The Evaluative Relevance of Social Studies of Technology

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

During the closing session of the 1991 conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology, which took place in Puerto Rico, Langdon Winner gave the audience a very interesting and somewhat provocative address on recent work in Social Studies of Technology, focusing mainly on the so-called social constructivist view. This new area of study has emerged during the last decade and has become a very active field of research on technology, involving the work of sociologists, historians, and philosophers of technology. It is quite obvious that some of the main notions and claims made by this new school undermine the standard view of technology, dominant in former approaches and in several fields. Winner starts his article by saying that "to ignore the central claims of this important school of thought . . . would be to overlook an important challenge" (Winner, 1991: 505). The ending remarks of his work, in contrast, seem to give us the opposite advice. Something like: do not spend much time reading their stuff and do not follow their path. What follows is a critical—although quick—examination of the argumentation that leads Winner to such a negative conclusion. I will not deal with all the issues mentioned by him, but only with the ones I consider more important. I do not think, for instance, that the accusations made against social constructivism of being too disrespectful to the old "popes" of technology studies, or too theoretically imperialistic, are worthy of an answer.