to hybridity is an important aspect of the anti-essentialism that is characteristic of much recent technology studies.) With a tone of caution, Barry Barnes (2005: 155) writes of “near consensus on the predominance of technoscience as something characteristic particularly of recent times.” Philosopher of technology Don Ihde’s Instrumental Realism (1991) presented an extended analysis of Latour’s Science in Action (1987), in which “technoscience” was defined and popularized.1 And, similarly, Ruth Cowan’s Social History of American Technology (1997) takes up “technoscience” in her final chapter, using the examples of hybrid corn, penicillin and the birth-control pill. Overall, historians conceptualize technology as contingent, constructed and contested.
Problems of Culture
In making their assessment of the “anthropological variety” of technology (see Li-Hua), the essays of this section attempt to identify and describe the core qualities that can be associated with Islamic, Chinese, Japanese and Western technology. These essays utilize the familiar method of defining by example and discussion, and there is much to be learned from the rich empirical diversity that such an overview provides. It is worth marking at the onset, all the same, that each of these essays takes up a more-or-less bounded and non-problematic analysis of the assigned “culture.” This is especially the case, somewhat paradoxically, when the essays examine instances of the transfer of technology between regions or cultures. Even the idea of a technological “dialogue” between different cultures (used to good effect by Arnold Pacey [1990]) can still carry the assumption that there exists a fundamental, identifiable and more-or-less essential core to the culture(s) under examination. Recently, anthropologists and social theorists have preferred to jettison such essentialist conceptions of culture, and to prefer performative ones. Here, there is no stable core to a given culture – i.e. its essential features – that is constant across time and then that might “change” under one set of circumstances or another. A performative view postulates that cultures are continually re-created and performed, so that changes can be small and incremental and/or large and dramatic. Performative conceptions of culture are also helpful in identifying cultural hybridities, where cultural productions take up and incorporate novel elements which may have their origins in “foreign” borrowings but also with “domestic” innovations.
On the surface, Japan might seem a reasonable candidate for an essentialist understanding, owing to its geographic separation and strong cultural identity. What we might today consider to be “quintessentially Japanese” came rather late to Japan. As David Wittner shows, Japan for many centuries received transfers and/or engaged in technological dialogue with China and Korea, the sources of wet-field agriculture, of the basic techniques of working bronze and iron, as well as of weaving, silk, paper and more. Wittner suggests that, beginning in the eighth century, Japanese woodworking, printing, metalworking and other crafts diverged from Chinese practices. The rise of urban centers of innovation in the late Heian period (794–1185) led to distinctive Japanese practices in jointless carpentry, as well as in standardized interior spaces signified by uniform-sized tatami mats. Metal-based military innovations came to the fore during the Warring States period (1467–1568), notably in the fields of sword-making and gun manufacture.
Two prototypically “Western” technologies that were introduced into Japan in the mid-sixteenth century provide an apt way of assessing Japan’s remarkable technological sophistication. Gunpowder weapons arrived in Japan in 1543 after a Portuguese ship was wrecked off the coast. It happened that the Portuguese survivors landed on the small island of Tanegashima, that this island was rich in iron ore and consequently also in metalworking skills, and that its local lord commanded one of his artisans to make a copy of a Portuguese gun, achieved in short order, and that this region of Japan was well connected to the mainland through trade and tributary relations (see Lidin 2002). The result was that within three decades Japan was making very large numbers of these muskets, with specially modified firing-lock mechanisms and extra attention to effective waterproofing. Muskets, numbering in the many thousands, played a decisive role in the battle of Nagashino (1875), a turning-point in Japan’s political history that led to the consolidation of power by the Tokugawa shogunate (1600–1868). A battle in 1600 is believed to have featured 20,000 muskets.
Western-style mechanical clocks arrived in Japan in 1551, introduced by Jesuit missionaries. In his essay Wittner rightly stresses the unprecedented mechanical complexity of the mechanical clock, and perceptively suggests that its mastery by Japanese artisans forms an important resource for Japan’s later industrial prowess with mechanized reeling machines and looms. It also should be emphasized that Japanese artisans invented an entirely distinctive type of clock, which married the mechanical regularity of its interior clockwork mechanism with several ingenious schemes for relating this mechanically uniform time to the seasonally varying hours that typified Japanese concepts of time. There were six equal units of Japanese time between local sunrise and sunset, and also six units between local sunset and sunrise, the length of which then varied by the season. To devise clocks, including automatic bell-striking ones, that would vary the effective length of the hour seems a compelling instance of a thoroughly “hybrid” technology, and certainly not merely an adaptation or transfer of a Western one. Japan persisted with its distinctive, non-Western time-keeping system until 1873, when during the modernization of the Meiji era (1868–1912) the country converted to a Western calendar and Western time practices amid a great number of other Western-inspired institutional changes. Indeed, it may be that the development of “Japanese” identity was a cultural response to the coming of modernity (Caldararo 2003: 465).
The technological and cultural variability one confronts in examining China and Islam is even much greater. As Thomas Glick points out, the “Islamic technology” he surveys is really the technological and scientific knowledge characteristic of the classic Islamic Arab civilization. At its peak in the eighth century, and continuing until 1492, the political and cultural influence of Islamic Arabs extended through North Africa and into present-day Spain. This is why one finds Islamic technology in eastern Spain in the form of so-called Persian-style qanat irrigation techniques as well as water-raising noria. From the thirteenth century, gunpowder weapons, too, were subject to a wide-ranging geographical transfer process as the Mongols transported this Chinese technology westward with devastating effects. Glick appropriately situates his discussion of Islamic technology in the context of wider continent-scale flows of knowledge and techniques, including the movement westward of the Indian style of agriculture (involving a “distinctive roster” of citrus fruits, rice, sugar cane and cotton) and the diffusion to the Islamic world of Greek astronomy and Indian astronomical tables and instruments. One culturally distinctive set of practices involved the computation of special tables to identify the direction of Mecca as well as accurate timekeeping to mark out the five daily prayer times. Yet, as Glick (1996) and others have recently suggested, “Islamic” technology may also be more of a “hybrid” than a brief overview is able to convey. The specific forms of irrigation in medieval Valencia, for instance, may reflect North African influences and models as much as Arab ones.
Compared with the essays on Japan and Islam, Francesca Bray’s essay on Chinese technology is certainly less affected by any sort of essentialist assumptions about the core of China’s technology or culture. As an anthropologist herself, Bray offers an essay that at once is close to Chinese assessments of technology and situates itself squarely in the context of historiographic debates on China. She is asking the questions “What do we know about China?,” “What do the Chinese know about China?” and “How have the tensions and competitions of the Cold War influenced how we conceptualize China?” One consequence of the political climate of the Cold War, with its long-standing obsession with understanding and conceptualizing the supposedly technology-driven process of industrialization, was the framing and persistence of the “Needham question.” Joseph Needham, the eminent British scholar, posed the question why, given China’s superior attainments in science and technology – having invented gunpowder, the compass, movable-type printing, all well in advance of the medieval West – did China not also experience a large-scale transformation of its society and economy, which we in the West label as our own scientific revolution or industrial revolution.
Characteristically, however, Bray spends much more time on what Chinese people thought about their own relations to the West, rather than attempting to answer the Needham question. Across most of the entire nineteenth century, China was hard-pressed by the Western powers. Following the experience of “humiliating defeats” in the Opium Wars (1840–2, 1856–60) and the loss of sovereignty attending the forced signing of the “unequal treaties” with the Western powers, the Chinese attempted a home-grown modernization known as “self-strengthening.” Despite some successes such as the Jiangnan Arsenal in Shanghai, the efforts to build up China’s economy and technological level as well as achieve a productive accommodation between “Western artifacts and Chinese spirit,” the overall results were disappointing. Japan, fresh from its own Western-inspired modernization, invaded China in 1894 and forced additional territorial concessions. Given these setbacks, it was difficult for Chinese people to see and appreciate their own technological heritage; instead they conceptualized “technology” as a foreign, Western construct. Technocratic Chinese advocates of economic development in the 1930s, according to Bray, strove to emulate Western models. For much of the orthodox Maoist period (1949–78), China oscillated between grand attempts at forced-draft industrialization and the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, with its anti-technocratic slogan “Better Red than Expert.” More recently, as Bray notes, scholars of China have entirely shifted away from the comparative Needham questions and instead treated China on its own terms rather than as a reflection of the West.
