20 results
6 - Technological Artefacts
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 79-98
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The previous chapter emphasised the importance of positioning in understanding those features I am referring to as an artefact's sociality. Given this emphasis upon positioning, however, it may seem difficult to distinguish between different kinds of artefacts. If an important part of what an artefact is depends upon how it is positioned and used, distinctions between different kinds of artefacts would seem to reduce to how the relevant communities decide to use such artefacts, or to what such communities agree them to be. In which case, is there any basis for distinguishing technological artefacts or giving an ontological account of technological artefacts that might be different from other kinds of artefacts?
As my definition of technology stands so far, the term ‘technological artefact’ would roughly refer to the results of activities aimed at isolating causal properties of things that can then be recombined and harnessed to extend human capabilities. But such an understanding seems to undermine the importance of positioning developed in the previous chapter, in that being a technological artefact depends upon its history and not just how it is used.
This tension, between the importance of history and current use in determining what kind of thing some artefact is, has a long history in the philosophy of artefacts (an obvious example is the debates concerning the role and importance of proper and system functions) and still dominates the recent literature on the philosophy of artefacts, if often taking on new guises (Margolis and Laurence, 2007). In this chapter I shall again contextualise my position by reviewing prominent literature on this issue, but for the most part I shall focus upon contributions that are rarely considered in this context. Although the basis for distinguishing technological artefacts is not simple or clear-cut, I shall argue that there is much to say, ontologically, about technological artefacts that would seem impossible if being a technological artefact were to depend simply upon how something is used.
2 - From Obscurity to Keyword: The Emergence of ‘Technology’
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 17-30
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
As noted in the previous chapter, any attempt to discuss the nature of technology is confronted by an immediate problem. Despite a widespread acceptance that the term ‘technology’ refers to something central to modern societies, there seems to be little appetite for the task of either formulating a precise meaning of the term or for prioritising one particular existing usage amongst others. In fact, there is often little agreement about what kind of thing the term technology refers to; it is routinely used to refer to material objects (some, but not all, of which have been transformed by human activities), practical or scientific knowledge, inventions, applied science and knowledge embodied in things (often material objects but not always), particular practices and even social institutions (Faulkner et al., 2010). How is it possible to proceed when such widely different usages of the term are commonplace?
In order to formulate, and in part defend, the definition of technology that underlies the discussion of later chapters, I shall focus upon the circumstances in which the term emerged. More specifically, in this chapter I shall be concerned with accounts by historians of technology that relate to a particular historical episode in which the term ‘technology’ not only underwent dramatic changes in its usage but also became a popular and significant term both in social theory and everyday discourse. In particular, older, more etymologically faithful, understandings of the term began to be transformed around the middle of the nineteen century, giving rise to various overlapping uses which nevertheless started to stabilise in the middle of the twentieth century. In this chapter, I trace out some of these transformations, focusing in particular on the events that prompted changes in the term's usage. I also highlight some continuity throughout these changing usages of the term, arguing that in fact, such usages can be understood as extending existing meanings rather than replacing them.
On a terminological note, most of the accounts to which I refer here have been motivated (sometimes explicitly) with a concern for what Raymond Williams terms ‘keywords’ (Williams, 1976). The main idea here is that when prominent new words come into being, the contests that result in these changed meanings, and the emerging actors who drive these changes, tell us much about the historical forces at play in a particular period.
Technology and Isolation
- Clive Lawson
-
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017
-
By reconsidering the theme of isolation in the philosophy of technology, and by drawing upon recent developments in social ontology, Lawson provides an account of technology that will be of interest and value to those working in a variety of different fields. Technology and Isolation includes chapters on the philosophy, history, sociology and economics of technology, and contributes to such diverse topics as the historical emergence of the term 'technology', the sociality of technology, the role of technology in social acceleration, the relationship between Marx and Heidegger, and the relationship between technology and those with autism. The central contribution of the book is to provide a new ontology of technology. In so doing, Lawson argues that much of the distinct character of technology can be explained or understood in terms of the dynamic that emerges from technology's peculiar constitutional mix of isolatable and non-isolatable components.
10 - Technology, Recombination and Speed
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 160-176
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In this chapter I want to develop the idea, introduced in Chapter 6, that recombination plays an important role in explaining some of the special characteristics or properties that are often associated with technology. That recombination plays an important role in our understanding of technology is a suggestion that has gained prominence in recent years within some strands of mainstream economics. However it is not a new idea, and can be traced back at least to contributions to the sociology of invention literature of the 1920s and 30s. Moreover, as noted above, a focus on recombination was also central to the work of Clarence Ayres. The aim of this chapter is to review the different conceptions of recombination that emerge in these different literatures and highlight their strengths and weaknesses. I argue that some conception of recombination marks a positive development in all these traditions. However, I also argue, drawing upon ideas from earlier chapters, that for a conception of recombination to be of much use it must both be given a more ontological formulation and be combined with a more complex conception of technology. The advantages of this reformulation are illustrated by briefly considering the contention that modern societies can be understood to be speeding up or accelerating.
From Production Functions to Recombination
As noted above, a common criticism of standard mainstream economics is that it pays little attention to the study of technology, or more precisely there is little concern with the nature of technology. Within mainstream accounts, technology's presence is felt via the stipulation of different relationships between inputs and outputs. At most, technology is conceptualised as some kind of ‘menu’ that is intended to capture constraints placed on human action in relation to production (Metcalfe, 2010). These constraints are left unexplained, in the sense that their explanation is thought to lie outside the purview of economics proper. Given these constraints, however, economists are concerned with what can be said about the relations of inputs and outputs, information typically summarised in terms of the shapes and properties of production functions. In this case, questions about technology reduce to questions about the efficiency with which inputs generate outputs, the relative proportions in which the inputs are employed and the ease of substituting one input for another. None of these issues requires much consideration of what technology might be.
8 - Technology and Instrumentalisation
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 114-128
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The last few chapters have focused on different aspects of an ontology of technology. The aim of this chapter is to bring these different strands together and to indicate some of the advantages of the resulting conception of technology.
In Chapter 2 the argument was made for a multipart definition of technology, which covered not only the more traditional, etymologically more consistent idea of technology as a study, but also accommodated the changes to the term's usage that led to it becoming a keyword in social theory. In short, technology can refer to a study, or the ideational or material results of such study, with popularity in the term rising as the latter component came to be emphasised. To employ such a multipart definition, however, may serve to detract attention from the real ‘action’ that gives rise to technological artefacts. Rather than the study of or results of study, the main point of interest is the action of making or facilitating the coming into being of technological artefacts and their use. Thus, an ontology of technology needs to be focused squarely upon those activities that give rise to technological artefacts. Accordingly, in the account above, a central feature identified is the process whereby causal factors can be isolated and recombined in order to produce material artefacts to be used for practical purposes, where being used for practical purposes here involves harnessing the capabilities or capacities of such artefacts in order to extend human capabilities.
In order to illustrate these ideas, and suggest that they accommodate many important contributions from the philosophy of technology, I shall focus in this chapter upon the work of Andrew Feenberg and in particular on his ideas about instrumentalisation. Adopting such a focus here is helpful for at least two reasons. First, Feenberg's work very usefully situates (and in places helps to make sense of) some of the ideas from the philosophy of technology in which I am most interested. Secondly, given how similar some of Feenberg's ideas turn out to be to those developed above, underlining the differences between Feenberg's position and that adopted here not only serves to clarify the argument being made but indicates the kinds of directions into which it might usefully be extended.
Contents
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp vii-viii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
11 - Marx, Heidegger and Technological Neutrality
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 177-201
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
To return to themes of the first chapter, perhaps our most common or most shared experience of technology is as an agent of change, that is, as an external prod to our normal or routine ways of doing things. Indeed, it was largely in order to capture this role that the term technology became a keyword in social theory. Moreover, it is perhaps understandable that so many accounts of technology, at least until recently, have attempted to analyse or explain this experience in terms of the apparent inevitability of such changes and as part of some more general evaluation (moral, ethical, etc.,) of the implications of the actual changes technology introduces. The main motivation of this chapter is the belief that although these issues are as relevant today as they have ever been, they have recently fallen out of favour largely because of the way they have been formulated in earlier accounts. Specifically, various attempts to address these issues have been interpreted, often understandably, as a form of technological determinism. Given the implausibility of any form of determinism, including its technological variant, accounts that might be labelled as such have tended to be dismissed or ignored.
Linked to this dismissal of technological determinism has been an implicit acceptance of some kind of technological neutrality or instrumentalism. Here, technology is viewed as neutral or instrumental in the sense that any implications that follow from the introduction of some particular technology take the form that they do simply because of the particular context or manner in which they are applied. There is, then, nothing of interest that can be said about the properties or characteristics of technology itself, or in general.
In this chapter, I argue that in dismissing accounts typically labelled as technological determinist and at least implicitly embracing a form of technological neutrality, recent contributions have lost sight of some of the important questions concerning technology, as well as some of the conceptual resources that might be used to answer such questions. At the very least, the aim of this chapter is to put such issues back on the agenda, although in rather different terms to those usually employed.
3 - Ontology and Isolation
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 31-51
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Ontology is usually defined very broadly as the study of being or as the study of the kinds of things that exist. But we all know something about ontology and use it on a daily basis. To use a simple example, a stick may be a useful tool to clean a carpet, but it would not be a very good tool for cleaning a window. We know this because we understand something about the natures, the being, of windows, carpets and sticks.
Ontology, has enjoyed something of a resurgence in recent years. However, it continues to elicit very different, often polarised, attitudes in social theory. Some view ontology as either irrelevant, a ‘fifth-wheel’ that generates no practical implications or concerns, or (if it does have implications) as an undesirable form of essentialism, most likely betraying some unreconstructed form of ‘modernism’. For others, myself included, ontology is viewed as essential and non-optional in the sense that all social theorising presupposes some kind of ontology, and it is better to be explicit about this than to remain wedded to an implicit ontology that may well be fraught with important problems and inconsistencies. It is fair to say that amongst those currently concerned with the study of technology, it is the former view that tends to dominate. The main task of this chapter is to argue for a particular conception of ontology that can be useful for the study of technology whilst avoiding the usual criticisms levelled at it.
More specifically, this chapter first provides some of the context to these differing views concerning ontology's significance. It then lays out a broad conception of ontology that, it is hoped, might meet the concerns of even those who tend to be suspicious or critical of ontology. In so doing, this chapter also introduces and develops a series of ontological arguments, concepts and distinctions that will be drawn upon throughout the remaining chapters.
Contextualising Ontology
The term ‘ontology’ dates back to at least the late scholastic writers of the seventeenth century. The traditional understanding of the term is the science or study of being, deriving from the Greek ‘onto’ (being) and ‘logos’ (study or science). Defined in this way, of course, ontology might involve the study of just about anything, and those who dismiss ontology as irrelevant often make just this point.
Preface
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp ix-xii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
It has often been suggested that technology, whatever its benefits, comes at the expense of more isolated and impoverished human lives. This has been a recurrent theme in the philosophy of technology, especially that influenced by Heidegger, where modernity reduces everything – including us – to resources ready for optimisation and control. But the idea will also be familiar to readers of dystopian science fiction, in which technologically sophisticated societies rarely contain any recognisable or meaningful form of human community. More technology, it would seem, leads to more isolation, be it isolation of humans from nature or from each other.
In recent times, however, such ideas have become less prominent. One important reason for this is that some of the most dominant technologies of our time, such as the internet, facilitate a connectivity between people that is unlike anything we have ever known. How can the general tendency of adopting more technology result in greater isolation? One of the main motivations of this book is the intuition that, whilst it is impossible to make such simple pronouncements as ‘more technology means more isolation’, there are some good reasons why the theme of isolation recurs throughout discussions of technology. Although in need of substantial modification, there is much in these older debates about isolation and separation that are still of significance to current (increasingly technology-reliant) societies, despite the fact that we can so easily Skype our family or play music with strangers on other continents over the internet.
To recover more interesting conceptions of isolation and the different senses in which these have featured in older literatures, I argue, requires a return to ontology. To suggest a turn to ontology is not likely to be treated with the kind of immediate disdain it would have provoked even a few years ago. Indeed, it is almost possible to say that first critical realism and then more recently actor network theory and speculative realism, have made ontology, if not fashionable, then certainly ‘acceptable’ in many quarters. However, it is also fair to say that these developments in ontology, for different reasons, have not really made much of a contribution to understanding the nature of technology, even though there seems to be great scope for doing so.
4 - Science and Technology
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 52-61
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The relationship between science and technology is often viewed in a rather simple and clear-cut manner: science and technology are relatively discrete, easily distinguishable activities, the latter being wholly dependent upon the former. The idea that technology can be understood as ‘applied science’, dominant not only in academic contributions concerned with the nature of technology but as found in more practical documents, such as course guides for the study of particular technologies, is perhaps the most common expression of such a view. As noted in Chapter 2, the term ‘applied science’ was also central to the discourse in which both scientists and engineers sought to establish their status within the academy and wider society, and so important for the coming into being of the term ‘technology’.
Conceptions of applied science, and the rather discrete separation between science and technology that they seem to imply, have been challenged in recent years by a variety of different contributors who call into question not only the starkness of the distinction but the direction of causation presupposed between technology and science. Although there is much of value in these criticisms, I shall argue for a somewhat different account of science and of the relationship between science and technology. In so doing, I seek to avoid the problems involved in holding a simple ‘applied science’ conception of technology, but also of conflating technology and science. Moreover, the account I want to propose also focuses attention on particular sources of similarity between technology and science which are rather different to those usually discussed, namely the special role occupied in each by the isolation of the causal properties of things.
Technology as Applied Science
Although the idea of applied science has a long history, it was not really formalised in a significant way until the contribution of Bunge (1966). Bunge suggests that the method and theories of science can be applied either to increasing the knowledge of reality or to enhancing our welfare and power: if the goal is purely cognitive, pure science is obtained; if primarily practical, applied science results (ibid., 329). Implicit in Bunge's position is the idea that technology results from science.
Frontmatter
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp i-iv
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Bibliography
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 202-225
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Index
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 226-228
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
9 - Technology and Autism
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 129-159
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
It is uncontentious to suggest that those with autism tend to have some kind of special relationship with technology. An abundance of reports from parents and clinicians take it largely for granted that children with autism are attracted or drawn to various kinds of technological devices (Colby, 1973). More formal evidence for such a relationship has come from research into the use of assistive technologies (Wainer and Ingersoll, 2011, Goldsmith and LeBlanc, 2004). Elsewhere, support comes from research into the profiles of autistic children, where a disproportionate number of those with autism are male and offspring of engineers and mathematicians (Wheelwright and Baron-Cohen, 2001). Support is also found in claims that there are dramatic increases in the prevalence of autism in high-technology regions such as Silicon Valley (Silberman, 2000).
A central feature of these reports is the idea that technology presents a more comfortable or more manageable interface between those with autism and aspects of a social world that are often experienced as mysterious and unsettling. Whilst a few studies exist that focus upon implications that follow from such a relationship for our understanding of autism, as far as I know there are none that ask if such a relationship might tell us something about the nature of technology. This is the general motivation of this chapter.
More specifically, this chapter summarises the main features of autism as it is currently understood along with a discussion of prominent theories used to explain it. An account of these broad features is then given in terms of the conception of technology developed in preceding chapters, focusing upon the nature of the relationship between those with autism and technology. A central focus is upon the different kinds of isolatability that exist in reality and that are particularly relevant to an understanding of technology. My main argument is then that difficulties in coping with inherently unisolatable phenomena both prompt an attraction to technological devices and encourage particular kinds of relations to it. Finally, some implications are considered.
Dedication
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp v-vi
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
1 - Technology Questions
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 1-16
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
It is often suggested that we live in a technological age. Although it is rarely made clear exactly what this statement means, or why or in what ways previous ages are thought not to be technological, most of us seem to agree that technology plays an important role in our lives. We may also agree that this role is becoming increasingly important. In all kinds of daily activities such as buying a bus ticket, guessing how the weather will change, listening to music, paying for shopping at a supermarket, archiving family photos or borrowing a book from the library, we all experience a constant prodding to our routine or ‘normal’ ways of doing things that can be traced to some or other new technological development. For the most part, moreover, such developments come into being in ways, and for reasons, that lie outside of our control. In other words, we all, through our everyday activities, experience technology's power as an external agent of change.
This experience suggests a range of important questions. To what extent is it possible or desirable to influence the introduction of new technology? To what extent do different technologies determine or constrain the kinds of social changes that follow or accommodate them? Do societies have broad trends or characteristics that are related to the amount or form of technology that have emerged within them – for example, can it be said that people are more or less connected to each other in virtue of the technology they use? Does technology bring with it opportunities for a better life or tend to smuggle in unnecessary problems? Does the form or speed of change of different technologies matter? Is technology always neutral, only taking on good or bad features in some particular context of use? Is it even possible or meaningful to talk in general about ‘technology’ at all?
Such questions will be familiar to many if not most of us. They have been the lifeblood of science fiction since the beginning of the genre. More formally, or academically, such questions have occupied a wide variety of social theorists since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. Recently, contributions concerned with such questions have been organised together as constituents of a ‘philosophy of technology’.
Acknowledgements
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp xiii-xiv
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
7 - Technology and the Extension of Human Capabilities
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 99-113
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The main argument of this chapter is that another distinguishing feature of technology lies in the role that technological artefacts play in extending human capabilities. However, the sense in which I understand technology to extend human capabilities requires a fair amount of clarification. In order to provide this, I need to distinguish the argument I am making from similar ideas that exist in the philosophy of technology literature. The literature I have in mind here is that in which technology is conceived of as the more or less direct extension of human faculties. Specifically, I first discuss some prominent extension theories, including the classic accounts of Ernst Kapp and Marshall McLuhan as well as some more recent contributions. The intention is not only to clarify the sense of extension I have in mind but also to introduce some ideas that I return to later on. In the second section, I try to integrate these extension ideas into the general conception of technology developed in the previous two chapters before finally drawing out some implications of the account I defend. To repeat, the main task is to indicate how the idea of extension acts to mark off, at least partially, technological from other artefacts, along with suggesting some of the benefits that follow from such a demarcation.
Extension Theories of Technology
By extension theory, I mean any theory in which technological artefacts are conceived of as some kind of extension of the human organism by way of replicating, amplifying, or supplementing bodily or mental faculties or capabilities. This basic idea of extension recurs throughout the study of technology and is found in discussions of technology that go back at least as far back as Aristotle. The more systematic treatments tend to emphasise one or more of three features: a focus upon the direct, often very mechanical, extension of ‘physical’ faculties; a focus upon the extension of cognitive (especially information processing) capabilities; the extension of human agents’ ‘will’ or intentions. I shall illustrate each feature by briefly referring in turn to the work of Ernst Kapp, Marshall McLuhan and David Rothberg.
The first occurrence of a detailed and sustained example of an extension theory is that provided by Ernst Kapp (1877).
5 - The Sociality of Artefacts
- Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge
-
- Book:
- Technology and Isolation
- Published online:
- 14 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2017, pp 62-78
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The sense and degree to which technology can be understood as social is a point of significant tension in the existing literature. It was argued in Chapter 2 that the term ‘technology’ came into being to describe the largely material results of engineers and others in transforming the physical world. Thus the term gained currency as part of a shift away from the (social) activities of inventors and innovators, to the tangible (material, physical) results of such activities. On the other hand, it is often argued that one of the main strengths of recent (especially constructivist) theories of technology is their demonstration of the irreducibly social nature of technology (Brey, 1997, Bijker et al., 1987, MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1985b). In this context it is easy to see how the sense and degree to which technology is understood to be social has come to be something of a fault line in discussions of technology. This chapter is primarily intended to address these tensions.
Several points of clarification, however, are required from the start. First, the apparent tension here does not arise because of a distinction between technology and technological artefact; it is not that technology is an activity and so social, whereas technological artefacts are material and so not social. Rather it is the sociality of artefacts that is contested. Secondly, the statement that technological artefacts are irreducibly social may appear rather obvious. Artefacts are made by people and so, in a sense, must be social. The more contested question, however, is whether or not, or in what ways, artefacts can be thought of as social in a more ongoing way, once they have been made. In other words, is there something about the ongoing mode of existence of artefacts that also depends upon the actions and interactions of human beings? This question has generated heated debate in recent years (Margolis and Laurence, 2007, Franssen et al., 2014) and I shall draw upon some of this debate where appropriate. In particular, the main points of contention are set out by focusing upon issues of identification, function and practice, before suggesting some advantages of couching the discussion of artefacts, and their sociality, in terms of a conception of positioning as discussed in Chapter 3.
Contributors
- Edited by Martin Harlow, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester
-
- Book:
- Mozart's Chamber Music with Keyboard
- Published online:
- 05 May 2012
- Print publication:
- 05 April 2012, pp viii-viii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation