# Philosophy of Technology  ## Metadata - Author: [[Maarten J Verkerk, Jan Hoogland, Jan van der Stoep, and Marc J. de Vries]] - Full Title: Philosophy of Technology - Category: #books ## Highlights - Philosophy of technology is a relatively new subject field. In the past decades four themes have emerged: technology as artefacts, as knowledge, as processes and as a part of our being human. ([Location 372](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=372)) - Therefore, engineers would also have to count among the ‘reflective practitioners’ as Donald Schön (1983) calls them. ([Location 393](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=393)) - In her book Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research (1998) Caroline Whitbeck also indicated this in the framework of the ethics of engineering. According to her, ethicists should actually go about their work like engineers. Instead of merely analysing what the elements of an ethical dilemma are and pointing out the possible choices, they should reflect in a creative way on the possible ways of breaking out of that dilemma. She is the first to see an ethical problem as a problem of design. ([Location 601](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=601)) - his book Thinking Through Technology he demonstrates that in practice there are two kinds of philosophy of technology (see also Chapter 1): one that looks at the consequences of technology as if from the outside (practised mostly by philosophers without a technological background) and another that attempts more from the inside to clarify what we should understand by technology (practised only by philosophers with some technological training). Furthermore he shows that technology can be described in four ways: as a collection of artefacts and systems, as a field of knowledge, as a process (for instance designing or making) and as something belonging to our being human (in particular to our will). ([Location 647](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=647)) - However obvious these objections may be, in this chapter we stand by our opinion that technology can be seen as a search for meaning. ([Location 736](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=736)) - Technology is entirely concerned with the way in which human beings attempt to order and control reality with the purpose of leading a better, more satisfying existence. ([Location 756](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=756)) - Thus it transpires that the concept ‘activity’ forms the link between the concepts ‘culture’, ‘history’ and ‘technology’. And the particular aspect of the concept ‘activity’ is that it concerns ‘meaning-unlocking activity’: someone who acts, has an aim or intention. They knows what they are doing. This is in contrast to reactions that can also be meaningful but do not open up meaning because they are without intention. ([Location 948](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=948)) - Technology plays an important part in the way in which people process reality. In this the notion of ‘acting in a way that opens up meaning’ takes a central role. ‘Meaning’ here is a given of experience: people normally experience the reality in which they live as a meaningful coherence, in which things have their meaningful place. In the way in which people give form to this reality a directional role is played by worldviewish notions about the good life and about the origin, coherence and destination of reality. ([Location 1029](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=1029)) - The essence of the scientific approach is to detach oneself from the total reality to study separate phenomena or mechanisms. ([Location 1128](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=1128)) ## New highlights added September 20, 2023 at 10:14 PM - From this analysis it also emerges that there are many laws and norms connected with the design of a technological artefact which an engineer should consider. We also show that technology is not something that ‘happens’ to us, but that we as human beings are actively engaged in the process of designing and so can give direction to technology. ([Location 1525](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=1525)) - The capacity of a condenser is expressed with the aid of the symbol ‘F’ (from Farad). ([Location 1733](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=1733)) - It is only when we have got to know reality from experience that we are able to view certain aspects separately. We can then detach that one specific aspect from the rest – this we call abstraction – and go about researching it systematically (see Chapter 3). The knowledge that flows from it relates exclusively to that separate aspect, and no longer describes the full reality. An engineer has to be aware of this. ([Location 2780](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=2780)) - FIGURE 6.2 Modal aspects and the dual nature of artefacts ([Location 2879](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=2879)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Research has proved that production organisations designed according to the principles of Frederick Taylor and Henry Ford are characterised by dehumanisation and alienation. ([Location 3595](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=3595)) - The most significant breakthrough for facilitating mass production was not, as is generally believed, the introduction of the conveyor belt but the interchangeability of components. The standardisation of components (and means of measuring) enabled them to assemble an automobile without having to make the components to fit every time. ([Location 3740](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=3740)) - The systems developed by Taylor and Ford consist of two basic components. The first is the technological control of the material processes and the second the technological control of the organisational and social processes. ([Location 3768](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=3768)) - The second basic component of Taylorism and Fordism is the technological control of the organisational and social processes. This we see in the scientific selection and training of employees, the separation of work requiring doing and thinking, the idea of functional management and the activities of the social departments. ([Location 3781](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=3781)) - Mayo concluded that the occupational satisfaction was highly dependent on the informal social patterns of and within the group. ([Location 3848](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=3848)) - Socio-Technical Systems Design, also called sociotechnology, claims to offer a dignified alternative to Taylorism and Fordism. ([Location 3885](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=3885)) - The golden thread in this process is formed by the idea of reduction of complexity (simple design) and of an increase in managing capacity (more authority for the worker). ([Location 3916](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=3916)) - In summary, socio-technological redesigning leads to a completely different factory. By dividing up the factory into a number of smaller factories a considerable reduction in complexity has taken place. Each smaller factory makes its own products. The idea of the whole task brings with it more complex jobs. The operators not only perform executive tasks but also a number of regulative tasks. ([Location 3961](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=3961)) - so-called ‘Mini-Company Concept’. Suzaki’s approach reminds one very much of the Dutch variety of sociotechnology. ([Location 3968](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=3968)) - Technoscience should not be the search for ultimate truth according to fixated procedures, but this open-ended search for what works and what does not. Dewey saw this approach also as the most appropriate for education. Rather than transferring fixated truths from teacher to pupils, education should be based on inquiry by the learners themselves. ([Location 4191](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=4191)) - The result was that engineers no longer focused on practising their own discipline but rather on contributing to the business from their discipline. ([Location 4515](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=4515)) - Finally, the concept ‘direction’ refers to the differences in the basic convictions underlying the design, manufacture and sales of technological artefacts. A clear example is the difference between the Rheinland (German) and the Anglo-Saxon (English) systems of commerce: do you see the company mainly as a community of people who, from different positions and interests, make a concerted effort to bring about one joint product or service package, or do you see a company mainly as an investment that has to yield adequate returns for the share holders? ([Location 4595](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=4595)) - We conclude that the concept of direction referring to the regulative side of practices points to intentions, values and convictions that are given form in a practice, to the question by what the engineer is oriented in his/her professional activity and how s/he envisages responsible development of our society and his/her view of ‘the good life’. And ultimately it points to the convictions one has about one’s own possibilities to contribute successfully to further development of the practice in which one is active and if so on what (spiritual) grounds. ([Location 4687](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=4687)) - Winner opposes both a ‘technological deterministic approach’, which supposes that technological artefacts have inevitable social consequences, and a ‘social deterministic approach’ by which artefacts are regarded as neutral utilities that can be used for good and for evil. Winner states that we have to take a much closer look at the technological artefacts themselves, should we wish to know their social impact. For in the structure of technological artefacts and systems there is an intentional or unintentional expression of political convictions. ([Location 4743](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=4743)) - At issue is the claim that the machines, structures, and systems of modern material culture can be accurately judged not only for their contributions to efficiency and productivity and their positive and negative environmental side effects, but also for the ways in which they can embody specific forms of power and authority. ([Location 4769](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=4769)) - Rather than lead students to evaluate the most basic, most practical features of their career choices – the kinds of work they select and the social conditions in which that work is done – courses on professional ethics tend to focus upon relatively rare, narrowly bounded crises portrayed against an otherwise happy background of business as usual. ([Location 4776](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=4776)) - according to Heidegger, history of philosophy suffers from Seinsvergessenheit (forgetting about being). This is the pitfall that Heidegger wishes to avoid. He wants to give central position to the quest for the meaning of being. And this he does in the most literal meaning: he asks himself what we say about things when we state that they are. What is the meaning of the word ‘being’ in this context? What does it mean to say about something that it is? ([Location 4864](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=4864)) - He no longer thinks of it as static but as history. Being is an event. ‘Being’ consequently is a verb, ([Location 4901](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=4901)) - Heidegger considers the issue of technology as a quest for the essence (Wesen) of technology. ([Location 4906](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=4906)) - Modern human beings have been sentenced to a technological way of dealing with beings. ([Location 4915](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=4915)) - From the above interpretation of Heidegger’s thinking it is clear that to him technology is no neutral instrumentation, but represents a fundamental way of being-in-the-world. Modern human beings interpret the reality in which they live in a technological way: as an object that can be dealt with by means of technological instruments. This way of being-in-the-world is one-sided and alienating. But most significant is that the human being plays only a minor role in the event of being in which technology is important. ([Location 4924](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=4924)) - classical philosophy of technology one sees, apart from the positivist view in which technology is a neutral means of realising goals in a rational way, a cultural-critical approach in which pessimism dominates. ([Location 5084](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5084)) - The scientific and technological constructs studied by Latour therefore always have a hard (nature) and a soft (society) side. ([Location 5178](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5178)) - Callon formalised this insight in his co-called actor-network theory (Callon, 1991: 132–164). With reference to case studies he demonstrates that technological developments always take place in networks of stakeholders. ([Location 5217](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5217)) - Classical philosophers of technology look at technology in a general and critical way. In their eyes technology is much more than a means of controlling reality. Rather it is a particular way of looking at and interpreting reality. ([Location 5251](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5251)) - In philosophy of technology there are two different ways of speaking about the empirical turn. In the more analytically oriented direction the term ‘empirical turn’ denotes the research into concrete techniques and technologies. In the more socially oriented direction ‘empirical turn’ denotes a comparable reversal in which the social processes of technological development take central position. ([Location 5274](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5274)) - The term technique, as I use it, does not mean machines, technology, or this or that procedure for attaining an end. In our technological society, technique is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity. Its characteristics are new; the technique of the present has no common measure with that of the past. (Ellul, 1964: xxv) ([Location 5333](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5333)) - both homogenisation and pluralisation. ([Location 5367](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5367)) ## New highlights added September 22, 2023 at 7:43 AM - Where formerly people spontaneously developed various devices and technologies, nowadays they go about it in a planned manner and all actions are focused on the most functional and efficient method: ([Location 5454](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5454)) - Above we have seen that scientific knowledge and technological artefacts are important engines behind the interaction between cultures and that in this way they also contribute substantially to the process of cultural disclosure. But we also saw that science and technology disturb the balance of power between cultures by the dominance of Western knowledge and skills in education or by enforcing a consumer market according to the logic of lifestyle pluralism. For a long time it was presumed that science and technology were neutral means. Cooperation in development was mainly seen as technology transfer, transferring technology from the North to the South. Nowadays we are much more aware that the introduction of Western science and technology brings with it a whole system of Western values. ([Location 5659](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5659)) - Even though Western science and technology inevitably bear the traces of Western culture, it does not preclude them from disclosing something of the structure of reality for which people in different cultural settings have been blind up to now. ([Location 5750](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5750)) - Whoever regards Western knowledge systems as the universal norm takes them far too much as absolute. On the other hand, whoever writes off every claim to universality as ethnocentric has not understood that the fact that these knowledge systems developed in a certain social and cultural setting does not automatically cause them to lose their truth and validity. ([Location 5753](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5753)) - When, on the other hand, engineers become aware of the plurality of social relationships and the diversity of cultural lifestyles, and do not see technology purely as a means to control reality, they are all the more capable of disclosing new forms of life and communities in a creative way by means of science and technology. ([Location 5763](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5763)) - He takes over from Heidegger the idea that technology lessens our experience of reality. Heidegger claims that as a result of technology we only see reality as something that has to be worked over to be of any value. Consequently we lose sight of the value of reality itself. Borgmann elaborates on this idea and says that as a result of technology we have a much less intensive relation with reality than formerly. ([Location 5819](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=5819)) ## New highlights added September 23, 2023 at 6:08 AM - By adapting to the superstructure man loses sight of reality. ([Location 6053](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6053)) - According to Mumford the origin of these changes lies in the fixed timetables of life in the monasteries. ([Location 6087](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6087)) - If we see man as homo faber we overlook the most important period of human history, namely the period during which the development of dreams, rituals, language, social interaction and social organisations held a prominent place. ([Location 6096](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6096)) - He sees NBIC convergence (the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive sciences) as an impulse to expand the action radius of human beings and by this break through the boundaries of human existence which are set by nature. Kurzweil is often regarded as belonging to transhumanism, ([Location 6176](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6176)) ## New highlights added September 23, 2023 at 6:08 PM - if a human being could be divided into a physical and a mental part, replacing parts of the body would have no consequences for the spirit. ([Location 6209](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6209)) - Heidegger was very pessimistic about the intermediary role of technology because, according to him, technology causes us to see our social environment solely as something that still has to be cultivated. The intrinsic value of reality completely eludes us. Ihde, on the contrary, is much more optimistic. According to him the intermediary position of technology enhances our sense of reality. He illustrates this by describing four different ways in which technology supports our observation (Ihde, 1990). ([Location 6216](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6216)) ## New highlights added September 24, 2023 at 8:24 AM - According to Kant we should not allow ourselves to be ruled by powers from outside, but by the moral law of reason which is present in every human being. ([Location 6499](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6499)) - What Kant wants to express with this principle in particular is that we should have respect for others, just as they should have respect for us. It is not permissible to use another person as an instrument for one’s own goals, because we ourselves would be robbed of our humanity if other people treated us as an instrument. ([Location 6510](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6510)) - According to consequentialism actions should not be evaluated by themselves but always within a given situation or context in which goals are pursued. One and the same conduct could be the right thing in one situation while in another situation it could be wrong. ([Location 6522](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6522)) - Generally speaking, Technology Assessment is comprised of two activities, namely to investigate new technological developments and to assess the effects (impact) of these technological developments on society and environment. ([Location 6537](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6537)) - utilitarianism. According to him an activity is useful when it leads to the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. ([Location 6561](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6561)) - Ethics should be focused on a state of eudaimonia, a state of ultimate happiness in which people can fully reach their destination. However, people can never generate this good life on their own, they only find this in interaction with others. Therefore, by definition the good life is a life in communities. Virtue ethics is not focused on the realisation of duties or goals but on forming a virtuous life that has value in itself. ([Location 6596](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6596)) - first objection against virtue ethics, however, is that it seems difficult to fit it into the modern fragmented way of life. As modern people we function in a diversity of relationships and contexts and in the one context a different attitude and position is expected of us than in another context. ([Location 6611](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6611)) - Another objection is that virtue ethics has a strongly elitist character. In fact one can only become a virtuous person if one grows up in a good harmonious environment, with parents who know how to bring up their children, teachers who know how to discipline their pupils, and friends who keep us on the right track. ([Location 6615](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6615)) - Deontology puts special emphasis on the structure of activities themselves, consequentialism is geared towards the consequences of the action in a specific context, and virtue ethics finally concentrates on the actor, looking at the question of how people give direction to their conduct and how they can develop into virtuous people. ([Location 6622](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6622)) - Jürgen Habermas, for example, holds that we cannot comprehend the factual development of justice and morality without accepting that the opinions and convictions on which they are based have intrinsic normative power. The other way around Pierre Bourdieu argues that the development of justice and morality can well be explained sociologically and that an important driving force behind this development is that people are attempting to acquire social status by pretending to be altruistic. ([Location 6641](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6641)) - With a turn towards practice it becomes possible in ethics to give attention to the whole spectrum of human conduct and the normativity inherent to it. This is important because only in this way can we get a view of the fact that the scientific-technological development has extended the radius of action of people exponentially which makes it very hard for human beings to fulfil their responsibility. In order not to succumb to the burden of this extended responsibility we have dealt with two rules of thumb which can give engineers and managers a grip on the task they have in society. The first rule of thumb deals with the way in which normativity is objectified in technological structures and the second with the way in which the acting subject has been taken up in a web of normatively qualified contexts and practices. It is all too easy to evade one’s own accountability, but it is vital to know that one has only a limited range and capacity and that one cannot do the impossible. ([Location 6826](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6826)) - Porter and Teisberg believe that the problems of health care only can be ‘cured’ by realigning ‘competition with value for patients’, where value for patients is defined as ‘the health outcome per dollar of cost expended’ (Porter and Teisberg, 2006: 4). ([Location 6931](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6931)) - paradigm changes in health care induce over-diagnosis, resulting in worse health, lower quality of life and increasing costs. ([Location 6937](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6937)) - Therefore, the development of a sustainable, accessible and high-quality health care system has not to be guided by technological innovations or by the introduction of (more) market mechanisms but has to be led by the idea ‘curing, relieving, and comforting’. In other words, it’s all about the values that underlie the health care system. ([Location 6951](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=6951)) - In all these developments, technology will play an important role, economies of scale and business models are key, but their key characteristics will be moral: curing, relieving, and comforting. ([Location 7034](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=7034)) - Believing and knowing are not in opposition as modern ideas of science postulate, but are intrinsically connected: without worldview or faith there is no science. ([Location 7126](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=7126)) - Religion becomes a ‘religion of humanity’, an absolute faith in the human being. ([Location 7161](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=7161)) - we would like to call a strategy of distrust. ([Location 7272](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=7272)) - Do they try to gain the favour of God (securitas) on the grounds of their own merit (good deeds) or do they commit themselves to God’s grace (certitudo). Securitas is connected with control and holding in check the circumstances. With certitudo, on the contrary, the issue is trusting in something that one does not control or cannot control. ([Location 7294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=7294)) - The better human beings become in controlling reality by means of technology, the more embarrassing the question about how people should deal with the boundaries of the human ability to control becomes. ([Location 7305](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=7305)) - In modern technology there is an inherent pursuit of perfection. We analysed this pursuit in terms of the secular sacred. Human beings try to transcend the human condition with the help of science and technology. They want to perfect the imperfect as far as possible and banish the threats and risks of life. This one-sided orientation towards technological solutions to the problems of modern people leads to a restricted repertoire of actions, a ‘locking out’ of possibilities. ([Location 7361](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B015H2HU8A&location=7361))