The philosophy of technology is a sub-field
of philosophy that studies the nature of technology
and its social effects.
Philosophical discussion of questions relating
to technology (or its Greek ancestor techne)
dates back to the very dawn of Western philosophy.
The phrase "philosophy of technology" was
first used in the late 19th century by German-born
philosopher and geographer Ernst Kapp, who
published a book titled "Grundlinien einer
Philosophie der Technik".
== History ==
=== Greek philosophy ===
The western term 'technology' comes from the
Greek term techne (τέχνη) (art, or craft
knowledge) and philosophical views on technology
can be traced to the very roots of Western
philosophy.
A common theme in the Greek view of techne
is that it arises as an imitation of nature
(for example, weaving developed out of watching
spiders).
Greek philosophers such as Heraclitus and
Democritus endorsed this view.
In his Physics, Aristotle agreed that this
imitation was often the case, but also argued
that techne can go beyond nature and complete
"what nature cannot bring to a finish."
Aristotle also argued that nature (physis)
and techne are ontologically distinct because
natural things have an inner principle of
generation and motion, as well as an inner
teleological final cause.
While techne is shaped by an outside cause
and an outside telos (goal or end) which shapes
it.
Natural things strive for some end and reproduce
themselves, while techne does not.
In Plato's Timaeus, the world is depicted
as being the work of a divine craftsman (Demiurge)
who created the world in accordance with eternal
forms as an artisan makes things using blueprints.
Moreover, Plato argues in the Laws, that what
a craftsman does is imitate this divine craftsman.
=== Middle ages to 19th century ===
During the period of the Roman empire and
late antiquity authors produced practical
works such as Vitruvius' De Architectura (1st
century BC) and Agricola's De Re Metallica
(1556).
Medieval Scholastic philosophy generally upheld
the traditional view of technology as imitation
of nature.
During the Renaissance, Francis Bacon became
one of the first modern authors to reflect
on the impact of technology on society.
In his utopian work New Atlantis (1627), Bacon
put forth an optimistic worldview in which
a fictional institution (Salomon's House)
uses natural philosophy and technology to
extend man's power over nature - for the betterment
of society, through works which improve living
conditions.
The goal of this fictional foundation is "...the
knowledge of causes, and secret motions of
things; and the enlarging of the bounds of
human empire, to the effecting of all things
possible".
=== 19th century ===
The native German philosopher and geographer
Ernst Kapp, who was based in Texas, published
the fundamental book "Grundlinien einer Philosophie
der Technik" in 1877.
Kapp was deeply inspired by the philosophy
of Hegel and regarded technique as a projection
of human organs.
In the European context, Kapp is referred
to as the founder of the philosophy of technology.
Another, more materialistic position on technology
which became very influential in the 20th-century
philosophy of technology was centered on the
ideas of Benjamin Franklin and Karl Marx.
=== 20th century to present ===
Five early prominent 20th-century philosophers
to directly address the effects of modern
technology on humanity were John Dewey, Martin
Heidegger, Herbert Marcuse, Günther Anders
and Hannah Arendt.
They all saw technology as central to modern
life, although Heidegger, Anders, Arendt and
Marcuse were more ambivalent and critical
than Dewey.
The problem for Heidegger was the hidden nature
of technology's essence, Gestell or Enframing
which posed for humans what he called its
greatest danger and thus its greatest possibility.
Heidegger's major work on technology is found
in The Question Concerning Technology.
Contemporary philosophers with an interest
in technology include Jean Baudrillard, Albert
Borgmann, Andrew Feenberg, Langdon Winner,
Donna Haraway, Avital Ronell, Brian Holmes,
Don Ihde, Bruno Latour, Paul Levinson, Ernesto
Mayz Vallenilla, Carl Mitcham, Leo Marx, Gilbert
Simondon, Lewis Mumford, Jacques Ellul, Bernard
Stiegler, Paul Virilio, Günter Ropohl, Nicole
C. Karafyllis, Richard Sennett, Álvaro Vieira
Pinto and George Grant.
While a number of important individual works
were published in the second half of the twentieth
century, Paul Durbin has identified two books
published at the turn of the century as marking
the development of the philosophy of technology
as an academic subdiscipline with canonical
texts.
Those were Technology and the Good Life (2000),
edited by Eric Higgs, Andrew Light, and David
Strong and American Philosophy of Technology
(2001) by Hans Achterhuis.
Several collected volumes with topics in philosophy
of technology have come out over the past
decade and the journals Techne: Research in
Philosophy and Technology (the journal of
the Society for Philosophy and Technology,
published by the Philosophy Documentation
Center) and Philosophy & Technology (Springer)
publish exclusively works in philosophy of
technology.
Philosophers of technology reflect broadly
and work in the area and include interest
on diverse topics of geoengineering, internet
data and privacy, our understandings of internet
cats, technological function and epistemology
of technology, computer ethics, biotechnology
and its implications, transcendence in space,
and technological ethics more broadly.
=== Technology and neutrality ===
Technological determinism is the idea that
"features of technology [determines] its use
and the role of a progressive society was
to adapt to [and benefit from] technological
change."
The alternative perspective would be social
determinism which looks upon society being
at fault for the "development and deployment"
of technologies.
Lelia Green used recent gun massacres such
as the Port Arthur Massacre and the Dunblane
Massacre to selectively show technological
determinism and social determinism.
According to Green, a technology can be thought
of as a neutral entity only when the sociocultural
context and issues circulating the specific
technology are removed.
It will be then visible to us that there lies
a relationship of social groups and power
provided through the possession of technologies.
== See also ==
Critique of technology
Ethics of technology
Great Stirrup Controversy
History of technology
Industrial sociology
List of philosophers of technology
Philosophy of artificial intelligence
Philosophy of computer science
Philosophy of engineering
Technological evolution
Theories of technology
== References ==
== Further reading ==
BooksVallor, Shannon.
(2016).
Technology and the Virtues.
Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0190498511
Joseph Agassi (1985) Technology: Philosophical
and Social Aspects, Episteme, Dordrecht: Kluwer.
ISBN 90-277-2044-4.
Hans Achterhuis (2001) American Philosophy
of Technology Indiana University Press.
ISBN 978-0-253-33903-4
Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen and Evan Selinger (2006)
Philosophy of Technology: 5 Questions.
New York: Automatic Press / VIP. website
Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen, Stig Andur Pedersen
and Vincent F. Hendricks (2009) A Companion
to the Philosophy of Technology.
Wiley-Blackwell.
[1] ISBN 978-1-4051-4601-2
Borgmann, Albert (1984) Technology and the
Character of Contemporary Life.
University of Chicago Press.
ISBN 978-0-226-06628-8
Drengson, A. (1995).
The Practice of Technology: Exploring Technology,
Ecophilosophy, and Spiritual Disciplines for
Vital Links, State University of New York
Press, ISBN 079142670X.
Dusek, V. (2006).
Philosophy of Technology: An Introduction,
Wiley-Blackwell, ISBN 1405111631.
Ellul, Jacques (1964), The Technological Society.
Vintage Books.
Michael Eldred (2000) 'Capital and Technology:
Marx and Heidegger', Left Curve No.24, May
2000 ISSN 0160-1857 (Ver. 3.0 2010).
Original German edition Kapital und Technik:
Marx und Heidegger, Roell Verlag, Dettelbach,
2000 117 pp.
ISBN 3-89754-171-8.
Michael Eldred (2009) 'Critiquing Feenberg
on Heidegger's Aristotle and the Question
Concerning Technology'.
Feenberg, Andrew (1999) Questioning Technology.
Routledge Press.
ISBN 978-0-415-19754-0
Ferre, F. (1995).
Philosophy of Technology, University of Georgia
Press, ISBN 0820317616.
Green, Lelia (2001) Technoculture: From Alphabet
to Cybersex.
Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest pp 1–2
Heidegger, Martin (1977) The Question Concerning
Technology.
Harper and Row.
Hickman, Larry (1992) John Dewey's Pragmatic
Technology.
Indiana University Press.
Eric Higgs, Andrew Light and David Strong.
(2000).
Technology and the Good Life.
Chicago University Press.
Christoph Hubig, Alois Huning, Günter Ropohl
(2000) Nachdenken über Technik.
Die Klassiker der Technikphilosophie.
Berlin: edition sigma.
2nd ed. 2001.
Huesemann, M.H., and J.A. Huesemann (2011).Technofix:
Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment,
New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British
Columbia, Canada, ISBN 0865717044, 464 pp.
Ihde, D. (1998).
Philosophy of Technology, Paragon House, ISBN
1557782733.
Pitt, Joseph C. (2000).
Thinking About Technology.
Seven Bridges Press.
David M. Kaplan, ed. (2004) Readings in the
Philosophy of Technology.
Rowman & Littlefield.
Manuel de Landa War in the Age of Intelligent
Machines.
(1991).
Zone Books.
ISBN 978-0-942299-75-5.
Levinson, Paul (1988) Mind at Large: Knowing
in the Technological Age.
JAI Press.
Lyotard, Jean-François (1984) The Postmodern
Condition: A Report on Knowledge.
University of Minnesota Press.
McLuhan, Marshall.
The Gutenberg Galaxy.
(1962).
Mentor
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.
(1964).
McGraw Hill.
Nechvatal, Joseph (2009) Towards an Immersive
Intelligence: Essays on the Work of Art in
the Age of Computer Technology and Virtual
Reality (1993–2006).
Edgewise Press.
Nechvatal, Joseph (2009) Immersive Ideals
/ Critical Distances.
LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.
Nye, David.
(2006).
Technology Matters.
The MIT Press.
ISBN 978-0-262-64067-1
Marshall Poe. (2011) A History of Communications.
Cambridge University Press.
New York, NY.
ISBN 978-1-107-00435-1
Scharff, Robert C. and Val Dusek eds. (2003).
Philosophy of Technology: The Technological
Condition.
An Anthology.
Blackwell Publishing.
ISBN 978-0-631-22219-4
Seemann, Kurt.
(2003).
Basic Principles in Holistic Technology Education.
Journal of Technology Education, V14.No.2.
Shaw, Jeffrey M. (2014).
Illusions of Freedom: Thomas Merton and Jacques
Ellul on Technology and the Human Condition.
Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.
ISBN 978-1625640581.
Simondon, Gilbert.
Du mode d'existence des objets techniques.
(1958). (in French)
L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique
(l'individuation à la lumière des notions
de forme et d'information), (1964).
Paris PUF (in French)
Stiegler, Bernard, (1998).
Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus.
Stanford University Press.
Winner, Langdon.
(1977).
Autonomous Technology.
MIT Press.
ISBN 978-0-262-23078-0
Anthonie Meijers, ed. (2009).
Philosophy of technology and engineering sciences.
Handbook of the Philosophy of Science.
9.
Elsevier.
ISBN 978-0-444-51667-1.EssaysHaraway, Donna,
"A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and
Socialist-‐Feminism in the Late Twentieth
Century’."
The Cybercultures Reader, Routledge, London
(2000): 291.
Kingsnorth, Paul (30 December 2015).
The keyboard and the spade, in New Statesman
== External links ==
=== Journals ===
Ends and Means
NetFuture - Technology and Human Responsibility
Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology
=== 
Websites ===
Reydon, Thomas A.C. "Philosophy of Technology".
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Franssen, Maarten; Lokhorst, Gert-Jan; Poel,
Ibo van de.
"Philosophy of Technology".
In Zalta, Edward N. Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy.
Society for Philosophy and Technology
Essays on the Philosophy of Technology compiled
by Frank Edler [dead link]
Filozofia techniki: problematyka, nurty, trudności
Rafal Lizut
