Groundwork for the Concept of Technique in Education: Herbert Marcuse and Technological Society

Abstract

This article articulates the groundwork for a new understanding of the concept of technique through a critical engagement with Herbert Marcuse's critical theory of technology. To this end, it identifies and engages three expressions of technique in Marcuse's work: mimesis, reified labor, and the happy consciousness. It is argued that this mapping of the concept of technique provides the philosophy of education with a new perspective in which to understand the relationship between technology and the educational experience in the contemporary moment. The exposition of technique, moreover, when applied to the educational context, applies not only to technological artifacts per se but also extends to educational policies that share the mutual logic embedded within existing expressions of technique. Finally, it is suggested that Marcuse's project to theorize a ‘qualitatively new form’ of technology must be taken up within the educative process. The article contends that this will require rethinking interactions between students and science and technology within the educational context that can promote and produce democratic and liberatory expressions of technique.