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Analytical Philosophy of Technology Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE EDITED BY ROBERT S. COHEN AND MARX W. WARTOFSKY VOLUME 63 FRIEDRICH RAPP institut fUr Philosophie, Wissenscluz/tstheorie, Wissenscha/ts- und Technikgeschichte, Technische Universitiit Berlin ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY Translated by Stanley R. Carpenter and Theodor Langenbruch D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY DORDRECHT:HOLLAND/BOSTON:U~A. LONDON: ENGLAND library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Rapp, Friedrich. Analytical philosophy of technology . (Boston studies in the philosophy of science; v. 63) Translation of: Analytische Technikphilosophie. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Technology-Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series. Q174.B67 vol. 63 [T14] SOls [601] 8'1-201 ISBN-13: 978-90-277-1222-6 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-8412-7 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-8412-7 Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17,3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland. Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Boston Inc., 190 Old Derby Street, Hingham, MA 02043, U.S.A. In all other countries, sold and distributed by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, Holland. D. Reidel Publishing Company is a member of the Kluwer Group. Originally published in German by Karl Alber Verlag All Rights Reserved This translation copyright © 1981 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1981 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner EDITORIAL PREFACE Friedrich Rapp, in this magisterial and critical essay on technology, the complex human phenomenon that demands philosophy of science, philosophy of culture, moral insight, and historical sensi­ tivity for its understanding, writes modestly of the grave and ten­ tative situation in the philosophy of technology. Despite the pro­ found thinkers who have devoted time and imagination and ratio­ nal penetration, despite the massive literature now available, despite the varied and comparative viewpoints of political, analytic, metaphysical, cultural, even esthetic commitments, indeed despite the honest joining of historical and systematic methods of inves­ tigation, we are far from a satisfactory understanding of the joys and sorrows, the achievements and disappointments, of the tech­ nological saga of human societies. Professor Rapp has prepared this report on the philosophical understanding of technology for a troubled world; if ever philosophy were needed, it is in the prac­ tical attempt to find alternatives among technologies, to foresee dangers and opportunities, to choose with a sense of the possibil­ ity of fulfilling humane values. Emerson spoke of the scholar not as a specialist apart, but as 'Man thinking' and Rapp's essay so speaks to all of us, industrial world or third world, engineers or humanists, tired or energetic, fearful or optimistic. We understand from Rapp, and from many others, that the problems posed here are really not due to technology: they may be emphasized, transfonned, distorted, perhaps transcended, per­ haps degraded, by what scientists and engineers and entrepreneurial managers have wrought, but they are ancient problems of domina­ tions, values, decisions, and struggles. They certainly need, and v vi EDITORIAL PREFACE will continue to require, conceptual clarification, that sorting out and drawing of distinctions, which a philosopher may contribute to the theoretical and practical labors of technical workers and to our intellectual equipment for public policy. We hope this book will help, both by the author's lucid analytic survey of so much of the classical and recent research on technology and society, and by his own critical contributions. * * * We thank Professors Stanley Carpenter and Theodor Langenbruch for their devoted work on the English translation. Stanley Carpenter himself has contributed serious papers to the literature on philos­ ophy of technology. We also are grateful to Renate Hanauer for her research and editorial work on this book. March 1981 ROBERT S. COHEN Boston University Center MARX W. WARTOFSKY for the Philosophy and History of Science TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIAL PREFACE V PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION xi I. Stages of the Philosophy of Technology 1 1. Introduction 1 2. The Engineering Perspective 4 3. Philosophy of Culture 8 4. Social Criticism 13 5. The Earth as a System 16 6. The Problem of Diversity of Approaches 19 II. Differing Versions of the Concept of 'Technology' 23 1. Problems of Defmition 23 2. Historical and Systematic Analysis 24 3. Periods in the History of Technology 26 4. Semantic Variations of the Concept of 'Technology' 31 5. Attempts at Defmition 33 III. Methodological Analysis 37 1. The Determinants of Technological Development 37 2. The Range of Action 42 3. The Transformation of the Material World 47 4. The Neutrality of Technological Means 53 5. Hypothetical Imperatives 57 6. Technological Progress 62 viii T ABLE OF CONTENTS IV. The Road to Modern Technology 66 1. The Socio-cultural Approach 66 2. Historical Detennination 67 3. Magical and Technological Thinking 70 4. Socio-economic Conditions 74 5. Technological Foundations 80 6. The Industrial Revolution 84 7. Engineering Sciences and Natural Sciences 87 8. Intellectual Prerequisites 92 a. Valuation of Work 94 b. Efficient Management 96 c. The Impulse for Technological Creativity 97 d. Rational Thought and the Enlightenment 99 e. Objectification of Nature 101 f. The Mechanistic View of Nature 103 g. The Mathematical Model 105 h. Experimental Investigations 106 9. Complex Interconnections 108 10. Natural Instinct and Volitional Creativity 110 V. The Technological World 118 1. Nature and Artifacts 118 2. The Cosmic Dimension 125 3. Accumulation and 'Self-Reinforcement' 133 4. The Acting Individuals 140 5. Individual Freedom and Collective Tasks 143 6. The Universality of Modem Technology 152 a. The Transfonnation of the Physical World 152 b. The Changed Situation of Life 154 c. Worldwide Expansion 160 7. The Benefits of Technology and Their Cost 165 8. Changed Criteria 171 9. New Values 176 10. The Crisis in the Assessment of Technology 180 T ABLE OF CONTENTS ix BIBLIOGRAPHY 187 NAME INDEX 195 SUBJECT INDEX 197 PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION The translation of my book Analytische Technikphilosophie into English constituted an opportune occasion for revising the text. Alterations have been restricted to occasional rephrasing in order to make more clear and more explicit the meaning of some formu­ lations, and to condense passages where desirable. Neither the reviews of the German edition published hitherto nor the recent development of the field have called for major changes. In the book, new approaches, starting from a problem-centered systematic survey of the actual state of the art and a critical dis­ cussion of the solutions available up to now, are put forward. The summary of the historical development given in the first chapter and the majority of the titles quoted refer to (West) German re­ search. But this does not restrict the scope of investigation. Major points of the international discussion are explicitly taken into account. As far as specific questions are concerned, the German investigations can be read as exemplifying the general problems. Thus, the four historical stages treated in chapter I are in one way or another present in any discussion of the philosophical problems of technology. The German philosophy of technology, often regarded as pioneering in the field, has been associated with the metaphysical interpretations of Dessauer and Heidegger. Approaches of this type are also considered here, but they do not constitute the only topic of the book. It seems that with respect to the philosophical problems of technology a situation similar to other fields of philosophical investigation (philosophy of science, philosophy of history) obtains: modem science-based technology and the xi xii PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION features of the world shaped by it are so complex that they cannot adequately be dealt with by means of a priori considerations which neglect the a posteriori facts. It is only after having analyzed the philosophically relevant traits of the historical development and the empirically given systematic features of technology that a well-founded metaphysical interpretation becomes possible. In accordance with this line of reasoning the first chapters of the book prepare the ground for the metaphysical explanation of technology discussed at the end of chapter IV and in chapter V. In spite of the increasing progress being made in the field*, a well-elaborated philosophy of technology - let alone a generally accepted paradigm - is still more a desideratum than a concrete reality. The major obstacle to a simple treatment is the 'totality' of modern technology, as stressed, for example, by Ellul and also by Marcuse. Indeed, today there is hardly an area of individual and social life which is not influenced by technological change. The task of philosophy consists not only in drawing attention to this circumstance but in making explicit what precisely this totality consists in, how it could have come about, and what consequences follow from it. Only by going into the details will it be possible to arrive at fruitful hypotheses, the closer inspection and critical discussion of which will help to clarify the situation and to suggest solutions. It is in tenns of this analytical approach that, for exam­ ple, in sections 111.2., IV.8., and V.3., the elements relevant for the range of action, for the historical development, and for the dynamic character of modern technology are discussed. In this way the relationships obtaining between these elements and their influence on the 'mechanism' of the whole process may become discernible. * For detailed information see the yearbooks Research in Philosophy and Technology, ed. by P.
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