Abstract
Critical Theory of Technology and STS
Highlights
Long before contemporary Science and Technology Studies (STS), Marxism, pragmatism and various theories of modernity were associated with the study of technology
Following STS, critical theory of technology highlights the inherent contingency and complexity of technical artifacts masked by the coherence of technical explanations
Technological design resembles a palimpsest: multiple layers of influence coming from very different regions of society and responding to different, even opposed, logics converge on a shared object. Marx sketched such an approach in the "Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy." There he writes that "[t]he concrete is concrete, because it is a combination of many objects with different destinations, i.e. a unity of diverse elements. It appears as a process of synthesis, as a result, and not as a starting point, it is the real starting point and, the starting point of observation and conception" (Marx 1857/1904, 293)
Summary
Long before contemporary Science and Technology Studies (STS), Marxism, pragmatism and various theories of modernity were associated with the study of technology. The attempt to build a political theory on the basis of STS needs to confront the principle insight of the earlier tradition, namely, the strange fact that modern societies have a “rational” culture By this is meant the generalization of methods and concepts from mathematics and natural science as a framework for thought and action in every social sphere. Where the Frankfurt School proposed a very general critique of “instrumental rationality,” critical theory of technology looks to a more concrete critique of the social bias of technical disciplines, bureaucracies and technologies The identification of such biases employs methods explored in STS and yields a critical approach to the culture of modern societies
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