The five buds of technophilosophy

Abstract

Technophilosophy, as I will call the philosophy of technology, was probably founded by Aristotle. He seems to have been the first to investigate not only the differences between tech&, or practical knowledge, on the one hand, and episthe, or theoretical knowledge , on the other-which differences had been drawn by his teacher, Plato. Aristotle remarked also the profound ontological differences between the artificial and the natural. However, that is as far as technophilosophy went for more than two millenia. True, some of the moderns-particularly Bacon and Descartes-were interested in technology, but not from a philosophical point of view; they may be said to have founded the sociology of technology, for they wrote about the impact of pure and applied science on society. Even the organizers of the EncycZop&&e failed to realize the conceptual richness of technology and the philosophical problems it raised. In sum, until a few years ago, most of what the philosophers had to say about technology was concerned not so much with technological research and development, in particular invention, design, and planning, as with the final products of the technological process and their impact on society. Worse, a sizeable portion of that literature consists of romantic wailings about the alleged evils of technology as such. (Characteristically, such writers as Berdyaev, Ellul, Heidegger, Marcuse, and Habermas fail to distinguish technology from its applications, and endow it with an autonomous existence and, moreover, with power over man.) That situation started to change a decade or so ago. Some of the first products of a more profound, sober and competent philosophical approach to technology were collected by Melvin Kranzberg (1966) in Technology ad Culture. Others were gathered later on by Friedrich Rapp (1974). Mitcham and Mackey (1972) anthologized both the \traditional and the newer production in the field, and published a comprehensive bibliography (1973), listing hundres of items. SpiegelRosing and Price (1977) took a cross-disciplinary view. The University of Delaware and Lehigh University each publish a newsletter dealing with the subject, and an increasing number of philosophical congresses devote special sections to it. What is