An implicit world view in technology and its consequences for contemporary life

Abstract

To summarize, when the technological way of thinking is taken to the extreme it becomes a world view that is associated with a particular danger, in that it is not taken by its proponents as one of many competing world views but is considered uncritically to be a fact, not a hypothesis. Through a series of applications of the fallacy of hypothesis/fact confusion and through uncritical use of the technological frame of mind, one can inevitably become committed to an overarching physicalism, materialism, mechanicalism, and determinism, perhaps without even knowing that one has such afflictions. My own discipline, philosophy, which I regard as a science in the broad sense previously mentioned, has not escaped being captured by this technological mind-set, much to its detriment. I refer readers who are interested in the plight of philosophy in this age to the works of Hilary Putnam, Bruce Wilshire, Ludwig Wittgenstein, or Charles Peirce. I take this step because I am not a machine, and if I didn't stop now, I would feel guilty about taking too much of your time.