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The integrity of technology: A critical investigation of classical and pragmatic interpretations of knowledge, science and technology

Baldine, Joanne, Ph.D.

University of Hawaii, 1993

V·M·I 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI48106

THE INTEGRITY OF TECHNOLOGY:

A CRITICAL INVESTIGATION OF CLASSICAL AND PRAGMATIC

INTERPRETATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

PHILOSOPHY

DECEMBER 1993

Joanne Baldine

Dissertation Committee:

Irving copi, Chairperson Eliot Deutsch James E. Tiles Graham Parkes David Yount iii

Joanne Baldine

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Since this dissertation is the fruition of many

years of study many thanks are owed to numerous

individuals who have helped and encouraged me. I would

like to make special mention of those individuals and

institutions which have most directly contributed to

making my research and dissertation possible.

The East-West Center in Honolulu sponsored all of my

graduate course work. In particular, I thank Rose

Nakamura, my Ewe Program Officer, and Sumi Mackey, the

Director of the EWC Open Grants Program for their special

encouragement and guidance. I also thank Bruce Koppel and Kirk Smith who, at the Resource Systems Institute of

the East-West Center, sponsored the early phases of my

research on technology. Both encouraged me at a time when

none of us was quite sure what "philosophy of technology"

really was. Through the sponsorship of the East-West

Center with the participation of the Science, Technology,

and Society Program at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology I was able to spend several months in

residence at MIT's STS Program to formulate my research proposal for the dissertation. I gratefully acknowledge my mother, Mary Baldine, who provided financial assistance enabling me to extend my research at MIT for six invaluable months beyond the term of the EWC grant. v

I am very grateful for early discussions at the STS

Program at MIT, in particular, with Langdon Winner and

David Noble who opened my mind to the difficulty of pursuing the topic of philosophy of technology. Their criticisms of philosophical analysis of technology made me wary of the problem of writing about what is inherently practical and not easily, or usefully theorized about. In addition, I am grateful for the beneficial impact that the Conference on Technology

Assessment which Bruce Koppel organized at the East-West

Center in Honolulu had on my thinking. The conference made clear that the way we understand technology increasingly governs the fabric of global life, and the extent to which we rely on technology for the purposes of development gives some urgency to carifying the nature of technology.

Since most of the dissertation was written in

Cambridge, Massachusetts I have received special assistance from several individuals who found ways to help me bridge the distance between Hawaii and Cambridge.

I wish to thank my doctoral committee, especially my

Chairman Irving Copi, who responded cheerfully, critically, and promptly to all of the drafts of the dissertation, and who persuaded me to turn to John Dewey for a pragmatic reading of technology; Eliot Deutsch, who offered useful suggestions, and who bridged communications between me and the department; Graham vi

Parkes and James Tiles each of whom gave helpful and

critical, and detailed suggestions on each chapter; and

David Yount who stimulated lively debate on the reality

of geometric ratios, among other things.'

I want to thank other individuals who had no

official responsibility for furthering my work, but who

nonetheless offered me invaluable assistance. I am

especially g'rateful to Daniel Dahlstrom, of the Catholic

University of America, whose conversations helped anchor

the question of technology to a philosophical mooring. I

am heartily grateful for the time and critical attention

he generously devoted to this project from beginning to

end. I wish to thank my husband, Robert Scanlan, of

Harvard University, who read and critically edited the

dissertation, offering many valuable insights on science

and technology, and whose enduring patience, support, and

loyalty helped me through the difficult times. I am very

grateful to Jeffrey Meldman of MIT who critically read

the dissertation and offered many useful comments; and

also, to Karen Polenske of MIT, whose advice and

encouragement were instrumental in keeping me on track.

I want to acknowledge and thank Kate Budlong and

Glenn Scanlan for making three very crucial dissertation meetings in Hawaii possible by their respective offers of

airline tickets. And finally, I wish to acknowledge my deep appreciation to Elizabeth Collette Scanlan and

Robert Harris Scanlan of Princeton and Johns Hopkins vii

Universities, without whose enthusiasm, help and belief,

I seriously doubt that I could have - or would have gone on. viii

ABSTRACT

The prevailing mentality that technology is applied science is a legacy from the Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of knowledge and science. The pre-eminence of the ideal of scientific knowledge led in the modern era to the practice of regarding technology as a subset of science, and thereby to the practice of overlooking the integrity of technology.

I assess the adequacy of classical and pragmatic interpretations of knowledge, science, and technology, and point to new terms of discourse which properly allow for the integrity of technology. One of the central differences between the early Greek and the modern philosophical conceptions is that for the classical

Greeks there were two separate domains, the domain of knowledge, or episteme, and the domain of productive action, or techne. With the moderns, increasingly, and culminating in a certain sense with Dewey, we have a powerful description of practice and productive action that shows the early Greek distinction between episteme and techne to be artificial, to be itself technological.

Whereas traditionally knowledge and action comprise two distinct domains, my contention is that technology constitutes the proper end of philosophical analysis, underlying both knowledge and action. ix

In chapter two I demonstrate the senses in which

Plato and Aristotle respectively articulate the meaning

of episteme, ascribing it a primacy over techne.

Analyzing the theoretical element in the classical Greek

conceptions of knowledge, I examine how these conceptions

have shaped early understandings of science and

technology.

In chapter three I examine the understanding of

techne in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, and

correct a prevailing misinterpretation of the

significance of techne for both thinkers. I argue that

for Plato and for Aristotle, techne provides a recurring context for episteme, that is to say there is no episteme without techne.

In chapter four I show through the eyes of Dewey how the primacy given to episteme contributed to contemporary misunderstandings of technology. I demonstrate how Dewey dislodges the episteme-based conception of technology and shows that technology as productive action is the center of philosophical discourse. x

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i V

ABSTRACT viii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xiii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...•...... •...... 1

1.1 The Problem....•...... 1

1.2 Aim, Method, Division of Chapters 5

1.3 General Definitions....•...... 8 1.3.1 The Objects of Technology...... •.... 8 1.3.2 The Activity of Technology 11 1.3.3 The Knowledge of Technology 13 1.4 Histories and Philosophies of Techno1ogy 16 1.4.1 Early meanings of the term 16 1.4.2 Histories of Technology 18 1.4.3 Philosophies of Technology 21

1.5 Three Examples: Technology as Applied Science 23 1. 5.1 Engineering Curriculum Reform.•..... 24 1. 5.2 Historical Account of an Invention.. 27 1. 5.3 Accounts of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge 29

1.6 Competing Assumptions about Technology..... 31 1.6.1 Technology is Distinct from Science.32 1.6.2 Technology is an Extension of Science 38

1.7 Surrunary of the Problem...... •...... 43 End Notes For Chapter 1 47 xi

CHAPTER 2: THE IDEA OF EPISTEME IN PLATO AND ARISTOTLE ...... •.•..•..... 55

2.1 Introduction...... •...... •..•..... 55

2.2 Episteme in Plato...... •..... 59

2.3 Episteme in Aristotle...•...... •..•..... 70 2.3.1 Episterne in the Categories.•..•.... ~73 2.3.2 Episterne in the Metaphysics•...... 83 2.3.3 Episterne in the Posterior Analytics.96

End Notes for Chapter 2 ...... •.•...... 109

CHAPTER 3: THE IDEA OF TECHNE IN PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. 116

3.1 Introduction...... •...... •...... 116

3.2 The Platonic Conception of Techne.•....•.. 121 3.2.1 General perspective on techne .•.•.. 122 3.2.2 The relation of knowledge and action...... •...... 126 3.2.3 Analysis of techne in Plato's schema...... •....•.. 13 1 3.3 Aristotelian Conception of Techne.•...... 144 3.3.1 In the Metaphysics 146 3.3.2 In the Nichomachean Ethics.•....•.. 156

3.4 Conclusion 171

End Notes For Chapter 3 ...... •...... 177

CHAPTER 4: JOHN DEWEY'S CONCEPTION OF TECHNOLOGY ..... 182

4.1 Introduction...... •...... 182

4.2 Dewey's Conception of Modern Science and His Conception of Technology...... •...... 188 4.2.1 Historical Considerations..•...... 188 4.2.2 Dewey's Critique of Epistem8 192 4.2.3 Dewey's Conception of Technology 208

4.2.3.1 Meanings of ·science· ..... 208

4.2.3.2 Adaptation of classical framework to context of experimental inquiry 213 xii

4.2.3.3 The theory of inquiry and Dewey's conception of technology as techne 220

4.3 Conclusion...... •...... 230

End Notes For Chapter 4 233

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION TO THE DISSERTATION 241

End Notes to Chapter 4 256

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... •...... •...... 258 xiii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS OF COLLECTED WORKS

HPT: The History and Philosophy of Technology.

PT Philosophy and Technology.

RPT: Research in Philosophy and Technology. 1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 THE PROBLEM

That the world is 'technological' is perhaps the most entrenched truism of our time.l But the idea of technology is as potent as it is vague. This amorphous characteristic of technology, however, is more than symptomatic. Whatever the status of technology in previous eras, the contemporary world is properly defined by its technologies, even though the meaning and import of 'technology' itself remains muddled and controversial.

How can we simultaneously know that something called

'technology' is at the center of our civilization, yet remain without an adequate formulation of the meaning or criterion for 'technology'?

Of course any era in history can be described in terms of its technology. The notion of technology brings to mind at least three generic types of things: human made products, activities, and knowledge. Each of these reflects the peculiar characteristics of any era in history.

Beyond the mere assertion that technology is at the center of late twentieth century life, there is little grasp of its fundamental meaning. While we all share a 2

general awareness that technology is a powerful force of

change and novelty, we lack a firm grip of the way in

which human nature expresses, interacts with, or controls

technology. Indeed, humans often express a growing

impression that technology controls them. From a

simplistic point of view, humans obviously make

technology, but from the perspective of the complex

interrelations of a complicated world, humans find

themselves compelled to use technology and then feel

constrained by the requirements of their technologies.

For instance, humans obviously created automobiles to

help them get around, but they now feel compelled by

automobiles which require roads that disfigure the

countryside and produce fumes which pollute the

atmosphere. The manifest presence of technology makes demands upon human nature and human relations which are not fully understood because the nature of technology is not adequately understood.

In classical terminology, technology might be described as civilization's substantial form or, better, a democritean vortex around which cultures change and develop. Technology draws everything else under its sway, so much so that nothing novel, not even non technological endeavors, can shed its influence. The fine arts cannot develop without technology for instance, and neither can science. 3

The idea of the dissertation derives from the

peculiar circumstance that most people interact with

technology but few adequately grasp its meaning.

The use of the term 'technology' is even more promiscuous than a controversial term like 'science.'

Debates about the meaning of 'science,' for all their virulence, turn on the articulation of a specific kind of knowledge and a specific method by means of which it is achieved. The term 'technology,' on the other hand, has a far more elastic quality. Not restricted to matters of knowledge and science, its use extends to the realm of action, morality, economics and public policy.

Nevertheless, for a few good reasons, the meaning of the term 'technology' is, in the modern imagination, anchored to some of the meanings implied by the term lscience.' Like 'science,' 'technology' is typically used to signify certain types of objects, certain types of activities, and a certain type of knowledge. While there are a number of questions that can be raised regarding even these elementary claims, it might be useful as a first step to clarifying the meaning of technology, to look at the features customarily ascribed to technology.

Clarity on such matters seems crucial, for the way we understand technology increasingly governs the fabric of our lives. Funding priorities and technology policies are all complexly related to what we think technology is. 4

Especially in the popular imagination, which increasingly controls our political processes, technology must be accurately understood.

The question of what 'technology' is has begun to be addressed during the past three decades. But most of the literature which addresses this ~uestion is not very well anchored. Consequently, the fundamental terms of discourse for technology are not yet clear. It is generally understood that technology is in some way related to science, and that like science, technology is progressing, but the problem with much of the literature on the philosophy of science and technology is that it fails to locate technology within the framework of the

Western intellectual tradition. Given that Plato and

Aristotle provide us with our earliest systematic formulations of the meaning of science and technology in their doctrines of episteme and techne, it seems crucial that contemporary discussions of technology either locate technology within, or clearly differentiate technology from, these early formulations. Episteme roughly corresponds to what Plato and Aristotle meant by

'knowledge'; it is the root word from which the English word 'epistemology' derives, and it is connected to our earliest ideas of science. Techne roughly meant art or skill, as employed in the service of making, deciding, or doing things; and it is the root word from which we have derived the English term 'technology'. 5

1.2 AIM, METHOD AND DIVISION OF THE FOLLOWING STUDY

There is a sense in which all thought is a kind of artifact, or product of history, a "Wirkungs geschichtliches Bewusstsein," in the words of Hans-Georg

Gadamer.2 In a similar spirit, my method in this dissertation is to examine the conceptions of episteme and techne in the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle in order to assess the extent to which their formulations shaped modern understandings of knowledge, science and technology. I attempt to place the discussion of technology within the framework established by both Plato and Aristotle, because much in our present thinking about technology reflects the structure, rightly or wrongly, first established by these classical philosophers.

Throughout the dissertation I also attempt to suggest new terms of discourse that differentiate contemporary technology from what is implied by the philosophical orientations of Plato and Aristotle.

Towards this end, I employ the criticism advanced by the

American pragmatist John Dewey against the classical interpretation of technology. By engaging Dewey's reflections on the proper understanding of the nature of knowledge and science, I point to a new footing for 6

discussions of technology, a footing that is implicit in

Dewey's theory of inquiry.

In chapter 2 I attempt to demonstrate the senses in

which Plato and Aristotle respectively articulate the meaning of episteme, ascribing it a primacy over techne.

I analyze the theoretical element in the classical Greek conceptions of knowledge, and examine how these conceptions have shaped early understandings of science and technology.

In chapter 3 I examine the understanding of techne in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, and attempt to correct a prevailing misinterpretation of the significance of techne for both thinkers. In this chapter I demonstrate that for Plato and for Aristotle, techne provides a recurring context for episteme, that is to say there is no episteme without techne.

Nevertheless, I contend that within this relationship both thinkers uphold the primacy of theory over practice.

Chapter 4 takes the Greeks a step further. I show through the eyes of Dewey how the primacy given to episteme among the Greeks, and their sensitivity to the connection between episteme and techne contributed to contemporary misunderstandings of technology. I demonstrate how Dewey dislodges the episteme-based conception of technology, along with the spectator theory of knowledge, which enables Dewey to relocate the 7

discussion of technology to its proper place, namely, to

its domain in practice.

In the concluding chapter I assess the adequacy of

the classical and pragmatic interpretations of knowledge,

science, and technology, and point to the new terms of discourse which properly allow for the integrity of

technology.

It is clear that the next step beyond this dissertation would be a critical examination of Martin

Heidegger's conception of technology. Like Dewey,

Heidegger inveighs against the Western intellectual tradition, which he says is caught in the grips of a subjectivism that can be traced to Platonic and

Aristotelian conceptions of being. Readers of Heidegger will likely note that Heidegger reaches many of the same conclusions that Dewey reaches, and these readers will no doubt be correct. In many ways, it can be said that

Heidegger's analysis of the tradition and of technology goes beyond Dewey's. Nevertheless, a close examination of Heidegger's insights on technology is beyond the scope of this present study.

Prior to critically examining classical and pragmatic interpretations of knowledge, science, and technology in the body of the dissertation, the ensuing discussion will consider three generic categories, or types of attributions, which correspond roughly to three different kinds of definitions of technology in the 8

literature in the histories and philosophies of

technology. These three generic 'definitions' reveal the

substance of the problem and suggest the parameters of

the problem of for.mulating an adequate understanding of technology.

1.3 GENERAL DEFINITIONS

There are three generic categories, or types of attributions, which correspond roughly to three different kinds of definitions of technology in the literature: i) that technology primarily consists of its objects, products, or effects; ii) that technology is essentially an activity directed at making or producing certain things; and iii) that technology is itself a type of knowledge. Before looking at specific definitions of technology contained in the literature on the history and philosophy of technology, it might be useful first to look at the generic categories in terms of which

'technology' is customarily understood.

1.3.1 The Objects of Technology

The objects of technology function as micro biographies of culture containing information about civilization, in much the same way as a rock or crater 9

contains valuable information about nature. On the basis

of these artifacts produced by technology, archaeologists

have been able to interpret the human experience.

The objects of technology make up a vast and varying collection of artifacts ranging from simple tools and

implements to conlplex networks of ideas. The objects, effects, and products of technology include obvious apparatuses like clocks and bridges and micro chips, and less tangible ones like information, methods and procedural systems. Some technological objects have both tangible and not so tangible aspects, such as patents, universities and computer networks. These technological artifacts have an overtly material form, but their individual functions and purposes are not in any obvious way reducible to or explainable by an examination of their material parts. A patent is an instrument or device by which inventors of new discoveries secure exclusive rights to produce, sell and use their intellectual property for a limited period of time in exchange for making their inventions pUblic.3 The patent is, in a sense, a material piece of paper, but its significance as a technological device lies in what it does, viz., in promoting and circumscribing production and use of inventions in a certain way and over a limited period of time.

The defining characteristic of all technological objects consists in their artificiality. Artificial 10

objects are as they are because they have been designed

and shaped by human purposes.4 As such, artificial objects, or, more simply, 'artifacts', are contingent and

subject to the limitations of the immediate environment in which they are made. They may imitate the shape or function of things found in nature, as the flight of an airplane imitates the soaring of birds, but they are not themselves the result of 'natural' processes. As

Aristotle carefully pointed out, natural science is about one class of being, the sort of substance which has the principle of its movement and rest present in itself.

These things are 'natural' Objects and are by definition, not products of human action.S By contrast, artificial things do result from productive action. Just as the principle of being in the case of things done is the will of the doer, so the principle of being for things made is the reason or art of the maker. 6 Thus, inherent in the notion of technological things is the notion of their artificiality, their efficient cause or maker, and the intentions and volitions of individuals involved in their making.

Although the term 'technology' in the popular imagination has been taken to mean its objects, use of the term is not restricted to the set of objects produced or associated with technology. Some writers on technology, Hannay and McGinn, for instance, argue that 11

it is in fact a mistake and a confusion to identify

technology with its products.?

1.3.2 The Activity of Technology

A second generic category under which the term

'technology' is frequently subsumed designates certain types of activities and actions, specifically, actions which connect the intentions and purposes of individuals with a particular result. For this reason technological actions are often characterized as teleological.8

Technological actions extend to the context of the environment in which the object is produced, to the ends and purposes which determine that the object should be produced, and to the actual activities which bring about the intended result. To take the example of the patent again, there is a sense in which it is not just a technological object, but a collection of technological actions and determinants which express intended human participation.

Insofar as there is a teleological, and thereby prescribable aspect of technological activities, they cannot be reduced to a merely descriptive, instinctive or automatic way of doing things. Decisions about whether to grant a patent, whether or how to proceed with an operation, to design a university or other educational system, or to effect higher environmental standards are 12

made by individuals with varying expertise at least in the initial and final stages of consideration. While computers assist experts in retrieving and collecting information, the computer does not replace the individuals at all stages of the decision-making and planning process. The reason for this limitation is that human actions, insofar as they are directed at a purpose or unrealized end, involve some indeterminacy. While such actions are being performed, there is always something that is not yet realized and not yet known.

Insofar as a person or organization is engaged in the activity, it is indeterminate. Once it is over, of course, from another point of view, this same activity might reveal itself, under analysis, to be an activity governed and capable of being described to a considerable extent, perhaps even exhaustively, by rules.

In any event, technological actions are based not on criteria to be objectively uncovered by a careful analysis of the nature of nature, but upon decisions of individuals in an indeterminate environment. These decisions cannot be deductively modelled until the indeterminacy of the situation has been eliminated.

Reasoning of this type has been described as "non monotonic reasoning" since it involves "the process of formulating beliefs or axioms ... in the light of incomplete information."9 A similar consideration prompted Aristotle to declare that accidental, contingent 13

things cannot be the object of scientific treatment insofar as contingent things are not universals and rules

for governing them cannot always apply in the same way to all individual cases.l0

In short, not all technological activities can be scientifically described, controlled and predicted because of the practical and indeterminate nature of these activities. That these types of technological activities seem to defy being fully rationalized suggests that if there is a technological 'method' to be uncovered, the premises on which it rests may differ in kind from those posited in science. These non rationalizable ingredients of technological activities may be useful in understanding the peculiar nature of technology.

1.3.3 The Knowledge of Technology

The third generic category to which both the term and concept of 'technology' refer includes a kind of knowledge that is essentially practical in nature and which distinguishes technological knowledge from the kind of knowledge idealized by science. Knowing how is distinct from knowing that, as Ryle has already demonstrated, since the kind of knowledge it takes to perform a task well is different from the kind of 14

knowledge involved in knowing the truth of the principles which apply to the performance.11

Aristotle divided the sciences into those that result in knowledge and those that result in practical or productive action. The speculative sciences, such as physics, mathematics and theology all aim at knowledge of truth, whereas the practical and productive sciences aim at producing actions and artifacts, respectively. The method of the non-theoretical sciences is set in marked contrast to that of the theoretical sciences.12 And it does not necessarily follow that the practices of non theoretical 'sciences' can be inferred from the theory of the theoretical sciences. As Ryle notes, practice "is not a client of theory efficient practice precedes the theory of it."13

At the same time, although technological knowing cannot be thought to be just another way of following the scientific method, there is nonetheless a logos or rational basis associated with the methods of technology.

These methods may resemble activities in science, but are not identical to those followed in science. 'Know-how' is the customary way of characterizing the type of knowledge wielded by technology, since technological knowledge is just that - knowing how to do something.

This knowledge can presuppose scientific knowledge of what there is, but it does not necessarily presuppose theoretical or scientific knowledge. The practical, 15

calculative (though non-theoretical) function of the

intellect nonetheless has a rational dimension.

Techne, the etymological root from which the term

'technology' is derived, is regarded by Aristotle as a

"capacity to make involving a true course of reasoning."

The epistemological correlative of doing is practical wisdom (phronesis), a "true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to the things that are good or bad for man."14 What the epistemological correlative of making precisely is remains to be examined. In any case, since making seems to be a form of doing, from an

Aristotelian perspective, making falls under this category of practical wisdom.

Attributing knowledgeable behavior to a certain action often implies that the action is an instance of rules or principles that apply, but it does not necessarily follow that the action derives from knowledge of its principles. If an action is intelligent, it is successful, and if all successful actions require prior theoretical knowledge, this leads to an infinite regress, and as Ryle rightly concludes, it would be logically impossible ever to break the circle.15 16

1.4 HISTORIES AND PHILOSOPHIES OF TECHNOLOGY

The histories and philosophies of technology reflect some of the early meanings of techne. But these meanings have been muted through time and through the transmission of the term into different languages. Below is a consideration of i) the early meanings of the term

'technology' in the English language, ii) a brief sketch of definitions of technology by historians of technology, and iii) the status of 'technology' as an issue within philosophy.

1.4.1 Early Meanings of 'Technology' in English

In the English language, the 'host' language for the

Industrial Revolution, the earliest uses of the word

'technology' generally referred to a treatise on the arts or to the organization of practical knowledge of the arts. According to the OED,16 'technology' first meant something general, such as "a discourse or treatise on an art or arts; the scientific study of the practical or industrial arts." The first instance of this usage, noted in the OED, is an occurrence in 1615, in which Sir George Buck refers, in his book The Third University of

England, to the faculties of arts and sciences in schools within London, calling for "an apt close of this general technologie." The term was also used to indicate "the 17

terminology of a particular art or subject; technical

nomenclature."

Carl Mitcham's extensive bibliographical and historical research17 on occurrences of the word

'technology' identifies the earliest historical and philosophical uses and meanings of the term. From his research it is clear that, from the beginning, usage of the term 'technology' in English was never univocal.

Three of Mitcham's examples are of special interest:

According to Mitcham, the first occurrence of the term

'technology' in an English dictionary is in John Kersey's edition of Edward Phillips's The New World of English

Words in 1706. In this 1706 dictionary, technology is defined as "a description of arts, especially the mechanical. "18

One of the earliest instances of the use of the term

'technology' in a philosophical text is Christian Wolff's

1728 Preliminary Discourse on Philosophy in General. In this discourse Wolff states that technology is "the science of the arts and of the works of art;" also that it is the use of physics to give the "reason of things which occur through art."19

One of the earliest examples of the use of

'technology' occurring in a book title is Jacob Bigelow's book Elements of Technology, published in 1831. Bigelow apparently adopted the term after finding it in some older dictionaries. He qualified his use of the term 18

'technology' to refer to "the principles, processes, and

nomenclatures of the more conspicuous arts, particularly

those which involve applications of science."20 The

first use of the term 'technology' in English discourse

reflects the confluence of art and science, and resulted

in the first conscious understanding of technology as a

unique technical and social phenomenon.

A more extensive etymological discussion (not undertaken here) would examine the development of meanings derived from the Greek techne in various relevant European languages, especially Latin, French and

German.

1.4.2 Histories of Technology

Charles Singer begins the first of eight volumes of his History of Technology with the simple proposition that "etymologically, 'technology' should mean the systematic treatment of any thing or subject."21 Taking this claim seriously underscores the difficulty of getting one's bearings with the conception of technology because, according to this definition, nearly everything qualifies as technology. Language, thought, reason itself can lay claim to the title of 'technology.'

Singer goes on to say that in English the term

'technology' is "a modern (17th century) artificial formation invented to designate systematic discourse 19

about the useful arts." He adds that in the 19th

century, when the term 'technology' acquired a scientific

content, technology became "almost synonymous with

'applied science.'" Singer and his editors collectively decided to treat technology as "the field of how things are commonly done or made. "22

Kranzberg and Pursell, in their history Technology and western Civilization, criticize Singer's definition for being too broad.23 They fix upon a definition which emphasizes the purposive and organizational aspects of technology as embodied in man's work. They separate technological actions from other types of human actions, such as the merely biological activities of sneezing or sleeping, activities which express a person's inclinations but do not express human work. The

Kranzberg-Pursell definition stresses that technology "is much more than tools and artifacts, machines and processes. It deals with human work, with man's attempt to satisfy his wants by human action on physical objects."24

Cyril Stanley Smith, an eminent metallurgist and historian of metallurgy, points out that the conscious separation of the disciplines of science, technology, and art is a relatively new phenomenon, and warns that it is

"misleading to apply modern classifications to earlier periods in which distinguishable professions did not exist." However, he adds that he regards the "somewhat 20

less fully intellectualized activities of the

technologist as having much in common with those of the

artist and, until recently, interacting rather less with

those of the scientist. "25 As for a definition of

technology per se, Smith states that "nearly everyone

believes, falsely, that technology is applied science."

He argues that "technology is more closely related to art

than to science - not only materially, because art must

somehow involve the selection and manipulation of matter,

but conceptually as well, because the technologist, like

the artist, must work with many unanalyzable

complexities. "26

Smith adds that, contrary to the common assumption that 'necessity is the mother of invention,' discovery is usually "a product of curiosity, not purpose." Since all the primary sources for metallurgical discovery are decorative objects, not necessarily useful objects, he suggests that the first instinct to make things was more a matter of individual expression rather than the urge to solve a practical problem in a useful way. Smith asserts that "discovery from its very nature must at first be illogical, unforeseen, and outside the framework that previouslyexists."27 This process differs markedly from what Kuhn calls "norma.l science." 21

1.4.3 Philosophies of Technology

Raising the question "What is 'technology'?" in a philosophical discussion is always an occasion for discomfort. As Hannay and McGinn observe: "the nascent field of technology studies is littered with unsuccessful attempts to capture and display the supposed Platonic essence of technology in a succinct phrase or two...the literature reveals an extraordinary divergence in the nu..rnerous definitions proposed."28 And so the problem is one of defining technology in a way that does justice to its varied meanings, yet is meaningful without being vacuous.

But what would a philosophy of technology look like?

Genitives can be taken subjectively (signifying possession) or objectively (signifying action).

Accordingly, does the genitive expression 'philosophy of technology' mean that philosophy 'belongs' to technology in a way that, say, "the 'hammer' of Oscar" belongs to him? Or, is technology in some sense the result of a philosophy just as the nation is the result of its founders (expressed in the phrase "the founders of the nationll)?

The notion of a 'philosophy' of technology is perhaps analogous to that of a 'philosophy' of science.

Some philosophies of science, such as Hempel's, explain and account for the activities and theories of science. 22

Others, such as Einstein's, as illuminated in his theory

of relativity, express a philosophy of science in the

process of doing science. In a similar way, most

philosophies of technology generally account for

technology from outside, while others express it from

within.

Despite the steadily increasing flow of research in

the philosophy and history of technology, there are few

if any generally agreed upon assumptions about the nature

of technology, or, for that matter, 'the field' of

philosophy of technology. This relatively recent

proliferation of research has produced few major theories

of technology. Even the origin of the first philosophy

of technology is open to question. There is general

agreement that elements of a philosophy of technology can

be traced back to the early Greek philosophers, although

the idea of a field called 'philosophy of technology' is

generally regarded as a twentieth century phenomenon.

Ferre points out, for example, that in the Foundations of

Philosophy series on 'Philosophy of Technology,' "the

history of the philosophy of technology is generally

dated from the work of Ernst Kapp, in Germany in 1877."29

Alfred Espinas's essay "Les Origines de la Technologie," written in 1897, is frequently cited as an early philosophical source,3D and Hans Lenk and Gunter Ropohl declare that Johann Beckmann's work in 1777 "truly marks the birth of 'technology' as a concept as well as a 23

sys~ematic program. "31 There is obviously no unanimous dating of the beginning of 'philosophy of technology' as a field; nor is it clear that agreeing on one is important. That there are repeated efforts to mark 'a beginning' nonetheless points to the increasing self- consciousness of a relatively new field within philosophy.

1.5 THREE EXAMPLES OF THE PRACTICE OF ASSUMING TECHNOLOGY IS APPLIED SCIENCE

The popular understanding of technology is that it is a part of science, namely, applied science. This assumption entails that the meaning and import of technology are determined primarily by virtue of their relation to science. I argue that the assumption that technology is applied science overlooks the integrity of technology.

There is an inexhaustible supply of examples to illustrate the common assumption that technology is either dependent upon or theoretically derivative from science. This is frequently expressed in the form of professional condescension by individuals in the more theoretically driven fields towards the fields which are primarily based in practice. Below are three examples which demonstrate different instances of a type of professional and intellectual condescension towards 24

technology. In each example there are consequences which have bearing on the future course of events: in the development of technology-based curricula, in the writing of history of technology, and in engineering design.

In the dissertation the assumption that technology is applied science is called the 'episteme-centered view', since it presumes the theoretical and intellectual superiority of science over technology for several reasons, many of which are discussed in chapters two and three. The episteme-centered view is what the dissertation argues against. Although most conceptions of technology combine elements of both episteme and techne, a premise of this dissertation is that the episteme-centered conception prevails. The examples below show, however briefly, some of the forms in which the episteme-centered claims arise.

The three examples below are: i) a discussion about a proposed curriculum reform at a leading engineering school; ii) an instance of technological history with opposing accounts of the invention of the separate steam condenser; and, iii) a conflicting account of the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

1.5.1 Engineering Curriculum Reform

The first example illustrates the extent of the

'attitudinal grip,' or 'professional condescension,' 25

among prominent engineering faculty and the quandary their views caused the engineering Dean who, though he shared many of their fundamental assumptions, was nevertheless attempting to achieve a broad-based curriculum reform.

In a discussion about curriculum reform at MIT the

Dean of Engineering in 1988, Gerald Wilson, argued for the need to incorporate more courses relating to the interface between society and technology into the technology training in the undergraduate curriculum.32

The quandary for the Dean lay in the fact that it was commonly accepted that the scientific basis of technology is what gives technology its credibility, its rigor and its intellectual standing. Nonetheless, potent practical considerations forced the Dean to propose that technological training be broadened to include non scientific but technology-related studies. The proposal to add 'non-scientific technology-related studies' was

ll tantamount to proposing an intellectually II s o f t and undesirable addition to the curriculum.

Wilson argued that there is a growing and urgent need to train the engineering students to be more than mere "technological mercenaries" who solve other people's problems. A too narrow curriculum, he argued, fails to teach students essential lessons about how technology policy is shaped and regulated, how policies and regulations encourage and curtail technology development, 26

and whether society's needs are being met by the present

state of engineering. Moreover, he reasoned, if

engineers do not learn about societal interface,

decisions about technology will necessarily be in the

hands of other people, i.e., non-technologists, such as

lawyers and government officials, who then would exercise

the power to shape, regulate, and implement technology.

The Dean himself seemed to agree with one of my assumptions that it is common to assume that practical techne is "soft" and not as rigorous as knowledge-based science. That was, in fact, his problem. Obtaining a consensus on the proposed curriculum changes was problematic in part because "people who focus on societal questions are thought by many of their colleagues to be getting soft; they've stopped worrying about good, hard technology. And it's not just a question of intellectual snobbery. This is a difficult area in which to get results," the Dean complained.33

Though he shared "the scientific prejudice" himself, practical considerations (economic and political) combined with an enlightened hunch swayed the Dean to argue in favor of the proposed curricular reform. This example demonstrates the extent to which the integrity of technology is taken to be dependent upon its connection to science. When the conception of technology is not linked to its scientific basis, technology is frequently considered less intellectual, and the idea of technology 27

consequently loses cogency within an intellectual environment. On the other hand, technology conceived as an extension of science is taken to be technology in its strongest aspect.

1.5.2 Historical Account of the Steam Condenser

A second example demonstrates how, despite the fact that progress in science and technology has historically overlapped, technical invention is often appropriated by science. The presumed pre-eminence of either the scientist or scientific theory has even determined the terms of discourse in the writing of the history of technology.

The classic history of the technology of the separate steam condenser has attributed its development to the application of principles of the theory of heat.

In his article "Toward a Social History of Technological

Ideas: Joseph Black, James Watt, and the Separate

Condenser,"34 Arthur Donovan shows how the general acceptance of the pre-eminence of science led to an inaccurate account of the development of the separate condenser, an account which has since been corrected by historians of technology.

In 1754, an imaginative and skilled but formally uneducated eighteen-year-old instrument maker, James

Watt, came to know Professor Joseph Black at the 28

University of Glasgow. Watt was eventually installed with a workshop and an apartment at the university and was named the university's 'mathematical instrument maker'.35 In attempting to repair the university's model of the Newcomen engine, Watt noticed certain anomalies that led to his inventing the separate condenser. His understanding of the Newcomen engine as a mechanical engine whose operation could be explained in terms of pressure, led Watt to perform an elementary heat analysis of the stearn engine which became key to his discovery of the separate condenser.

However, a mutual friend of Watt's and Professor

Black's, named Robinson, who was also a university student of Black's, attributed Watt's invention of the separate condenser to his application of Professor

Black's theory of latent heat. Watt objected to this account of his invention. While he gratefully acknowledged Black's encouragement, he insisted that his invention "was not a straightforward application of a general principle."36

Donovan attributes the fact that Watt's objection to

Robinson's account of his discovery was not heeded, (and the fact that Robinson's account prevailed,) to the prevailing beliefs about the priority of science - and to an assumption about technology's essential nature as the application of science. Donovan states the matter concisely: 29

Science discovers the laws of nature and technology applies them to the service of man, to paraphrase the motto inscribed in the dome of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, and this notion was so pervasive in the nineteenth century that Robinson's story was accepted precisely because it conformed to the general understanding of the relationship between science and technology.

Sociologists of science might add that, in addition

to the fact that Robinson's account conformed to the

ideas of the scientific community, the social and professional status of the university-trained student and professor gave their account of the invention authority over that of the "skilled university instrument maker."

1.5.3 Accounts of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge

The third example demonstrates the differences in mental outlook and attitude between a mathematician, and three mathematically trained engineers over the famous collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. In an article entitled "The Great Bridge Controversy, "37 engineers

Scanlan, Billah, and Ketchum describe the bridge's collapse based upon their work with a one-fiftieth scale model in a wind tunnel. According to their research, the

Tacoma Narrows Bridge fell apart due to a feedback loop of aerodynamic forces called "self-excitation."

According to this theory "after a small oscillation 30

begins at just the right frequency, the bridge's moti~n itself amplifies the wind's effects."38

A mathematician named McKenna, however, objected to this explanation because according to him "they're trying to make linear equations fit nonlinear circumstances" and because they failed to use McKenna's mathematical equations. 39 McKenna claims he discovered a

'mathematical phenomenon,' based in part on the chaos theory of A.C. Lazer, from which he concluded: "If this is happening in the math, then it's probably happening in the real world."40 He adds that if only engineers would use his "more sophisticated equations" they could make improvements in bridge design.

The most egregious error of the mathematician, from the engineering point of view, is that the mathematician transferred his axioms gratuitously to the bridge, thereby completely neglecting consideration of the effect of wind forces. The engineers point out that they in fact take nonlinear effects into account, but that they work from observing the behavior of real objects and use the math to explain those observations. In the opinion of the engineers, McKenna's equations might enable them to predict "exactly what part of the bridge hits the water first - if a bridge falls apart," but that their job is to ensure "the bridge never flies apart and hits the water in the first place."41 31

All three examples demonstrate the frequently expressed condescension that technology and its methods are derivative of science, and further, that the success of technology is measured against the degree to which it conforms to science. It is another way of claiming, confusedly, that the more technology is scientific, the more truly technological it is.

More importantly, the three examples illustrate how the episteme-centered view, i.e., the assumed pre eminence of the scientific element in technology, and the assumed pre-eminence of the scientific practitioner of technology still effectively controls the terms of discourse in contemporary discussions about the relation of science and technology.

1.6 COMPETING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY

There are fundamentally two different positions on the status of technology. The first position is maintained by critics who argue for the essential integrity and distinctiveness of technology and its irreducibility to science.42 The second position is maintained by individuals who assume that differentiating technology from science is a matter of semantics, and that technology is best construed as an extension of science. 32

1.6.1 Technology is Distinct from Science

Arguing for differences in methods between

technology and science, George Bugliarello and Dean B.

Doner write in the preface to The History and Philosophy of Technology43 that technology is developed through a kind of discovery which has no methodology, which is serendipitous, and which is not amenable to logical ordering. Melvin Kranzberg reinforces this line of argument by adding in the introduction of the same book that "we have ...done away with the old maxim that technology is simply applied science and that the process of innovation is a simple linear progression from basic research to application."44 In her forthcoming essay on the philosophy of technology,45 Mary Tiles observes that one of the "significant disanalogies" between scientific theories, whose adequacy is assessed on the basis of their truth or falsity or predictive success, and technologies, is that choice among technologies depends upon what works "best" given a particular technological problem. Tiles points out that the given problem a technology is supposed to solve is never purely technical, a fact which further emphasizes the lack of symmetry between technology and scientific theories.

In the Foundations of Philosophy Series, Frederick

Ferre's Philosophy of Technology proposes a definition of 33

technology in which technology is the "practical implementation of intelligence."46 By 'practical' he contrasts technology with science by specifying that technologies are not wholly ends in themselves. Further, he asserts that technology involves 'implementation' insofar as specific technologies are concretely embodied in specific artifacts, even when the embodied artifact is immaterial, for example, as within a social organization.

In his book Technology and Reality, James K.

Feibleman defines technology as "the production and use of artifacts, and artifacts as materials altered through human agency for human uses."47 He argues for the need for a theory that is intermediate between pure and applied science and between theory and practice.

Feibleman sees the modus operandi level of activity, viz., that which goes beyond the strict application of science, as the defining mode of technology.48

Henryk Skolimowski proposes that in order to understand the nature of technology itself, we first need to understand technological progress. According to

Skolimowski, technological progress is "the pursuit of effectiveness in producing objects of a given kind," and the pursuit of efficient action is the defining feature of technology.49 Moreover, he points out that technological advancements cannot be accounted for by referring to a cognitive problem indigenous to pure science, but to a technical one, because science and 34

technology differ methodologically. Science investigates reality, whereas technology creates a reality.

Skolimowski asserts that technology is not another instrument for discovering the truth, rather it is concerned with what is to be.50

I. C. Jarvie disagrees that technology could be defined by a universal law or general principle, such as the one Skolimowski proposes, by introducing the notion of efficiency. Jarvie, a social anthropologist, emphasizes the social context of technology as one of its defining features. The ways of thinking that are peculiar to technology are not independent of this social context.5l Jarvie locates technology within the structure of knowledge alongside practical knowledge or the 'know-how' of which Ryle speaks. While know-how knowledge aims primarily at what works, Jarvie argues that there is no reason that know-how knowing cannot know the truth, since "true knowledge is of what is effective." Jarvie argues further that all knowledge, including theoretical knowledge, is essentially a form of know-how knowledge since all scientific knowing is hypothetical, and is thus a tentative claim about what is the case until the claim no longer works.52 It is in this sense that Jarvie says technology 'contains' practical knowledge which itself is partly theoretical.

Joseph Agassi has a decidedly unique view of technology, based in part upon his own special 35

understanding of Karl Popper. Agassi's view of technology is that it is essentially defined by the process of confirmation, that confirmation or corroboration is the measure of technology's success, and, finally, that corroboration is what distinguishes technology from science.53 In Agassi's view since confirmation or corroboration are algorithmic, they preclude luck and intuition, and consequently play no significant role in science, pure or applied.54

Conversely, Agassi claims that corroboration is extremely important in the implementation of new inventions and

"the degree of corroboration is socially and legally determined" largely for reasons of public safety.55

Technological practice, according to Agassi, is essentially defined by corroboration.

Joseph Margolis is a contemporary pragmatist who reflects on technology as a phenomenon "nested in historicist and praxical processes. "56 By 'historicist' he means the peculiarly contingent and cognitively anchored existence of man in which even his concepts are contingently emergent.57 By 'praxical' Margolis means the view in which cognitive practices are constitutive of all cognitive orientations, including theory-making and scienc8.58 Historicism reflects human history,

(distinct from natural history), and includes the cognitive and praxical concerns of each person. These concerns are by definition oriented and limited by each 36

person's own particular culture.59 Margolis shares the

pragmatist arguments of Dewey, Peirce, James, Heidegger

and Wittgenstein, against the essentialist claims based

upon extra-historical or trans-historical co~firmation.

Margolis argues that technology is not applied

science since the latter is "the interpretation of the

domain of nature subject to basic science," whereas

technology is "the intersection of practical knowledge

and ideology."60 Margolis insists that technology is not merely practical knowledge, but practical knowledge plus ideology, by which he allows that human objectives and interests affect the means-ends relationship in a constitutive way. These objectives or interests, he asserts, cannot be reduced to simple principles, such as

'effectiveness' since these principles cannot be abstracted as rational objectives from the social reality in which they originate. 61

John Dewey is the resource and inspiration for many of the writers mentioned above, since his theory of inquiry undermines the premises on which the assumption that technology is applied science is based. By reclaiming the unity of knowledge and action, and that of theory and practice, Dewey clears the way for a conception of technology which affirms the integrity of technology. Chapter 4 presents Dewey's conception of technology in detail. 37

Martin Heidegger is perhaps the first major

philosopher to seriously consider the meaning of

technology qua technology. Heidegger regards technology

as the defining trait of the contemporary world, and he

approaches the definition of technology through a

phenomenological analysis of a person's experience of

technology in the world. His analysis hinges on the distinction between traditional misinterpretation of experience based upon episteme and the newer phenomenological interpretation of experience in which techne is the context of the human-world experience.

Heidegger examines the Greek origins of the name

'technology' in techne, and observes that techne is connected to episteme, and is, in fact, a kind of episteme since techne is a kind of knowing. Heidegger stresses that techne is a name for "the arts of the mind and the fine arts," in addition to its being "a name for

[the] activities and skills of the craftsmen."62 From an ontological perspective, in contrast to the ontic perspective (which Heidegger discusses in Being and

Time,) technology is not merely a means, but, Heidegger insists, is a mode of revealing the truth. "Die Technik ist also nicht bloss ein Mittel. Die Technik ist eine

Weise des Entbergens ...der Wahrheit."63 Thus, for

Heidegger technology is more than the manufacture and use of artifacts. It is a making and bringing forth of the truth; it is "something poietic."64 Consistent with this 38

claim, Heidegger inveighs against what he calls a

deceptive illusion, a "trugerische Schein," which

presupposes that technology is merely applied science.65

He argues that since modern experimental and exact

sciences are dependent upon the existence and manufacture

of technical apparatuses, the assumed dependency of technology upon science is in fact a dependency that goes

in both directions.66 Since the relation between science and technology is a mutual relationship in which each in turn depends upon the other, the question of the relation of science to technology is for Heidegger "a merely historiographical establishing of facts."67

Heidegger takes one step further in undermining the putative assumption that technology might be a part of, or solely dependent upon, applied science by arguing that the grounding of the mutual relationship between science and technology ultimately reveals the ontological priority of techne. Heidegger thereby explicitly opens the possibility that science is derivative of technology.

1.6.2 Technology Is An Extension of Science

There are apparen·tly compelling reasons to regard technology as an extension of science. They are compelling for the simple reason that in common parlance and in the common imagination, the idea that technology and science are more than superficially related makes 39

cornmon sense. This claim does not, on the face of it, seem to require much of an argument for support. In nightly news reports it is clear that the viability of modern technology is linked to progress in modern science. The search for intelligent life on other planets and virtually any advance in modern medicine vividly testify to technology's dependence upon scientific research.

There are two writers on technology who differ from those previously considered in that their conception of modern technology is that it is science-based. It is their view, consequently, that the meaning of technology is to be found in its applications or extensions of science. An implication frequently associated with the science-based view is that technology is merely derivative from science, and, consequently, it lacks conceptual integrity. Whether this implication is warranted remains to be examined.

In his book, The New Industrial State, John Kenneth

Galbraith assumes the science-based conception of technology. According to him, "technology means the systematic application of scientific or other organized knowledge to practical tasks."68 Galbraith analyzes the modern corporation as transformed by the needs of modern technology. He demonstrates how the complexity of the various aspects of technology - from the capital needed to support technology, to research and planning, product 40

development, manufacturing, and management of the various divisions and subdivisions of the organization - all coalesce in the structure of the modern corporation, organized and run by 'the technostructure'.69 The technostructure is Galbraith's term for the new rationalized organization of management which now functions as the 'brain' of the technological organization. This new organization replaces the old time entrepreneur, the former owners and controllers of the capital, and divorces them from control of the enterprise. Galbraith shows how this new scientifically based organization is the most powerful consequence of technology. It forces "the division and subdivision of any... task into its component parts. Thus, and only thus, can organized knowledge be brought to bear on performance. "70

Mario Bunge is one of that minority of professional philosophers who maintain that technology is an extension of science. His writings on technology over the past two decades include at least two differing but compatible definitions of technology. The first is presented explicitly in his article "Toward a Philosophy of

Technology," adapted in 1972 from an earlier version written in 1967.71 Here Bunge observes that technology is essentially "the application of theory to practical goals." Thus, technological knowledge is "the outcome of the application of the method of science to practical 41

problems. "72 It is composed of "grounded rules," viz.,

scientific laws, which can account for the effectiveness

of a particular action.73

For BUilge, there are two types of technological

theories: Substantive technological theories and operative technological theories. Substantive theories are essentially those of applied science since they "are always preceded by scientific theories."74 Operative theories, on the other hand, are "born in applied research and may have little to do with substantive theories." Examples of an operative theory are game theory, decision theory and operations research. Because these operative theories deal directly with action - with valuation, decision making, and with planning and doing, they cannot make use of scientific i.e., substantive, knowledge75 Bunge stresses that while operative theories lack a basis in substantive scientific knowledge, they nonetheless employ the method of science, and for this reason "may, in fact be regarded as scientific theories concerning action: in short, as theories of action. "76

The second conception of technology that Bunge presents is contained in volume 7 of his monumental Treatise on

Basic Philosophy.77 Here Bunge focuses more on the particular content unique to technology:

Technology may be conceived of as the scientific study of the artificial~s R&D [research and development]. If preferred, technology may be regarded as the field of 42

knowledge concerned with designing artifacts and planning their realization, operation, adjustment, maintenance and monitoring in light of scientific knowledge.78

This definition of technology is representative of

Bunge's latest writings. 79 The later writings contrast with earlier writings inasmuch as the later works maintain some differentiation between science and technology, though Bunge admits "no clear borderlines between the three domains" of pure science, applied science, and technology since "each shades into the other."80 He allows that the differing vocabularies of science and technology reveal conceptual differences which correspond to different objects, means and goals.81 In addition, he points out that scientific laboratories

"manufacture knowledge" whereas research and development laboratories "manufacture technologies."82 But while technology and basic science are admittedly different,

Bunge stresses that technology proceeds "via scientific research." While he maintains a distinction between science and technology based on the difference between their respective aims and outputs, the fundamental basis for technology, at least insofar as it has evolved beyond the arts and crafts stage of development lies in technology's rational, scientific foundation.

Thus, implicit in Bunge's view, natural science is a necessary condition for technology. Technology is the basis of rational action, and for that reason, it needs 43

natural science, not to give an accounting of the action,

but because science for Bunge is the embodiment of the

rational. For Bunge, it is not the case that action is

sufficient for knowledge, or that knowledge is sufficient

for action, but rather, that effective rational action is

not possible without the grounded knowledge of science.B3

1.7 SUMMARY OF THE PROBLEM

The problem, simply put, is what to make of the varying and conflicting claims about the essential nature of technology. What is at stake is our conceptual bearings: how are we to think about the things and activities that constitute technology; what is this thing that defines and makes possible our contemporary existence? What about the nature of technology makes these questions seem so urgent?

The classic way of locating technology as the stepchild of science has dictated many of the terms of contemporary discourse. Because ideas about science have always been linked to a conception of knowledge, science as a topic for theoretical discourse has been a long established tradition compared to technology. It is difficult to wrench considerations of the nature of technology away from its traditional yoking with science.

For this reason, the question of technology, at least for 44

the time being, is embedded in the question of its

relation to knowledge and science. Untangling these nested issues is, I believe, the key to understanding the unique nature of technology.

A parallel reason why science has determined much of the discourse has to do with the pre-eminence of epistemology within philosophy.84 The aim of science has always been to discover the truth. The process of discovery in science is a process of knowing. The close connection between science and knowledge is a connection which suggests that science has 'appropriated' the domain of knowledge for itself.

For the classical Greek philosophers Plato and

Aristotle, knowledge was regarded as being primarily theoretical. It was supposed that a person who achieved knowledge would possess a kind of wisdom, enabling the person to lead the good life. Thus knowledge and wisdom have been the principal interest for philosophers for over two millennia. The persistence of this focus derives from the philosophers' hope that achieving knowledge would yield certainty; certainty, in this view, was assumed to be the by-product of knowledge. As the modern history of philosophy testifies, this prized by product of certain knowledge never did corne about, at least not exactly in the way in which it was formulated, but the activities of science originated in pursuit of certainty. And because of the close connection between 45

the nature of science and the nature of knowledge, science and episteme have consequently dictated the structure of discourse in philosophy, including the discourse about technology.

Knowing and doing represent two very different ways of interacting with the world. Knowing the world through contemplation was contrasted with knowing the world through physically interacting with it by doing and making things. For the classical Greeks, these two modes of knowing exemplified the basic polaLity between theory and practice. Insofar as episteme means knowledge, and techne is a term that includes productive actions

(making), episteme and techne will serve as the conceptual foci of this dissertation.

Technology has frequently been relegated to a dependent or derivative status in relation to science, as can be observed in the foregoing examples, in much the same way that practice has traditionally been subordinated to theory. The integrity of technology is challenged by the traditional view. Technology has, in the words of Peter Caws, "been relegated to the kitchen,

...even philosophers who are beginning to pay attention to it do not always manage to avoid the patronizing tone of those who, to their surprise, have found hidden talent below stairs."8S There are many reasons for this, but at least one of them has to do with the difficulty in ascertaining the status of incomplete and indeterminate 46

information,86 information that has to 'work,' but that need not be 'true.'

A similar situation has been described by Walter ang in his book Rhetoric, Romance and Technology.87 ang describes the relation between rhetoric and logic such that rhetoric was for a time thought to be "'bad' ... because it represented 'soft' thinking... attuned to unpredictable human actuality and decisions, whereas 'hard' thinking, that is, formally logical thinking [was] attunable to unvarying physical laws."88

And as Caws also points out, a developed praxiology not based upon 'hard logical thinking' is as essential for the philosophy of technology as epistemology has proved essential to the philosophy of science, but, at present, a praxiology is missing. 89

Numerous philosophers, such as Peirce and Dewey have argued for the need to develop an alternative pragmatic line of inquiry. In this dissertation into the meaning and function of techne I intend to uncover such an alternative to the traditional theoretical enterprise. 47

END NOTES FOR CHAPTER 1

1 Throughout the dissertation, single quotes will be used when I am mentioning, but not using a word; double quotes will be used when I am quoting an author or citing a technical term for emphasis.

2 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd revised edition, translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1989).

3 U.S. Department of Commerce Patent Office, Title 35, U.S. Code Section 101, 102, 103.

4 Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, The Karl Taylor Compton Lectures (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968) Preface, ix.

5 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1025b 19-21.

6 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1025b 22-25.

7 N. Bruce Hannay and Robert E. McGinn, "The Anatomy of Modern Technology: Prolegomenon to an Improved Public Policy for the Social Management of Technology," Daedalus Winter 1980, p. 26.

8 Simon, ibid., p. x.

9 Daniela. Dahlstrom, "Worlds of Knowing and Nonmonotonic Reasoning, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, And Cybernetics Vol. 19, No.3, May/June 1989.

10 Aristotle, Metaphysics Book VI, Chapters 1 and 2 and Book XI, Chapter 7, 1064b 30.

11 Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1949) pp. 27-32. 48

12 Aristotle, Metaphysics 1064a 10-18.

13 Gilbert Ryle, ibid., p. 30.

14 Aristotle, ibid., 1140b 5-7.

15 Ryle, ibid., p. 30.

16 The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1971).

17 Carl Mitcham, "Philosophy and the History of Technology,1I The History and Philosophy of Technology, (HPT) ed. Bugliarello and Doner (Carbondale: University o~llinois Press, 1979) pp .. 163-201. Also, see the Select Bibliography in Philosophy and Technology, (PT) ed. Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey (New York: The Free Press, 1972) pp. 379-389. Also, Carl Mitcham, IITypes of Technology,1I Research in Philosophy and Technology, (RPT) ed. ?aul Durbin, Volume 1, 1978, pp. 229-287.

18 ibid.

19 Carl Mitcham, IIphilosophy and the History of Technology,1I HPT/ ibid., p. 184.

20 Mitcham, ibid., p. 185

21 Charles Singer, ed., History of Technology, Vol. I. "From Early Times to the Fall of Ancient Empires 5000 B.C. to 700 B.C. II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954) p. vii.

22 Singer/ ibid., p. vii.

23 Melvin Kranzberg and Carroll W. Pursell Jr., ed. , Technology and Western Civilization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Vol. I. 1967) p. 4.

24 Kranzberg & Pursell, ibid., p. 6. 49

25 Cyril Stanley Smith, "Art, Technology, and Science: Notes on Their Historical Interaction," in his book A Search for Struc·ture (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1981) p. 225. Also see Cyril Stanley Smith, "Remarks on the Discovery of Techniques and on Sources for the Study of Their History," HPT, ibid.

26 Cyril Stanley Smith, "On Art, Invention, and Technology," in Search, ibid., p. 325.

27 Smith, ""Remarks on the Discovery of Techniques and on Sources for the Study of Their History," HPT ibid., p. 32.

28 N. Bruce Hannay and Robert E. McGinn, "The Anatomy of Modern Technology: Prolegomenon to an Improved Public Policy for the Social Management of Technology," Daedalus, Winter, 1980, p. 26.

29 Frederick Ferre, Philosophy of Technology, Foundations of Philosophy Series (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1988) p. 10.

30 Peter Caws, "Praxis and Techne," HPT, ibid.

31 Hans Lenk and Gunter Ropohl, "Toward An Interdisciplinary and Pragmatic Philosophy of Technology: Technology as a Focus for Interdisciplinary Reflection and Systems Research," RPT, ibid., Volume 2, 1979, p. 25. The work of Beckmann referred to here is entitled "Anleitung zur Technologie; order, Zur kentniss der Handwerke, Fabriken und Manufacturen, vornehmlich derer, die mit der Landwirtschaft, Polizey und Cameralwissenschaft in nachster Verbindung. Nebst Beytrage~ zur Kunstgeschichte." (Gottingen: Verlag der wittwe Vandenhoeck, 1977).

32 Susan Lewis, "One Man's View: The Dean of the School of Engineering Speaks His Mind," Technology Review, Spring, 1988, pp. 20-32.

33 Lewis, ibid., p. 30. 50

34 Arthur Donovan, "Toward a Social History of Technological Ideas: Joseph Black, James Watt, and the Separate Condenser," George Buliarello and Dean B. Doner, ed., HPT, ibid.

35 Donovan, ibid., p. 23.

36 Donovan, ibid., p. 21.

37 Berreby, "The Great Bridge Controversy," Discovery February 1992.

38 Berreby, ibid., p. 31.

39 Berreby, ibid., p. 31.

40 Berreby, ibid., p. 28. 41 Berreby, ibid., p. 28.

42 Frederick Ferre, ibid., p. 10. Joseph Agassi, "The Confusion between Science and Technology in the Standard Philosophies of Science," Technology and Culture, VII, No.3, Summer 1966, pp. 348-9, 365. See also: J. o. Wisdom's "The Need for Corroboration: Comments on Agassi's Paper," ibid., pp. 367-370. James K. Feibleman, Technology and Reality, (Boston and The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, 1982) p. 4. Also see Feibleman's "Pure Science, Applied Science, and Technology: An Attempt at Definitions," in PT, ibid. Henryk Skolimowski, "The Structure of Thinking in Technology," in PT, ibid. I.C. Jarvie, "The Social Character of Technological Problems: Comments on Skolimowski's Paper," in Philosophy and Technology, ibid., p. 50, and "Technology and the Structure of Knowledge," pp.55 and 59. Rachel Laudan, ed., The Nature of Technological Knowledge. Are Models of Scientific Change Relevant? (Dordrecht, Boston, Lancaster: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1984). Arthur L. Donovan, "Toward a Social History of Technological Ideas: Joseph Black, James Watt, and the Separate Condenser," in HPT, ibid. Don Idhe, Technics and Praxis, (Dordrect: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1979). Cyril Stanley Smith, Search, ibid. and "Remarks on the Discovery of Techniques and on Sources for the Study of 51

Their History," HPT, ibid. Joseph Margolis, "Conceptions of Technology~ Satanic, Titanic, Human," RPT, ibid., Vol. 7, 1984. John Dewey, Reconstruction in PhIlosophy, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957). Dewey, Quest for Certainty, A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984). Dewey, Problems of Men (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946). Dewey, Logic, The Theory of Inquiry, (New York, Henry Holt and Co., 1938). Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, Translated with an Introduction by William Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977).

43 George Bugliarello and Dean B. Doner, Preface, HPT, ibid., p. ix.

44 Melvin Kranzberg, Introduction HPT ibid., p. xix.

45 Mary Tiles, forthcoming, "Philosophy of Technology," Companion to the Philosophy of Science. Ed. by W. Newton-Smith, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994 or 1995).

46 Frederick Ferre, Philosophy of Technology. Foundations of Philosophy Series (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1988) p. 26.

47 James K. Feibleman, Technology and Reality (Boston and The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, 1982).

48 James K. Feibleman, "Pure Science, Applied Science, and Technology:. An Attempt at Definitions," in PT, ibid., p. 36.

49 Henryk Skolimowski, "The Structure of Thinking in Technology," in PT, ibid., p. 43.

50 Henryk Skolimowski, ibid., p. 44.

51 I.C. Jarvie, "The Social Character of Technological Problems: Comments on Skolirnowski's Paper," and "Technology and the Structure of Knowledge," PT, ibid., pp. 51 and 59. 52

52 I.C. Jarvie, "Technology and the Structure of Knowledge," in PT, ibid., p. 55.

53 Joseph Agassi, "The Confusion between Science and Technology in the Standard Philosophies of Science," Technology and Culture, VII, No.3, Summer 1966, pp. 348 349, 365. See also J. o. Wisdom's "The Need for Corroboration: Comments on Agassi's Paper," ibid., pp. 367-370.

54 Agassi, ibid., pp. 348, 353.

55 Agassi, ibid., p. 364.

56 Joseph Margolis, "Conceptions of Technology: Satanic, Titanic, Human," RPT, ibid., Vol. 7, 1984, p. 156.

57 Joseph Margolis, ibid., p. 152.

58 Joseph Margolis, Pragmatism Without Foundations. Basil Blackwell, New York, 1986, chapter 8.

59 Joseph Margolis, ibid., p. xviii.

60 Joseph Margolis, "Culture and Technology," in RPT, ibid., Vol. 1, 1978, p. 34.

61 Joseph Margolis, ibid., pp. 34-35.

62 Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology And Other Essays. Translated with an Introduction by William Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977) pp. 12-13.

63 Martin Heidegger, "Die Frage Nach Der Technik" in Die Technik und Die Kehre. Verlag Gunther Neske Pfullingen, Achte Auflage, 1991. p. 12.

64 Heidegger, Question, ibid., p. 13.

65 Heidegger, Frage, ibid., p. 23. 53

66 Heidegger, Question, ibid., p. 14.

67 Heidegger, ibid., p. 14.

68 John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967) p. 11.

69 Galbraith, ibid., p. 65.

70 Galbraith, ibid., p. 11.

71 Mario Bunge, "Toward A Philosophy of Technology," PT, ibid. This article was adapted from a chapter entitled "Action," in Bunge's book Scientific Research II: The Search For Truth. Vol. 3, Part 2 of Studies in the Foundations, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science (Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1967).

72 "Toward A Philosophy of Technology," ibid., p. 62.

73 ibid., p. 68.

74 ibid., p. 63.

75 ibid., p. 63.

76 ibid., p. 63.

77 Mario Bunge, Treatise on Basic Philosophy: Vol. 7: Epistemology and Methodology III - Philosophy of Science and Technology (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983) p. 231.

78 ibid., p. 231. 54

79 See Mario Bunge, "Basic Science is Innocent; Applied Science and Technology Can Be Guilty," Nature and Scientific Method, Ed. Daniel o. Dahlstrom (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1991) pp. 95-105. Also see, "Can Science & Technology Be Held Responsible For Our Current Social Ills?" in RPT, ibid., Vol. 7, 1984.

80 Bunge, "Basic Science is Innocent," ibid., p. 98.

81 Bunge, Treatise, ibid., p. 237.

82 ibid., p. 237.

83 ibid., pp. 238-239.

84 John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957) Original edition by Henry Holt and Co., (1920) p. ix. 85 Peter Caws, "Praxis and Techne," HPT, ibid., p. 227.

86 Daniel o. Dahlstrom, "Worlds of Knowing and Nonmonotonic Reasoning, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, And Cybernetics. Vol. 19, No.3, May/June 1989.

87 Walter Ong, Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology; Studies In the Interaction of Expression and Culture (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1971).

88 ibid., p. 8.

89 Caws, ibid., p. 231. 55

CHAPTER 2

THE IDEA OF EPISTEME IN PLATO AND ARISTOTLE

2.1. INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 suggests that the grounds over which the major philosophies of technology differ either enforce or undermine the reducibility of technology to science.

Admittedly, most of the theories which enforce the reducibility of technology do not argue for the reductive nature of technology. But their claims about technology rest on dominant historical and philosophical assumptions which tacitly assume its reducibility. The theories which deny the reducibility of technology bear the burden of arguing their case, precisely because they go against commonly accepted assumptions and generally accepted philosophical discourse about technology.

Nevertheless, reductive theories of technology are themselves peculiar because they attempt to account for the phenomenon of technology in terms of a later historical phenomenon, namely that of modern experimental science. Reductive theories of technology rest on assumptions about the philosophically derivative nature of technology, and its associated concepts: making, doing, practice, and action. Because of these 56

historical and philosophical peculiarities, technology

deserves a fresh look in philosophical terms.

As far as the philosophically reductive claims go

and in some cases they are mere characterizations - they

may well serve the purpose of ontological economy, but

they inflate the ontological currency of the concept of

technology, and thereby diminish its importance. This is

inconsistent with the world's inventory of ontological

entities, since technologies occupy commanding positions

on the list of "what there is." If we are to talk

meaningfully about technology, then it must be possible

to think about it and talk about it on its own terms,

apart from science, its common companion. The conceptual

integrity of technology requires that it must be in this

sense "irreducible." The nature and integrity of

technology hangs in the balance of competing claims about

its nature and the nature of science.

Chapter 2 addresses the question: "how did the

philosophical concept of science originate?" An answer

requires an examination and clarification of very early

philosophical sources for the distinction between science

and technology. With this clarification firmly in mind,

it remains to be shown how the distinction becomes reductive.

In this chapter, I examine Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of basic polarities, represented by paired terms such as reality and appearance, knowledge and 57

opinion, knowledge and action, theory and practice, and

science and art. Through an analysis of the

philosophical meanings attached to these polarities, I

examine the basic orientations which have shaped

historical and philosophical understandings of science

and technology, and which I claim have undermined the

conceptual integrity of technology. Particular attention

is paid to Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of

episteme, the function and meaning of the term in each

philosopher's theory of knowledge, and how their

conceptions shaped the traditional ideas of science.

What underlies this examination is the conviction

that Platonic and Aristotelian analyses of episteme and techne have shaped contemporary discourse and provided

the predominant theoretical frameworks in which not only

the nature of science, but also that of technology is discussed. I argue that, in light of those analyses, the

status of technology and techne have been philosophically and historically conditioned by that of science and episteme.

The idea of episteme expresses the connection between being and knowing. Plato and Aristotle were building upon Parmenidean insights when they developed the philosophical tradition in which being and knowing are inextricably linked. In so doing they gave metaphysical pre-eminence to knowing over doing and acting. This tradition was established in two steps: 58

First, Plato and Aristotle accepted the fundamental

distinctions on which the Parmenidean theory of being

rested, namely, being and becoming, reality and

appearance, and knowledge and opinion. Secondly, they

agreed that knowledge, or episteme, in some sense should

share with being the same or similar characteristics.

Thus, the knowledge/reality side of the relation was aligned with being, leaving opinion with becoming in the realm of appearances. These polarities were connected in the following way:

Being-Reality-Knowledge Seeming-Appearances-Opinion

There is some controversy as to whether Parmenides actually meant to identify being and knowing or, less emphatically, meant merely to establish a necessary connection between being and the conditions of knowledge. 1 It is clear, however, that Plato and

Aristotle accepted the necessary connection between being and knowing. True knowledge cannot be mistaken since, by definition, true knowledge is true. It is true because it is always of something that is always real.

Parmenides made this case simply: being is the only real entity there is. Therefore, it is the only thing that is perfectly knowable. Accordingly, knowledge of anything without being as its object is not possible. Since being is the same as anything that is, it follows that if nothing else is, then nothing else can be known; or, if 59

knowable, it would not be "worth" being known because it

could not be meaningful.

without going so far as to accept the extreme

Parmenidean position that knowing and being are

identical, the Parmenidean polarities permeated the

thought of Plato and Aristotle. 2 On the basis of these

polarities the philosophical chaff was separated from the

philosophical wheat. Plato's simile of the line and

allegory of the cave in the 6th and 7th books of the

Republic provide sterling examples of this procedure.

Against an obvious Parmenidean and Platonic background, a

similar albeit amended sort of distinction occurs in

Aristotle's discussion of substance and the differences

among the sciences in the Metaphysics as well as in his discussion of the intellectual virtues and classification of the sciences in the Ethics.

3.2. EPISTEME IN PLATO

Perhaps the clearest example of Plato's adoption of the Parmenidean necessary connection between the nature of knowing and that of being can be found in Plato's later work the Theaetetus.3 When Socrates asks

Theaetetus what knowledge is, Socrates emphasizes that he does not mean "what are the objects of knowledge" nor

"how many sorts of knowledge there are," but rather what the thing knowledge is in itself (Theaetetus 146e5-8). 60

Socrates is pursuing the idea of knowledge in the sense

in which it obtains in all its instances. For this

reason, sense-perception and true judgement or belief, even with a true account, are eliminated as definitions of knowledge (Theaetetus l63a-164b, 200d-201c, 208b

210b). Socrates persists in holding Theaetetus's answers up to criteria Plato inherited from Parmenides' being, especially the idea that since being must be infallible and unchanging, so must true knowledge. So we have two

Parmenidean requirements fully expressed in the theory of knowledge presented in the Theaetetus: First, the characteristics of knowledge must reflect those of being.

Second, insofar as knowledge is distinguishable from being, being is the only proper object of knowledge.

This made the distinction between knowledge and opinion a very tidy one.

Thus, requirements for being become correlative requirements for knowledge. Neither being nor true knowledge could, by Parmenidean and Platonic definition, include particulars because the correlative mode of apprehension of particulars is through sense perception, and sense perception, as Heraclitus keenly observed, is subject to change and contingency. For Plato, however, the original Parmenidean distinction between being and seeming and between reality and appearance took on a correlative polar meaning, namely, between the universal and the particular. 61

It was obvious that it was necessary to conceive of being as a universal since universals are the only objects capable of fulfilling the requirements of true knowledge. Furthermore, since "true" knowledge of particulars is unattainable, by implication, the only possible objects of true knowledge are universals.4 This was Plato's conclusion to Parmenides' poem On Nature made explicit in the Theaetetus. The expanded version of the original Parmenidean distinction included the following:

Being-Reality-Knowledge-Universal(s) Seeming-Appearance-Opinion-Particulars

But even this expanded account was problematic for

Plato, since it failed to account adequately for particulars. More importantly, since being and reality were the same thing, and reality for Parmenides included the natural sensible world,S the once tidy distinctions between reality and appearance, knowledge and opinion were becoming logicalJy messy. Plato saw that the indestructibility and unity of Parmenidean being which he and Aristotle found compelling, was in logical jeopardy if being were to remain within the sensible world.

Plato's theory of ideas, introduced in his earlier dialogue the Republic, resolved the problem of conflicting requirements between being and the sensible world. The theory hinges on the innovative introduction of additional polarity: between thought and sense. By means of this new distinction, made explicit by the 62

simile of the line (Republic 509D-511E), Plato combines the universal and abiding aspect of Parmenidean being with Heraclitus's observations on the particular and transient aspect of sensible things.6 Thus we have the heaviest dividing line drawn between the ideas associated with being and thought, and the notions associated with seeming and sense. The final set of polarities which marks Plato's departure from Parmenides looks like this:

Being-Reality-Knowledge-Universals-Thought Seeming-Appearance-Opinion-Particulars-Sense

This was radically different from Parmenides in that

Plato kept being apart from nature and the sensible world, and simultaneously gave an account of the sensible world despite its removal from being.7 Thus, Plato accorded an inferior reality to the world of particulars and simultaneously and radically demarcated it from the real world of universals. In this way also, Plato gave nature, by which he means natural objects and man-made artifacts, a decidedly compromised ontological status.

Hence, Plato's famous divided line, which defines his ontological point of view, is a theory about two- realms whose main division between episteme, the realm of the intelligible, and doxa, the realm of opinion, is made possible by the thought-sense distinction. All that is associated with thought belongs to episteme and the intelligible realm on the upper part of the line, whereas 63

all that is associated with sense and sensible things is relegated to the lower part of the line, to doxa and the realm of opinion. In this way Plato accounted for the multiplicity of nature, while declining to attribute to it an ontologically meaningful status and without undermining the infallibility and uniqueness of being.

That the divided line serves a purpose greater than merely clarifying these polar distinctions is graphically clear. In what can be described as a further departure from Parmenides in this early dialogue, Plato introduces a hierarchical theory of knowledge in which the

Parmenidean sense of knowing and thought serves as the basis of the hierarchy precisely because of its association with being. In other words, the divided line becomes an explicit hierarchy of being with corresponding hierarchical degrees of knowledge. Thus, the Parmenidean polarity is displaced by a Platonic hierarchy.

Plato states from the very beginning that the "line is divided into two unequal sections" (Republic Bk. VI,

509d7).8 The smaller section is for the visible, sensuous world "of the eyeball" (509d3,5,9) and the larger section is for the intelligible order of thought

(509d2,5,9). Lest there be any doubt about the significance of the proportional size of the two unequal sections, he states that the relation of these two major sections is "an expression of the ratio of their 64

comparative clearness and obscurity," (50gel-2) i.e.,

intelligibility or lack thereof.

Plato correlates the degree of universality of an object with its proportional degree of clarity or intelligibility. As one ascends the divided line, the objects are of increasingly greater degrees of universality. Correspondingly, the more universal and more abstract an object is, the greater degree of episteme is attributed to it. Its universality is the condition of its knowability, and the degree of knowability is a determinant of the level of reality

(being) achieved. Thus, universality is an essential pivotal term in the link between knowing and being. This is yet another way of explaining why tangible instances of nature and man-made artifacts rank low in the hierarchy, and are accorded an inferior ontological position.

Moreover, the idea of the Good is seminal in Greek philosophy. Very much as the sun is the source of light, it is the source of clarity and knowledge (508e2-4,

508bll-12, 5l7b7-c5). As J.E. Raven reminds us in his book Plato's Thought in the Making, the Good serves at least three functions: It is the end for which a thing exists; it is the condition for a thing's intelligibility; and because the Good is also its creative and sustaining cause, it is a thing's reality.9

The Good, as the ultimate universal, is similar to the 65

Ideas in its relation to intelligibility, but is more

than the Ideas in'that it is the final and sustaining

cause of all things, including the Ideas. Russell adds

that since Plato fundamentally assumes that reality in

contrast to appearance is entirely good, to contemplate

the Good is to comprehend reality.lO Thus, the more universal a thing is, the more intelligible and the

closer to the Good it is.

Since our task is to examine how Plato's analysis of the status of episteme results in a diminution of the status of techne, let us take a closer look at Plato's hierarchy of being as demonstrated by the divided line.

Each of the two main sections noted above, viz. episteme and doxa, is further divided once more unequally into two subsections, "again in the same ratio,"(509d8) and with the same relative relation to comparative clarity or obscurity, resulting in four divisions. The division of each of the four sections reflects the proportional degree of truth and reality that can be attributed to each section.

The four sections of the divided line, beginning at the bottom and ascending the hierarchy of being alongside corresponding degrees of intelligibility are: 1) The lowest kind of objects: shadows, reflections, and images.

The correlative level of intelligibility for these objects is not really knowledge proper, but a kind of 66

opinion or imagining, specifically, conjecture or

eikasia.

2) The next level of entity above shadows and

sensible things, but still within the realm of doxa, are

natural and artificial things. This includes human

beings, other animals, plants, rocks, tools, and

buildings. The correlative degree of intelligibility,

also not knowledge proper, but a kind of doxa, attributed

to this level is belief or pistis. Belief in this

context means the kind of assent a common man has in daily life grounded in his direct experience, rather than a leap of faith based on an external authority.ll

3) The next higher level in the Platonic hierarchy crosses over the big divide from doxa to episteme. This third (from the bottom) level is in episteme proper, the realm of the purely intelligible. The objects which make up this level are the objects of mathematics. The mathematical objects such as squares, diagonals and angles, being more abstract and universal, are superior to the sensible square, diagonal and angular thing.

Their correlative degree of knowledge is understanding or dianoia. Although the term dianoia is used by Plato to convey intelligence or understandingl2, it is located on the hierarchy at an intermediate level between pure thought and opinion (Slld7-8). Plato expresses his reservation that with this type of cognition and with these types of objects, "the soul is compelled to employ 67

assumptions in the investigation" ... and is unable "to

extricate itself from and rise above its assumptions"

(51la2-4). Thus, dianoia or understanding is inferior to

pure reason in two ways: It is the type of scientific

reasoning which is dependent upon particular images, ego

particular squares, circles, angles, etc., from which it

abstracts and hypothesizes in order to reach conclusions.

In so doing, it fails to reach the first principles of

purely abstract thought. Secondly, "it uses images and

likenesses the very objects that are themselves

copied•.• by the class below them" (5l1a6-7). At the same

time, dianoia is a superior type of cognition to doxa and

it is a necessary step on the way to achieving noetic knowledge. 13

4) The highest division on the divided line

includes the most universal hence, most intelligible

objects, the Ideas or Forms themselves. The Forms are also referred to as archetypes since this term derives

from the Greek word archai which means "things from the beginning," or" originals."14 Since it has already been established that no true knowledge is derived from sense experience, the Ideas as the models of perfect knowledge are necessarily devoid of reference to the sensible realm. Plato ascribes to the Ideas an ontologically objective existence, and they are in a sense completely and purely abstract.15 As such the Ideas function as archetypes for everything below them. The Ideas are in 68

this way the ontological basis of Plato's theory of knowledge. The conditions governing their existence

justify and account for the hierarchy of the divided line. The correlative degree of knowledge is noesis or pure dialectical reason. Noesis uses the reasoning process of dianoia as a starting point or "springboard," but differs from it insofar as noesis does not use sensible objects, only "pure ideas moving on through ideas to ideas and ending with ideas" (511cl-2). Noesis is superior to other types of cognition including dianoia in that dialectical thinking has as its object the highest universals, and are therefore "truer and more exact" than the objects of the arts or sciences (511c6 7). Finally, whoever has noetic knowledge has the clarity of mind necessary for contemplating the Good.

Contemplating of the Good ultimately links being with knowing.

Further examples of the pre-eminent role of episteme pervade Plato's dialogues. Most notably is the role episteme plays in education, as demonstrated in the allegory of the cave (Republic, 514al-518c12). There the mind is transported from least clear cognitive states to clearer and clearest cognitive states represented by degrees of clarity of sight. Prisoners facing a back wall within a dark cave are in a state of near ignorance as they observe shadows and images projected on the wall by means of a fire. Once a prisoner escapes from the 69

cave into the sunlight outside, he accustoms his sight to

the light and eventually understands the true nature of

the shadows and objects he had earlier perceived. The

escape from the cave, representing the journey from

ignorance to knowledge, is analogous to what is

represented by the hierarchy of the line. They both represent metaphysical ascent into the intelligible realm, culminating with a vision of the Good.

In conclusion, it is clear that Plato thought that

Parmenides' unchanging and determinate being required and

justified an ontological separation between realms of

Ideas and the phenomenal world. He amended Parmenidean being to explicitly include universals as proper objects of proper knowledge, and to explicitly exclude particulars and the correlative forms of "knowing" in the sensible world from the domain of episteme and Ideas.

Further, the theory of Ideas introduced a hierarchical theory of being and Ideas. Plato's amended view had the advantage of being able to sustain being and explain particulars while reflecting the original Parmenidean demarcation between reality and appearance.

What is also clear from this analysis is the pre eminence of a certain kind of episteme in Plato's metaphysics of being, namely, knowledge of a particular kind of universal - the Ideas. This episteme is pre eminent because of its connection to being, and by 70

implication, whatever is incapable of achieving or expressing episteme, namely, particulars, is for that reason ontologically inferior. The direction of Plato's inquiries led him away from the phenomenal world, and the further he was removed from it, the closer he thought he was to something "higher."16 Plato's hierarchy of being makes this explicit.

Thus far the foregoing analysis has examined the way in which episteme is given a pre-eminent position in

Plato's doctrines, but this study has yet to examine the function and meaning of techne in Plato's thought.

Before investigating techne, there will be an examination of the function and significance of episteme in the philosophy of Aristotle.

2.3 EPISTEME IN ARISTOTLE

The metaphysical background of Parmenides and Plato discussed above is manifest in the writings of Aristotle.

Parmenides and Plato may have placed exclusive emphasis on the realm of being,17 but Aristotle placed considerable emphasis on being as well, particularly the aspect afforded by its permanent and determinate nature.

Aristotle agreed with his two predecessors that an unchanging determinate being is a necessary condition of knowledge. He agreed that without this fundamental 71

principle of ontology, there could be no basis for

thinking knowledge is possible. In De Caelo Aristotle

says explicitly that "there could be no knowledge or

wisdom without some such unchanging entities•... " (De

Caelo, III, 298b18) .18

One obvious difficulty with his predecessors' views,

however, was their inability to account for change.

Plato and Parmenides reasoned that if a thing were real

and if it changed or altered, it would no longer be

itself, it would lose its identity and thus its being.

For these early metaphysicians, change implied a negation

of a thing's identity and this is why universals were

deemed the only appropriate objects of knowledge.

For this reason, the advantage of the early metaphysical position consists in the power of the

permanent and determinate being to act as a principle of

identity, enabling the once known object to continue to be known as the same thing previously known. For, as noted above, a thing's identity was dependent upon its being permanent. Thus, it was thought impossible to know if the object, when altered, is the same one known already or is really just a new and different object. In essence, the Parmenidean and Platonic theory of being explained particular and sentient things as lacking in ontological significance because of their vulnerability to change, which underscored their essential contrast to universals. In this way, the early metaphysicians 72

sustained the intimate connection between knowing and

being, but failed to solve adequately the problem of the

one and the many, and by extension, the problem of change

and the reality of the sensible world.

Plato attended to this problem by having the Ideas

serve as the permanent unity and principle of identity by which many individual things "participate," and thereby have a "share" in meaning, through the meaning of the universal Idea or Form. In this way he restricted particulars to an ontologically contingent status through the ontologically necessary reality of the Form. Plato provided this limited account of the relational aspect of the Forms in the Republic. "We are in the habit," he says, "of positing a single idea or Form in the case of various multiplicities to which we give the same name"

(Republic 596a, 7-9). He of course developed the idea of the relations among Forms in more detail in the later dialogue the Sophist, where he discusses details of participation primarily among the class concepts. It is in the Sophist that Plato introduces otherness and non being in order to solve the problem of how contrary class concepts such as rest and motion can both participate in being, whereas the discussion in the Republic focuses on the status and relation of particulars from the perspective of ontologically prior and irreducible universal concepts. It is only by virtue of the relation particulars have to permanent and determinate and 73

universal class concepts that particulars have meaning

and significance for Plato.

By contrast, Aristotle's theory of substance

provided a more adequate w~y of explaining change and

identity. He formulated an ontology of particulars in

which particulars alter and change without destroying

their being or reality.

Nevertheless, the notion of an enduring being was

persistent in Aristotle's thinking. Aristotle retained

the stable characteristics of being throughout his work,19 and it is by means of this very grasp of the

stability of being that he endeavored to argue for his original view of the fundamental non-contingent reality of particulars. But he established this reality in

stages, first in the Categories and later in the

Metaphysics.

2.3.1 Episteme in the Categories

In the Categories Aristotle analyzes the ways in which we think about things20 in terms of the ways we predicate certain categories or types of predicates, of various nameable entities. He specifies two types of possible ontological relations which obtain between subject and predicate. Predicates are either "predicable of" or "present in" a subject. All predicates fall into only one of three possible relations with a subject. 74

They are: a) predicable of a subject and not present in a subject, or, b) they are present in but not predicable of a subject, or, c) they are both predicable of and present in a sUbject (la20-21,24-25,30).

As for a fourth possibility which logically suggests itself, if something is neither predicable of nor present in another, that something is not a predicate at all, but rather "that which is individual and has the character of a unit ll (lb5-6). This is indicated by the grammatical subject and denotes the individual person or thing to which Aristotle accorded the status of primary substance

(2all-12). The stipulation that substance is neither predicable of nor present in another establishes the logical priority of an individual substance.

Aristotle's idea of primary substance rests on the distinctions of predication and inherence discussed below. By means of the relations inherent in the subject-predicate distinction, he formulated a new ontology which answered the questions Plato raised in the

Sophist about how can one thing be called many things.

To II predicate" A of B means to attribute A of B.

When one thing "man ll is predicated of another thing

"individual ll all that which is predicated of the predicate is predicable also of the subject (Categories

IbID). Furthermore, when something is predicated of a subject, it is predicated necessarily of it. That is, it follows that if A is predicated of B, "both the name and 75

definition of the predicate must be predicable of the

subject" (2a19-25). Both the name "man," and definition

of man are predicated of the individual man.

The second type of ontological relation between

subject and predicate is the "present in" relation, also

known as "inherence." While neither the name nor the

definition of the predicate is generally predicable of

the subject in which it is present (2a26-29), the name of one thing need not be, and the definition of that thing cannot be predicable of that in which the thing is present (2a26). The term "white," for instance, may be predicated of a body in which it is present, but the definition of white is never predicable of a body (2a30).

In other words, the term "white" may qualify a body or be predicated of a body, but it will never be constitutive of its essence. Since the meaning of "white" has no significance apart from the subject in which it inheres

(la23), the primary meaning, then, of "is present in" is present in this particular instance. For, as Akrill notes, even though Aristotle does not go into much detail about the inherence relation, he is nonetheless clear that the phrase "in X" does not mean that something,

"white" for instance, is incapable of existing separately from!, but rather, that "it is incapable of existing separately from what it is in."2l Thus, the particular subject or individual substance is essential for the inherence of an attribute in any particular instance. 22 76

Aristotle fortifies the meaningfulness and usefulness of these two ontological relations with the

"inseparability requirement," by which A is predicable of or present in B if and only if there is a subject B of which A can be predicated, or in which A could be said to be (2b5). Thus, the class of predicates that qualify a subject whether through predication or by inherence are such that they cannot exist separately from the subject.

They are contingent (upon the subject) and the subject is necessary. With this requirement Aristotle maintains a real relatedness of things with their wider genera since it establishes the necessity of the relation of subjects and predicates, as well as the dependency of predicates on their subjects. This dependency underlines the priority of substances in relation to their more generalized attributes expressed through the grammatical predicate.

In this way, Aristotle reversed the ontological hierarchy established by Plato. Since the individual thing denoted by the grammatical sUbject is the necessary ontological entity upon which the class concepts, indicated by the predicates, depend, this requirement has the consequence of undermining the ontological viability of class concepts. Moreover, since the two criteria

(predicable of/present in) are not mutually exhaustive, the pre-eminence of the individual subject on which the predicable of/present in relations depend becomes 77

logically and metaphysically necessary. For Aristotle, the particular individual thing which determines the status of the universal is the inverse of the that in the

Platonic ontology.

Further, Aristotle presumes this classification of the ways we think about things actually represents the way in which things actually exist.23 This assumption is reinforced by the tradition which inextricably links knowing, thinking and being discussed earlier in this chapter. "Thus everything except primary substance is either predicated of primary substance, or is present in them, and if these last did not exist, it would be impossible for anything else to exist" (Categories, 2b4

6). As David Ross observes, Aristotle obviously intended this classification of entities to establish the main types of entity involved in the actual structure of reality. 24 Copleston concurs that the Categories are

"not simply modes of mental representation" in

Aristotle's mind, but that they "represent the actual modes of being in the extramental world. "25

Thus, Aristotle unmistakably intended to return the intelligible realm of episteme from the supersensible

Platonic realm back to the sensible world, and to restore the ontological credibility of particulars and the sensible world. At the same time Aristotle's theory in the Categories belies a departure from Plato and the tradition which he did not entirely succeed in making. 78

This early theory of substance in chapter five of the

Categories establishes the concrete individual as primary

substance but retains the class concept, the species or

genus in which primary substance is included as secondary

substance:

Substance in its truest and primary and most definite sense of the word, is that which is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject ... [and] ... in a secondary sense those things are called substances within which, as species, the primary substances are included; also those which, as genera, include the species (2all-16).

While the notion of primary substance as the concrete individual highlights the clearest conceptual break with the Platonic notion that the universal is the most being-like entity, Aristotle clearly does not shed the association with universals altogether at this stage.

But it is fair to say that his demotion of species and genus to the status of secondary substance nonetheless points to a new direction of ontological definabilty and meaning which is the inverse of Parmenidean and Platonic thinking.

It may be useful at this point to reconsider the purpose of the present inquiry. what constitutes the attainment of episteme, or knowledge proper? What is the meaning of episteme in Aristotle and how does this meaning shape philosophical understanding and discourse about nature, science, and technology? Since Plato and

Aristotle were primary forces in creating the 79

philosophical tradition in which being and knowing are

inextricably linked, we have been examining their

analyses of being and knowing because the definition and understanding of one term shapes the definition and understanding of the other, for reasons already discussed in section one. We are examining the nature of being and knowing in Plato and Aristotle in order to assess the background against which science and technology, and their correlative ontological and epistemological meanings make sense.

Aristotle's new definition of ontological entities depends upon overcoming Plato's unbridgeable chasm between the realms of thought and sense. He attempted to integrate the universal and the particular in an empirically acceptable, as well as logically acceptable way, and to combine, rather than conflate, these two realms in the interest of obtaining a deeper understanding of the nature of nature. Explaining the difficulty inherent in his predecessors' views, Aristotle says in De Caelo that "however excellent their theories may otherwise be, anyhow they cannot be held to speak as students of nature. There may be things not subject to generation or any kind of movement but if so they belong to another and a higher inquiry than the study of nature"

(111.,1, 298b18-24). Aristotle replaced Plato's transcendent theory of forms with his own immanent theory of individual essential form. 80

An analysis of Aristotle's theory of substance

reveals exactly what kind of entity constitutes the basic

fabric of things. As demonstrated so far, both Plato and

Aristotle agreed that knowledge proper, episteme, has the

same or similar characteristics as being. Since being is

constitutive of the basic fabric of things, i.e., their

basic substance, questions such as "What is being?" and

"What is substance?" are essential to our understanding

episteme. The etymology of the terms for the essential nature or being of a thing makes this clear.

"Substance" for the Greeks essentially refers to two slightly divergent ideas: i) It refers to that which underlies phenomena. In this sense, the term substance is related to substratum. And, ii) It refers to the fundamental sense in which something is said to be. In this reference, substance is connected to the Greek ousia or fundamental being. Both senses are employed by

Aristotle.

The derivation of the term "substance" reflects these alternate meanings. The term "substance" in

English is derived from the Latin word substantia meaning being or essence, or that which underlies phenomena.26

Substantia is the formal rendering of the Greek hypostasis,27 which was used by Aristotle to refer to

"that which settles at the bottom, sediment...anything set under ...the foundation."28 Similarly, the Greek word hypokeimenon or substratum, related to hypokemeai 81

connotes the metaphysical sense of that which lies "under or beneath. "29 Hypokeimenon was used by Aristotle to refer to the compound of the subject or substratum together with the essence or form of an individual substance,30 and this sense is closely related to hypostasis and substantia. But the Latin substantia was used also for the Greek ousia to refer to the real nature or essence of a thing.31 The Greek term ousia is translated as substance, but means being and is derived from the verb einai, which means to be. Although substratum may refer to substance, substance does not necessarily refer to substratum.

Because of the intimate connection between being and knowing, Aristotle's theory of substance is both an ontological solution to the problem of being one and many, and an epistemologically necessary condition of thinking. An individual subject is an enduring substance of which we are capable of thinking various thoughts and ascribing various qualities and characteristics. It is both the essence underlying a given change as well as the

fundamental nature of being a positively formed individual. In contrast to Plato, Aristotle does not need to invoke non-being as a way of explaining how contrary natures participate in being. Rather, he ascribes to being changing and contrary natures to the extent in which they share in and imitate the permanent aspect of being. 32 82

Despite Aristote's departure from Plato, there is no question that the Platonic influence permeates

Aristotle's early logical work. The most stable and primary beings in the Categories are primary substances

"in virtue of the fact that they are the entities which underlie everything else, and that everything else is either predicated of them or present in them"

(Categories, 2b15). Similarly, as noted by Owens,

Aristotle calls in the Posterior Analytics, "'true in every instance' what is truly predicable of all instances

- not of one to the exclusion of others - and at all times" (Posterior Analytics, 73a 28-29).33 Equally striking, however, is the transition in Aristotle's own thinking between his logical works and his metaphysical works. In contrast to the substantiality Aristotle accorded to class concepts, viz., secondary substances, in the Categories, he argues strenuously against the substantiality of universals in the Metaphysics. The primary substance, viz. the concrete individual of the Categories, becomes secondary substance in the Metaphysics. The concrete individual of the Categories does not seem as important as essences in the Metaphysics. Owens says the two apparently conflicting positions conflate levels of discourse about being - logical predicates in the mind, in the

Categories, with metaphysical predicates in reality, in the Metaphysics.34 Jaeger's explanation for this 83

development in Aristotle's thinking is that the

"fundamental attitude embodied in the Categories, and the

main portions of the doctrine itself, had been developed

before Aristotle dared to shake the metaphysical

foundations of Plato's philosophy. "35

The development of Aristotle's thought is a subject

of considerable scholarly attention, but it is perhaps

sufficient to note here that while Aristotle's ontological views differed substantially over time, the differences are not merely contradictory. It is equally true that the substance-as-subject analysis in the

Categories helps us understand the logical relation of subject and predicate, and that it falls short of aiding our understanding of the relation it presumes to reveal namely the metaphysical relations of substance and attribute.

2.3.2. Episteme in the Metaphysics

Prescinding from the commonality Aristotle obviously shares with Plato, Aristotle's mature theory of substance grounded the universal in the particular concrete object.

In so doing, Aristotle integrated the alleged bifurcated realms of Platonic thought and sense, and accounted for change and the reality of the natural and sensible world.

Aristotle's theory of individual substance as a matter form composite explains how sensible objects incorporate 84

the essence of both realms of thought and sense. This

resulted in the important philosophical consequence that

individual substances have a respectable ontological

status, and one worthy of the correlative epistemological

status of episteme.

In the Metaphysics Aristotle improved upon the

argument for the priority of substance first put forth in the Categories. Substance is prior in time insofar as it is capable of existing apart from other things and other categories cannot exist without substance. Substance is prior in definition insofar as the definition of substance need not include the definition of anything else, whereas in the definition of other categories, one must include the definition of their essential substance.

Finally, substance is prior in knowledge insofar as we know a thing better when we know its substance. Knowing the substance is knowing what a thing is (Metaphysics,

Book VII, Chapter I) .

Against Parmenides' theory that what is simply is and cannot change, Aristotle demonstrated the possibility of change in individual substances. In a manner analogous to Democritus and Anaxagoras, he examined the continuity of a changing thing's substance as it undergoes change. A substance changes according to two contrary principles, one a privation, or the matter from which the substance proceeds, and the other, a positive form which shapes the substance. For example, if an 85

unmusical man becomes a musical man, the two contraries

are unmusical and musical. What was unmusical becomes

musical (Physics 189b35-190al).

Analyzing this change in the Physics (Book I,

Chapter VII), Aristotle observes that two things occur:

1) One contrary replaces another. In this case, an

unmusical man becomes musical. 2) Something survives the

change. Th8 man survives, and his being unmusical does

not survive. That which survives - the subject, man - is

not an opposite at all, while that which did not survive,

the man's unmusicality, is a contrary which is replaced by its positive contrary musicality. The new contrary, musicality, joins the subject, man, which survived to become the new composite substance. Both contraries are essentially adjectival insofar as they presuppose a third thing in which they inhere and which sustains their continuity. This third thing, the substratum, or hypokeimenon, underlies all that which becomes (Physics,

190aI5). All cases of coming to be come from this substratum. The substratum supports the notion of substance in the sense of maintaining continuity and identity of the subject throughout the process of becoming. This is not necessarily the "new meaning" of being Aristotle developed in the Metaphysics, but is an analysis of the nature of particular things which (by nature) undergo change, and these principles of change are relevant to the analysis in the Metaphysics. 86

The fact of change coupled with the development of

Aristotle's metaphysical reasoning drives him to

distinguish between qualities and substance. In the

Metaphysics, Aristotle focuses considerably on the

identification of the aspect of substance in virtue of which it is itself, propter see He first considers whether the substratum is the definable characterizing

factor of substance.

Since the substratum is "that of which everything else is predicated, while it is itself not predicated of anything else" (Metaphysics, 1028 36-37), Aristotle considers whether it is the truest sense in which substance is what it is (Metaphysics, l029al). We have already noted that the Greek term for substratum, hypokeimenon, is used to refer to that which metaphysically underlies a thing primarily. It is obviously one of the constitutive meanings of substance.

But is it the ultimate meaning of substance? That in virtue of which a thing is a 'this'?

Aristotle observes that substratum has three senses analogous to the sensible composites which become of it, and he examines each of these ways in which the substratum can be understood, in order to see if anyone sense can alone provide an adequate explanation of that which underlies a thing primarily. Insofar as it is a composite, it cannot be what is primary since the composite is subsequent to the simple. Because it is 87

matter to-be-embedded but is not-yet-ernbedded and is thus

stripped of its qualities, the matter aspect of the

substratum cannot be what is responsible for 'this' thing

being what it is. Aristotle concludes that it is only

insofar as a sensible substance is analyzable into its

form, the positive feature in the substratum, that the

new or altered thing can be said to be what it is. The

form is the characterizing factor, the factor which makes the individual thing this definite thing.36

It is perhaps useful to look more closely at the material and formal aspects of substance in more detail. As Sellars observes, what is definitive about Aristotelian form is that "its primary mode of being is to be a 'this'."37 It cannot be a universal because the form of an individual thing is the substance of the composite, and substance must, by definition, "be of the nature of a 'this' and never a universal."38 Moreover,

Aristotle's entire metaphysics is based on the idea that only the individual is substance. We know that matter cannot be the primary mode of being a 'this' because matter per se is that which is "neither a particular, nor of a certain quantity nor assigned to any other of the categories by which being is determined" (Metaphysics, l029a20). Thus, matter fails to fulfill the criterion for determining the definiteness and 'thisness' of a concrete object. 88

Aristotle shows that the formal aspect of substance

is the principle in virtue of which the matter becomes an

individual, definite, and concrete object.39

Accordingly, form is the essence of each thing

(Metaphysics, l032b1). Moreover, form is prior in the

order of being, and is therefore prior to the matter and

more real (Metaphysics, l029aS-7). Sellars emphasizes

that the form of a sensible substance is that in virtue

of which the primary substance in which it is present is

a certain specific kind of being.40 He adds that there

is a sense in which the form of a sensible substance is

derivative in that "it is the immanent principle or cause

of a primary substance, "41 which is to say that form is not as primary as primary substance itself. But this is

a difficulty for Aristotle, because form is accorded a

sometimes ambiguous status. It is at the same time the

essence of substance but not the principle in virtue of

which the individual substance is an individual. Because

the formal element is "specifically the same in all

members of the species and is only numerically

different," as Copleston makes clear42, "it cannot be

that the formal element renders the concrete sensible

substance this individual."43 The human form in Socrates

and Callias is the same, but the individuals differ in virtue of the differentiating matter that is informed

(Metaphysics, l034aS-8). Matter is the principle of individuation, not form. 89

However, if substance is primarily form, this course of reasoning would lead Aristotle towards the Platonic conclusion that pure forms alone are the primary substance and primary being,44 resulting in the ontological diminution of the sensible object as a matter-form composite. This is obviously an unsolved problem in Aristotle, and one which reveals his Platonic background. Thus, while form is the characterizing factor which makes the individual object this definite thing, it is nonetheless not the principle of individuation in substance. In short, it defines substance, but fails to distinguish it from another within its own species. Conversely, while matter is without particularity, it is the principle by which individuals are individual. While matter cannot define substance it nonetheless distinguishes one substance from another.

Defining substance is important for Aristotle for a couple of reasons. First, substance is the primary being in Aristotle's metaphysics, and so to understand substance is to understand the fundamental ontological reality. Secondly, since substance is the basic stuff of reality, the essence of substance is the fundamental object of knowledge, of episteme, and knowing the essence of substance is therefore the primary objective of science. Essence and definition are for this reason fundamental to Aristotle's formulation of science. 90

Moreover, there is a correlation between the role

definition and essence play in the Posterior Analytics

and Aristotle's accounting of being in the Metaphysics.

Aristotle considers whether essence is the

definitive mark of being. It is a truism to conclude

that essence is the essence of being, but Aristotle was

looking for a distinction between what a substance is

essentially and what it is accidentally or secondarily.

It is another way of looking at what substance is in virtue of itself, propter se (Metaphysics, 1029b14), and of searching for what an individual thing fundamentally is (Metaphysics, 1030a2).

In this inquiry, Aristotle looks at language in a manner echoed by Wittgenstein centuries later.45 He states that "we must no doubt inquire how we should express ourselves on each point, but certainly not more than how the facts actually stand" (Metaphysics, 1030a27

28). Only those things whose expression of meaning or

"formula" is a definition are things which have essences.

And yet not all formulas or expressions of meanings are formulas of a definition. There is a definition only where there is a formula of something primary

(Metaphysics, l030a6-10). It has already been established that primary things, by virtue of their essence, do not imply the predication of another. Since essence belongs primarily to substance and only species have an essence, there can only be a definition of a 91

species, and there can never be a definition of an

individual (Metaphysics, 1030a12).

In cases where the formula involves predication,

viz., that an attribute belongs to a subject, there is no

definition or essence. For example, "snubnosed" requires

the addition of another term, its subject - nose - in

order to explain its meaning, and, according to

Aristotle, there is no proper definition in this case

(Metaphysics, 1030b23-27). While some formulas or

expressions of meaning express predicates like

"snubnosed" or "white", these qualities do not constitute

essences or definitions, nor do they belong primarily to

substance. Aristotle states that it is absurd for attributes like "snubnosed" to be thought to have an essence because it would entail an infinite regress

(Metaphysics, 1030b35). Therefore, nothing but substances have definition and essence (Metaphysics, l031a 10-12). Conversely, individual substances are one with their essence and definition:

Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way, ...because to know each thing, at least, is just to know its essence" (Metaphysics, 1031b18-20).

Aristotle's theory of episteme depends upon knowledge of essences, and knowledge of essences obtains only in relation to primary substances. In other words, we know things primarily only when we know their essence, 92

and only when they are capable of definition. For this reason, the attainment o£ episteme is equally dependent upon definition, which together with essence belong to substance in the "primary and simple sense" (Metaphysics, l030b5). To know is to know substance and to know substance is to know its essence. It is by means of definition and essence that we come to know substance.

Moreover, to know substance is to know what is ultimately real and therefore ultimately knowable, in contrast to the knowing of accidental things which do not have essences and which there£ore cannot be fully known. As

Copi concludes, it follows that "if some attributes of objects are epistemologically significant while others are not, the implication is that the former constitute the real natures of those objects, whereas the latter can be relegated to some less ultimate category."46

Aristotle's treatment of essence and definition is fundamental to his view of science. Since there is no knowledge without knowledge of essences, it follows that scientific knowledge hinges on discovering essences of primary substance. But what is the nature of essence and definition, the means by which we come to know substance?

It has already been shown that the form of a sensible object, while being a substance's mode of being a 'this' nonetheless does not distinguish substances from each other within a species. Since essence and definition belong to substance in the primary sense (Metaphysics, 93

1030bS), it is obvious that there cannot be knowledge of

an individual as such - only knowledge of the universal.

This means that in regards to the individual matter-form

composite - no definition is possible. The individual

substance can only be expressed or known by means of universal definition.47

Definition and the substance are epistemological and ontological correlatives. Since modes of knowing are determined by the correlative objects to-be-known, a closer look at definition will be useful in adducing its role in scientific knowledge.

Since a definition is a formula (an expression of the essence of a thing), and since every formula expression has parts, the formula is to the thing as the parts of the formula are to the parts of the thing

(Metaphysics l034b20-23). As regards the "parts" of substance, there is the matter, the form, and the composite. But by "part" Aristotle does not mean a

"portion", as in measuring a quantity.

The parts of the formula which are the nature of matter or the composite are posterior to the substance; whereas the parts of the formula which belong to the form of the formula and to substance are prior (Metaphysics

103Sb 12-15). Moreover, in one kind of formula, the form supervenes on the different materials (the circle on bronze or stone) and it is obvious that the materials are not a part of the essence of the circle when it is looked 94

at from the point of view of being the 'form of a

circle'. In another kind of formula, the form does not

supervene (as in an individual man), and it is difficult

to think away the matter (his flesh and bones) from his

essence. The parts of the formula which are the form

refer to the essence and are prior, whereas the parts of

the concrete thing which are not the form are not that to

which the formula refers (Metaphysics l035a20). Thus,

the formula is obviously of the universal and not the

individual (Metaphysics l036al).

The form is pre-eminent in definition, and this is

reflected by the necessity that the species gives the essence of the individual. Of the concrete individual thing - what Aristotle claimed substance to be in the

Categories - "there is no definition" (Metaphysics l036a6) .

There is an obvious problem of maintaining the ontological pre-eminence of individuals in light of the epistemological requirements for knowing by means of the abstractive function of universals. If the species is the formula of form, then it follows that the species must also be the formula of essence. But since individuals, not universals, are true substances

(Metaphysics, l038b8) I the species as the formula of the essence falls short of the true substances. The problem inherent in form is that although it is a particularizing feature of substance, the form does not determine the 95

individuality of substance, which is ontologically the

most real thing about substance.

Man and horse are terms which are thus applied to individuals, but universally are not substance but something composed of this particular formula and this particular matter treated as universal (Metaphysics, l035b27-30).

It is possible to conclude that definition and

essence, are the most epistemologically important things

about substance but are the most ontologically

problematic as well. Form and definition and essence

depend upon matter as the principle of individuation, but

since matter is unknowable, the definition and essence of

substance as a matter-form composite cannot be fully

known. No individual concrete thing is fully knowable.

This shows the limitations of Aristotle's position that

to know is to know a substance when we know its essence. As Copleston fully appreciates, this tendency to

deprecate the sensible individual is a legacy of

Platonism.48 Ross rightly concludes that this leads to

the paradoxical conclusion that the most real things in

the world are not fully knowable.49 Haring attempts to mitigate this conclusion by asserting that while the

formula expresses the species (universal) of this and that individual being, the species in turn expresses the substantial form which makes individuals what they are.50 96

But since the form is supposed to be immanent in the concrete thing, we are still within a Platonic paradox.

This state of affairs leads to the conclusion that

Aristotle's ontology of individual substances is incommensurable with his epistemology of essence and definition precisely because the requirements for individuality and knowability are incommensurable. The ability to generalize by means of the abstractive function of universals is essential for the attainment of proper knowledge, which is true episteme, and the only state that qualifies as scientific knowledge. Yet this contradicts Aristotle's claim that only the individual is truly substance, and the related supposition that only what is truly substance is the proper object of proper knowledge. Aristotelian ontology, therefore, is in a serious way at odds with Aristotelian science, since it is only by means of universal definitions, that the ideal of science is possible.51

2.3.3 Episteme in the Posterior Analytics

Science for Aristotle, very much like science for

Plato, cannot be of individuals or of accidentals

(Metaphysics l026bl-4; Posterior Analytics 75a18-19).

Science is of definitions, of essences, and these definitions are of the universal and of the form

(Metaphysics l036a29). While Aristotle means to, or 97

seems to want to, maintain the immanence of universals in

the particular (Metaphysics l086b4 and Posterior

Analytics 71a 1-8), it is nonetheless clear both in the

Metaphysics and the Posterior Analytics that science, fundamentally, is of universals (Metaphysics l059b25) because the proper object of scientific knowledge is something which cannot be other than it is, a requirement which excludes mutable particulars from serving as proper objects (Posterior Analytics 71bI4-15).

When Aristotle divided the sciences into the theoretical, practical, and productive sciences, he classified these three types of science according to the type of knowledge appropriate to each (Metaphysics

1025b25). Demonstrative knowledge, fundamental to the theoretical type, is the paradigmatic model of scientific knowledge. It provides knowledge of indisputably certain truths (since its object "cannot be other than it is") which follow from simpler, though equally certain and necessary truths.

In the Posterior Analytics Aristotle examined the ways in which this demonstrative, scientific mode of reasoning differs from the dialectical reasoning employed by the Sophists. Dialectical reasoning concerns itself with contingencies which are neither demonstrably nor intuitively certain.52 Even when dialectical reasoning accurately moves from true premises to true conclusions, the art of reasoning is itself indifferent to the truth 98

or falsity of its premises. The objective is to "secure

consistency" rather than truth.53 While Plato identified

the dialectic method as "the one scientific method,"

Aristotle explicitly treated this as the "second best

method distinct from the method of science. "54

It has already been noted in this chapter that the object of knowledge determines the nature of the knowing

of the object. Above, for instance, it was noted that

the Aristotelian classification of the types of

scientific knowledge is based on the differences between respective subject matters. However, Aristotle takes the situation of knowledge one step further. He departs in this respect from Plato by allowing that the method by which knowledge is attained plays a fundamental and important role in shaping the nature and meaning of knowledge. For this reason, demonstration is essential to understanding Aristotle's conception of science, since he explicitly states that true scientific knowledge, episteme, comes about EY demonstration (Posterior Analytics 71b17).

Demonstration is essential in producing knowledge, and it is by means of demonstration that scientific knowledge is ampliative of our knowledge of fact. Thus the scope of scientific knowledge goes beyond knowing

"that so-and-so is" to knowing why it is so.55 It takes the knower beyond the mere observation of facts to an understanding of what kind of event or thing it is. The 99

resulting knowledge accounts for and gives reasons for the thing or event stated in the premises. If successful, demonstrative reasoning brings the knower closer to knowing the essence of what an event or thing is.56

Demonstrative knowledge is not accidental. A demonstration is a particular kind of syllogism that is

"productive of scientific knowledge" (Posterior Analytics

7lb18). Certain conditions have to be satisfied in order for a syllogism to be a demonstration, i.e., to produce such knowledge itself. Aristotle stipulates four conditions: First, the premises of demonstrative knowledge must be "primary and indemonstrable." Since the premises are the simplest, most basic truths, there can be no other propositions prior to them (Posterior

Analytics 72a7-8). Further, since premises are primary, they must be indemonstrable; otherwise, they would themselves have to be demonstrated in order to be known

(in which case they would not be primary) and this would entail an infinite regress (Posterior Analytics 72b20-

23) •

Secondly, the premises obviously have to be true in order to derive knowledge, as opposed to opinion or falsehood from them. As Ross emphasizes, demonstration is a scientific syllogism which "is through and through knowledge and not opinion."57 100

Thirdly, the premises "must be the causes of the

conclusion" (Posterior Analytics 7lbB-13 and 7lb29-31).

This fortifies Aristotle's claim that knowing a thing scientifically is knowing its cause. This condition is especially pertinent to Aristotle's scientific method because it connects the idea of method, of moving from premises to conclusion, with that of the nature of things, of observed effects understood by knowing their cause. Mckeon points out that it is "the principles from which ... propositions can be inferred as conclusions" which insures that "scientific method comes into strictly verifiable contact with the nature of things."SB

Finally, the premises of a syllogism that is a demonstration must be prior and better known than the conclusion (Posterior Analytics 71b29-30). Aristotle distinguishes what is prior known in the order of being from that known to man. Science passes from principles less familiar to man but more universal, therefore, more intelligible, in the order of being, to the more familiar to man but less intelligible, because less universal, in the order of being. In short, the premises have to be more certain than the conclusions, or observed facts, which are derived, that is, the conclusion must be demonstrated from certain premises. But as Randall notes, a demonstrative syllogism "does not aim to lead from known premises to a conclusion up to then unknown."S9 The demonstrative syllogism is not a science 101

of discovering new facts, but a science or logic of

proof, of formalizing facts already known, of connecting

them, and of giving a demonstration from first

principles.60

Demonstration as a productive syllogism is a

mediation between premises and conclusions.

Demonstrative, scientific knowledge is proved knowledge,

which is always mediated.61 As Taylor aptly describes:

liThe 'proof' is simply the pointing out of the connection

between the truth we call the conclusion and other truths which we call the premises of our demonstration...this is what is meant by the Aristotelian principle that to have science is to know things through their causes or reasons why."62 The middle term is an integral part of demonstration because it connects the premises with the conclusion.

To illustrate this point Aristotle differentiates between the syllogism of fact and the syllogism of the reasoned fact (Posterior Analytics 78a 22). The former syllogism merely connects the premises and conclusion, and results in a true conclusion if the premises are true. It is knowledge of the fact, but not of the reasons for the fact. The premises are not immediate, and the inference moves from the more intelligible, i.e., more universal, and less familiar to the less intelligible and more familiar. This kind of syllogism results in a correct inference, but not a true scientific 102

demonstration in Aristotle's sense, whereas, the

syllogism of the reasoned fact contains a middle term which is ampliative of our knowledge because it is the

cause of the terms being united in the conclusion. This kind of syllogism supplies reasons for the facts and explains why the facts obtain. The premises of the syllogism of the reasoned fact are more immediate than those of the syllogism of fact.

For example, the syllogism of fact is illustrated in the following: Let C be the planets, B be not twinkling, and A be proximity. If all Care B, and all B are A, then all C are necessarily A. It is not the case that the syllogism proves the planets are near because they do not twinkle, i.e., not twinkling is not the cause of their nearness. Rather, the syllogism simply proves that insofar as the planets are near they do not twinkle

(Posterior Analytics 78a 35-40).

However, by changing the meaning of the middle term of the proof, you get a syllogism of the reasoned fact.

While the structure of this syllogism is identical to that in the example above, the meaning of the proof is different. The proof in a syllogism of the reasoned fact tells why the conclusion is true. For example, if C is the planets, B is near, and A is not twinkling - and if all Care B, and all B are A, then all C are also A.

The conclusion is the inference all planets are not twinkling. Aristotle regards the middle term, viz., 103

proximity, as the cause of or the reason that all planets

are not twinkling. This middle term is regarded as the

proximate cause, the cause of what is stated in the

conclusion. The true scientific demonstration moves from

the universal to the individual, from a defining essence

to a property. The syllogism of a reasoned fact

consequently becomes the model for Aristotelian science.

It is a demonstration whose middle term is the cause of a

conclusion. Thus, episteme is a science of the reasoned

fact, or more simply, science is a demonstration of

properties derived from essences stated in definitions.

We seek to know either whether or what the middle

term is, and this knowledge consists primarily in knowledge of the cause of the thing or event (Posterior

Analytics 90a5). Ross describes this sort of demonstrative scientific proof as a process of "packing," i.e., "the interpolation of the necessary middle term between two terms which we desire to connect as a subject and predicate. "63 The middle term promotes the demonstration by conveying knowledge of a conclusion from its premises (Posterior Analytics 75a12). The inference connects the conclusion with the rest of our knowledge such that we learn the reasons why the middle term connects the way it does to the conclusion and why the conclusion is true.64 It enables us to demonstrate the universal connections between the facts and events.65 104

Aristotle's realism is exemplified in the

distinction between syllogisms of fact and the reasoned

fact. He wants to establish more than just a logical proof. And he wants to get at the real causes for things in nature. By attempting to establish that the middle term is capable of acting as a cause of the conclusion, he attempts to construct a model of science in which the observer or knower is excluded from participating as an agent in the making of knowledge, or in 'crafting', if you will, the objects of knowledge. He wants to construct a means by which the knower can corne to know what is 'out there' to be known, independent of the knower. It is fair to say that this ideal has become the ideal model of science which continues to guide most levels of experimental science today. The only problem with Aristotle's declaration that the middle term has to be a cause, is how does one know that the middle term is a cause? Given the identity of syllogistic form in the two examples above, how do we know that the middle term in the first example - not twinkling - is any less of a cause than the middle term - proximity - in the second example? Who decides?

Demonstration is but one aspect of Aristotle's scientific method. Definition is an equally important constitutive element in the scientific method, since definitions are the initial primary truths from which the universal element is demonstrated. 105

It has already been noted above, in the first condition of demonstrative knowledge, that not everything can be demonstrated. This is another way of saying that not everything can be a conclusion in a syllogism,66 lest the system lapse into an infinite regress (Posterior

Analytics 72b20-23, 90b24-27). What cannot be demonstrated are the premises of demonstrative knowledge, the definitions, which are not themselves capable of being known by inference67 and which are not result of, but are the premises of, scientific demonstration.68

Demonstration and definition are both instrumental in producing scientific knowledge, but they reveal different things (92b9-10). It is not "possible to know the same thing in the same relation, both by definition and by demonstration" (Posterior Analytics 90b3). There can be no demonstration of the definable because definition is of the essential nature or being of something, and all demonstrations posit and assume these essential natures (Posterior Analytics 90b29-33).

Moreover, it is necessary to prevent circularity and infinite regress that not everything be demonstrable, and that primary truths and definitions be indemonstrable.

It is not possible for the same object to possess both a definition and a demonstration (Posterior

Analytics 9la9-l0). The aim of demonstration is to show why certain properties belong to their respective subjects.69 Demonstration proves a predicate of a 106

subject as attaching to it or not, but definition reveals

the essential nature of the subject (Posterior Analytics

90b33). Definition reveals either a thing's nature or

the meaning of its name irrespective of whether the thing exists. Definition is of essence, and demonstration is of the reasoned fact.

There are two senses in which definition functions in a demonstration. The first sense is definition as a first principle or indemonstrable axiom, i.e., the initial definitions or ultimate starting points which are assumed in the demonstration. The second sense is definition which results from a successful demonstration by means of the middle term. Definition is the

"unfolding of an essence" in a definition,70 or, more accurately, the derivation of essential properties that are connected with the subject.7l Definition establishes why certain properties belong to a given subject.

The aim of a demonstration is to reach a definition in the sense of a formal statement of what a thing essentially is72, or a further specification CI what a thing essentially is. Thus, definition is a central concept of Aristotle's theory of science, since the derivation of essential properties belonging to a given subject gives its essence, and, consequently, its being.

For this reason, definition is in a sense the ultimate goal of scientific inquiry.73 Moreover, the essence of a thing or event stated in an initial definition is the 107

primary truth from which knowledge of the cause, of why

something exists, is made possible. Definition in either

sense of the term, involves essence. Science, for

Aristotle, then, is not merely a list or catalogue of

things and events. It is the inquiry into the "real

essences" and character of things, and into that of the

connections among things.74

Consequently, while demonstrative syllogism is

Aristotle's scientific method of proof, definition

represents the ultimate identification of substance.

Aristotle seems aware that it is not always possible to

attain an essential or real definition, and allows that

nominal or descriptive definitions obtain instead.75 But

the idea of attaining essential definitions is the

ultimate goal of scientific knowledge, and therefore,

reaching a true definition is the ultimate attainment of

episteme. Science proceeds by demonstration, but it is of definition and causes of things.

It is not difficult to see why Aristotle's central

idea of science is drawn from geometry because geometry exemplifies the ideal of mathematical exactness.

Geometry was one of the most highly developed sciences contemporary with Aristotle. Axioms and postulates, i.e., the initial definitions that are presupposed, serve as premises of the demonstration. And particular properties are logically derived from them. 108

The model of mathematics helped to sustain the

emphasis on the logic of proof at the expense of the

logic of discovery, and at the expense of concrete

individuals. Consequently, it was possible to deduce

properties of a triangle, but not be able to tell whether

a particular triangle is an isosceles from the

demonstration, because science was essentially about

proof. This system, embodying the structure of

mathematics, provided the kind of certainty and unity which Plato and Aristotle both viewed as essential

characteristics of the real.

It is not clear where the axioms or essential definitions come from. Aristotle hardly provides an answer, save the suggestion that, ultimately, they come

from~, a theoretical intuition. This is the other way of knowing, other than by demonstration.76 Aristotle was obviously grasping at essences, just as Plato was grasping at the Forms. This process of grasping at essence nonetheless enabled Aristotle to mark one species off from another, and by means of this, classification and division became counterparts of the intrinsic order of nature.77

It is clear that what resulted from Aristotle's endeavor is an early structure of science, a structure which moves from premise to conclusion and which is based upon definition and demonstration of causes. 109

END NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

1 For a discussion of the various interpretations of Parmenides' Fragment 3 in which being and knowing are connected, see Joseph Owens, A History of Ancient Western Philosophy (New York: Appelton-Century Crofts, Inc.,1959) n. 61 & 62. Owens states that "Fragment 3 is open grammatically to the translation: 'For thinking and being are identical, '" and that there is considerable disagreement as to whether Parmenides actually identified being and thought. Wilhelm Windelband, A History of Philosophy (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958) p. 37, notes that "This view of the correlative nature of being and consciousness leads so far with Parmenides that the two, thought and being, are declared to be fully identical." Frederick Copelston, S. J., disagrees. See Frederick Copelston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. I, Part I, (New York: Image Books, Doubleday & Co., 1962) p. 62. Copelston argues that "had Parmenides regarded the One as Self-Subsistent thought, Plato and Aristotle would hardly have failed to record that fact." Whether or not being and knowing are identified, it is clear according to Owens that Aristotle allows (Cael., III, 1, 298b15-24j DK, 28A 25) that Parmenides was the first to establish the necessary connection between knowledge and "some absolutely unchanging entity." Owens, ibid., p. 73. In any case, Copelston and Owens concur that the being of which Parmenides speaks is not the metaphysical being of Plato and Aristotle, but a more sensuous, sensible and material being. For this reason also, Owens points out that though Parmenides "may without any hesitation be called the founder of Western metaphysics", .•. "in the sense that he did not mean to go beyond the physical world Parmenides was a physicist (in the Greek sense) rather than a metaphysician." Owens, ibid., pp. 71-2. Cf. Copelston, p. 66.

2 Joseph Owens, ibid., pp. 56-78; 323-325; 207-208. Frederick Copelston, ibid., pp. 65-66, 70, and Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945) pp. 119-120.

3 References to citations from the Theaetetus are from F.M.Cornford in Plato: The Collected Dialogues including the Letters, ed. by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingen Series LXXI (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961). 110

4 Copleston, ibid., p. 173.

5 Copleston, ibid., p. 66, and Owens, ibid., pp. 71-72.

6 Russell, ibid., p. 121.

7 There is some evidence, mainly from Aristotle, that in the third section of Parmenides' poem, in Fragments 9-13, he identifies being with light and darkness with not-being. Owens, ibid., p. 68. This is a limited attempt to offer an explanation of appearances of particulars in the world. But, as Windelband, ibid, p. 51, observes, this is done despite Parmenides' own protest that this is "not truth...only the 'opinion of mortals'" because it would require the false preposition that there is some other thing in addition to being like non-being.

8 References hereafter to citations in the Republic are from Paul Shorey translation of the Republic in Plato - The Collected Dialogues including the Letters, ibid.

9 J. E. Raven, Plato's Thought in the Making (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965) p. 130.

10 Bertrand Russell, ibid., p. 126.

11 Owens, ibid. p. 213.

12 Liddell and Scott, An Intermediate Greek - English Lexicon, Seventh Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975) p. 192.

13 Owens, ibid., p. 213.

14 C.T. Onions, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966) p. 48. Cf. An Intermediate Greek - English Lexicon, ibid., p. 121. 111

15 Copleston routinely refers to Plato's Ideas as having an "objective existence" and since Plato considered the Ideas to be always and universally the case, I agree that it is appropriate to assume Plato regards them as having an "objective existence" in the sense described.

16 Werner Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of The History of His Development, trans., Richard Robinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950) p. 19.

17 Jaeger, ibid., p. 19. Copleston, ibid., p. 116.

18 All references to Aristotle's works are from The Basic Works of Aristotle, edited with a introduction by Richard Mckeon (New York: Random House, Inc., 1941).

19 Owens, ibid., p. 330.

20 Copleston, ibid., p. 21.

21 J. L. Ackrill, Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretatione, translated with notes and glossary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963) p. 75. I am following Ackrill here in assuming Aristotle meant to say that "white is in a subject and its name is predicated of the subject," instead of saying that "white is in a subject and is predicated of the subject" at 2a31-34.

22 Ackri1l, ibid., p. 74.

23 Copleston, ibid., p. 21.

24 Sir David Ross, Aristotle (London: Methuen & Co.,) p. 23.

25 Copleston, ibid., p. 22.

26 C.T. Onions, ed., ibid., p. 881.

27 ibid., p. 881. 112

28 Liddell and Scott, ibid., p. 847.

29 ibid., p. 843.

30 Copleston, ibid., p. 46.

31 C.T. Onions, ibid., p. 881.

32 Owens, ibid., p. 330.

33 Owens, ibid., p. 73.

34 Joseph Owens, "Aristotle on Categories", Review of Metaphysics, XIV, 1960-61, pp. 80-84.

35 Jaeger, ibid., p. 46

36 Copleston, ibid., p. 48.

37 Sellars, "Substance and Form in Aristotle," The Journal of Philosophy, 1954, p. 691.

38 Sellars, p. 691.

39 Copleston, ibid., p. 48. Cf. Metaphysics, Bk. VII., Ch. 17.

40 Sellars, ibid., p. 692.

41 ibid. p. 692.

42 Copleston, ibid., p. 44.

43 ibid., p. 51.

44 ibid., p. 48. 113

45 For an interesting analysis of the similarities between Aristotle and Wittgenstein, see Boguslaw Wolniewicz, "A Parallelism between Wittgenstinian and Aristotelian ontologies." Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, IV.

46 Irving Copi, "Essence and Accident," The Journal of Philosophy, 1951, p. 708.

47 Joseph Owens, Doctrine of Being in Aristotle's Metaphysics, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1957) p. 223.

48 Copleston, ibid., p. 48.

49 Ross, ibid., p. 170.

50 Ellen Stone Haring, "Substantial Form in Metaphysics Z; II," Review of Metaphysics, 1957, p. 501.

51 Copelston attempts to answer this charge of an "alleged contradiction" by pointing out that the universal is immanent in the particular, and that "we cannot apprehend the universal except through apprehension of the individual." ibid., p. 46. But the fact is, both the ontology of individuals and the epistemology of definition are significant elements in Aristotle's thought, and together these elements lead to contrary implications which impinge on the nature of what there is.

52 Dahlstrom, Daniel 0., "Worlds of Knowing and Nonmonotonic Reasoning," IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Vol. 19, No.3, May/June 1989, p. 627.

53 Taylor, A.E., Aristotle (New York: Dover Publications, 1955) p. 15.

54 McKeon, ibid., p. xvii.

55 Ross, ibid., p. 42, and Randall, ibid., p. 34.

56 Randall, ibid., pp. 34-35. 114

57 Ross, ibid., p. 43

58 McKeon, ibid., p. xvii.

59 Randall, ibid., p. 40.

60 ibid., p. 40.

61 Taylor, ibid., p. 33.

62 ibid., p. 33

63 Ross, ibid., p. 48.

64 Taylor, ibid., p. 28.

65 ibid., p. 35

66 Dahlstrom, ibid., p. 627.

67 Taylor, ibid., p. 36.

68 Dahlstrom, ibid., p. 627

69 Ross, ibid., p. 42.

70 ibid., p. 50.

71 Randall, ibid., p. 50.

72 Ross, ibid., p. 50.

73 Randall, ibid., p. 50.

74 Taylor, ibid., p. 35. 115

75 Copelston, ibid., p. 23.

76 Dahlstrom, ibid., p. 627.

77 John Dewey, "Logic," Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, IX, p , 599. 116

CHAPTER 3

THE IDEA OF TECHNE IN PLATO AND ARISTOTLE

3.1 INTRODUCTION

The idea of techne in Greek thought was shaped for

the most part by the ontological pre-dispositions of

Plato and Aristotle. It was argued in the foregoing

chapter that because of the way Platonic and Aristotelian

ontologies depended on the inextricable bond of being and

knowing, knowledge was invested with metaphysical

authority over techne. In this manner, techne was

subordinated to the interests of episteme.

It is evident from the conclusions of the previous

chapter that the early meanings these Greek philosophers

associated with techne were nested within an

epistemological hierarchy in which the universal (in the

case of Plato) and individual essences (for Aristotle)

prevailed as the ultimate arbiters of ontological and

practical value.

It is consequently clear that the overriding respect

for the requirements of episteme predisposed the earliest

treatments of techne to a definitional and, therefore, metaphysical disadvantage - at least when the idea of

episteme was dominated by that of theory, or theoria.

While techne was accorded a position of merit within 117

these hierarchies, it was a subordinated merit conferred on techne only by virtue of its relation to episteme.

The determination of techne was based, therefore, upon what was thought to be the more sure-footed determination of episteme.

For centuries philosophers have debated the nature of knowledge and that of science, but have less often examined the implications the debate holds for the polar idea of techne. Techne, the root from which we derive the term 'technology', is a concept which Plato and

Aristotle associated with the activities of doing and making, i.e., the crafting of the state, the shaping of souls, the making of poetry, music, shoes, and strategies of war. These actions and makings associated with the conception of techne are the focus of examination in the current chapter.

While it is a premise of this thesis that the

Platonic-Aristotelian conception of episteme prevails in contemporary discussions of science and technology, it should be noted, however, that this is an admittedly one sided interpretation of Plato and Aristotle. The somewhat heavy-handed theoretical interpretation of

Platonic and Aristotelian thought was championed and promulgated by Christianity, which was the primary transmitter of 'the Platonic and Aristotelian tradition' in the history of philosophy. Evidence of this line of interpretation can be observed in such diverse sources as 118

Vlastos's Princeton study of Plato, and Dewey.l At the

same time, there are other interpretations of the

Platonic and Aristotelian tradition, such as those given

by later pragmatists, as well as Heidegger, which claim

that the typical view of Plato and Aristotle in the

history of philosophy is in reality an appropriation by

Christianity at the expense of Plato and Aristotle.

However, the premise of the dissertation that concerns us here is that the episteme-based conception has prevailed and has very much set the terms of discourse for contemporary discussions of science and technology. The presumption of a theoretical hierarchy implicit in episteme-centered conceptions of technology still figures prominently in discussions about science, technology, knowledge, and truth. Episteme-centered ideas frequently prevail in interdisciplinary professional discussions, and they account for numerous practical and policy decisions that affect a welter of different things: funding for projects, curriculum reform, and attitudes about what is important in the world and what is not. These episteme-centered ideas frequently account for the considerable professional condescension with which the theoretical sciences countenance the applied sciences. Evidence of the prevalence of the idea that theory wholly determines or encompasses practice is the zeal with which recent philosophies of science have corne to argue against the 119

disregard for the practical. To this controversy many

developments in the post-1960's philosophies of science

can be traced, such as those championed by Kuhn, Hesse,

Feyerabend, Rorty and Quine, which criticized

verificationist and deductive-nomological models of

science for their reliance on an idealized but never

realized conception of knowledge.

This thesis contends that a traditional reading of

the Platonic-Aristotelian conception of episteme, a

reading that separates episteme from practical and

technical concerns, does not provide an adequate

framework for understanding modern technology. The

chapter maintains that a more sophisticated idea of techne, not altogether absent in the Platonic and

Aristotelian conceptions, provides a necessary corrective to the usual subordination of technology, and even

science, to this traditional conception of episteme. As will be evident from the analysis in this chapter, early formulations of the idea of techne were given by both

Plato and Aristotle. The thesis suggests that without a techne-centered view of the relation of science and technology, the understanding of modern technology is bound to be confused at both theoretical and practical levels.

The task of the current chapter is to examine the meaning and function of techne advanced by Plato and

Aristotle. Whether and how their formulations of techne 120

have shaped contemporary understandings of science and technology are questions yet to be determined. The dissertation assumes that understanding the early formulations of techne in the Western tradition ought to be basic in any study about how the contemporary world envisages and conceives its own technology.

There are three characteristics which Plato and

Aristotle agree are appropriate features of techne. They are: i) that techne is a 'know how' (in Ryle's sense), having a practical dimension which distinguishes it from theoria or episteme, and which connects the concept of techne with empirical experience; ii) that techne refers to the art of making things as opposed to a science, which examines and explains. And, that doing things or performing activities are not inadvertent or accidental, but are habitual or practical, i.e., they are actions which are intended to lead to a particular result; iii) that techne is rational, contains a logos or reason, and is thus a form of knowledge which can be taught. Techne depends upon special knowledge of rules or results, which makes the particular techne or art characteristic of that learned by a particular profession. 121

3.2 THE PLATONIC CONCEPTION OF TECHNE

On the basis of the analysis of episteme in Chapter

2, it would be easy enough to conclude, simply, that

techne holds a purely contingent and inferior place in

Plato's thought. The metaphysical dualism contained in

Plato's theory of Ideas graphically depicts the domain of

techne, viz., the world of empirical particulars and its

associated activities and objects is clearly located on

the lower half of the 'divided line.' While this lower

half is not without its degree of metaphysical reality

and meaning, it is farther from, and symbolically

therefore less real than, the ultimate reality of the

Forms and Ideas. The definitions which establish the

metaphysical hierarchy clearly place techne in the realm

of particulars, and this disqualifies particulars as a means for achieving metaphysical union with the Good.

But this is not the whole story of Plato's

concep"tion of techne, and the story is not that simple.

There are at least three issues which warrant

consideration before making a final assessment of the

Platonic conception of techne: i) The view of techne

from a larger perspective than that contained in the

Theory of Ideas; ii) Plato's conception of the relation of knowledge to actions, such as right conduct, and virtue; and, iii) An examination of what specifically 122

Plato attributed to techne and its place in his philosophical scheme of things.

3.2.1 General Platonic Perspective of Techne

First, having already focused in chapter 2, upon

Plato's theory of knowledge as exemplified by the theory of Ideas, it must be emphasized that one of the most important aims of many of Plato's inquiries, including the theory of Ideas and especially his search for 'exact knowledge', was the practical aim of finding out the proper 'science' of the state.2 The underlying objective of the earlier dialogues Protagoras and Gorgias, for instance, is to search for the norms of human conduct in order that knowledge of these norms can be used in nurturing individuals to become responsible members and rulers of the state.

It could be argued, therefore, that the ultimate aim of Plato's theoretical examinations is fundamentally practical. For example, in Protagoras,3 when Socrates and Protagoras discuss whether pleasure can be identified with goodness, and pain with evil, their purpose is to discover what governs a person's conduct. Knowledge, pain, or pleasure? Socrates asks Protagoras:

What is your attitude to knowledge? Do you share the common view about that also? Most people think, in general terms, that it is nothing 123

strong, no leading or ruling element ....They hold that it is not the knowledge that a man possesses which governs him, but something else now passion, now pleasure, now pain, sometimes love, and frequently fear (Protagoras 352b).

The ultimate purpose is practical, viz., to discover the

governing element in human action, perhaps to uncover a

principle governing the causality of the will. The

objective is to know more about the dynamic governing human action in order to bring about actions leading to an improved and qualitatively better life for all

individuals and the state. When Socrates asks "What would assure us a good life?" (Protagoras, 357d8), he takes for granted that the good life is one which must be consistent with the Idea of the Good at the practical level.

Practical knowledge is a condition for achieving a particular goal insofar as this knowledge guides action.

The knowledge is practical in that it is tied to a specific action. Yet the knowledge is not itself the result of the action, i.e., it is itself not 'made' - the action is performed or something is produced, as it were, by the practical knowledge. Socrates declares that determining the standard of good actions requires knowledge "and specifically a science of measurement, since the required skill [techne] lies in the estimation of excess and defect.... " (Protagoras 357a). Protagoras agrees with Socrates that since their "salvation in life" 124

depends upon making the right choice i.e., phronesis,

between excess and defect, one must obtain a "special

skill [techne] or branch of knowledge" (Protagoras 357b).

It is clear that the objective focuses on salvation

in the practical, empirical realm - "in life" - as

Socrates says, not in a metaphysical or spiritual after

life. And, it is clear that success in achieving this

depends upon a kind of knowledge which functions as an

"art of measurement," a techne or skill (or 'know how')

in determining right choice from wrong choice. Socrates defers the question of what exactly this art or techne is

to some other time, but allows that it is enough for the time being to recognize that this techne, whatever it specifically turns out to be, will be useful in determining right and wrong actions (Protagoras 357b-e).

For instance, in the Gorgias caring for the soul is the specific action and objective of political techne.

Socrates divides up the arts which concern the body and those that concern the soul. Each art is charged with caring for the body or the soul to which it corresponds.

Political techne is the techne that cares for the soul

(Gorgias 464b). It is subdivided into two additional arts - legislation, which cares for the healthy soul, and justice, which, if practiced, cares for the sick soul.

The purpose of caring for the individual soul is to improve the souls of all citizens for the common good of the state (Gorgias 502e-503d). This correlation between 125

the techne of politics and the soul illustrates Plato's

ultimate aim, namely, to clarify the difference between

the apparent art of rhetoric and the real art of

political techne, and to demonstrate that the real techne

serves the practical good of its object.4

Even in the Meno, which is generally regarded to be

one of the first dialogues which establishes the post

Socratic phase of Plato's thought, since it contains the

earliest articulation of Plato's theory of Ideas,S Plato

makes it clear that the importance of the problem of

knowledge derives from its practical function. His

search for ethical standards is the fundamental reason for analyzing the nature of knowledge, insofar as knowledge is the means to finding and establishing ethical norms. Knowledge is an important issue for Plato because it is "organically connected with all his ethical inquiries. "6

When Meno asks: "Can you tell me Socrates - is virtue something that can be taught? Or does it come by practice?" (Meno 70a), he illustrates the essentially practical problem of learning about virtue. How do we know about it? Moreover, the moral impulse for the learning, teaching, and knowledge of virtue is explicitly connected to the techne of promoting the good of the state.

The question of knowledge naturally culminates with the theory of Ideas in the Republic, again, with the 126

ostensible purpose of discovering how and by what means

the state - which is a magnified version of the soul

can build a solid basis for the human soul. Arguably,

there is a sense in which even in the Republic, Plato's

interest is practical rather than theoretical, since the

purpose of looking into the state of the state - similar

to looking into the nature of virtue in Protagoras and

Gorgias - is concerned with "soul-shaping."7 The practical purpose is to maximize the collective good of the state.

3.2.2 The Relation of Knowledge and Action

The second techne-related issue in Plato which warrants consideration is the relation of the question of knowledge to that of human action and virtue. Obviously the search for standards of conduct is the search for knowledge of them. Virtue is in this sense contingent upon knowledge since in order to act virtuously, one must possess the requisite knowledge for distinguishing good from evil in the first place. Knowing what is good in a particular instance is basic to knowing how to act.

Knowing how to differentiate good from bad, and to distinguish them from pleasure and pain is a type of practical knowledge or "correct choice. " As Socrates tells Protagoras: 127

Since our salvation in life has turned out to lie in the correct choice of pleasure and pain - more or less, greater or smaller, nearer or more distant - is it not in the first place a question of measurement, consisting as it does in a consideration of relative excess, defect, or equality? ...we two agreed that there was nothing more powerful than knowledge, but that wherever it is found it always has the mastery over pleasure and everything else (Protagoras 357b-c).

The "question of measurement" is none other than the

knowledge necessary to act masterfully over divergent

impulses. Knowledge is a sufficient condition of

virtuous action, and ignorance is the sufficient

condition of wrong action. For, if a person chooses to

act wrongly, the cause of the mistake is a lack of knowledge (Protagoras 357d). Jaeger underscores this point in noting that Plato's very conception of knowledge

is essential for defining virtue, and conversely, the problem of the nature of knowledge is an offshoot of the problem of virtue, or arete.8

In a discussion about whether virtue is one thing or many disparate things, each with its own function,

Socrates demonstrates that they cannot be entirely disparate since it is not possible for someone to be both temperate and lacking in wisdom, or, at the same time wise yet intemperate (Protagoras 333 a-e). Similarly, it is not possible for one to be both ignorant and very brave (Protagoras 360e). The discussion eventually turns on the identification of virtue with knowledge since each 128

virtue shares knowledge in common, and since the

presumption of goodness depends upon the ability to

convert 19norance into knowledge:

If virtue were something other than knowledge, ...obviously it could not be taught. But if it turns out to be, as a single whole, knowledge - which is what you are urging, Socrates - then it will be most surprising if it cannot be taught (Protagoras 361 b).

Socrates adds, in the Meno, that if there were anything that could be shown to be good, but at the same time is "different from and not associated with knowledge,1I then we could conclude that virtue is not knowledge. But since this hypothetical thing cannot be found, and since IIknowledge embraces everything that is good," then we ought to conclude that virtue is knowledge

(Meno 87d). Further, since virtue is an lI a t t r i b u t e of the spirit, and one which cannot fail to be beneficial, it must be wisdomll and, consequently, it must be teachable (Meno 88d, 89c).

The type of knowledge referred to here as 'wisdom', and which is the basis of virtue, is phronesis or right choice. Phronesis is the power to discriminate between good and bad things despite their associations with pleasure or pain. Jaeger points out that Plato claims in the Republic that this new type of knowledge is the most important kind of knowledge to obtain in life9 (Republic 129

618c). Without phronesis, it is not possible to know how

to act or choose among pleasures. Phronesis is what informs the act of measuring i.e., it is what enables the actor to avoid excess or defect, and to pursue a life that is fundamentally good.

But this creates a dilemma. Underlying the search for virtuous standards of conduct is the presumed reality and knowability of the Good. This gives metaphysical and epistemological muscle to the claim that the knowledge of the Good is stable and unchanging, and not merely relatively true in each situation.IO After all, the idea of the Good is not itself a product of action, or the result of a making. It is in this sense, then, that one can argue that techne is subordinated to episteme. Plato reserved a privileged position for an unmade-but-posited idea which enjoys an objective status, and which must be assumed in order to guide the action and the techne.

While the Good, a primary indemonstrable first principle, is never made and only assumed, according to Plato, it nonetheless is the ultimate measure by which a person measures.

On the other hand, the idea of the Good is meaningless without techne. Insofar as the conception of knowledge in Plato is not just a theoretical condition of virtue, but a knowledge which by definition yields practical results. That is to say, knowledge of the Good contributes essentially to making actions good. It is the 130

sort of knowledge which is itself a techne, an art and a

skill which, if practiced, leads to virtue. Thus, one could also argue that there is a sense in which the very discussion of knowledge or episteme in the Republic is

subordinate to techne since the Good is the telos, or end, of techne. The making of the state is techne and this is Plato's primary concern. The whole purpose of the Good is to produce good actions.

Jaeger's interpretation is that Plato's introduction of phronesis as the kind of wisdom and knowledge necessary for a virtuous life makes way for a different conception of knowledge: episteme, conceived in the context of phronesis sheds its primarily theoretical function. Knowledge becomes a question of good judgment or skill; it is a kind of techne because it is directed towards action and practical results. Thus the way to virtue requires a techne of right conduct, which is a form of knowledge, viz., knowing how to act properly.

Inasmuch as Plato worked on the problem of the relation between knowledge and virtue throughout his life, it is not possible to do justice to it in this brief discussion. But, it may suffice for our purpose here to note that the more knowledge and virtue come to share an identity in Plato, the less distinguishable are the individual conceptions of episteme and techne. By contrast, the more one conceives knowledge and virtuous actions (as opposed to being virtuous) to be disparate, 131

such as from the point of view of the theory of ideas,

the more the distinction between episteme and techne

obtains.

3.2.3 Analysis of Techne in Plato's Schema

The third and final question and consideration is

simply what does Plato specifically mean by 'techne'?

Jaeger points out that the frequently translated term

'art' does not sufficiently capture the meaning of the

Greek techne.ll While art, like techne, conveys

practical use and use of particular materials that are

available in the empirical and experiential domain, the

term 'art' fails to convey the special type of knowledge

and skills which were, for the Greeks, associated with

techne. According to Jaeger, the Greeks "used techne far

more widely than we use art: they used it for any

profession based on special knowledge - not only painting

and sculpture, architecture and music, but just as much,

or even more, medicine, strategy, or helmsmanship."12

The essential difference between our use of the term

'art' and the Greek use of techne is that techne

necessarily involves specialized knowledge, which goes beyond merely routine or accidental experiences; whereas art may rest, but does not necessarily rest, upon general rules or fixed knowledge. Thus, some arts are techne, and much of what is techne is not art.13 Insofar as 132

techne is a kind of knowledge which is based upon general

and fixed principles, it is connected to theory, or

theoria, in the Greek sense, but differs from theory

insofar as techne, like art, is always connected to practical results. For the purposes of this discussion, the concern here is to differentiate what is a true techne or true art from what is not.

An illustration of Plato's determination of the differences between true techne from false techne can be found in the Gorgias. Socrates argues that rhetoric cannot possibly be an art, a techne. Gorgias agrees that rhetoric is not an art in the sense in which the manual crafts are arts, since rhetoric does not produce a manual product. But, he points out that rhetoric is, nonetheless, like an art insofar as it is a practical activity that secures its effect through the medium of words (Gorgias, 450b-451d). Socrates, following Gorgias' lead, attempts to figure out what is the subject matter, the field, and the product of rhetoric. Gorgias replies that the activity and product of rhetoric is persuasion

(Gorgias, 453a-b). Socrates then compares rhetoric to cookery, since, like cookery, rhetoric is a kind of routine that produces gratification and pleasure

(Gorgias, 462c). He argues that neither cookery nor rhetoric qualify as an 'art' (or a techne) since they do not rely on any fixed principles or rules; neither can produce a principle in virtue of which it does what it 133

does (Gorgias 465a). Finally, rhetoric is rather like

cookery in that it is a knack for doing things. Socrates

sums up his estimation of rhetoric:

...but what I mean by rhetoric is part of an activity that is not very reputable...•the activity as a whole, it seems to me, is not an art, but the occupation of a shrewd and enterprising spirit, and of one naturally skilled in its dealing with men, and in sum and substance I call it 'flattery' (Gorgias, 463a-b).

As discussed already in (i) above, rhetoric was found to be the semblance of a techne, but not a real techne. When Socrates divided up the arts that care for the soul and those that care for the body, political techne, which comprises the two arts of legislation and justice, was determined to be the genuine techne that cares for the soul. An unnamed techne, which comprises the two arts of gymnastics and medicine, correspondingly cares for the body (Gorgias, 464c). Flattery, by contrast, imitating a techne, "has divided herself also into four branches, and insinuating herself into the guise of each of these parts, pretends to be that which she impersonates" (Gorgias 464c-d). The four 'arts' into which flattery divides herself are: the 'arts' of sophistry and rhetoric, which correspond to the techne of legislation and justice, and the 'arts' of cosmetics and cookery, which correspond to the techne of gymnastics and medicine. 134

The sum and substance of rhetoric consists in

flattery, not genuine care, and this missing ingredient

of caring for what is good makes it impossible to regard

rhetoric as a proper techne.

A second key ingredient missing from rhetoric is the

knowledge of what is good for the soul or the body.

Socrates emphasizes that rhetoric "having no thought for what is best, she regularly uses pleasure as a bait to

catch folly and deceives it into believing that she is of

supreme worth" (Gorgias, 464d). Rhetoric is more like cookery impersonating medicine and pretending to know which foods are best for the body, which is why Socrates calls rhetoric a form of flattery. It is a pretense based upon ignorance. This false aspect of rhetoric promotes what is pleasant, rather than what is good

(Gorgias 464d-465a), and consequently precludes rhetoric from being a techne.

Moreover, the flattery which rhetoric relies upon is no techne because it is a kind of routine, and thereby lacks rational knowledge of itself. It "can produce no principle in virtue of which it offers what it does, nor explain the nature thereof, and consequently is unable to point to the cause of each thing it offers" (Gorgias

465a) .

By contrast, part of what qualifies political techne as a genuine techne is its knowledge, its episteme regarding matters of the state. Political techne is 135

based upon an understanding of the state and its members,

and of the art of making men better, much like the knowledge a doctor has of a body and of the way to improve the health of a body.

Medicine is paradigmatic of a true techne for Plato, since it exemplifies the two elements of care and specialized knowledge noted above. Its distinguishing characteristics are the distinguishing characteristics of any true techne: i) practical knowledge, and ii) caring for the good with the aim of benefiting the human being.

The practical knowledge of medicine is its knowledge of the conditions governing health and illness, while its aim of caring for man is caring for his physical health.

For this reason, Plato uses medicine as paradigmatic of all techne since it embodies the ideal of knowledge. The practical knowledge of medical techne enables a doctor to devise a method by which what is sick can become healthy.

Socrates obliges the practitioner of political techne to similarly endeavor to care for the sick or ignorant soul through the practical knowledge of right and virtuous action. It is assumed that the practical effects evident in the individual soul will cumulatively be evident in the 'soul l of the state.

Since medicine is pre-eminently a techne, it possesses episteme, i.e., it grasps principles in virtue of which it acts. It is a kind of knowledge.

Accordingly, episteme is connected to, in fact is 136

necessary to, techne even though it is not itself the

result of a techne. Socrates illustrates this to

Callicles when he declares to him that medicine "has

investigated the nature of the sUbject it treats and the

cause of its actions, and can give a rational account of

each of them, whereas its counterpart, which is exclusively devoted to cultivating pleasure, approaches it in a thoroughly unscientific way" (Gorgias SOla)

Cookery, and other false techne, such as cosmetics, sophistry, and rhetoric, are not techne in the proper sense of the word. They have no degree of episteme, and should not be taken as an 'art' or rational endeavor of any kind. The lack of good in them, and their lack of knowledge prevent them from qualifying as proper techne.

According to Plato they are mere semblances of techne, and are essentially one form or another of flattery, based as they are upon ignorance of the distinctions between pleasure and goodness, and between pain and evil.

Yet knowledge is not alone sufficient to guarantee medicine its status as a techne. As Jaeger points out, a techne which aims at benefiting human beings is

"incomplete as knowledge until it is put into practice. "14 Having knowledge of health and sickness is insufficient for a techne. Rather, bringing about the end result of health is necessary to the techne of medicine. It is a 'science' which is defined by its practical effects. 137

Medicine was not strictly 'scientific', in any

modern sense of the term. Nor could it be equated with

the meanings of science implied by episteme in the sense

in which it was discussed in the previous chapter, (as

the immutable and eternal object of knowledge). For

medicine was clearly not derived from natural philosophy

at the time of Plato.

Based as it was in experience, medicine was

empirical and normative, not mathematical or speculative.

Jaeger discusses this point in some detail. He observes

that both Plato and Aristotle were influenced by an early

essay, written by an unknown author from the school of

Hippocrates, entitled "On Ancient Medicine," in which it

is claimed that medicine was an art or techne independent

of natural philosophy.lS The author of this essay argued

against the speculative cosmologists that since medicine

has long since functioned as a real and genuine technel6

it has no need for a new hypothesis. Further, a single principle capable of explaining all phenomena would be of

no practical use for physicians making decisions about particular treatments.

It was thought that a move towards this type of

'scientific' hypothesis would cause medicine to lose its solid footing in empirical experience on which the art of healing depends, in favor of an ungrounded and uncertain theory.17 Healing, not a theory or hypothesis, best exemplifies the techne of medicine. 13S

The physical and spiritual aspects of the human condition were polarities widely recognized in the Greek world. The basic education of Athenians in the fifth century B.C. reflected this condition inasmuch as the training itself was divided into two parts - one part aimed at training the physical, while the other aimed at training the mind and character of the students.IS Plato seized upon medicine as the model techne since it represented the possibility of fusing both physical and spiritual aspects of each person with a view towards improving them. For Plato, the practical, curative abilities embodied by medicine aptly symbolize the ideal basis for ethics and politics, and it is from medicine that Plato derived his claim that philosophy ought to be a techne.19 Neither mathematical knowledge nor speculative thought could so ably serve as the model for philosvphy. Neither was able to unite theoretical knowledge with practical conduct, and neither enabled action to culminate in virtue, and thereby contribute to the ultimate good of human beings and the state. At least in the earlier stages of Plato's thought, the idea of techne was the ideal of knowledge, and as long as this idea prevailed, medicine was of supreme symbolic importance.

Moreover, at this time, around 390 B.C., 'science' did not exist in any exact form.20 Euclid had not yet developed his principles of geometry. They were 139

formulated in 323 B.C. Only Hippocrates, the 'Father of

Medicine' (460 B.C. - 377 B.C.) had begun developing a more exacting basis of medicine firmly anchored in

experience. "The principle that experience is the basis

of all exact knowledge of reality was insisted upon by medicine and by medicine alone."2l Thus, the meaning of the Greek term 'episteme', or 'knowledge', which the early Plato, following Socrates, adopted and incorporated into his philosophy was knowledge that had a practical dimension. It had not yet become associated with pure theory.

There is certainly ground for the interpretation that episteme and techne were always closely connected in

Plato. This view is in marked contrast to the high-flown speculative hypotheses of the sophists and speculative cosmologists who equated their hypotheses with

'knowledge', despite the fact that knowledge of the truth of their hypotheses was unattainable and unknowable.

Medicine was considered to be that paradigmatic part of natural science which had based its knowledge upon real experience. This fact has led Jaeger to conclude that the empirical basis of modern concepts of knowledge really originates with medicine in the ancient world, not with philosophy, a supposition which he further emphasized by declaring that modern empiricism "is the child, not of Greek philosophy, but of Greek medicine. "22

Consequently, the use of medicine as the exemplar of 140

techne represented a transition and an emancipation from the cosmological speculations of the natural philosophers. 23

The significance of medicine as the exemplar of good action, as the model techne, and as the ideal of knowledge inevitably raises some questions about the meaning and status and relation of episteme and techne throughout the whole of Plato's thought.

In the earlier Socratic phase of Plato's thought, and in much of his middle period as well, the term

'episteme' was also closely connected to 'phronesis' when phronesis refers to the practical wisdom or prudence necessary to act virtuously.24 It is the type of knowledge exemplified by the concept of techne, which was just discussed at length above. Phronesis, then, is knowledge that is in some sense 'scientific' inasmuch as it involves rational knowledge, yet is not strictly

'scientific' inasmuch as it culminates in an action and is inherently practical. This conception of episteme in the form of phronesis implies the merging of theory and practice. Plato developed the idea from Socrates for whom the conception of phronesis was linked strictly to the practical sphere. Thus, the Socratic and early

Platonic interpretation of phronesis referred to the ethical power of reason and the practical consequences of action. 25 141

On the account, given here, of the connection between the meanings of episteme - phronesis - techne, the subject matter, field, and aim of knowledge is inherently practical. This conclusion, according to

Jaeger's extensive analysis, corresponds to Socrates' conception of phronesis.26 Knowledge, episteme, so conceived, ~s "all Socrates meant by saying 'virtue is knowledge,'" according to Jaeger.27 Consequently, techne and episteme are inseparable; insofar as episteme does not stand on its own but exists for the sake of techne.

But the object of this episteme is not itself the product of techne.28

However, Plato's conviction that nothing but genuine knowledge of the highest truths could be the basis of a good and virtuous life led him to extend his focus from the 'standard of measurement' by which a person avoids excess and defect in action - to the ultimate standard or

'Form' which gives meaning and reference to all ideas.

Although the origin of the Form was in the ethical sphere, its influence grew until it finally became the most important principle of all being.29 The conception of phronesis was thereby altered to have greater theoretical import, to become, in effect, theoretical reason itself - the opposite of what it was for Socrates and the early Plato.3D

The shift in focus towards the purely theoretical component of episteme resulted in the diminution of the 142

practical element. Techne was no longer constitutive of episteme, it was demoted to the realm of metaphysically irrelevant ideas and opinions. This demotion of techne is apparent throughout the Republic. For instance, Plato rhetorically asks "what would be the study that would draw the soul away from the world of becoming to the world of being?" (Republic 52Ib). He concludes that gymnastics and music, among other arts, include no study that tends to the good and that "all the arts were in our opinion base and mechanical" (Republic 522b).

What governs the aim of all thought, according to the later Plato is apprehension of thought itself and the good in itself (Republic 532b). This aim determines the relevance and importance of any course of study or action. What is now important is leading lithe best part of the soul up to the contemplation of what is best among realities...• " (Republic 532c). This shift in focus to purely theoretical reason undermines the strength of the empirical and normative element inherent in the practical reason of techne:

All the other arts [besides dialectic] have for their object the opinions and desires of men or are wholly concerned with generation and composition or with service and tendency of things that grow and are put together.... " (Republic 533b).

Plato allows that mathematics is closer to the true reality, but he makes fun of the language of geometers 143

for the mere presumption of some value in practical

action: Their language is most ludicrous, though they cannot help it, for they speak as if they were doing something and as if all their words were directed toward action.... In fact the real object of the entire study is knowledge (Republic 527a).

If one focuses on the theory of ideas and its

graphic idealization of the life of contemplation, the

distance between episteme, conceived as purely and

exclusively theoretical knowledge (sophia), and techne is pronounced. While Plato might have wanted to unite sophia and phronesis, i.e., theoretical and practical knowledge, in the philosophical ideal, the justification for their unity is nonetheless rooted in the conviction that the life dedicated to knowledge is fundamentally superior to a life devoted to practical ends (Republic

382a-d) .

While much of Plato's philosophy was anchored in the practical life of his time, his preoccupation with the theory of Forms unquestionably introduced exclusively theoretical speculation. For many modern commentators on

Plato - Vlastos, Bernstein, and Rorty for instance - practical knowledge was implicitly denigrated in favor of a purely contemplative life of the Forms. There is a sense in which the integrity of techne as an important form of knowledge was undermined by Plato's conception of episteme as knowledge. 144

Once the meaning of phronesis became assimilated

"into the scientific apprehension of independent

objects,"31 the mathematical model of the good superseded

the practical model of medicine as the model for

knowledge, and empirical techne got lost in the

metaphysical undertow of episteme.

3.3 THE ARISTOTELIAN CONCEPTION OF TECHNE

It is a curious juxtaposition in the history of

philosophy that Socrates was forty three years old when

Plato was born, and that Plato was that same age when

Aristotle was born. For whatever coincidental value this

accident of chronology might have, it nonetheless

strongly suggests that, at the time that they were

instructing their most famous pupils, the mentors of

Plato and Aristotle were in the mature stage of their

thought. For this reason, too, it is hardly surprising that both Plato and Aristotle first endeavored to philosophize through the lens of their mentors' eyes.

Before establishing pure theoretical contemplation

(theoria) of the eternal Forms as the idea around which the philosophical life should be organized, Plato apparently adopted Socrates' quest for the knowledge and means by which individuals could live the virtuous life in the practical realm. Repeating the process of 145

transition from the teachings of a mentor, Aristotle

originally embraced Plato's belief that nothing but

knowledge of ultimate truths could form a worthy

foundation for a person's life.32 But Aristotle in turn

made his own reversal and eventually restored the

Socratic emphasis on phronesis in its original sense of

practicctl knowledge, and, moving further from Plato, he

went on to develop his own ideas about the concreteness

of individual form, and the importance of practical

activities as a measure of a person's character.

According to Jaeger's reading of the development of

Aristotle's thought, the early Aristotle gives testimony

in the Protrepticus to the vision of philosophy prospering during the time of the later Plato. It was perhaps natural that, as a young member of the Academy during the time Plato was still alive, Aristotle would concern himself with questions concerning the meaning,

justification, and role of philosophy in a person's life,33 especially if one concurs with the tradition of assuming that the conception of knowledge and philosophy which Plato then championed emphasized philosophy's separateness from the art, or techne, of daily living.

For the young Aristotle, such a conception had to be reckoned with one way or another, especially in light of the pressing need to acquire practical knowledge and skills, or technai, to conduct one's life in practical terms. Nevertheless, according to Jaeger, the early 146

Aristotle understood phronesis in the strictly 'Platonic'

sense, as purely theoretical, as "Nous, metaphysical

speculation, that which is really divine in us, a power

wholly distinct from the other faculties of the soul."34

If one accepts Jaeger's reading of the development

of Plato's and Aristotle's thought, Aristotle arrived on

the philosophical scene at a time when the Socratic idea

of practical knowledge, or right choice, phronesis, was

in decline. This could perhaps explain why Aristotle gives little importance to techne during the earliest stage of his thought, and perhaps why, later in his life when he did write about techne he treated it as an idea to be reckoned with.

What Aristotle did have to say about techne, particularly in contradistinction to episteme - under the influence of theoria - concerns us here. Below there will be an examination of the role of techne: i) in

Aristotle's division of the sciences in the Metaphysics, and, ii) in his discussion of the intellectual faculties in the Nichomachean Ethics.

3.3.1 Techne in the Metaphysics

By the time Aristotle had written his Metaphysics, the meaning of phronesis was restored to its earlier

Socratic meaning of practical knowledge. Aristotle also emphasizes the integrity of practical knowledge through 147

his incorporation of the practical and productive into

his classification of the sciences. It is generally

agreed35 that in book six of the Metaphysics, Aristotle

divided the sciences into three categories: the

theoretical, practical and productive. However, as will

be noted later, the fundamental division is between the

practical sciences including techne and the theoretical

sciences of episteme, or between the arts and sciences.

One could argue that Aristotle's aim in dividing the

sciences was itself fundamentally practical in nature

insofar as his purpose was to establish human activities

on a solid footing akin to that in the natural sciences.

In other words, Aristotle wanted to do more than know the truth of things that are. He also wanted to base human conduct, i.e., practical actions and 'doings', and human undertakings, i.e., fabrications and 'makings', upon truly scientific knowledge.36 It seemed necessary to

Aristotle that a person act and make things on a basis that is connected with some secure foundation, and with a view towards some truth or good.

The problem for Aristotle, as for Plato, lay in the fact that since all human actions and makings can be performed or not performed, they are not necessary but contingent. However, Aristotle, in contrast to Plato, attempted to give human activity a meaning and an importance without denigrating the reality or the activities of the sensible world.37 148

Aristotle ultimately intended to anchor his ethics on a foundation as secure as any 'science'. So in looking at human activities, he looked, as he did in the traditional sciences, for "the principles and causes" of human action and fabrication, respectively, since "every science which is ratiocinative or at all involves reasoning deals with causes and principles.... "

(Metaphysics l025b 5). Following the method he established in the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle looked at the genus of human actions and makings in order to mark off their being, and thereby be in a position to

"demonstrate, more or less cogently, the essential attributes" commensurate with their respective genus.

Aristotle's classification of the sciences is actually intended to be an exhaustive classification of all thought - into theoretical, practical, and productive sciences (Metaphysics l025b 25). The three-fold distinction begins with Aristotle differentiating theoretical science, which includes what was at the time regarded as the "natural sciences," viz. physics, mathematics and theology. Each of these differs from the others by degrees of universality which correspond to the different types of object with which each deals.

The definitive feature of any science is given by its genus. For theoretical and speculative science, its genus, i.e., its being, is "that sort of substance which 149

has the principle of its movement and rest in itself"

(Metaphysics 1025b 20-22 and 1064a 15-16). Since the

first principles of theoretical science are in the things

themselves, theoretical science was regarded by Aristotle

as the highest and "the best" of the sciences

(Metaphysics 1064b 2-5) .

Aristotle assumes two criteria by which he

distinguishes "the highest" and "the best" among all the

sciences. One criterion is the type of object the

science treats, and its commensurate degree of

universality. In the case of theoretical science, the

objects of physics, mathematics, and theology contain

their own self-sustaining principles and are things that

already are.38 Consequently, their objects are necessary

and cannot be otherwise. Necessary objects carry a

higher degree of universality than contingent objects

since they are not dependent upon the vagaries of an

agent or knower. For this reason Aristotle assumes

theoretical science is capable of obtaining knowledge of

the truth, which is its proper end. This is another way

of stating why he regards theoretical science as the most

excellent science (Metaphysics 993b 20, 1064b 1-5).

Truth, after all, if it obtains, is universal and unchanging; and knowledge, strictly speaking, is of the

truth, not of things which may be true, or are generally true. 150

The second criterion Aristotle assumes in

determining "the highest" and "the best" science is the

end or telos of each respective science. The purpose or

end of theoretical science is knowledge, the

disinterested contemplation of truths,39 which is

understood and assumed by Aristotle to be a higher and more important end than the end of action, characteristic

of practical science (Metaphysics 993b 19-20).

The difference between knowledge and action, between the ends of theoretical science and those of the practical sciences is the fundamental distinction of

Aristotle's classification of the sciences. And it is relevant to the question of whether Aristotle's classification is actually a three-fold or a two-fold classification. What has been a "modern tradition"40 of regarding Aristotle's division of the sciences as a three-fold division (between the theoretical, practical, and productive sciences, respectively), can arguably be thought of - and perhaps more accurately - as a two-fold division between the theoretical and practical sciences, the latter of which includes the productive. The two fold division is, in any event, the most important division since it divides the theoretical sciences whose end is knowledge, from the practical sciences (conceived separately or including the productive sciences), whose end is action (Metaphysics 993b 20-21). It is this distinction between the ends of knowledge and action that 151

reveals the difference between the logical character of

theoretical and practical sciences. They are not just

two aspects of a whole. They are different in kind, even

though Aristotle classifies them both - or all three - as

"sciences."

Indeed, even though Aristotle does not actually make

this claim in the Metaphysics, it is not difficult to

conclude that the productive sciences are a part of the practical sciences, since all activities of making are a

form of doing or acting. Both practical and productive sciences differ from the theoretical in the same way, in virtue of their objects and their respective ends.

Knowing the ways in which the theoretical and practical sciences differ is fundamental to understanding

Aristotle's classification of the sciences, even if one interprets him as having divided the sciences into three.

It is not difficult to notice the ghost of Plato's divided line hovering over this classification of

Aristotle's.

The second science which Aristotle differentiates is practical science, which includes human activities, such as designing a government, an educational system, a strategy of war, of acquiring wealth, or, simply, acting well or ill towards one's neighbor. The formal logical character of the practical sciences differs insofar as there is an indeterminacy in actions not shared by the determinate and unchanging objects of theoretical 152

science, and a lack of symmetry between the actions of

practical science and the knowledge of theoretical

science. Since actions are relative to each situation, the being of practical science has a quality of contingency. "In the case of things done [the first principle] is in the doer - viz., the will, for that which is done and that which is willed are the same"

(Metaphysics 1025b24-25).

The practical sciences are not without their degree of knowledge; it is just that successful activities are not satisfied or fully explained by reference to the practical knowledge on which they rely.41 For example, doing an analysis of the load bearing walls of a house, and performing the calculations necessary to figure out the strain a new addition will put on the walls, is not the same as having built the addition to the house. Mere possession of practical knowledge does not satisfy the requirements of performing a given activity. This is similar to Ryle's "know-how" knowledge, according to which performing the activity well is distinct from knowing the truth of the principles which explain the activity.42 Some reference is necessary to the ends or the goals of the activity, and to the intended result which was determined at the outset of the activity. The thinking involved in practical sciences is geared towards some result, to the conclusion of the activity, not towards knowledge or thought about the activity.43 153

There is a sense in which modern technology exemplifies the practical knowledge of the practical

sciences, insofar as practical knowledge hinges on human

"interference with the course of events. "44 Practical knowledge interferes with natural events in order to realize some immediate end for individuals, as is the case with building a dam to stem recurring floods, establishing an educational system, or adding huge tuned mass dampers to the John Hancock building in Boston to counteract the elastic response of the building so when

it twists during high winds the building's huge windows will not pop out. The actual "interference," as Taylor

calls it, is the result of a decision or choice which

functions as the efficient cause of an action. The objective is none other than willing an action to have a particular result. This action is the end that typifies the practical sciences, and it is one of the characteristic types of knowledge associated with modern technology. The practical sciences are not about knowledge for its own sake, but knowledge for a particular intended effect, i.e., knowledge with a view towards achieving particular results - knowing how.

The third science distinguished by Aristotle is the productive science, or the science of making and

fabricating things, such as building a bridge or writing a play. The end of making is beyond the thing which is

itself made. At the same time, its end does not lie in 154

the truth or knowledge of the principles which can, after

the thing is made, explain or account for the thing. The

first principle of the productive sciences "is in the

maker - it is either reason or art or some faculty...in

the producer and not in the product" (Metaphysics

1025b22, 1064all-12.) It is not clear whether Aristotle

succeeded in adequately demarcating this science from

practical science in the Metaphysics.

Both primitive and modern technologies are conspicuously making activities of the type referred to by Aristotle as productive science, and for this reason would definitely qualify as productive sciences in the

Aristotelian sense. But, this dissertation contends that they seem to be productive in virtue of their practical nature. At this juncture, it is not possible adequately to conclude, using Aristotelian terminology, of which type of Aristotelian science technology is an example unless one were to grant that there is no relevant disjunction between the practical and productive sciences. If making is a kind of doing or acting, productive science is a type of practical science.

However, if the practical and productive are separate sciences, it is not possible to conclude that the being of technology falls exclusively within the genus of either practical or productive science since it clearly belongs to both. In the Nichomachean Ethics Aristotle denies that making is a form of doing. Yet Aristotle 155

would probably not deny at least that the practical

sciences and the productive sciences differ from the

theoretical sciences in the same way for the same

reasons.

In contrast to theoretical and speculative science,

the genera of the practical and productive sciences are

similar - they both contain things which have an

indeterminate status: actions not yet completed, objects

not yet made. This is the reason Aristotle stipulates

that their ends cannot be "truths" but either an action,

in the case of practical science, or the manufactured

object in the case productive science. Truth is of

something that is eternal, whereas an action is something

that is either indeterminate (if it is not yet completed)

or contingent (if it is completed) since it could have

been otherwise.

While Aristotle aottempted to establish the practical

and productive sciences on a secure footing, based upon

an analogy with the traditional sciences, the difficulty with determining an analogous basis for differentiating the practical from the productive sciences nonetheless

lay in the fact that practical sciences proceed from principles found within the knower.45 As Owens also points out, "their good is something over and above the knowledge they entail."46 Insofar as the doer or the maker is engaged in an activity, the action - or the thing made - cannot be fully or accurately described by 156

examining the mechanics of the activity or object. To

understand the good or end of an action (or a finished

product) requires reference to things beyond the given,

as Owens concludes.

While Aristotle had often acknowledged the lack of

logical symmetry between the practical and theoretical

sciences, he does not reduce or derive the practical from

the theoretical. He says, for example that one can only

expect "to look for precision in each class of things

just so far as the nature of the subj ecc admits," and,

further, that it is "foolish to accept probable reasoning

from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs." Nichomachean Ethics l094b 24-28).

However, the lack of determinacy and the abundance of contingency inherent in the practical and productive sciences nevertheless does seem to confer a lesser, and perhaps subordinate, status upon the practical and productive sciences when compared with "the best" and

"the highest" viz. the theoretical sciences.

3.3.2 Techne in the Nichomachean Ethics

ii) In the Nichomachean Ethics Aristotle focuses entirely on practical science. He regards political science, of which ethics is but a part, to be the supreme practical science.47 Aristotle's purpose, similar to that of Plato's, was to examine what makes a state good. 157

Politics was considered to be "most truly the master art"

because its end is "the chief good," worth pursuing for

its own sake to help human beings lead the good life

(Nichomachean Ethics l094a 22, 28-29). For this reason,

Aristotle subordinated ethics and its concerns about

individual character to politics, since the importance of

individual character was thought to be dependent upon its

ability to contribute to the greater good of the state

(Nichomachean Ethics l094a 15). Aristotle's ethics was therefore cast in the context of how the individual as a

member of the community should act and "which sciences

should be studied in a state, and which [sciences] each

class of citizens should learn and up to what point they

should learn them.... " (Nichomachean Ethics l094b 1-2).

Since ethics for Aristotle is the primary practical

science, we are examining ethics to see to what extent what Aristotle says about practical actions tell~us about techne. Moreover, the primary premises of the

Ethics serve as the foundation for Aristotle's politics.

The most fundamental premise of the ethics is that

every art [techne] and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has been rightly declared to be that at which all things aim (Nichomachean Ethics l094a 1-3).

The end of each action and every art, or techne, is its respective 'good'. There may be many ends for a given 158

action, but the ultimate one is its ultimate good. For

instance, the ultimate end of medical techne is health,

but it may have intermediate ends marking degrees of

improvement commensurate with each type of cure.

Lowering a high fever, for example, is an initial step in

the activity of bringing an individual suffering from a

serious infection back to good health. The end of

shipbuilding is the vessel, the end of strategy is

victory, the end of economics is wealth, and so on. Some

ends are subordinate to others. While the end of weapons

manufacture is the weapon, this end is subordinate to the

ultimate end for which the weapon is being manufactured

as part of a strategy, whose greater end is victory.

Thus, the master end of victory takes precedence over the

subordinate end of weapons manufacturing (Nichomachean

Ethics l094a 10-15).

A second major premise of the practical sciences is that the ultimate good is the good which is desirable for its own sake (Nichomachean Ethics 1094a 17-20). The ultimate good is the "end for all that we do" and it is

"achievable by action" (Nichomachean Ethics 1097a23-25).

Aristotle assumes it is possible to learn how to achieve the ultimate good, and that it is the job of the practical sciences, epitomized by ethics and politics, to figure out how the community of individuals in the state should learn about and achieve the good. Aristotle states that it is the job of the state to make its 159

citizens "be of a certain character, viz., good and capable of noble acts" (Nichomachean Ethics 1099b 30

32) .

The good as the respective end of human actions explains short term contingent ends. All human activities and undertakings derive their meaning from the good, and it is the good that makes sense of and gives meaning to all the immediate and intermediate ends of specific human activities. But since the good is different for each activity, Aristotle wants to find out what actually is that good for the sake of which all individuals "do whatever else they do." While the end or function, i.e., the good, of each profession and each activity is different, Aristotle asks what the end or function of man, qua rational animal is (Nichomachean

Ethics 1097b 25-35). The end which most people identify as their end is "happiness," but happiness means different things to different people, and so it is without meaning unless, Aristotle assumes, it is tied to the ultimate good for all humans. He inquires into the nature of happiness as an end for humans qua their being rational animals, and concludes that happiness is an

"activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete" (Nichomachean Ethics 1098a 17-18).

Determining how to act in accordance with virtue depends upon two different capacities, viz., knowing what 160

virtue is and knowing how to act virtuously. It is

obvious that virtue is not innate in human beings because

acting virtuously is not spontaneous or automatic. Also,

it is clear that not all human beings are virtuous.

Therefore, virtue must be something learned and acquired

for the purpose of being virtuous. From the perspective

of this dissertation, there is a sense in which becoming

virtuous could be interpreted as an artificial activity

insofar as it interferes with the natural course of

events - with the raw and natural human inclinations - by

attempting to shape human behavior in a certain way.

But, from Aristotle's perspective, ethics and human action is pre-eminently natural. Thus, the suggestion of the dissertation that the practice of acting virtuously could be considered 'artificial' would be a misunderstanding of Aristotle from his own point of view.

Being virtuous from Aristotle's perspective requires that individuals employ their rational powers to learn about and to know and identify virtue, together with their powers of appetition to conduct their activities accordingly.

There are two types of virtue: moral and intellectual. Moral virtue "comes about as a result of habit," and "its name ethike is one that is formed by a slight variation from the word ethos (habit)"

(Nichomachean Ethics 1103a14-18). Virtue must be practiced since it is not an automatic or spontaneous way 161

of acting. Just as a builder learns to build by building, or a writer learns to write by writing, a virtuous person learns to be virtuous by practicing virtuous acts so that they become habitual.

But habits are not mere repetitious acts occurring randomly. They are habits because they are practiced and formed according to "a rule" (Nichomachean Ethics 1103b

32). This supposition enables Aristotle to establish the relation of will to conduct in a way that allows him to escape the (early) Platonic paradox that wrong doing is ignorance,48 and it shows, as Copelston has put it, that

"he is alive to the reality of the moral struggle."49 Thus it is the will and proper execution of the will through correct choice that enables the agent to act virtuously. The role of the agent as efficient cause of moral action distinguishes Aristotle's ethics from that of Plato's since he does not measure the degree of morality of an act by degrees of knowledge or ignorance.

The role of the agent was mentioned earlier in the

Metaphysics when Aristotle set forth the principle of being of the practical sciences. The principle of being

"in the case of things done is in the doer viz., will, for that which is done and that which is willed are the same" (Metaphysics 1025b24-25). The very notion of a

'habit' is inconceivable without invoking the idea of the will by which a person chooses to repeat and practice an action. 162

The dictum that virtue is essentially "a mean with

regard to what is best and right" is Aristotle's doctrine

of the mean, according to which one chooses to act

neither in excess nor in defect, but appropriately in

each given situation (Nichomachean Ethics 1107a 6-8).

Since "matters concerned with conduct and questions of

what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matters

of health," no general rule covering all particular

situations is possible (Nichomachean Ethics 1104a 4-5).

For instance, too much or too little exercise is bad for

strength, as is too much or too little food bad for

health. The "mean" or rule which is the reference for

moral action is, therefore, something "which is

proportionate," a measure which both promotes and

preserves health, strength, or other good ends, such as

justice, temperance, and courage (Nichomachean Ethics

1104a 18-19).

In Aristotle1s discussion of the moral virtues he

defers answering the question of how the standard or rule which determines the mean is grasped to the discussion of

the intellectual virtues. He had already noted that intellectual and appetitive elements together enable individuals to act virtuously. But it is not until he begins to discuss the intellectual virtues that he focuses specifically on the rational principle which formulates the standard or rule that determines the mean. 163

The framing of the rule is an intellectual operation.50

Aristotle's intellectual virtues answer the question of

how the rule is formulated.

The formation of a standard or rule which determines

the mean is obviously an important part of Aristotle's

ethics. After all, Aristotle was no more interested in

establishing an ethics of moral action in which 'anything

goes' than he was interested in positing a fixed idea

from which moral action could be rigidly deduced. The

reality of a standard or rule according to which action

is deemed virtuous is a fundamental premise of

Aristotle's ethics. Aristotle assumed that moral actions would not be possible without positing a mean which could

arbitrate what the good is in any given situation. Since human actions are inherently practical they are contingent, and with outcomes which are in principle not capable of being fully predicted. Some rule or standard is necessary to aid in choosing and deliberating over the means to certain intended ends.

The rational principle of the soul is that part of the soul which grasps the rule on which moral action depends. Aristotle divided the rational principle into two parts: the scientific faculty by which we grasp the things whose first principles are invariable and, therefore, necessary; and the calculative faculty which, though it also grasps a rational principle, focuses on the kind of things which are variable and contingent 164

(Nichomachean Ethics 1139a 6-8). It is the calculative

faculty which deliberates about the means for achieving a

particular result. It is not possible for the scientific

faculty to aid in this respect, for as Aristotle says,

"no one deliberates about the invariable" (Nichomachean

Ethics 1139a 13). The calculative faculty is

essentially practical wisdom, or phronesis, needed for

both moral and intellectual virtues. The scientific

faculty, on the other hand, is theoretical wisdom,

sophia, which is assumed by Aristotle as a necessary

basis or referenc~ for right choice in action.

Aristotle positions philosophic wisdom, sophia, as

the theoretical counterpoint to phronesis. This two-fold

division between theoretical and practical wisdom

provides the two fundamental anchors for the five

intellectual virtues. Aristotle gives the following

justification for yet another distinction of this sort,

i.e., another incarnation of the theory-practice

distinction:

where objects differ in kind the part of the soul answering to each of the two is different in kind since it is in virtue of a certain likeness and kinship with their objects that they have the knowledge they have (Nichomachean Ethics 1139a 9-11).

The part of the soul concerned with being, that is to say with unchanging objects or structures is that part 165

perfected by sophia; on the other hand, the part of the

soul concerned with acting is perfected by virtue of

phronesis.

The five intellectual virtues of science, art,

practical wisdom, philosophic wisdom and intuition are

states or conditions which enable the soul to possess

truth. These states are different sorts of "excellences

of intellect," to use Taylor's phrase, which combine with

goodness of character to make a person fit to be a

citizen of the state.51 The intellectual virtues

indicate states of mind which enable a person to grasp

the truth and to see the correct rule which determines

the mean. The five virtues are best grouped according to

the rational faculty that they fall under - the

scientific faculty or the calculative faculty.52

The intellectual virtues of the scientific faculty

are those of i) science (episteme), ii) intuitive reason

(nous), and iii) philosophic wisdom, (sophia). The

intellectual virtues of the calculative faculty are those

of i) art (techne), and ii) practical wisdom (phronesis).

A brief discussion of each follows.

As for science, episteme, to repeat the refrain of chapter 2, because of the inextricable bond between knowing and being, the objects of scientific knowledge are necessary and eternal by definition. Proper objects of true knowledge cannot be other than necessary and eternal in an unqualified sense. The reasoned state of 166

science, episteme, is "a state of a capacity to

demonstrate" (Nichomachean Ethics l139b 31-32) from the

indemonstrable first pr~nciples which provide conditions

for all scientific demonstrations for Aristotle. These

starting points of scientific knowledge have universal

applicability and are prior and better known than the

demonstrations derived from them. Thus, the type of

knowledge which Aristotle means by episteme is the kind

of knowledge a person has when s/he

believes in a certain way and the starting-points are known to him ...since if they are not better known to him than the conclusion, he will have his knowledge only incidentally (Nichomachean Ethics l039b 32-35).

It is through the intellectual virtue nous that we grasp the first principles of scientific knowledge. As discussed at the end of chapter 2, these first principles are primary and they are indemonstrable. According to

Aristotle they can be demonstrated without entailing an infinite regress, which is why they have to be grasped in some other manner. Nous is essential, then, for scientific knowledge would not be possible without it.

This capacity of mind provides the basic material, i.e., the fundamental first principles, which make scienti.fic demonstrations possible. It must be noted that Aristotle does not mean to be mystical about the intuition of these first principles. At least Copelston53 takes nous to 167

mean a state of mind "whereby we grasp a universal truth

after experience of a certain number of particular

instances and then see this truth or principle to be

self-evident." It is a kind of induction. Ross54 seems

to concur with Copelston that nous "grasps the first

principles by 'induction' ... the activity of 'intuitive

reason. '"

If phronesis is the keystone of Aristotle's ethics,

nous is the keystone of Aristotle's science. For without

nous science lacks a "rational ground" (Nichomachean

Ethics 114Gb 33).

The last intellectual virtue of the scientific

faculty given by Aristotle is theoretical wisdom, or

sophia, which is the combined union of scientific knowledge (episteme) and intuitive reason (nous). The objects of theoretical or philosophic wisdom are the very highest possible objects, "the most finished of the forms of knowledge ...of the things that are highest by nature"

(Nichomachean Ethics l14la 17, l14lb 3). The objects of philosophic wisdom include those of metaphysics and natural science since these objects are necessary and invariable. The condition of sophia is considered by

Aristotle to be the most desirable and most esteemed of the intellectual virtues because of the nature of its objects. He takes pains to contrast philosophic wisdom with practical wisdom arguing that "it would be strange to think that the art of politics, or practical wisdom, 168

is the best knowledge, since man is not the best thing in

the world" (Nichomachean Ethics l140a 20-23). He adds

that "some even of the lower animals have practical

wisdom, viz. those which are found to have a power of

foresight with regard to their own life" (Nichomachean

Ethics l140a 26-27). Aristotle assumes that there are

divine things that are higher than man and that

philosophic wisdom is about them. The kind of

theoretical contemplation involved by the condition of

sophia is the highest possible activity for human beings:

this activity is the best (since not only is reason the best thing in us, but the objects of reason are the best of knowable objects); and, secondly, it is the most continuous, since we can contemplate truth more continuously than we can do anything (Nichomachean Ethics l177a~1-23).

The intellectual virtues falling under the calculative faculty are techne and phronesis. The condition of the soul by which a person grasps the truth through making is art, techne. The techne Aristotle refers to here is unambiguously the art of fabrication and making, as distinguished from acting or doing. Since it was noted in i) above, in the classification of the sciences, in the Metaphysics, that there is reason to argue that the practical sciences might include the productive because making is a kind of doing or acting, it is important to note here that claim is not supported 169

by Aristotle's discussion in the Ethics. Here Aristotle

clearly emphasizes that "making and acting are

different," that the "reasoned state of capacity to act

is different from the reasoned state of capacity to make"

(Nichomachean Ethics 1140al-5). He goes on further to

say that neither are these two capacities included in one

another. Art or techne is

identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning. All art is concerned with coming into being, i.e. with contriving and considering how something may come into being which is capable of either being or not being, and whose origin is in the maker and not in the thing made .... (Nichomachean Ethics 1140a 10-13).

Here Aristotle also explicitly contrasts techne with

episteme in that the things which come into being by

virtue of techne do so through fabrication, and not by

necessity. The objects of techne do not contain their

own principles or causes, but nonetheless reveal "a true

course of reasoning" (Nichomachean Ethics 1140a 20)

according to which the objects are made.

The objects of modern technology derive much of

their meaning from the Aristotelian techne as described here. All technological objects contain their own microbiographies of the materials with which they were made, and the method by which their maker constructed them. In each case, the object represents a network of 170

contingencies, none of which individually carne about by

necessity in the unqualified sense, but all of which

demonstrate the maker's reasoned capacity to make.

The intellectual virtue of practical reason, or

phronesis, is the state of deliberation, which embodies

the calculative faculty of the soul. Practical wisdom is

the keystone of Aristotle's politics and ethics since it

is "a reasoned and true state of capacity to act with

regard to human goods" (Nichomachean Ethics 1140b 20-21).

Aristotle contrasts phronesis with both episteme and

techne. He argues that since things done can be otherwise, and since it is impossible to deliberate over the invariable, practical reason cannot be the same or similar to episteme. Demonstrations are different from the practical syllogism whose conclusion is an action.

Moreover, since the ends defining practical wisdom are the good actions themselves, (with the 'good' consisting in the character resulting from the action), the ends of phronesis are different from the ends of things that are made by techne. Practical wisdom is the wisdom pertaining to right choice, intelligent use of one's will, and the ability to judge well "about what is to be done" (Nichomachean Ethics 1140b 15). Practical wisdom, then, is about choice and judgement, the conclusion of which is an action. The action is the 'work' of practical intelligence.55 For Aristotle, what distinguishes techne from phronesis, or productive 171

science from practical science (ethics) is their

respective ends. The end of techne is an object distinct

from the action, as the house is distinct from the

activity of building it, whereas, the end of ethics is

life itself. The good life is not a means but an end in

itself. For this reason, on the basis of these

considerations, Aristotle seems to be stressing that

practical science, the study of principles of the good

life can never be subordinated to productive science.

3.4 CONCLUSION

The purpose of examining techne in the thought of

Plato and Aristotle was to look at some of the early

Western formulations of the art of bringing artificial

things and events into being; and to evaluate the extent

to which techne is either demarcated from the activities

and products of science (episteme) and theory (sophia), or subordinated to them.

While techne is fundamental to Plato's thought, he

seems to move between episteme and techne without creating a sharp difference between them. It is difficult to make the case that techne is clearly subordinated to episteme, except in the thought of

Plato's theological interpreters who place a much heavier emphasis upon theory in Plato - at the expense of techne 172

- than Plato himself did. The centrality of techne in

Plato, or Aristotle, for that matter, depends upon the

seriousness with which each entertains practical reason

as a legitimate mode of knowing.

According to the above analysis, the only point at

which Plato might seem to separate practical wisdom from

theoretical is his positing the idea of the good, the

ultimate object of theoretical wisdom, as the unambiguous

top of the divided line. Since Plato's idea of the good

is not the result of a techne, since it is discovered and

not made, there is reason to think he regards the idea of

the good as purely theoretical.

A pragmatic understanding would, however, interpret

the good as something made, or as something thought of as equivalent to the making of a particularly useful hypothesis. But Plato did not himself think of the good as a product or the result of a making. The good was an assumed reality for Plato, and it had a privileged place among entities in that it transcended the observed world.

This is often what is meant by the term 'Platonic,' namely, a reference to a way of thinking which posits objectivities not dependent upon the activities and contingencies of the normal observable world. A logician is a 'Platonist', for instance, if he is committed to the objective existence of propositions. A lover is called a

Platonist if he is interested primarily in the idea of love, but uninterested in the physical activities of 173

love. But since for Plato the good, and not 'the true'

heads the divided line, and the good is an end, a telos,

it is not purely a theoretical concept. For this reason,

Plato means the good to be inextricably tied to the realm

of practical life.

However, it is also perhaps for this same reason

that theory has been taken by Neoplatonic and Christian

interpreters of Plato to dominate his conception of

knowledge (episteme). In philosophy, the more common

understanding of Platonism is that there is an entity out

there which is the foundation for a theoretical concept.

Because Plato assumed it was possible for people to have

access to the idea of the good, the good became, for the

Christian tradition, the theoretical basis for 'the

truth'. In any event, the traditional assumption that

'the good' is the objective foundation for 'the true', while having a basis in the divided line of Book six of

the Republic, is a legacy from Neoplatonism and religious

philosophy and not necessarily an accurate reading of

Plato's doctrine. Episteme (together with theoria) and

techne are clearly both elements in Plato. Because they are not clearly separated, neither is one clearly

subordinated to or derived from the other.

Because of the nature of ultimate truths and because of the necessity of their unity with being, there is a sense in which, for Plato and Aristotle, all things made or done fall short of the criteria of theory which 174

contemplates truths. This "falling short" implies a theoretical hierarchy. The primary reason for this, to use contemporary pragmatist terminology, is the

'foundationalism ' inherent in early Greek philosophy, i.e., the tendency to posit a rational ground or foundation - noesis for Plato, and nous for Aristotle which provides special access to being, and on which cognitive claims depend.56 But this 'foundationalism' is more a product of interpretations of Plato and Aristotle than of either Plato or Aristotle.

Both Plato and Aristotle make it abundantly clear that science - whether we take science (episteme) to mean knowledge of the invariable, demonstrated truths, or theoretical knowledge - derives from "first principles."

And these first principles, for both Plato and Aristotle, are the indemonstrable truths of philosophy, including the truths of the divine, and are the objects of the most universal and highest concerns of theology. Thus, for

Plato and Aristotle, science comes from philosophy, not from technology. But it is not the case that they derive technology - or techne - from science or episteme. The notion that they do is more of a piece with the tradition of philosophical interpreters than from the original thinkers themselves.

Aristotle was the first formally to classify techne, along with practical action as an object of science, as a

'science' in the sense in which it is a legitimate and 175

serious object of thought. But by classifying techne as

a science, and by clarifying its capacity as a form of

knowing, Aristotle also succeeded in sharply

distinguishing techne from episteme, and the latter's

ultimate expression in the pure theory of philosophic

wisdom or sophia. Aristotle contributed enormously to

early formulations of practice and practical action,

assuring their importance in the history of philosophy

and forming a basis for thinking seriously about the role

practice plays in philosophy. Practice is in many ways

the long neglected but essential ingredient in the

formulation of our ideas, in scientific experiment and

discovery, in theory building, and in the creation of

tangible and intangible artificial things - from ships, bridges and micro chips - to institutions, ideas, poetry

and plays. Practice and habit, like technology, constitute the concerted interference in the natural course of things. Of course, it is a natural interference for human beings to change things through their doings and makings, activities which do not flow necessarily paradoxically from the artifice of human intent.

Aristotle, in contrast to Plato, clearly demarcated techne from episteme, in the sense in which episteme was discussed in chapter 2, based on Aristotle's Metaphysics and Posterior Analytics. Techne is clearly based in phronesis and is essentially practical in nature, in 176

contrast to episteme which is connected to sophia and is

clearly theoretical in nature. However, Aristotle's

distinction does not argue for the subordination of

techne to episteme, or to its theoretical locus in

sophia. Aristotle does allow that the highest and the best sciences are the theoretical sciences, (and among them, the most universal are the very best), but he does not argue for the derivability of techne from sophia.

The implied hierarchy here is a way of looking at techne from the point of view of sophia. It is difficult to argue this point without qualification, however, since

Aristotle also says that the "intellect itself moves nothing, but only the intellect which aims at the end and is practical" (Nichomachean Ethics l139a 35-37).

According to Aristotle, if you live the good life, then you will inevitably recognize from actually living virtuously, that contemplation is the highest thing to do. But you do not derive practical decisions.

Phronesis, on which techne depends, is a disposition altogether different from episteme and sophia. Phronesis helps determine what and how to do in any given situation. The conclusion of a practical syllogism is an action, not a derivation or deduction from sophia. For

Aristotle, actions, including those of techne, are simply different from, and are not to be derived from, deductions. 177

END NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

1 Gregory Vlastos, Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays Vol. 2 Metaphysics and Epistemology (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1970) Also, John Dewey, Experience and Nature (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1925) see chapter 9. Cf. John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957) Cf. John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984).

2 Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture Vol.2 (New York: Oxford U Press, 1943), p. 130.

3 All references to the Protagoras are from W.K.C. Guthrie, trans. of Protagoras in Plato: The Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingen Series LXXI, 7th edition, (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1973).

4 Jaeger, Vol. 2, ibid., p. 131.

5 J. E. Raven, Plato's Thought In The Making (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1965), p. 67. Also see Frederick Copelston, S. J., A History of Philosophy: Vol. 1, Greece and Rome, Part 1 (Garden City, New York: Image Books, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1962) p. 163. And, Jaeger, Paideia, Vol. 2, ibid., p. 161.

6 Jaeger, Vol. 2, ibid., p. 161.

7 Jaeger, Vol. 2, ibid., pp. 199-201.

8 Jaeger, Vol. 2, ibid., p. 170.

9 Jaeger, Vol. 2, ibid., p. 171. Jaeger's reference is to the Republic 618c.

10 Copelston, History, Vol. 1, Part 1, ibid., p. 245. 178

11 Jaeger, Vol. 2, ibid., p. 129.

12 Jaeger, Vol. 2, ibid., pp. 129-130.

13 Nonetheless, the translation by W.D. Woodhead in Plato: The Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, ibid., translates the term techne as "art" and for this reason I will use techne interchangeably with "art" when quoting from Gorgias.

14 Jaeger, Vol. 3, ibid., p. 21.

15 Jaeger, Vol. 3, ibid., p. 17.

16 Jaeger, Vol. 3, ibid., p. 17.

17 Jaeger, Vol. 3, ibid., p. 17.

18 W.H. Walden, The Universities of Ancient Greece (New York: Scribner & Sons, 1909).

19 Jaeger, Vol. 2, ibid., p. 306.

20 Jaeger, Vol. 3, ibid., p. 33.

21 Jaeger, Vol. 3, ibid., p. 33.

22 Jaeger, Vol. 3, ibid., p. 33.

23 Jaeger, Vol. 3, ibid., p. 32.

Werner Jaeger, __Aristotle:-:-::-_-=- Fundamentals---.,=----=-__---:__of ~--~-----oLthe History of His Development (London: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1934) p. 81.

25 Jaeger, Fundamentals, ibid., p. 83. 179

26 Jaeger, ibid., p. 84.

27 Jaeger, Paideia, Vol. 2, ibid., p. 381, n. 167.

28 ibid., p. 130.

29 Jaeger, Fundamentals, ibid., p. 82.

30 Jaeger, ibid., p. 82.

31 Jaeger, ibid., p. 83.

32 Jaeger, ibid., p. 81.

33 Jaeger, ibid., p. 79.

34 Jaeger, ibid., p. 82.

35 Ross, ibid., p. 187., and Copelston, ibid., p. 20.

36 Owens, Doctrine of Being in Aristotle's Metaphysics, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1957) p. 294.

37 Copelston, Vol. I., Part II. p. 116. This is a standard reading of how Aristotle chose to distinguish himself from Plato.

38 Owens, ibid., p. 295.

39 Taylor, ibid., p. 16.

40 180

Taylor points out that threefold division has been over emphasized by "modern students" who have tried to fill in what they consider to be an omission of Aristotle's theory of art as found in the Poetics and Rhetoric. Taylor thinks this addition of a third fundamental form of mental activity "has no warrant in the text of Aristotle," and I agree with him for the reasons given. ibid., p. 20.

41 Taylor, ibid., pt. 88.

42 Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1949).

43 Taylor, p. 88.

44 ibid., p. 16.

45 Owens, ibid., p. 295.

46 ibid., p. 295.

47 Ross, ibid., p. 187.

48 Taylor, ibid., p. 96.

49 Copelston, ibid., p. 80.

50 Ross, ibid., p. 215.

51 Taylor, ibid., p. 97.

52 Copelston discusses the Aristotle's intellectual virtues in these two groupings. This way of organizing the five intellectual faculties makes sense, and it is easier to follow than Aristotle's own method of discussing them in the following order: episteme, techne, phronesis, nous, and sophia.

53 Copelston, ibid., p. 84. 181

54 Ross, ibid., p. 217.

55 Elizabeth Anscombe, From Parrnenides to Wittgenstein (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981) p. 77.

56 Joseph Margolis, Pragmatism Without Foundations (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986) p. 166. 182

CHAPTER 4

JOHN DEWEY'S CONCEPTION OF TECHNOLOGY

4.1 INTRODUCTION

New conceptions of knowledge and productive

practice, differing from those developed by Plato and

Aristotle, emerged in the sixteenth century, the time of

Francis Bacon, progressively taking shape in step with the ensuing Scientific and Industrial Revolutions that define the modern era. These conceptions were anchored in an insistent new reality in which knowing and doing were regarded as symbiotic rather than disparate functions, and a reality in which the aims of science were no longer construed to be primarily theoretical.

The idea of techne acquired a new eminence for at least two reasons: in the post-Renaissance world science and technology were beginning to distinguish themselves from the traditionally theoretical endeavors of theology and philosophy,l and secondly, in the age of the Industrial

Revolution neither science nor industry was possible without technology.

The historical circumstances wrought by modern science and technology inspired a novel conception of knowledge, and it is a task of this dissertation to articulate what that new conception is, how it differs 183

from the classical conception, to what extent the new

conception of knowledge is connected to techne, and

whether this new conception provides for an improved

understanding of modern technology.

What had been regarded in the classical sense as

scientific knowledge or episteme, came to be viewed by

John Dewey - as itself a form of theory-building, as

something which is itself to be understood as a product

or artifact of human making. The idea of scientific

episteme was not only connected to the activities of

doing and making, but even made a subset of them.

Beginning with the Industrial and Scientific revolutions,

the realm of knowledge was no longer regarded principally

as the province of the individual human mind's internal

contemplation of eternal truths,2 as had been the case

with the classical conception. The classical conception

of episteme was supplanted by a conception of knowledge

that is inextricably connected to action and

experimentation, in terms of which alone knowledge

arises.

The problem with the intellectual environment in

1948, Dewey wrote in a new introduction to his book

Reconstruction in Philosophy, is that it continued to

reflect "a pre-scientific state of human affairs,

concerns, interests and ends,"3 based on ontological and cosmological conceptions which prevailed in classical

Greece. According to Dewey, these ideas, first 184

formulated in the ontological and epistemological

doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, are no longer adequate

to meet the demands of modern experimental science and

technology. In Reconstruction, (originally published in

1920,) Dewey argued for the need to overhaul this

inheritance from the past, observing that modern

philosophy is still captivated by classical Greek

conceptions. He proposed that the modern era develop its

own "'categories' to serve as instrumentalities of

inquiry" 4, categories that would enable philosophy to

adapt to the more complex world of the new experimental

science and modern technology. Dewey called for a philosophical reconstruction to liberate philosophy from

"the incubus imposed upon [it] by habits formed in a pre scientific, pre-technological-industrial and pre democratic political period,"5 and to develop step by step the full import of the new experimental sciences.6

Dewey is emphatic that philosophy naturally grows out of the "stresses and strains in the community life."

One might wonder then, on the basis of Dewey's own claims, how it is possible for pre-scientific paradigms to prevail in the era of modern science, i.e., how ideas and beliefs which no longer reflect the stresses and strains of the actual life of the community nonetheless prevail? Dewey would no doubt reply that it is a question of the continued usefulness of the ideas and beliefs despite the fact that they are no longer 185

"connected" with what is really occurring. This lack of

connection, Dewey would continue, is precisely what

causes a revolution in thinking, and which has led to new

formulations, such as the ones offered by himself and

other American Pragmatists.

The early twentieth century philosophical movement

of Pragmatism is most often associated with a new

attitude towards knowledge and science, since it

criticizes classical philosophical positions in light of

the manifest developments of science and technology.?

Moreover, pragmatism is usually associated with the

attitude that what works is true, but this is neither an

exhaustive nor particularly accurate account of the

pragmatist theory of truth.8 Pragmatism, in any event,

delivered the final blow to the classical view of

episteme which survived in the Cartesian conception of

knowledge, according to which mathematical certainty was

a constitutive feature of knowledge.

The pragmatic understanding of techne rests upon a vision of nature and of knowledge inseparable from human agency. By contrast, the classical Platonic and

Aristotelian conceptions of techne, as discussed in the foregoing chapter, subordinated techne to an understanding of 'science,' defined in terms of the model of mathematical demonstration. This type of demonstrative knowledge was embodied in the idea of a theory-laden episteme. The ontological subordination of 186

techne is graphically illustrated by its place in

Platonic and Aristotelian hierarchies of being which

culminate in pure thought or theoria.

In a very general sense, the Pragmatist conceptions

of knowledge and action, and of science and technology

generated new reflections about the nature of reason

itself. Reason was beginning to be conceived as itself

an instrument; and science, less as the paradigm of

knowledge than as a human activity by which we corne

provisionally to know things of a certain sort.

While it can be argued that there is a sense in which Aristotle and the Medieval philosophers conceived of reason as an 'instrument of knowing' inasmuch as it was understood as the means or capacity to make inferences and syllogisms, the primary function of reason was, nonetheless, to arrive at fixed and demonstrably certain, theoretical knowledge.

By contrast, reason, according to the moderns and pragmatists, yields knowledge which is different from that presumed by the strictly theoretical episteme centered conceptions that prevailed prior to the rise of science and technology. Reason in the modern sense is an interactive process, one which mediates between objects of knowledge and the process by which one comes to know them. For this reason, the pragmatists hold the conclusions of science and the propositions of theory to 187

be intrinsically linked to practice and hence to be

provisional, not absolutely certain and objective.

This chapter takes as its point of departure John

Dewey's critique of the classic polarities of Platonic

and Aristotelian episteme and techne in order to examine the new terms of discourse which Dewey develops for technology. One of the aims of this dissertation is to argue for the necessity of these new terms of discourse and for their importance in understanding contemporary technology.

How Dewey's conception of modern science and his conception of modern technology, each of which is essentially techne-based, enabled him to recast and even resolve the classic philosophical problem of the relation of knowledge and action - and thereby effectively to replace the episteme based prejudice of that relation is the focus of this examination. Towards this end, the ensuing discussion will consider: i) Historical considerations which bear on Dewey1s analysis; ii)

Dewey's critique of Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of knowledge and productive action; iii) Dewey's conception of technology, and the role played by his instrumental theory of inquiry in clarifying his conception. 188

4.2 JOHN DEWEY'S CONCEPTION OF MODERN SCIENCE AND HIS

CONCEPTION OF TECHNOLOGY

John Dewey's conception of technology can best be

understood in terms of his critique of classical Greek

conceptions of knowledge and productive action, and in

terms of his theory of inquiry. But first, there are a

few historical considerations which bear on the

examination, since the meanings of knowledge and science

have altered over time, and the interpretations of the

early meanings of science are themselves open to

interpretation.

4.2.1 Historical Considerations

The present consideration looks at Dewey's critique

of the Greeks whom he apprehended through the distorting

lens of the medieval metaphysicians. For this reason,

there are a couple of historical considerations which

should be kept in mind:

First, there is more continuity between modern philosophers and classical Greeks than many critics in the history of philosophy, such as Dewey, seem to think.

The position I have taken in the dissertation is that the

'new' conception of knowledge engendered by the

Industrial and Scientific revolutions is the fruition of ideas originating with Plato and Aristotle. 189

Secondly, however, precisely ber-ause the Medieval

theological tradition (Christian, Judaic and Islamic) so

persuasively interpreted Plato's and Aristotle's

doctrines of knowledge as predominantly, even

exclusively, theoretical, there is a legitimate

historical sense in which one can say "the classical

conception of episteme was supplanted" if what one

understands as being "supplanted" is the traditional

Medieval theological interpretation of the classical

Greek conception. It is this version of the classical

Greek conception, transformed by the medieval theological

tradition, that Dewey criticizes.9 I am in agreement with Dewey's criticism of Plato

and Aristotle to the extent that it applies to Plato and

Aristotle, but I argue that his criticism ignores or

overshadows elements of techne in Plato and Aristotle

that are present in their thought and that have not been given sufficient attention.

Dewey is one of few influential twentieth century philosophers for whom the conception of technology (and its conceptual ancestor techne) is primary and central to his philosophy. Dewey reconstructs the Platonic and

Aristotelian analyses of episteme and techne in such a way that there can be no mistake that knowledge and productive action are inextricably and essentially fused with one another. Inasmuch as productive action is 190

integral to knowing, the productive action of technology

is fundamental to all inquiry for Dewey.

Dewey virtually identifies his instrumental method

of inquiry with technology,10 and regards science not as

the theoretical master of technology, but as itself "a mode of technology."ll

The philosophy of Dewey embodies the transformation of thinking about the roles episteme and techne play in our understanding of 'what there is' and 'how we know', a transformation beginning with the advent of the

Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. Modern philosophy essentially recast these classical conceptions in terms of the problem of the relation between knowledge and action. Dewey's idea of 'action' roughly corresponds to the concept of 'productive action', which includes the classical Aristotelian concept making, which is a species of doing.

Dewey's conception of technology is in some sense similar to that of his contemporary, Martin Heidegger, who also rejects the classical Greek conception of techne insofar as it depends upon the ontological pre-eminence of theoretical and representational knowing. In different ways both Dewey and Heidegger recognize the fundamental primacy of practice and productive action,

(i.e., doing and making), or, in Heideggerian terms, the active human involvement in the disclosure of being. 191

As Larry Hickman ably demonstrates in his book John

Dewey's Pragmatic Technology 12 John Dewey's interest in technology permeates the entire corpus of his vast writings. These works consist of more than twenty-four major books, or some 13,000 published pages. Although

Dewey does not write about technology per se in a systematic way, his recognition of the manifest presence of technology and his understanding of its unique nature and activity deeply influenced his thought and language.

Dewey is unique among modern philosophers in that his understanding of the nature and function of modern technology determined the way he approached the fundamental problems of philosophy - rather than the other way around. This feature is epitomized in his dictum that ideas do not exist in isolation from the environment in which they emerge, that they in fact grow out of actual "stresses and strains" in practical life.13

Dewey's method contrasts with the long entrenched custom of most philosophers and historians of science who analyze technology derivatively from the point of view of an already established philosophical orientation. In short, Dewey examines traditional philosophical problems, such as the relation between knowledge and action, in light of the exigencies of modern technological and scientific practice and the practical urgencies impelled by their progress. 192

4.2.2 Dewey's Critique of Classical Greek Episteme.

The examination of Dewey's formulation and

assessment of technology is framed by the discussions of

episteme and techne in the foregoing chapters. Dewey

finds fault with Platonic and Aristotelian epistemology

and ontology but his criticism is based on his acceptance

of the standard Medieval theological interpretation of

their doctrines. The Medieval theologians emphasized the

cognitive priority and metaphysical superiority of

theoretical knowledge or episteme at the considerable

expense of practical or productive action, or techne.

As already discussed, I disagree with this Medieval

theological interpretation of Plato and Aristotle, though

it recognizes that the interpretation is not without basis, as noted extensively in chapter 2. I argue in chapter 3, however, that in contrast to what Dewey and many interpreters of Plato and Aristotle would have us believe, Plato's and Aristotle's respective doctrines of human knowledge contain elements of both episteme and techne, and that their conceptions of human knowledge are not exclusively a matter of a theory-dominated episteme.

At the same time, I agree with Dewey's analysis that neither Plato nor Aristotle adequately developed the logical or metaphysical import of the element of techne.

I also agree with Dewey that this shortcoming of Plato's and Aristotle's doctrines, while a reflection of the 193

vested interests and beliefs and traditions of classical

Greek life, has nonetheless continued to be a major

influence on philosophers even after the end of the pre

scientific traditions which once supported their

doctrines. Conversely, it is clear that, as James Tiles

observes, "Dewey does not seem to have fully appreciated

the extent to which his own outlook is reflected in early

Greek thought. "14 Nevertheless, the habitual over

emphasis of the purely theoretical element in human

knowledge throughout the history of philosophy and the

history and philosophy of science, is evidence of the

persistence with which the theological interpretation of

Greek thought has held sway.

In his books Reconstruction in Philosophy and The

Quest for Certainty Dewey accounts for the predilection

of the classical Greek philosophers for emphasizing

-theoretical knowing as the dominant element in human knowledge. He notes that the "exaltation of pure

intellect and its activity above practical affairs is

fundamentally connected with the quest for a certainty which shall be absolute and unshakable. "15 Dewey's observations are primarily anthropological and psychological. He speculates that it was out of the stresses and strains of actual life in pre-scientific

Greece, a life in which the gods meted out rewards and punishments in the name of justice or whimsy, that there was an intellectual urge among reflective people to 194

search for and find an intellectually tangible certainty.

They sought certainty and order to 'escape from the

peril' of life's quotidian occurrences, which

(invariably) are unpredictable, unreliable and risky.

"The quest for certainty is a quest for a peace which is

assured, an object which is unqualified by risk and the

shadow of fear which action casts."l6

Notwithstanding Dewey's moving account of the origin

of the classical Greek search for certainty, it must be

noted that Aristotle was very clear that the type of

certitude possible in mathematics was not possible in

practical matters. As was noted in chapter 3, Aristotle

wrote that one can only expect "to look for precision in

each class of things just so far as the nature of the

subject admits." (Nichomachean Ethics, l094b 24-28). He

is very explicit about the lack of symmetry between the

certitude and exactness possible in the practical

sciences and that which is possible in the theoretical

sciences. It was not just certitude that Aristotle was

interested in, but an exactness of investigation. He maintains that it is "foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a theoretician scientific proofs." (Nichomachean Ethics,

l094b 24-28). Aristotle thus stresses that the type and degree of certitude of an investigation corresponds to and depends upon its subject matter. 195

In fact, one interesting difference between

Aristotle and the moderns is that Aristotle never argued for a unitary method capable of bringing certitude to all the different sciences ~ or for a single type of certainty. Descartes and the moderns, by contrast, were pre-occupied with the possibility of mastering nature with a single sweeping, even indubitable method. Yet

Dewey is right inasmuch as Plato and Aristotle, impressed with the exemplary model that mathematics provided, did emphasize theoretical knowing as the most perfect element in human knowledge. Ideally, for both of them, knowledge is demonstrative. Since mathematical and demonstrative knowledge was for them the most perfect type of knowledge it served as a paragon which subsequently led to a hierarchy.

Dewey observes that the emphasis upon theoretical knowing as the dominant element associated with knowledge was also a reflection of the social stratification in classical Greece. The ruling class was the only class with the leisure to 'contemplate' (rather than automatically believing or accepting) religious and poetic ideas. A common element of these religious and aesthetic ideas is their appeal to some truth or insight that remains unchanged and 'true' to itself. Because of this appeal, such ideas enjoy an enduring quality of remaining undisturbed and unaffected by the turmoil of daily life. The value of such ideas lies in their being 196

appreciated for their own sake, as things worthy of

enjoyment and aesthetic appreciation quite independently

of their relations to, or consequences for, the rest of

life. Such 'truths' are apprehended for the sheer joy of

apprehending. By contrast, the knowledge possessed by

workers and craftsmen was merely "prosaic matter of fact

knowledge. "17 Since the technically gifted person was

"only just above the slave in social rank, his type of

knowledge and the method upon which it depended lacked

prestige and authority. "18

Dewey complains that Plato would tell us about the

universal 'state' when we want to know about a particular

state.19 Because of Plato's higher regard for enduring

objects of knowledge, he was necessarily committed to the

"logic of general notions under which specific situations

are to be brought. "20 Rather than look at the specific

situation of an particular state or individual, Plato would engage the discussion in terms of the state, or the

individual. Plato supposed that the universal meanings of a term would dominate the particulars.2l However, as

suggested in chapter 3, it could be argued there was an essentially practical need for Plato to anchor universal meanings in particular instances.

Nonetheless, it followed that the knowledge of practical matters to which craftsmen, workers and slaves had access, was held in low esteem in contrast to the knowledge possessed by the ruling class. Thus, material, 197

utilitarian, and practical things and activities were

assumed to be of lesser value and importance than those

which are immaterial and non-practical and which can be

appreciated aesthetically, i.e., purely for themselves,

rather than for the use to which they could be put.

Not only Dewey but Aristotle was also keenly aware

that the problem with evaluating practical activities,

i.e., those actions which include doing and making, is

that they are essentially contingent. They can be done

or not done, performed or not performed. Practical

activities are practical insofar as they are inherently

uncertain and unpredictable. Moreover, the realm of

things involved in action is of the particular and

individual; actions differ in each and every situation.

For example, a bridge mayor may not be built to connect

two highways in order to alleviate traffic congestion in

a city - but a tunnel may be built instead, creating an

entirely new auto route. Neither building a bridge nor a

tunnel is necessary since it is possible to do either or nothing at all.

For this reason, practical activities are clearly not the kind of things about which it is possible to generalize assuredly. It is not possible to generate a definitive rule encompassing all the possible special circumstances of all bridges or tunnels and entailing certainty of success in all situations. Abstracting from among the many examples of traffic congestion results in 198

just that - an abstraction which emphasizes similarities

at the expense of differences, which is precisely what

usually makes the generalization or abstraction useless

at the individual and practical level. Most individual

situations differ from each other - and from themselves

over time. But Dewey's concern seems to be not to deny

abstractions or generalizations, since they can be useful

tools of inquiry, but to emphasize that the significance

of these theoretical tools lies in their practical

bearing on action. Dewey sums it up best when he says

that "practical activity deals with individualized and

unique situations which are never exactly duplicable and

about which, accordingly, no complete assurance is

possible. "22

No matter how well a person plans to act, and no

matter how expertly s/he executes the act, there is

always an element of indeterminacy involved. Neither the

decision to act nor the act itself is capable of

controlling all factors in a situation. It is only after

the fact - after the action (or set of actions) are complete - that one can look back and describe the actions as if they were completely determined.

Change is unquestionably the definitive mark of practical activities. Dewey speculates that it was the prospect of ever-increasing change that caused humans to lose their bearing. He reasons that uncertain prospects naturally made them want to find some unshakable truth to 199

rely on and thereby escape the disquiet caused by the

tragedy of accidents and unanticipated turns of events.

Dewey concludes that it was human distrust of, and lack

of confidence in the realm of practical matters that

caused reflective human beings to attempt to transcend

the practical realm. Dewey claims that the classical

Greeks endeavored to transcend the perils of practical

uncertainty through pure knowledge, since only pure

knowledge is unaffected by these limitations of changing

experience. 23

The aversion to change and the desire for permanence

was reflected in the Platonic and Aristotelian

idealization of reality, which led to what Alfred North

Whitehead has called the "bifurcation of nature. "24 It was the Greeks who divided reality into two separate and differing kinds of being, "one superior, accessible only to reason and ideal in nature, the other inferior, material, changeable, empirical, accessible to sense observation. "25 The unchanged realm of forms (for Plato) or essences (for Aristotle) was the ideal realm, which functioned as a tabula rasa in a mathematician's dream, i.e., in the sense that it enabled its user to have total control, with the guarantee that whatever could be sustained in this realm was forever certain, sublime and true. This realm "has absolute ideality and rationality as its necessary attribute."26 The other realm, that of becoming, is the opposite - full of change, unreality, 200

and uncertainty - all the characteristics considered to

be deficient, incomplete, undesirable, and disagreeable.

Implicit in the division of realms was a hierarchy.

Because there is a definitive connection between

immutability and truth in the higher realm, the only type

of knowledge capable of reflecting this virtual identity

is demonstrative or purely theoretical knowledge. Thus,

pure theoretical knowledge reigns at the top of the

Aristotelian hierarchy. Aristotle clearly stipulates this in his Ethics. The objects of theoretical wisdom

are the very highest, because they are the most universal

and "the most finished of the forms of knowledge." They

are "of the things that are highest by nature."

(Nichomachean Ethics, 1141a 17, 1141b 3). Ultimately,

for Aristotle the highest and best type of knowledge is

contemplative, even though one arrives at contemplative knowledge only after developing practical virtues. For

Plato, similarly, pure intuition is the highest state of knowledge, even higher than mathematical knowledge, though the latter serves as a model for ideal knowledge.

Lest there be any doubt, practical knowledge paled

in comparison to theoretical or contemplative knowledge.

According to the classical view of the matter, non contemplative and non-theoretical types of knowledge were assumed to be inferior because they were practical, because they were subject to change, and because their

'truth' could only be provisional or hypothetical. 201

Practical knowledge, according to the doctrines of Plato

and Aristotle, was deficient in itself because it

referred to contingent things and events beyond itself.

The difference in importance between the two types of

knowledge was elaborated until it reflected the division

between realms of being and non-being. But it is the

hierarchy of graduated value in this intellectual

framework that is important here, since, as Dewey argues,

it is the hierarchy that has led to the overriding

emphasis on the role of intellect in knowledge.

Dewey underscores the fact that Plato was especially

emphatic about grading levels of reality and according

each level a correlative degree of importance and value.

For Plato,

while the artisan is expert as long as purely limited technical questions arise, he is helpless when it comes to the only really important questions ....his type of knowledge is inherently inferior and needs to be controlled by a higher kind of knowledge which will reveal ultimate ends and purposes, and thus put and keep technical and mechanical knowledge in its proper place.27

In short, Plato and Aristotle regarded the knowledge of the artisan as base,28 owing to its connection to the material world, and owing to the fact that technical knowledge did not come about disinterestedly for its own sake.

Two important consequences followed from the

Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions discussed above, 202

consequences which both Dewey and Heidegger claim have

determined the subsequent course of Western epistemology

for centuries: first, the rise of a spectator theory of

knowledge inherent in the idea that "knowledge is

intrinsically a mere beholding or viewing of reality, "29

and, second, the "sharp division between doing and

knowing, which was generalized into a complete separation

of theory and 'practice. '''3D

The classical "spectator view of knowledge," as

Dewey calls it, is based upon an analogy with vision in which the object of vision is external to the seer and independent of the act of seeing:

The object refracts light to the eye and is seen; it makes a difference to the eye and to the person having an optical apparatus, but none to the thing seen. The real object is the object so fixed in its regal aloofness that it is a king to any beholding mind that may gaze upon it.31

This conception regards seeing as a purely passive

'activity' of beholding, noting and observing in such a way that the seeing subject is entirely separate from the object under view. Thus, aesthetic gazing or contemplative countenancing exemplify the nature of theoretical viewing. The basic understanding involved is consistent with the primary meaning of theoria for the classical Greek philosophers, since, as Stephen Toulmin notes, theoria meant "being an onlooker. "32 The idea of 203

theoria expressly precluded any sense of an agent's

effect upon an object - either constitutive or

interactive. Ironically, the concept of 'viewing' would

even preclude the visual fusing of images - something

that eyes are widely known to perform - since this type

of active fusing would undermine the utter detachment and

objectivity of objects under view.

According to the spectator model, theoretical

contemplation affords a kind of mental view of its object

without in any way interacting or intervening with the

object. Dewey interprets this 'beholding' and 'noting'

as an extension of classical Greek aesthetics33, and he considers this conception of knowledge, assimilated as it was to Greek aesthetics, to be profoundly harmful to

subsequent philosophy:

Nothing has done greater harm to the successful conduct of the enterprise of thinking (and to the logics which reflect and formulate the undertaking) than the habit of treating observation as something outside of and prior to thinking, and as thinking as something which can go on in the head without includin~ observation of new facts as part of itself.34

The spectator theory of knowledge is based on what was thought by the Greeks to be an objective and rational world. But inherent in this view of knowledge is a

latent subjectivism against which Dewey, Heidegger and, to some extent the later Wittgenstein, protest.35 As

Rorty points out, Heidegger would find himself in 204

agreement with Dewey's criticism that the classical Greek

understanding of objects of knowledge as something to be

viewed and represented is a kind of subjectivism.36 Both

philosophers argue that the spectatorial conception of

knowledge is essentially subjectivist insofar as the

objects of knowledge, described as objective

representations, are merely representations relative to,

and in relation to the subject. According to Heidegger

and Dewey, these representations are in fact projections

of the subject's ideas.

Dewey and Heidegger also criticize this same

subjectivism in their seventeenth and eighteenth century

empiricist predecessors. Both Dewey and Heidegger point

out that the empiricists failed to rid themselves of

subjectivistic conceptions of knowledge derived from the

Greeks. They tried "to put the new wine in the old

bottles," as Dewey says, but in fact "failed in getting

an emancipated and independent expression. "37 Dewey

observes that although the empiricists themselves

accepted the classical view that "experience never rises

above the level of the particular, the contingent, and

the probable," they nonetheless concl~ded merely that

"since there is no faculty of pure reason in the

possession of mankind, we must put up with what we have, experience, and make the most possible out of it."38

Despite the fact that the empiricists were arguing against a faculty of rational perception, they 205

unwittingly incorporated a new version of the spectator

model of knowledge in conceptualizing empirical

knowledge. The empiricists attempted to establish sense

data as the new basis for knowledge, and thereby to

undermine the classical Greek emphasis on the role of

intellection in knowledge. But their emphasis on the

role of sensation in knowledge confirmed, rather than

denied, the spectator conception of knowledge as a

passive occurrence.39 Moreover, the empiricist shift of

attention away from the object of knowledge towards

sensation effectively recast the focus of attention onto

the subject. Dewey notes that

when objects are isolated from the experience through which they are reached and in which they function, experience itself becomes reduced to the mere process of experiencing, and experiencing is therefore treated as if it were also complete in itself. We get the absurdity of an experiencing which experiences only itself, states and processes of consciousness, instead of the things of nature. Since the seventeenth century this conception of experience as the equivalent of subjective private consciousness set over against nature...has wrought havoc in philosophy.40

In other words, empiricism no less than rationalism

ultimately endorses a mentalism, that is to say, a

conception of experience or consciousness at once distinct from, yet inexplicably a part of 'nature'. 206

The distinction between theory and practice also

follows from the same dualistic ontology, and is also based upon the supposition that one of the two spheres of reality is ideal. On this supposition objects are fixed and determinate, so much so that they are capable of exact mathematical description and prediction.41 The type of knowing appropriate to the exercise of reason within this sphere is purely logical and purely 'mental', as if it were entirely independent from the body.42 This exercise of reason became intellectually institutionalized as 'theory,' and it was defined by its contrast to the opposite realm of practice. True to his anthropological and psychological "genetic method,"

Dewey also traces the separation of theory and practice to its social and institutional expressions.

Dewey is one of the few philosophers, along with

Hegel and Marx, who insist upon the recognition that ideas and values within a culture are promoted or demoted by means of institutions. The status of ideas and their connection to social and economic class differences, is a recurring theme throughout Dewey's work. He develops this theme in his book Reconstruction in Philosophy in

1920, and reintroduces it again in 1929 in The Quest for

Certainty. In this case, the difference in value between doing and knowing was promoted by the traditional institutional separation between the mechanical and liberal arts. 207

While the distinction between mechanical and liberal

arts illustrates the differences - both intellectual and

social - between theory and practice, all arts were

strictly speaking a form of practice, i.e., a mode of

doing.43 Dewey observes that the Greeks enlarged upon

the distinction between the higher liberal arts and the

lower mechanical arts by adding another, namely, a

distinction between all the arts and what Dewey called

"science," which is the customary translation of

Aristotle's word episteme.44 As a type of doing, the

arts were unable to claim status as a science, i.e., as a

proper episteme, since they were in fact regarded as

poesis or techne, (productive actions of doing or

making) .45

With the growing influence of the Church in the

Medieval period, theology appropriated the conception of

science, since theology "alone was knowledge of supreme

and ultimate being."46 This appropriation effectively

thwarted the development of experimental science, since

the conception of knowledge which the Medievals seized upon, and which originatsd ~ith the classical Greeks, was

emphatically detached from the empirical realm of practice. 208

4.2.3 Dewey's Conception of Technology

Dewey was never explicit about having a conception

of technology. But his entire philosophical outlook was

informed by an ardent interest in technology, and by an

understanding of its role in knowledge formation, theory

building and human survival. I contend that implicit in

Dewey's doctrines, particularly in his theory of

instrumental inquiry, is a conception of technology. The task of the following discussion is to elicit Dewey's conception of technology, and its connection to modern experimental science.

4.2.3.1 Meanings of 'science'.

First it is important to understand what Dewey meant by 'science' and how and why he demarcated modern experimental scientific inquiry from classical Greek science. Because the Greek world of Plato and Aristotle did not have 'science' in any modern sense of the word, it can be confusing when Dewey uses the term 'science', equivocally, when referring to both.

The English term 'science' derives from the Latin scientia, which is the Latin rendering of the Greek episteme.47 Scientia in all of its primary senses means knowledge. 48 Both uses of the term 'science' employed by

Dewey refer to knowledge, but the denotative meanings of 209

the term differ in the type of knowledge referred to.

When referring to early Greek science Dewey uses the term

'science' to signify the classical theoretical conception

of science, namely, as knowledge or episteme, as

formulated in the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. This

usage is the same as the philosophical definition of

'science' given in the D.E.D., viz., "'knowledge' as

opposed to 'belief' or 'opinion'."49 This particular

understanding of science demarcates it from art, thereby

keeping the theory-laden knowledge of science (episteme)

separate and distinct from the skills and technical

'knowledge' of art (techne). The ancient Greek pursuit

of theoretical knowledge discussed throughout this

dissertation is the ancient Greek 'science' to which

Dewey refers.

Throughout Dewey's writings he seems to alternate

between two definitions of science: the definition of

science given above, that is, science discloses knowledge

of 'the truth' as opposed to opinion, and, the definition of science which Dewey's philosophy insists upon, namely, experimental science. Of the first definition of

science, Dewey seems to maintain that it is indistinguishable from philosophy. Philosophy, at least in Aristotle's understanding of the term, is nothing but science, in the sense of episteme, since philosophy attempts to discover first principles according to which all of nature could be explained (Physics 982a). When 210

Dewey talks about this definition of early science he

refers to such attempts to arrive at demonstrative

knowledge on the basis of first principles. Dewey is

critical of this definition of science, since it is

subjectivistic. He states, for instance, "What had been

termed science in the past consisted of this humanly

constructed and imposed web. Men looked at the work of

their own minds and thought they were seeing realities in

nature. "50 Dewey also sometimes notes, however, that

this classical Greek conception of science derives from

philosophy, since philosophy was an indispensable

prerequisite to the development of this idea of science,

inasmuch as philosophers were essential in producing the

intellectual environment in which the first logical

formulations of science developed.5l In any event, Dewey

clearly states that, while the early Greeks had not

developed a 'science' in the modern experimental

scientific sense, they laid the groundwork for an idea of

science.52

In the modern context, however, Dewey employs the

second definition of science, namely, that it is

experimental. He traces the origins of experimental

science to the early arts and crafts, which over time became more elaborate and which engendered an

increasingly large body of tested knowledge. These early technologies, Dewey asserts, "promote the development of the experimental habit of mind... "S3 Experimental 211

science refers to a second, practical and empirically

based knowledge. Inasmuch as experimental science is

conceived as a practice, it is a kind of techne.

According to Dewey's point of view, the standard

dictionary definition noted above ought to be expanded to

accommodate modern science.

The Q.E.D. does note, however, that the earlier

denotation of the term 'science' "is extended to denote a

department of practical work which depends on knowledge

and conscious application of principles. "54 The second

type of knowledge to which the term 'science' refers,

then, is practical, though it is still distinguishable

from 'art', the mere "knowledge of traditional rules and

skill acquired by habit. "55

As James Tiles notes, the classical Greeks were not without an understanding of the practical dimension of knowledge, since the Greek term episteme "derives from a verb [epistamai] meaning to be able," or to know how to do.56 However, as we have already discussed, this practical aspect of episteme has not generally been developed or acknowledged in the literature on Platonic and Aristotelian epistemology. The literature instead imputes that knowledge is attained purely intellectually.

The definitive mark of modern scientific inquiry, according to Dewey, is that it is essentially active and thereby is inherently practical. Modern inquiry proceeds by attempting to change or resolve a problematic 212

situation; it does not originate in contemplation, and it

cannot be successful through the pure exercise of the

intellect. Rather, as Scheffler observes, "it involves

practice essentially, either by direct experiment, or by

control of the conditions of our observations. "57 In

short, there is not science as episteme without there

being science as techne.

Dewey considers the situation of a practicing

experimental scientist. When

he wants to know something, the last thing he does is merely to contemplate. He does not look in however earnest and prolonged way upon the object expecting that thereby he will detect its fixed and characteristic form.58

The conception of inquiry that Dewey argues against is the spectator view suggested in the above quotation. The problem with this fundamentally aesthetic conception of the way knowledge is achieved is that it is inherently subjectivistic. Dewey argues that the Greeks mistakenly projected their own internal contemplation onto nature:

what had been termed science in the past consisted of this humanly constructed and imposed web. Men looked at the work of their own minds and thought they were seeing realities in nature. They were worshipping, under the name of science, the idols of their own making.59 213

Early modern experimental science was still avowedly

rationalistic, which according to both Dewey and

Heidegger is mistakenly subjectivistic.

But while the Greek idea of science was

subjectivistic and unanchored in real experience of

nature, their idea nonetheless served as a paradigm for

philosophy and modern science for centuries because of

what it promised: namely, a picture of what ideal

knowledge would look like. Essentially mathematical in

nature, the classical model represented knowledge as

fixed, determinate and certain.

4.2.3.2 Adaptation of the classical intellectual framework to the new context of experimental inquiry.

The early modern scientists embarked upon their

novel experimental approach to knowledge in the shadow of

the classical Greek philosopher-scientists and the

intellectual framework established principally by Plato

and Aristotle. The early moderns - Descartes, Galileo,

and Newton - adopted the Platonic and Aristotelian model of mathematical certainty, but they adapted it to the context of new experimental inquiry. From Dewey's point of view, the thought of these early moderns was not sufficiently experimental.

The demands and needs of modern experimental practice were not served by the classical conception of 214

science in a number of ways. According to Dewey, the

classical conception failed to take account of change or

novelty; the concept of 'potentiality' hardly provided an

answer. For 'potentiality' does not include novelty or

invention, it only accounts for "that principle in virtue

of which the acorn becomes the oak."60 And it failed to

account for how the process of knowing overcomes the

distance created by the separation between the knower and

the known.

Dewey argues that in the actual conduct of inquiry, the modern experimental scientist endeavors to do something, to induce some change or alteration in an experiment to evince new information. Dewey asserts that the astronomer, for instance, while s/he

cannot change the stars themselves, ... can at least by lens and prism change their light as it reaches the earth; [and] ... can lay traps for discovering changes which would otherwise escape notice.61

Modern experimental science embraced the empirical, whereas early Greek science diminished its importance both intellectually and institutionally. However, Dewey sometimes allows that it is not the case that the Greek philosophers "had no respect for perception and relied exclusively upon speculation. "62 He observes, rather, that the Greeks were more interested in "the fixed and immutable form which makes particulars have the character 215

they have."63 In fact, the Greeks did have empirical

'sciences', such as mechanics, but because these sciences

involved machines and tools used by the lower classes,

philosopher-scientists failed to include the tools,

methods, and observations of the empirical sciences in

their descriptions of natural phenomena, as Galileo and

Newton did, for instance.64 In short, the ancient Greek

disrespect for sensibly observed material concerned only its form. For it had to be brought under logical forms supplied by rational thought. The fact that the material was not exclusively logical, or such as to satisfy the requirements of rational form, made the resulting knowledge less scientific than that of pure mathematics, logic and metaphysics occupied with eternal Being.65

Hence, the early Greeks were not merely concerned with a world detached from change and peril; they sought

to develop a method of investigation which exhibited certain reliable features of logical or mathematical

form. The concern with logical form was reflected in assumptions about what shape proper knowledge should take, and thus unchanging, hence, reliable forms were construed as the only legitimate content of early science.

The ideal of a logically reliable form also became the ideal foundation for early modern science, in much the same way that it had been for early philosophy.

Interest in developing a scientific method to enable 216

science to reach reliable conclusions continued to occupy

scientists and philosophers for centuries after Plato and

Aristotle. Descartes, Galileo and Newton emulated this

ideal, and were the first actually to correlate

mathematical certainty with successful experimental

science. As Toulmin observes, "for all their

disagreements with Aristotle, the 'new, mathematical and

experimental philosophers' - as the seventeenth-century

scientists called themselves - continued in this one,

crucial respect to work within [Aristotle's]

tradition. "66

One of the first effects of the moderns' adoption of

the ideal of scientific certainty was a rigorously

rationalized reduction of objects to data. The idea that

things are different in kind, that they are inherently

heterogeneous, was abolished in favor of the idea that

objects can be treated in a scientific investigation as

if they were homogeneous, once their mechanical

properties could be formulated mathematically. Things

like trees, rocks, stars, and oceans were beginning to be discussed in terms of gravity, velocity, mass, etc. "The

significance of mathematical formulation" lies in "the possibility of complete equivalence or homogeneity of translation of different phenomena into one another's terms. "67

Thus, one of the early. consequences of experimentation was that things were denuded of their 217

qualities by virtue of being translated into 'data.'68

Things which were thought to be different in kind came to

be regarded in the light of certain mediating factors, as

though they were the homogeneous: Celestial bodies were

brought under the same laws as terrestrial bodies;

motion, heat, light, and electricity are converted into

and explained in terms of each other - rather than in

terms of their individual intrinsic qualities.69 The

effect of experimentation was a stripping away of what

had previously been thought to be 'intrinsic' properties

from the things they qualified. This qualitative

rationalization of the objects of ordinary experience was

essential to all applications of the new scientific

method.

A second important consequence of experimentation,

however, is implied in the contrast between the new

meanings and import associated with data and the meanings

and import associated with the original objects of

experience. The original objects of experience, such as

trees, stars, and inclement weather, were looked upon as

finalities - as ends - complete and finished in

themselves. 70 They could be defined according to

properties, classified according to species, and subsumed

under logical categories, but their significance as objects-of-knowledge lay in their fixed natures. Data,

on the other hand, are not complete entities but are

symbolic subject-matter which serve to advance discourse 218

and understanding in the course of particular inquiries.

Data become the "subject-matter for further

interpretation. "71 The focus of attention changed from

objects-conceived-as-ends (natures) to the data-serving-

as-means (tools).

Dewey's problem with the methods of Descartes,

Galileo and Newton is that their methods were still based

on a concept of knowledge which kept the knower at a

distance from the known. They assumed that the human

spectator could discover laws of nature without in any

way affecting or altering the objects of discovery; and

they assumed that the objects of nature were determinate

and unchanging. Dewey contends that the minds of these

physical inquirers

...were still possessed by the old notion that reality in order to be solid and firm must consist of those fixed immutable things which philosophy calls substances. Changes could be known only if they could be somehow reduced to recombinations of original unchanging things.72

It is not clear that this description of things would further Dewey's criticism of the early scientists since it could also be employed to describe modern chemistry. However, it is clear that Dewey thought that the practices of early modern science were not thoroughgoing and experimental enough. Early modern science implicitly adopted the ideal of the spectator 219

theory of knowledge, and thereby contained the fallacies,

as well as the promise, inherent in it. From Dewey's

point of view, all three modern scientific philosophers

Descartes, Galileo, and Newton - were committed to the

view that mathematics provides the essential key to

nature. From Dewey's perspective, however, the world does not present itself to us with mathematical precision, at least in any ordinary sense of the word.

Their reductive methods were engaged in order to get only those results that are commensurate with their one primary tool of mathematics, and this tool warrants only a limited type of belief. For Dewey, all three philosophers were foisting a projection of a mathematical model onto nature. Despite their efforts to obtain a detached and objective view of nature, their activity was for Dewey a subjectivist activity.

Dewey replaced both the classical Greek conception of knowledge and the early modern conception of knowledge with an alternative conception, one that simultaneously displaces the classical Greek conception of science and replaces the early modern mathematical conception of science. Dewey's alternative conception is a conception of technology which can be elicited by examining his theory of inquiry. 220

4.2.3.3 The Theory of Inquiry: its connection to Dewey's conception of technology as Techne.

Dewey's conception of technology can be

elicited from his theory of inquiry. While Dewey never

makes the connection between technology and the

instrumental method of inquiry explicit, late in life he

makes several statements and remarks which suggest that

the connection was always assumed. In one instance he

virtually identifies his instrumental method of inquiry

with technology.73 In another, he remarks that perhaps

some of the confusions associated with his conception of

'instrumental' inquiry might have been eliminated if he

"had systematically used 'technology' instead of

"'instrumentalism' in connection with the view [he] put

forth regarding "the distinctive quality of science as knowledge. "74 The connection is clear enough from an examination of Dewey's elucidation of 'inquiry'. It is clear that Dewey's instrumental method of inquiry discloses the pattern and structure of technological progress, and thereby presents a logic of productive action which just is Dewey's conception of technology, otherwise discussed in the dissertation as the logos of techne. Moreover, Dewey regards his method of inquiry as the backbone of experimental science. He concludes that science is not the theoretical master of technology, but 221

is itself "a mode of technology. "75 Details of these

claims are examined in the following discussion.

Dewey's conception of technology replaces the classical conception of episteme. According to Dewey, any conception of knowledge, including the classical conception of episteme, is meaningless if conceived in isolation from the context of inquiry. In marked contrast to the early Greek theories of knowledge, Dewey argues that knowing is necessarily a process in which the knower engages; it is an active process, one in which knowing is a form of productive action. Dewey takes the actual developments in science and technology as proof of the validity of his theory of inquiry.

Dewey agrees with Peirce that knowledge is correlative to the process of inquiry. For Dewey, knowledge is pre-eminently an activity which occurs within nature, and is brought about by means of human inquiry. Knowing is not a process which occurs according to formulations or conditions that are formed outside of, antecedent to, or 'above' the actual conditions of the natural environment. By the 'natural' environment, Dewey means both the cultural and the biological contexts in which living organisms interact, since "the environment in which human beings live, act and inquire" is cultural as well as physical.76 Dewey considers that all knowledge is "the product of special acts of inquiry,"77 and that to engage in inquiry is to engage in the most 222

natural of human activities. The process of knowing is

therefore one in which the knower interacts reflectively

with the environment. It is clear from Dewey's theory of

inquiry that the ability of an organism to adapt to the

changing conditions of its (biological and cultural)

environment is the measure of the organism's practical

intelligence.

The nature of scientific knowledge has been

historically misconstrued, from Dewey's point of view,

insofar as it has too often been based upon the

assumption that knowledge or truth is the result of a

correspondence or a representation rather than an

interaction by means of inquiry and experimentation. Dewey applies this indictment even to Newtonian science.

Progress in science, argues Dewey, hinges on the "choice of operations," by means of which the inquirer interacts with the environment, "not upon the properties ascribed to objects, which were alleged to be so antecedently

certain and fixed that all detailed phenomena might be reduced to them."78

The experimental way of thinking considers the means and methods by which an inquiry proceeds as constitutive of the objective, or end, of the activity. It is the insight Whitehead conveyed as a "principle of process," namely, "a thing's 'being' is constituted by its

'becoming'."79 But, it is not the case that Dewey merely reverses the traditional emphasis on ends to a different 223

emphasis on means.80 Dewey denies the separation of

means and ends, and thus also, that of practice and

theory, in the first place. His point is that

experimental knowing gives an importance to the method

and means which constitute experimental practices that

had previously "been imputed exclusively t;o ends. "Bl All

theories, including the theory of the separation between

theory and practice, have a practical origin.82 For this

reason, it can be argued that Dewey locates theory in the matrix of practice, and he thereby locates the

Aristotelian episteme in the matrix of techne.

The significance of experimental knowing lies in the

"depth, range and fullness of meaning" it adds to the objects of ordinary experience, not in the fact that it verifies or corroborates hypotheses.B3 Hypotheses function like the conclusions of past experiments, namely, as tools or instruments of inquiry. While it is productive to have hypotheses verified, the objective of the activity of inquiry "is found in what has been accomplished...in the products the tools turn out," in the results, not in the perfection of the tools that are used.84 While the tools are instrumental to inquiry, t~eir 'verification' or improvement in the course of inquiry "cannot constitute the whole significance of inquiry."8S For example, the cure for a previously incurable disease is the objective of a particular medical inquiry. In the course of medical research, any 224

number of hypotheses may be corroborated, but each of

them serves as an instrument which brings about the

objective of the cure. Similarly, the objective of

building a bridge is to be able to carry the load for

which it was built. The significance of the bridge does

not lie in the corroboration of a hypothesis about

ambient vibrations, which nonetheless serves the

instrumental and intermediate purpose of analyzing the

strength of the bridge structure relative to its load.

For Dewey, it is essential that human inquiry be

viewed as a continuing process of developing viable

instruments for adapting to the environment. The idea of

the 'process' of inquiry, and its corresponding

instrumentalities, replaces the traditional emphases on

fixed conceptions of knowledge, and on conceptions of

knowledge whose proper objects are fixed.86 The

conception of process is fundamental to Dewey's

doctrines. It rests on the recognition that achievement

is always subject to improvement or replacement. Dewey

sees knowledge as a continual evolution and adaptation.

Dewey's and Peirce's insistence upon the provisional

nature of experimental inquiry has no doubt been

instrumental in producing the point of view expressed in

the literature of the philosophy of science during the past few decades. The now popular understanding of the constitutive function of paradigms in the evolution of experimental research advanced by Thomas Kuhn is an 225

example. Karl Popper's theory of falsification is

another instance of the claim that discovery in the

experimental sciences is always a process of adaptation

and revision, since verification is not possible (because

inductive certainty is not possible) .

By implication, truth itself is only provisionally

rendered in inquiry; it is never final or 'objectively verifiable,' but is continually open to revision and

improvement. Dewey argues against any possibility of there being a verification from outside of nature, or from outside of the very context that is constitutive of the process of inquiry. As Tiles points out,87 Dewey prefers that we back-translate the noun 'truth' to its adjectival 'true', and again to its adverbial 'truly' in order to avoid the finality suggested by the abstract noun 'truth'. The concept of 'truth' can only be meaningful in the context of the continuum of inquiries.

For this reason, Dewey adopts Peirce's definition of truth from the logical standpoint as "the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate."B8

Dewey is against the conception of truth as resting upon the successful correspondence between pure 'facts' and our conception of those facts, because there is no possibility of there being pure facts in isolation from the environment which interprets them. Dewey sees no need for the a priori assumption of a fixed foundation 226

for knowledge, certainly not one which rests upon a

spectator theory of knowledge, or a correspondence theory

of truth. It is only through inquiry that humans can

know what they are justified in believing, and Dewey is

interested in seeing how these beliefs serve as

instruments in improving our respective environments.

Dewey's theory of inquiry, therefore, is committed to the

importance of developing conceptual instrumentalities,

which is similar to inventing new machines, in effect,

insofar as they have practical bearing on courses of

possible action. The implication is that the test of

knowledge is "the ability to bring about certain

changes. "89 By means of the process of inquiry humans

learn what habits they need to develop in the interest of

living, and which would give them better control over the

problematic aspects of their environment.

Dewey was deeply affected by Darwin's observation

that the differentiation of organs within each species

enables it to interact with and adapt to its environment

in ways that assure its survival. He developed an analogous conception of the human organism developing habits to make its way and to make necessary changes ~n its environment to assure its well-being. Dewey construes habits as "the basis of organic learning,"90 in the sense in which Aristotle did, that is, as the practical outcome of practical reason. Habits are a type of making activity; they are a kind of techne, since they 227

constitute the practices which 'make' or inform the

action one chooses to take.

Habits associated with practical reason are

concerted impositions and intended interferences in the

natural course of things by means of inquiry. They are

not the result of 'blind' or spontaneous impulses.

Habits enable a person to make a decision when faced with

an indeterminate situation. A doctor who has to decide

on a course of treatment for a patient whose illness is

not entirely understood engages his or her knowledge in determining the treatment. This knowledge consists in the medical practitioner's "habit of inference,"91 and enables the practitioner to transform what is for a time an indeterminate situation into a determinate one. Dewey defines inquiry as

the controlled or directed transformation of an indeterminate situation into one that is so determinate in its constituent distinctions and relations as to convert the elements of the original situation into a unified whole. 92

Thus when (informed) habits interfere successfully they create a new situation which is determinate and unproblematic, at least for a time. The transformation that comes about is the knowledge-product, the new artifact which was intentionally shaped and fabricated by the habits and practices of the inquirer. When such habits become formulated, they function within the 228

inquiry as rules of action and exhibit logical

principles. 93 The logic of inquiry is, on a practical

level, indistinguishable from the structure (or more

accurately, the logos) of techne first formulated by

Aristotle. Both require practical knowledge and skill

based upon principles of operation, and both result in an action. As Russell critically observes, Dewey's notion of inquiry is essentially indistinguishable from other kinds of practical activity.94 That this is the case reflects the differences in aim and temperament between

Russell and Dewey, since Russell inclines toward analysis and Dewey inclines toward history, according to which experimental science does not derive from philosophy but from early technologies and from making. The thrust of

Dewey's whole philosophy militates against hard and fast distinctions because he found these to be arbitrary interpretations of experience.

For this reason, inquiry is always contextual.

Inquiry is initially activated by the recognition of a problematic situation.95 This originative condition is similar to what Peirce called the "irritation of doubt"96 which provokes a person to work to convert doubt into belief,97 and to relieve oneself of situations "that are disturbed and troubled, confused or obscure."98 Practical situations are problematic in many ways, depending upon the existential situation in which the human organism finds itself "caught up."99 But they are 229

indeterminate with respect to an objective or an end which is not yet achieved, or which perhaps is not yet even clear. This indeterminateness, characteristic of all possible practical situations, was discussed earlier in this chapter.

The resolution of the "problematic situation" requires the cooperation of the faculties of sense and reason,lOO and the functional interaction between the conception of the subject matter and the activities and practices of observation and control.IOl In other words, the process of inquiry involves the correlative determinations of 'what there is' and 'what can be done about it. I Dewey holds that the successful resolution is the indeterminate situation made determinate through an action. He sees the objective of inquiry as Peirce does, i.e., to "produce habits of action."102 This conception of inquiry is also reminiscent of Aristotle's conception of a practical syllogism, the conclusion of which is an action.I03 'Action' in Dewey's sense, however, is paradigmatically productive action. The objective of inquiry is more precisely to engender habits of techne, habits of productive action. As Hickman recognizes,

Dewey inverts the Aristotelian hierarchy of the sciences,104 in which theory (theoria) was of primary importance, doing (praxis) was of secondary importance, and making (poiesis) was of least importance. Dewey holds, by contrast, that theory in the form of a working 230

hypothesis serves as a tool to practice, which

constitutes the means to producing new effects, that is,

new meanings, newly determinate situations, and new

artifacts.

4.3 CONCLUSION

Through his conception of inquiry, Dewey alters the

terms of discourse which identified knowledge as a

correspondence or a representation and substitutes an

idea of knowing as a productive action: knowledge comes

about by making some change or alteration in the

conditions of the environment. IDS The nature of the

'making' is determined by the habits and practices of the

inquirer.

Dewey denies the possibility of purely theoretical

inquiry outside of a practical context. While he did not

try to reduce the theoretical to the practical, he argued

against the autonomy of the theoretical,106 and in favor

of the idea that the matrix of inquiry is essentially practical. He replaces the classical "quest for certainty" with the modern "search for security by means of active control of the changing course of events."I07

It is clear that Dewey regarded knowledge as a kind of productive action, which in Aristotelian terminology amounts to the claim that episteme is a kind of techne. 231

Dewey made this conclusion especially clear late in

his life, when he stated that science is "not the

theoretical master of technology" but is itself "a mode

of technology. "108 This insight corroborates one of my

contention in this dissertation: Dewey's instrumental

theory of inquiry is grounded in his conception of

technology. Since the instrumental theory of inquiry is

essentially technological, and since the theory of

inquiry defines the process by which science advances,

science itself must be regarded as a development of

technology.

While Dewey's doctrines succeed in getting rid of a

misleading idea of 'science', there is a sense in which

his modern conception of experimental inquiry also

eliminates or dismisses the conception of a science that

is anything other than technological. By virtue of its

account of the conditions which warrant belief, the

method of inquiry is a thorough-going logic of productive

action, disclosing the structure and pattern of the

technological process. Dewey's presentation of

experimental inquiry amounts to an argument that no plan,

no idea or intellectual conception can exhaust or

completely determine a productive action. The argument

claims, rather, that the action and its context give full meaning and import to the plan, idea, or conception.

Dewey seems neither to have realized the

implications of his theory of inquiry for the meaning and 232

status of science, nor to have appreciated the extent to which his theory of inquiry embodies a conception of technology. According to Dewey's doctrines, what makes modern experimental science scientific is its technological operations. The import and significance of experimental science is wholly dependent upon its being technological. 233

END NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

1 Frederick Copelston, A History of Philosophy: Vol. 3. Late Medieval & Renaissance Philosophy, Part 2 (Garden City, New York: Image Books Edition, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1963), p. 245.

2 Israel Scheffler, Four Pragmatists: A Critical Introduction to Peirce, James, Mead, and Dewey (London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), p. 6.

3 John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957), Introduction, p. xxvii.

4 ibid.

5 ibid., p. xxxvii.

6 ibid., p. 75.

7 Scheffler, ibid., p. 1.

8 Frederick Copelston, S.J., A History of Philosophy: Vol. 8, Modern Philosophy - Bentham to Russell, Part 2 (Garden City, New York: Image Books, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1967), p. 61. Also cf. Scheffler, ibid., Introduction, and cf. Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), Introduction.

9 J. Tiles has suggested that the medieval tradition of interpreting Plato and Aristotle has been filtered through pagan Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Porphyry, Iarnblicus, and Proclus as early as the third century.

10 John Dewey, Problems of Men (New York: Philosophical Library) p. 291. Cf. Larry Hickman, John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, The Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Technology, 1992.) pp. 46, 58. 234

11 Hickman, ibid., p. 46. Hickman states that Dewey credited his student C. E. Ayres with the formulation that science is "a mode of technology." Dewey stated in 1946 that the notion was implicit in his instrumental theory of inquiry since 1916.

12 Larry Hickman, John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, The Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Technology, 1992. )

13 Dewey, Reconstruction, ibid., pp. v, ix.

14 J.E. Tiles, Dewey. (London and New York: Routledge, 1990), p. 126.

15 John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984) p. 5.

16 ibid., p. 7. 17 Reconstruction, ibid., p. 12.

18 ibid., p. 13.

19 ibid., p. 189.

20 ibid., p. 188.

21 ibid., p. 189.

22 Certainty, ibid., p. 6

23 ibid., p. 6.

24 Alfred North Whitehead, The Concept of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926) p. 26. 235

25 Reconstruction, ibid., p. 121.

26 ibid., p , 106.

27 ibid., p. 110.

28 ibid., p , 110.

29 ibid., p. 112.

30 ibid., p. ix.

31 Certainty, ibid., p. 19.

32 Stephen Toulmin's Introduction to John Dewey's Quest for Certainty, ibid., p. xiv.

33 Reconstruction, p. 115.

34 ibid. p. 140.

35 This is one of the major theses developed by Richard Rorty in his book Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1979). Stephen Toulmin also develops this line of thought in his introduction to Dewey's Quest for Certainty, ibid.

36 Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism: Essays: 1972 1980 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982) p:-4"4.

37 Reconstruction, ibid., pp. 51-52.

38 ibid., p. 78.

39 Scheffler, ibid., p. 202. 236

40 John Dewey, Experience and Nature (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1925) p. 13. Cf. Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism, ibid., p. 44.

41 Quest, p. 163.

42 ibid., p , 195.

43 ibid., p. 61.

44 ibid.

45 ibid.

46 ibid.

47 C. T. Onions, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974) p. 797.

48 The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971) p. 2268.

49 ibid.

50 Reconstruction, ibid., p. 36.

51 ibid., p. xxix.

52 John Dewey, Experience and Nature, ibid., p. 105. What Dewey exactly said was "If Greek thinkers did not achieve science, they achieved the idea of science."

53 Reconstruction, ibid., p. 12.

54 The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, ibid. 237

55 ibid.

56 Tiles, ibid., p. 126.

57 Scheffler, ibid., p. 199.

58 Reconstruction, ibid., pp. 112-113.

59 Reconstruction, ibid., pp. 35-36.

60 ibid., p. 58.

61 ibid., p. 113.

62 Quest, ibid., p. 71.

63 ibid.

64 Reconstruction, ibid., p. 67.

65 Quest, p. 71.

66 Stephen Toulmin, Introduction Dewey's Quest, ibid., p. xv.

67 Quest, ibid., p. 78, and Experience and Nature, ibid., p , 97.

68 Quest, ibid., p. 80.

69 ibid., p. 78.

70 ibid., p. 80.

71 ibid. 238

72 ibid., p. 96.

73 John Dewey, Problems of Men (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946) p. 291. Cf. Hickman, ibid., pp. 46,58.

74 Dewey, ibid. p. 291 n. Cf. Hickman, ibid., p. 58.

75 See note 11 above. Dewey, Problems of Men, ibid., p. 291. Cf. Hickman, ibid., p. 46.

76 John Dewey, Logic, The Theory of Inquiry (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1938) p. 42.

77 Quest, ibid. p. 154.

78 ibid.

79 Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Macmillan, 1929) p. 28.

80 Quest, ibid., pp. 222-223.

81 ibid., p. 222.

82 ibid., p. 227.

83 ibid., p. 152.

84 ibid.

85 ibid.

86 Reconstruction, xl.

87 Tiles, ibid., p. 105.

88 Logic, ibid., p. 345. 239

89 Reconstruction, ibid., p. 121.

90 Logic, ibid., p. 31.

91 Logic, ibid., p. 13. Cf. Tiles, ibid., p. 113.

92 Logic, ibid., pp. 104-105.

93 ibid., p , 13.

94 Bertrand Russell, "Dewey's New Logic," The Philosophy of John Dewey, The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 1, Ed., by Paul A. Schilpp (Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern University, 1939) pp. 143-144.

95 ibid., p. 107-108.

96 Charles Sanders Peirce, II The Fixation of Belief," in Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings, Ed. with an Intro. by Philip P. Wiener (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1966) p. 99.

97 ibid. , p. 100.

98 Logic, p. 106.

99 ibid. , p. 106.

100 Quest, ibid. , p. 134.

101 Logic, ibid. , p. 117.

102 Charles Sanders Peirce, "How To Make Our Ideas Clear," ibid., p. 123. 240

101 Elizabeth Anscombe, From Parmenides to Wittgenstein, Collected Philosophical Papers, Volume I. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981) pp. 76-77. Also, cf. Elizabeth Anscombe, Intention (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1976) pp. 57-62.

104 Hickman, ibid., p. 99.

105 Logic, ibid., p. 34.

106 Tiles, ibid., p. 109.

107 ibid.

108 See note 11 above. 241

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION TO THE DISSERTATION

The rationalist mentality of the modern era, culminating in nineteenth century optimism about the prospects for science, is a legacy of the classical Greek conception of knowledge and science. This same legacy led many people in the twentieth century to look to science for answers to its most pressing problems. One major implication of the foregoing dissertation is that the traditional view has attributed too much authority, that is to say power, to the enterprise of science for reasons that are not grounded. More specifically, the thesis advanced in this dissertation is that the integrity of technology has been overlooked because of the assumption that technology is a subset of science, namely, applied science. I argue that technology is not well served by such an assumption since what is essential and primary in the concept of technology is the fact that it is productive action. The dissertation contends, moreover, that technology provides science with the tools to proceed with experimentation and that the enterprise of experimentation via technology is the engine of modern science. Even science's activity of creating hypotheses might be construed as a making activity which is technological. By virtue of these hypotheses science progresses, and in so doing science discloses its own 242

essentially technological character. There is also a very real and non-trivial sense in which science becomes more scientific to the extent that it is technological. The fundamental characteristic of experimental inquiry, in other words, is that it is technological.

If a model of science is based exclusively upon the mathematical ideal, as it has been classically understood, then the result is an idealized formulation of what certain knowledge of nature would look like, that is, insofar as nature conforms to the formulation. The dissertation agrees with Dewey that such formulations are nothing but a subjectivistic projection of the inquiring mind's desire to have fixed knowledge, and the corollary assumption that the object of fixed knowledge must therefore have a fixed and immutable being in order to be known. As Heidegger also observes,l the mathematical character of knowing ascertains objects only in a certain way, that is, only in a way that is commensurate with principles and axioms of reason. In other words, the mathematical model is a kind of subjective projection onto things, of the way that they need to look in order to be apprehended rationally. The mathematical model in modern science is an extension of the classical spectator view of knowledge. For Dewey and for Heidegger, the views of knowledge underlying the mathematical and spectator models are mistaken because they create an epistemological fault line between the knower and the known, because they suggest that 'the known' is somehow objectively sustained, 243

because they presume the process of knowing is a purely

passive activity and, finally, because they overlook the

subjective projection occurring within the knowing process.

As far as the integrity of technology is concerned, the

problem of the mathematical model lies in its limitations

and in its presumptions, not in the suggestion that it is

not a useful or powerful tool for analysis. Technology is

concerned, not with the demonstration of the necessity of a

given formula, but with solving problems. Given a

problematic situation, technology is preoccupied with what

can and should be done.

The classical conception of science based on the

doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, requires that truth as the

aim of science be independent of human design, interest, and

practice. Concern about the form and structure of knowledge

led Plato and Aristotle to formulate fixed entities and

indemonstrable principles, of which the inquirer should

strive to achieve knowledge. The overriding concern of both

Plato and Aristotle to obtain insight into theoretical

knowledge led each of them to diminish, at least in some

levels of discourse, the import and significance of

practical knowledge. It is clear that both Plato and

Aristotle subordinated the practical to the theoretical,

though Aristotle, at least, attempted neither to reduce the

practical to the theoretical nor to derive the practical

from the theoretical. 244

It must be admitted that Plato and Aristotle unquestionably held tightly to a conception of knowledge in which knowledge is not the subject of 'interpretation,'

'interests', or historical or paradigmatic revision.

Knowledge for them is simply not the sort of thing that is dependent upon the historical context of a problematic situation for its import and significance. This position prevented Plato and Aristotle from emphasizing the experimental character of knowledge. The reason that proper knowledge, that is, episteme, is not exhaustively experimental is that, for Aristotle at least, calculative thinking is not "unfailingly true" (Posterior Analytics lOObS-8). For both Plato and Aristotle, the skill of the craftman originates in experience and is a calculative skill; it is a techne capable of error. It would be anachronistic to apply the concept of modern experimentation to Aristotle, but based on his doctrines it could be argued that he would classify experimentation as either a 'doing' or a 'making'. The main point, however, is that Aristotle respects the differences between the three genera of knowledge: the ends of theoretical knowledge, the ends of action and the ends of production.

Aristotle's claim that doing and making are distinct genera of knowledge is problematic. For Aristotle, it is the different ends that distinguish making (poiesis ) from doing (praxis). The end of making a house, for instance, is the house itself. This end product is clearly distinct from 245

the act of making or building the house. According to

Aristotle, the proper end or aim of the activity of building is the building activity itself. Aristotle maintains that even though these activities are concerned with becoming, i.e., with practical and contingent events, because they are activities of human beings they are natural and are therefore good in themselves. Aristotle's claim enables him to ground his ethics in the natural activities of human beings. The ends are good in themselves, but the challenge is to figure out the best means for achieving the ultimate end of living the good life. For this reason, Aristotle subordinates the aims and ends of making to those of doing

since individual products such as houses, horseshoes, and hypotheses are 'merely' instrumental, and not serious ends

in themselves. The problem with Aristotle's distinction between doing and making is that it fails to give an adequate account of the doing activities that clearly are making activities. In other words, while Aristotle helps to clarify things by making distinctions between them, such as

the ones between knowing, doing, and making, he fails to

recognize that it is useful to draw attention to the fact

that distinctions are sometimes blurred.

There are innumerable examples which fail to fall into

Aristotle's classification neatly. For instance, when a

crisis in the hunting economy precipitated the invention of

the techniques of agriculture, what was previously the

inadvertent activity of gathering the occasional seed 246

gradually led in the New Stone Age to the practice of sowing grain.2 It could be argued that mere gathering and sowing

are two different types of activities since the random activities of seed collecting were not intentionally directed towards reaping a harvest. Yet these activities

are not adequately explained as activities er.gaged in for

their own sakes. Sowing, by contrast, is clearly a making activity, a techne directed toward a specific well-defined end, namely, a harvest. Or, for another example, take the

activity of breathing. For the most part, we breathe naturally without any specifically intended purpose or

consciously selected design each time we breathe. Yet, in

training for a marathon, we practice breathing for a

specific purpose, making the activity of breathing a kind of techne in this instance. The differences between the

'natural' breeding of populations versus the 'artifice' of

birth control illustrates this same difference. There is a

sense in which the activity qua an action is the same in

each instance, but it can be described in a way such that

the activity is a kind of making as well. In light of the

above considerations, it could be argued that making is a

species of doing.

Moreover, although Aristotle thought of habits as

dispositions to act in certain ways, good habits are dispositions to perform actions that are good in themselves.

The repeated activities that are reciprocally related to

habits shape or build a character. Although he did not seem 247

inclined to develop this notion, he does maintain in his

Ethics that habits build character and that virtuous actions constitute character. At least metaphorically, one could argue that Aristotelian habits, which become habits by practicing them "according to a rule,"3 are a kind of making because they intentionally shape action with a view toward making particular actions good.

In any event, Plato and Aristotle respect the differences between the ends of action and the ends of production, and for this reason practical knowledge and productive knowledge were kept apart as two distinctly different genera of knowledge. Maintaining the distinction prevented them from reducing or deriving the productive from the practical, or the practical from the theoretical. For this reason, it is incorrect to assume that Plato or

Aristotle subsumed or reduced the skill of making (poietike) techne to episteme.

While the dissertation contends that the Greeks have pointed us in the wrong direction, the dissertation has tried to show that Plato and Aristotle would not agree with many of the conclusions that their doctrines have led to in the history of Western philosophy. The dissertation has argued that there is a deeper connection between episteme and techne in the thought of Plato and Aristotle than is customarily understood. It consists in the recognition that the aim and telos of knowledge is practical insofar as you need to achieve a firm grasp of 'the good' and a firmly 248

grounded knowledge in order to lead the good life, to run a good state, or to build a good society. The proper end of knowledge consists in the insight that in order to secure one's environment, to make it safe, one must have knowledge.

As it happens, the only type of knowledge Plato and

Aristotle considered capable of providing adequate security was theoretical knowledge, since it alone has an extraordinary and meta-empirical footing.

Dewey's claim to reconstruct philosophy upon a new footing reclaims the unity of knowledge and action. He explicitly rejects the notion of a non-natural realm of thought or contemplation in which allegedly 'true' objects of knowledge reside. For Dewey, separating the knower from the known is not possible, nor is the concept of 'knowledge' as a permanent state of being or of contemplation possible.

He shows that the attempts made by modern empiricists and positivists to rid themselves of the dichotomy between knower and known have not been successful. He argues that the empiricists and positivists have simply continued along the same path as the classical Greek philosophers, despite the fact that they thought they had rid themselves of the classical Greek conception that true knowledge was predominantly theoretical.

The empiricists have, according to Dewey, merely produced an opposing emphasis to no advantage. Emphasizing the role of sensation in knowledge formation includes rather than denies the empirical world, but it still puts the 249

knower in a passive role of 'beholding' a knowledge that originates at a point beyond or external to the activity of knowing. Dewey submits that the empiricists have reduced experience to "the equivalent of subjective private consciousness, "4 when in fact the activity of experimentation is an interactive process. In their attempts to avoid positing an objective Platonic realm of pure ideas, the empiricists attempted to ground ideas in experience, but in turn made sensation into the equivalent of (new) ideas. Ultimately this new-found originative source of ideas is as inherently subjectivist as the classical Greek doctrine of the objectivity of ideas.

On the constructive side Dewey argues that knowledge is a process and an activity, and that the proof of his claim is manifestly evident in actual progress in science and technology. He candidly accepts the Baconian thesis that knowledge is power precisely because knowledge is manifestly the means - or the set of instruments - by which living organisms adapt to - and control - their environment. By means of this theory of interactive knowledge, Dewey shows that all knowing, even so-called theoretical knowing, is practical, since knowing is ultimately directed toward action, and to the conclusion of actions. Practical knowledge produces results, and these results are the necessary conditions for scientific progress. Insofar as modern scientific progress is experimental, it is, from a practical point of view, indistinguishable from 250

technological progress on which it depends for experimentation. The actual process of experimentation is a process of inquiry which is a kind of 'making': the creation of tools, including theoretical tools which impels inquiry forward and the formation of habits of inference which spur actions which have practical bearing.

For Dewey, scientific progress is inherently technological~ it is a "mode of technology," since it is primarily a practical activity directed towards certain intended ends. Dewey barely distinguishes technological progress from the conception of knowledge itself, which he asserts is none other than "intelligently conducted doing. "5

While Dewey does not deny that there are actions which might be performed for their own sakes, such as in artistic creation,6 his account of instrumental inquiry does provide an explanation of such activity.

Dewey clearly thinks that traditional metaphysics has spent itself on old problems that are inappropriate to the new realities of science and technology. Metaphysics does not seem to be an appropriate way to deal with these new realities since it can amount to nothing beyond or outside of the context of inquiry. What we are left with is only the need to adapt and cope with change, to reflect upon the meaning and significance of the institutional and concrete forms of adaptation on a generic scale throughout our

Culture - or throughout the varying cultures within our global Culture. 251

Although this dissertation did not examine the

philosophy of Martin Heidegger, many of his insights are

compatible with those of John Dewey's, especially his

critique of ideas originating with Plato and Aristotle, and

his locating technology in the domain of practice.7 An

extended study of technology would not omit consideration of

Heidegger's view of the matter. In some respects, Heidegger

may represent a further development beyond Dewey. 8

My position with regard to the issues raised in the

dissertation can best be illustrated by answering the

question "Why is technology not applied science?" and distinguishing my answer from these classical and pragmatic

philosophers would likely provide. I concur with the positions discussed in the dissertation which militate

against the commonly held and simplistic view that

technology is applied science. Were the question put to

them in this form, Plato, Aristotle, Dewey, and Heidegger would all reject the claim that technology is applied

science. But their differing positions suggest they dispute

the claim for different reasons. To begin with, to assume

that technology is applied science implies that technology is in some sense derivative of or reducible to science.

What exactly is meant by 'reducible' is clearly implied in the statement that 'x is nothing but y' or what is more generally implied in the stipulation that IX is subject to conditions set by y' or that IX is composed of but not necessarily identical to y'.9 252

While both Plato and Aristotle maintained a hierarchy of knowledge, the levels of the hierarchy were not derivative of or reducible to each other. Neither Plato nor

Aristotle reduced technology (things made) to science

(things known), nor did they regard things made as derivable from things known. Aristotle was explicit about this. The theoretical, practical, and productive sciences are each a different genus of knowledge. At the same time, both Plato and Aristotle did consider practical and productive knowledge to be subordinate to theoretical knowledge, but the gradation of value accorded each level never yielded to the kind of reducibility or derivability implied by the claim that technology is applied science.

Along with Dewey, I think that to invoke a notion of science as the province of 'theory', and then to take applied science - or technology - as a practical instance of theory is a lame habit caused by mistaken reasoning about the nature of the scientific enterprise. Furthermore, to take scientific knowledge as a genus and technology as a species of that genus is to assume that technology must be an instance of science. It smacks of ignorance of the nature of inquiry, the nature of knowing, and the function and importance of practice in constituting any theoretical stance. I concur along with Dewey that the simplistic view that technology is applied science is nothing but a bad habit derived in part, nonetheless, from mistaken reasoning about the ideas of Plato and Aristotle. Also with Dewey, I 253

am against a hierarchy of static levels of knowledge, since

knowledge cannot be anything other than what results from an

interaction between an inquiring knower and a problematic

situation.

At the same time, I think Dewey is wrong in dismissing

the possibility that there is anything that is done for the sake of itself. While he does acknowledge that there as elements of artistic creation that might not be adequately accounted for by practical inquiry,lO he is clearly wedded to the matrix of practice as the only context for meaning.

Surely some activities cannot be explained by the need to adapt or cope, such as art, pleasure, and friendship, even though these activities indirectly enhance our ability to live well. But these pursuits nonetheless originate in an indeterminate situation which stands ready and available for a new determination.

Plato and Aristotle seem to allow room for the integrity of technology insofar as it is not reducible to theory. However, they also argue for the integrity of theory. They hold that theory cannot be reduced to technology; indeed, that theory yields something prescriptive or normative for practice, such as the law of non-contradiction.

By contrast, the Deweyan position argues not only for the integrity of technology but also that theory is itself a kind of practice and that science is itself a mode of technology. While I am in basic agreement with Dewey's 254

position, in my opinion it fails to do justice to phenomena such as artistic creation and human imagination. Whether

Dewey intends to wholly encompass theory - or the spontaneous character of human performances and events within practice is unclear. He seems not to want to reduce theory or even human events in general to practice, and certainly not to formulate a theory about their reduction to practice. Yet, the implication of his position seems to point in this direction.

While the classical position wants to maintain the integrity of both theory and technology, Dewey maintains that both cannot be sustained or upheld. Dewey seems to say that the more reasonable position supports the thesis of the integrity of technology. The classical position is that knowledge is not completely exhausted by technology, though it in some way circumscribes technologYl whereas the pragmatic position of Dewey is that technology is the beginning and end of knowledge. Dewey seems either to dispense with metaphysics, or to take technology as its replacement. Rorty has more recently taken up this position, claiming that all the things that Western metaphysicians have been talking about can be explained by technology or by pragmatic motives, without recourse to metaphysics. There seems to be, in any event, an increasingly important sense in which the philosophical discourse on technology replaces or 'completes' discourse in metaphysics. In my view, discourse about being and knowing 255

historically gives way, as it should, to attempts to explain change and human adaptation to the environment. Whereas, traditionally, knowledge and action comprise two distinct domains, my contention is that technology constitutes the proper end of philosophical analysis, underlying both knowledge and action. 256

END NOTES FOR CONCLUSION

1 Martin Heidegger, What is a Thing, Trans. W. B. Barton, Jr. and Vera Deutsch with an analysis by Eugene T. Gendin (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1967) pp. 102-107.

2 J. D. Bernal, Science in History, Volume 1, "The Emergence of Science" (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press Paperback Edition, April 1974,) p. 93.

3 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 1103b.

4 Dewey, Experience and Nature (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1925) pg. 13.

5 John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957) pg. 121.

6 Dewey, Reconstruction, ibid., 26.

7 Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, Harper Colophon Books, 1977) p. 13. While Heidegger's sense of 'practice' differs from Dewey's, the bringing forth or revealing occasioned by technology, (entbergen), is arguably not theoretical, but is part of being-in-the-world. The essence of technology for Heidegger is closer in meaning to the Greek techne insofar as it is something that belongs to poiesis, a bringing forth, which is a kind of making.

8 Heidegger would agree with Dewey that the spectator theory of knowledge, originating with Plato and Aristotle, is tied to the subjectivism inherent in the history of Western metdphysics. But, he would accuse Dewey of failing to escape these sUbjectivist tendencies. From Heidegger's point of view, to regard all knowing as exhaustively practical is to fail to appreciate the essence of technology. As Rorty notes, in his Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), it is not Dewey's emphasis on the practical that Heidegger would disagree with, it is the fact that Dewey "does not go far enough." Heidegger would no doubt fault 257

Dewey for mistakenly thinking that the sphere of action and interaction - would exhaust the import of technology. Along these lines, In his Question Concerning Technology, Heidegger argues that there is an "essence of technology that is not technological." Heidegger would see Dewey as caught up in exclusively technological thinking, a kind of thinking dominated by the schema of means and ends, thereby falling short of realizing the possibilities available at the pre-theoretical level in which the essence of technology discloses itself, and which is pre-eminently practical. But Heidegger discusses the practical domain in a way not discussed by Dewey. There is a sense in which Heidegger tries to get at a 'pre-practical' level, that is, one that is prior to the practical domain of which Dewey speaks. For Heidegger, technology is an occasion for disclosing being at the pre-theoretical level. And to fail to recognize this 'pre-practical', or pre-theoretical domain is to remain within the representational tradition of Western metaphysics which Heidegger and Dewey criticize.

9 John Welch, Reduction: Suiting the Concept of Multiple Tasks, dissertation, Boston University, 1983., pg. 1-2.

10 Reconstruction, ibid. pg. 126. 258

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