In spite of the discredited notions of determinism during the last two decades, the idea of technological determinism strikes again, based on the social impacts of modern technology. The main objective of this article attempts to study the relation between civilization, modern technology, and development. To attain our objective, the debate is presented on the issue of whether the current management of technology contributes to the guidance of technological development on the basis of “social priorities.”.

“Technological determinism” is predominantly employed as a critic’s term, used to dismiss certain classes of theoretical and empirical claims. Understood more productively as referring to claims that place a greater emphasis on the autonomous and social-shaping tendencies of technology, technological determinism is a valuable and prominent perspective. This article will advance our understanding of technological determinism through four contributions. First, I clarify some debates about technological determinism through an examination of the meaning of technology. Second, I parse the family of (...) claims related to technological determinism. Third, I note that constructivist and determinist insights may each be valid given particular scope conditions, the most prominent of which is the scale of analysis. Finally, I propose a theoretical microfoundation for technological determinism—military–economic adaptationism—in which economic and military competition constrain sociotechnical evolution to deterministic paths. This theory is a special case of a general theory—sociotechnical selectionism—which can be regarded as also including constructivist theories as special cases. Greater understanding of, respect for, and engagement with technological determinism will enhance the study of technology and our ability to shape our sociotechnical systems. (shrink)

Debates about terrorism and technology often focus on the potential uses of technology by non-state terrorist actors and by states as forms of counterterrorism. Yet, little has been written about how technology shapes how we think about terrorism. In this chapter I argue that technology, and the language we use to talk about technology, constrains and shapes our understanding of the nature, scope, and impact of terrorism, particularly in relation to state terrorism. After exploring the ways in which technology shapes (...) moral thinking, I use two case studies to demonstrate how technology simultaneously hides and enables terroristic forms of state violence: police control technologies and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones. In both these cases, I argue that features of these technologies, combined with a narrative of precision and efficiency, serves to mask the terroristic nature of the violence that these practices inflict and reinforces the moral exclusion of those against whom these technologies are deployed. In conclusion, I propose that identifying acts of terrorism requires a focus on the impact of technologies of violence (whether they are “high tech” or not) on those most affected, regardless of whether users of these technologies conceive of their actions as terroristic. (shrink)

The existence of a French philosophy of technology is a matter of debate. Technology has long remained invisible in French philosophy, due to cultural circumstances and linguistic specificities. Even though a number of French philosophers have developed views and concepts about technology during the twentieth century, “philosophy of technology” has never been established as a legitimate branch of philosophy in the French academic landscape so far. This book, however, demonstrates that a community of philosophers dealing with various issues related to (...) technology and built up on the legacy of the previous generations has emerged. In gathering scholars with quite diverse theoretical backgrounds and matters of concern, this volume outlines a coherent, albeit heterogeneous, philosophical trend. Five chief characteristics are identified in this introduction: a close connection between history and philosophy, with a focus on the temporalities of technology, the prevalence of the anthropological approach to technology whether it be social anthropology or paleoanthropology, a focus on technological objects that we characterize as a “thing turn” à la française, the dignification of technoscience as a philosophical category, and a pervading concern with ethical issues based on the anthropological interpretation of technology and quite distinct from current trends in applied ethics. (shrink)

The nature of creative engagement with computers and software presents a number of challenges to 4E cognition and requires the development of analytical frameworks that can encompass cognitive processes as they extend across material and informational realms. Here I argue that an enactive view of mind allows for better understanding of digital practice by advancing a dynamic, transactional, and affective framework for the analysis of computational design. This enactive framework is in part developed through the Material Engagement Theory put forward (...) by Lambros Malafouris, in part from the phenomenologically inspired philosophy of Bernard Stiegler. Both advance temporality, technics and technique as key to understanding human creative imagination and their work can support each other in different ways; Stiegler allows for a theorisation of digital tools largely missing from the cognitive archaeology of Malafouris, whilst Malafouris provides a cognitive theory to further develop key ideas in Stiegler’s philosophy. Bringing their work together through Gilbert Simondon’s theory of individuation, I develop the concept of enactive individuation and apply this to the analysis of a case of robotic design and fabrication from my fieldwork with digital architects and engineers. This case allows for further exploration of how enactivism might productively be extended into the digital realm by underscoring the explorative engagement at heart of even highly systematic work with computers and software. (shrink)

It is now fashionable to say that science and technology are social constructions. This is true, or rather, a truism. Man is a social animal. Man is a linguistic animal, and language is social. Hence all products of human activities and everything that involves language are social constructions. But an assertion that covers everything becomes empty. The constructionist mantra that science or technology is “not a simple input from nature” attacks a straw man, for no one denies the necessity of (...) enormous human efforts in research, development, and design. To say that these are social activities should not imply that they are indistinguishable from other social activities such as politicking or profiteering. An investigation into their peculiarities will bring to relief their intellectual and technical characteristics. The argument that science and technology are social constructions because they involve many assumptions is again a truism. Whenever we think, whenever we find things intelligible, we invariably have used some concepts and made some assumptions. Philosophers such as Kant have painstakingly analyzed concepts without which intelligibility is impossible. The important questions are not whether scientists and engineers make assumptions but what kind of assumptions they make; not whether they make judgments, but what kind of reasons they offer to support their judgments. Are the assumptions and justifications all social? Or are they mainly technical? Admittedly, the boundaries between the two are not always sharp, but is it impossible to make any differentiation at all? (shrink)

This second companion volume on engineering studies considers engineering practice including contextual analyses of engineering identity, epistemologies and values. Key overlapping questions examine such issues as an engineering identity, engineering self-understandings enacted in the professional world, distinctive characters of engineering knowledge and how engineering science and engineering design interact in practice. -/- Authors bring with them perspectives from their institutional homes in Europe, North America, Australia\ and Asia. The volume includes 24 contributions by more than 30 authors from engineering, the (...) social sciences and the humanities. Additional issues the chapters scrutinize include prominent norms of engineering, how they interact with the values of efficiency or environmental sustainability. A concluding set of articles considers the meaning of context more generally by asking if engineers create their own contexts or are they created by contexts. -/- Taken as a whole, this collection of original scholarly work is unique in its broad, multidisciplinary consideration of the changing character of engineering practice. (shrink)

The following study is an attempt to ascertain the most adequate way to understand the relationship in modernity between religion and technology. This relationship is first analyzed by looking at a common way in which technology has been categorized and discussed as representing the religion of modernity. The first chapter critically evaluates several popular and scholarly works which contain arguments for understanding that the modern world participates in some kind of 'religion of technology.' The inadequacies of these arguments are shown (...) to arise from the problematic ways in which they invoke the meanings of both religion and technology. The suggestive possibility of viewing religion as a kind of technology leads to a consideration of how technology is being understood in the field of the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

Scholars in science and technologies studies talk about a “pure science ideology” or “scientific ideology.” Stereotyping applied science as a dull and mindless practice that generates no new knowledge, the ideology grossly distorts both pure and applied science. What is its origin?

The Snowden revelations in 2013 redrew the lines of debate surrounding surveillance, exposing the extent of state surveillance across multiple nations and triggering legislative reform in many. In the UK, this was in the form of the Investigatory Powers Act. As a contribution to understanding resistance to expanding state surveillance activities, this article reveals the intertwining of diverse interests and voices which speak in opposition to UK state surveillance. Through a computational topic modelling-based mixed methods analysis of the submissions made (...) to the draft Investigatory Powers Bill consultation, the article demonstrates the diversity and intersection of discourses within different actor groups, including civil society and the technology industry. We demonstrate that encryption is a key issue for these groups, and is additionally conflated with a human rights discourse. This serves to unite seemingly disparate interests by imbuing encryption with a responsibility for the protection of human rights, but also threatens to legitimate corporate interests and distract from their own data-driven activities of surveillance capitalism. (shrink)

Wenn Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) Texte generieren kann, was sagt das darüber, was ein Text ist? Worin unterscheiden sich von Menschen geschriebene und mittels KI generierte Texte? Welche Erwartungen, Befürchtungen und Hoffnungen hegen Wissenschaften, wenn in ihren Diskursen KI-generierte Texte rezipiert werden und Anerkennung finden, deren Urheberschaft und Originalität nicht mehr eindeutig definierbar sind? Wie verändert sich die Arbeit mit Quellen und welche Konsequenzen ergeben sich daraus für die Kriterien wissenschaftlicher Textarbeit und das Verständnis von Wissenschaft insgesamt? Welche Chancen, Grenzen und (...) Risiken besitzen KI-Textgeneratoren aus Sicht von Technikethik und Technikfolgenabschätzung? Und welche Kriterien sind für einen ethisch bewussten Umgang mit KI-Textgeneratoren im Bildungskontext anzulegen? Diese und ähnliche Fragen verdeutlichen die Komplexität und Tragweite der Herausforderung, die der stetig wachsende und zunehmend selbstverständliche Einsatz von KI-Textgeneratoren für das zukünftige Arbeiten mit und an Texten mit sich bringt. Hierbei kristallisieren sich Problematiken heraus, die sich an ein breites Spektrum von Disziplinen wenden, deren spezifischen Diskurse in diesem Band beleuchtet werden. (shrink)

This paper clarifies and answers the following question: is technology morally neutral? It is argued that the debate between proponents and opponents of the Neutrality Thesis depends on different underlying assumptions about the nature of technological artifacts. My central argument centres around the claim that a mere physicalistic vocabulary does not suffice in characterizing technological artifacts as artifacts, and that the concepts of function and intention are necessary to describe technological artifacts at the right level of description. Once this has (...) been established, I demystify talk about the possible value-ladenness of technological artifacts by showing how these values can be empirically identified. I draw from examples in biology and the social sciences to show that there is a non-mysterious sense in which functions and values can be empirically identified. I conclude from this that technology can be value-laden and that its value-ladenness can both derive from the intended functions as well as the harmful non-intended functions of technological artifacts. (shrink)