Introduction

This paper, I am afraid, advocates the philosophy of technology without actually doing it. It can best be seen as a plea for the philosophical importance of technology; in this case, importance to one of the most widely discussed problems in philosophy of physics—the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. What I want to do here is to lay out a point of view that takes the measurement problem out of the abstract mathematical structure of theory, where we discuss questions about unitary operators or conditions for the disappearance of certain inner products supposed to represent interference terms, and locate it elsewhere. Where is the measurement problem? Answer: It had better be found in the quantum technology or it is not to be found at all. My view in many respects follows ideas I have learned from Willis Lamb.

The evolution of states is supposed to be governed by the Schroedinger equation. The measurement problem arises when we become convinced that there are a range of cases in which we no longer want to assign the state dictated by the Schroedinger equation but want to assign a different state instead. Why do we want to assign this second state? We call the problem “the measurement problem” and this canonical example is a good illustration. You can't measure a quantum system without coupling to it.

Borrowing perhaps from mathematics, there is a custom of speaking of science as pure science and applied. Platonism, and other classical positions in the philosophy of mathematics, did not think of the applications of mathematics as a test of the truth of its theorems. But the picture is otherwise for science and technology. It is initially tempting to say that the theories of pure science are empirical generalizations and that the applications of these theories in the makings and doings of technology, accordingly as they succeed or fail, test the theories. Qualifying factors and counter-acting causalities needing to be allowed for, falsification will not be immediate, but inexplicable and apparently irremediable technological failure is likely to be taken as falsifying a theory, and a continued and expanding pattern of technological achievement, a triumph of technology, as the superannuated trope has it, will be taken as a confirmation of a theory, from the inductivist perspective, adding in spadesful to the evidence for its truth.

That such a view of the relation of science to technology has been held is clear from an argument that has familiarly been made against Karl Popper's account of scientific method. G. J. Warnock and Hugh Mellor, amongst others, have put the following argument against Popper. Popper claims to have solved Hume's problem of induction, and to have solved it by showing that there is no such thing as induction, either as a logical principle, or as a mode of reasoning, or as a method of discovery.

Even though the subject of my paper is ‘Technology and Culture in a Developing Country’, it seems appropriate to preface it by examining science itself in the cultural traditions of a developing country, such as Ghana, in view of the fact that the lack of technological advancement, or the ossified state in which the techniques of production found themselves, in the traditional setting of Africa and, in many ways, even in modern Africa, is certainly attributable to the incomprehensible inattention to the search for scientific principles by the traditional technologists. I begin therefore with observations on how science and knowledge fared in the traditional culture of a developing country.

Science and Our Culture

In a previous publication I pointed out—indeed I stressed—the empirical orientation of African thought: maintaining that African proverbs, for instance, a number of which bear some philosophical content, addressed—or resulted from reflections on—specific situations, events or experiences in the lives of the people, and that even such a metaphysical concept as destiny (or fate) was reached inductively, experience being the basis of the reasoning that led to it. Observation and experience constituted a great part of the sources of knowledge in African traditions.

A LAST ATTEMPT AT PREVENTION

Having reached the sezione of Porto, cholera first spread as a slow succession of isolated cases. During the twenty-four hours from midnight on Monday 1 September, however, the disease suddenly erupted as a full-scale epidemic. On that day 122 people were stricken and 82 died. Ironically, after the alarms of August, the emergency found Naples unprepared. During the final week of August a wave of panic had swept the city following the first official bills of mortality and seven acknowledged cholera-deaths. The churches filled, votive candles were lit, and the populace prayed to placate the wrath of God. On Saturday the 30th there was the reassuring news that there were no new cases. This report was greeted as a divine sign that the city had been spared. Sunday, 31 August, therefore, witnessed an orgy of excess as Neapolitans celebrated their deliverance with riotous drinking, a binge of eating and noisy processions in the streets.

Superstition increased the certainty that disaster had been averted by the will of God. On Friday there was a demonstration at a primary school in the Lower City. During the preceding days rumours concerning the still-mysterious disease and unaccustomed measures to disinfect the school premises had given rise to wicked suspicions in the minds of anxious mothers. They gathered in an angry crowd outside the school to remove their children from authorities they suspected of malevolent intentions. The fact that the municipal health inspectors arrived in force, accompanied by a detachment of armed guards, heightened the atmosphere of distrust. The tumultuous confrontation that ensued ended only after the large-scale deployment of police and carabinieri.

Before reaching Naples in the summer of 1884, cholera had long been expected. The endemic home of the disease was in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta in West Bengal. Until the nineteenth century, the Vibrio cholerae had proven too perishable to survive the journey from the sub-continent to western Europe. In the new century, however, the steamship and the railroad transformed the length of voyages. At the same time the growing economic and military presence of the British in India multiplied the contacts between East and West. The medical consequence was that cholera for the first time acquired the means of spreading far beyond its original Asiatic habitat.

Six times between 1830 and the First World War cholera spread from Bengal to the West along two great microbial highways. To the north it followed the trade routes to the Punjab, Afghanistan and Persia. Having crossed the Caspian Sea, the germ passed into Europe at Astrakhan and Orenburg, and then journeyed up the Volga to Moscow and the heart of the continent. Alternatively, cholera travelled to the south – overland to Bombay and Madras, then by sea to Ceylon and Jedda. It then accompanied the pilgrims to Mecca, and dispersed with them to Egypt and the Mediterranean seaports.

The renewed menace to Naples began in 1881, when the bacterium began its fifth and penultimate voyage to Europe. In 1883 it reached Egypt with Muslim pilgrims and with Indian troops serving in the British army of occupation. The frightful carnage in Egypt, where 60, 000 people perished in the course of a few months, raised the alarm throughout the Mediterranean.

It makes straightforward sense to ask a person ‘Why did you decide to become a solicitor?’ (or a carpenter, shopkeeper, teacher or professional musician). There is no mystery about the question ‘Why did you decide to become a British citizen?’ (or a member of the Liberal Party, the Roman Catholic Church or the Aristotelian Society). It may be difficult to answer any of these questions. We may not remember, or may be unable to articulate, what first led us to seek ordination, join the Army or stand for Parliament; but the questions themselves are clear, and they ask for fair comment on matters of public or private interest. There are other questions that sound like these but raise difficulties of another order.

‘What made you decide to become a woman?’ This question can be intelligibly asked only of a woman. It cannot be asked of any woman, or of many women. For it can be asked only of a woman who has decided to become a woman. But has there ever been a woman who has become a woman by her own decision? What the newspapers call a sex-change is understood by the new woman as the revelation and acknowledgement and confirmation of a womanhood that was there from birth, unrecognized or disguised and disfigured by shame or shock.

‘What made you decide to become an Englishman?’ This question could be sensibly addressed only to a man who had decided to become an Englishman, and there is no such animal.

The essays collected here do not constitute a philosophy of technology, in the sense which, for instance, Don Ihde requires. According to Ihde the philosopher of technology must reflectively analyse technology in such a way ‘as to illuminate features of the phenomenon of technology itself’. The contributors to this volume do not concern themselves with the essentialist enterprise of defining technology; they more or less take it for granted that the reader is familiar with a variety of technologies such as Information Technology, and proceed from there. Hence the title is the conjunctive one of Philosophy and Technology.

That contemporary philosophy has become more self-consciously concerned with the impact of technology on human nature and society is undeniably. Witness for instance the philosophical growth areas of Environmental and Medical Ethics. This interest is surely in part a consequence of environmental disasters such as the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and advances in medical technology such as organ transplantation. Again, advances in computer science and technology have suggested new ways for self-understanding and the re-organisation of society.

The modern world contains a vast array of technologies, and the contributors to this book respond to some of them with different concerns, so there is no one underlying theme running throughout. Nevertheless, one may discern that, in general, the contributors adopt one of two approaches. The first is concerned, quite generally, with the impact of technology on culture and society, and the second is concerned with philosophical questions raised by particular technologies.

The cholera epidemic of 1884 marked a turning point in the history of Naples. No previous outburst of epidemic disease had ever led to a comprehensive attempt to reform the vulnerability of the population to infection. 1884 was different. In that year the sufferings of the city attracted the attention of the whole country. In the expression of King Umberto, the misfortune of Naples became a national misfortune. The state also correctly appreciated that the insalubrity of Italy's greatest city was a permanent danger to the entire nation. Cholera affected not only health but also public order, commerce and public finance. Furthermore, thanks to the epidemiological advances in the understanding of the mechanisms of cholera that culminated in the work of Pettenkofer and Koch, the disease seemed preventable. Indeed, the local government of Naples and the medical profession of the city claimed to have a plan that would make the City of the Sirens invulnerable to further attacks. After the end of the crisis, therefore, the government of Agostino Depretis attempted to make good the promises that the King and his ministers had made in September to take steps to prevent the recurrence of so great – and so unnecessary – a disaster. Humanitarian sentiment and prudent statesmanship combined to produce a major experiment in preventive medicine.

That experiment involved a major programme of rebuilding and renewal known as risanamento. As a result of the events of 1884, Naples joined the ranks of the many European cities that were embellished, enlarged and restructured during the course of the nineteenth century.

As we have seen confidence in the notion of progress was widespread among the middle class of France during the first part of the sixteenth century. No one expressed this idea more fully than the humanist Louis Le Roy. It is in his work that the sixteenth-century idea of progress was most completely developed. In his Consideration sur l'histoire … universelle of 1568, Le Roy expressed himself as follows with respect to the achievements of his own age:

For many years the history of France in the ancien régime has been written from the perspective of the Annales. Particularly important to the conceptualization of this epoch have been the writings of Fernand Braudel and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, who have emphasized the importance of the notion of la longue durée or of long-term economic and cultural factors in shaping the history of early modern France. The following work represents a critique of this perspective based on a renewed appreciation of the role of the state, on Marx's concept of primitive accumulation, and recent research on early modern proto-industrialization.

I am especially indebted to my colleague Mark Gabbert, who has helped me to think through some of the theoretical problems raised in the course of this investigation. I am grateful to James McConica and Gillian Lewis for permitting me to present some of the ideas in this book in their research seminar on early modern Europe at All Souls College, Oxford University, in 1992. I recall with pleasure the hospitality of Bob Scribner at Clare College, Cambridge, who allowed me to try out my ideas on his graduate students as well. I would also like to thank the librarians of the Bibliothèque Nationale and Bodleian and University of Manitoba libraries, without whose assistance this work would have been impossible. The editorial skill of Margaret Deith of the Cambridge University Press must be acknowledged. My scholarly efforts over the years have been generously supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council.

In summarizing the results of this enquiry into French science, technology and economic life from the beginning of the sixteenth century until the time of Richelieu, emphasis has to be laid on the importance of two interrelated rural phenomena: proto-industrialization and primitive accumulation. During the first part of the sixteenth century, there was a great expansion of rural manufacture based on more extensive employment of wind and water power, and the use of the forests as a source of both energy supplies and raw materials. Mining, quarrying, iron, glass and ceramic manufacture all developed. At the same time, the countryside saw a great expansion of textile manufacturing extending beyond the manufacture of wool cloth to linen and canvas as well as silk. The introduction of new techniques certainly played a part – silk-spinning machines, improvements in the printing press, new tools in mining – but the essential gains came from the development of a relatively new labour process, namely the systematic exploitation of rural labour by merchant capitalists.

The economic expansion of the first part of the century came to an end with the outbreak of the wars of religion in the 1560s. The crisis which came to a head in that decade was the product of deep-seated problems in French economic life. The benefits of economic expansion had gone to fewer and fewer people as the century progressed.