The History of the Philosophy of Technology: The Empirical Turn and the historization of the philosophy of technology
Chair(s): Darryl Cressman (Maastricht University, Netherlands, The)
The History of the Philosophy of Technology posits the philosophy of technology as a wide-ranging and comprehensive field of study that includes both the philosophical study of particular technologies and the different ways that technology, more broadly, has been considered philosophically. Influenced by the history of the philosophy of science, the history of ideas, and the history of the humanities, our aim is to examine how different individuals and traditions have thought about technology historically. This includes, but is not limited to: the work of different thinkers throughout history, both well-known and overlooked figures and narratives, including non-western traditions and narratives that engage with technology; analyzing the cultural, social, political, and sociotechnical contexts that have shaped philosophical responses to technology, including historical responses to new and emerging technologies; exploring the disciplines and intellectual traditions whose impacts can be traced across different philosophies of technology, including Science and Technology Studies (STS), the history of technology, critical theory, phenomenology, feminist philosophy, hermeneutics, and ecology, to name only a few; histories of different "schools" of philosophical thought about technology, for example French philosophy of technology, Japanese philosophy of technology, and Dutch philosophy of technology; mapping the hidden philosophies of technology in the work of philosophers (e.g. Foucault, Arendt, Sloterdijk) and traditions whose work is not often associated with technology (e.g. German idealism, logical empiricism, existentialism, lebensphilosophie); and, exploring the contributions of literature, art, design theory, architecture, and media theory/history towards a philosophy of technology.
This panel focuses on the history and historicity of the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology. The papers in this panel explore, from one perspective, the long history of the empirical turn in Dutch philosophy of technology, and from another perspective, the influence on the empirical turn on how the history of the philosophy of technology is conceptualized.
Presentations of the Symposium
The long History of the Empirical Turn: Dutch Philosophy of Technology, 1930-1990
Massimiliano Simons
Maastricht University
The field of philosophy of technology currently understands itself as having made an 'empirical turn', associated with a number of edited volumes published by Dutch philosophers of technology (Kroes & Meijers 2000; Achterhuis 2001). What is often overlooked, however, is that these volumes are the product of a longer tradition of Dutch engineers reflecting on technology. The aim of this talk is to map how these early philosopher-engineers and their institutions shaped the 'empirical turn' as we know it today. I will do this in two ways.
First, I will highlight the work of a number of Dutch engineer-philosophers who developed philosophies of technology before the 1990s. A first case is Arie Korevaar (1886-1964), a Delft engineer who developed an early philosophy of technology in Techniek en Wereldbeschouwing (1934). A second case is Hendrik van Riessen (1911-2000). In his doctoral dissertation Filosofie en Techniek (1949), and further developed in subsequent works (Van Riessen 1952, 1953), he developed a philosophy of technology based on Dutch reformational philosophy, an influential neo-Calvinist philosophical movement in the Netherlands in the 20th century. Finally, there is the case of Andries Sarlemijn (1936-1998), who extensively collaborated with Peter Kroes in Eindhoven in the 1980s and 1990s (Sarlemijn & Kroes 1988; 1990). Sarlemijn devoted himself to the history of science and technology, leading to a typology of technology (Sarlemijn 1984), which was rooted in a theory of analogy (Sarlemijn & Kroes 1988) and resulted in a multifactorial model that sought to identify both internal and external factors in the development of technology (Sarlemijn 1993).
Second, I want to situate these cases in a broader institutional history by looking at the emergence of philosophy chairs, journals, and workshops in the philosophy of technology in the Netherlands. The Dutch Reformed Church, for example, sponsored several chairs in the philosophy of technology in the Netherlands from the 1950s onward, especially in Delft and Eindhoven, occupied by Van Riessen and others. Even more important was the role of the Royal Dutch Society of Engineers (KIVI). Within this institution, groups reflecting on philosophy and technology date back to the 1960s, but the main breakthrough came in the early 1990s with the creation of a subsection on 'Filosofie & Techniek' (see Van Gijn & Eekels 2000). It was this section that was responsible for the institutional support of the empirical turn, by sponsoring the workshop and lecture series that formed the basis of the two edited volumes (Kroes & Meijers 2000; Achterhuis 2001) and by supporting a number of chairs and publication venues which were crucial for this new empirical turn to declare itself.
Taken together, then, these two lines of argument will show how the identity of the "empirical turn" that solidified around 2000 was a product of a longer history of philosophy of technology in the Netherlands, deeply rooted in the practices and ideas of engineers.
References
Achterhuis, H. (Ed.) (2001). American philosophy of technology: the empirical turn. Indiana University Press.
Gijn, J. van, & Eekels, J. (2000). Hebben ingenieurs nog meer te vertellen? : werkzaamheden en bevindingen van de afdeling Filosofie en Techniek van het Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs. Damon.
Korevaar, A. (1934). Techniek en wereldbeschouwing. De Erven F. Bohn N.V.
Kroes, P., & Meijers, A. (Eds.) (2001). The empirical turn in the philosophy of technology. JAI.
Kroes, P., & Sarlemijn, A. (eds.) (1984). Dynamica van de technische wetenschappen: de wisselwerking tussen wetenschap en techniek vanuit wetenschapsfilosofisch standpunt. TWIM-onderzoekscentrum.
Riessen, H. van (1949). Filosofie en techniek. Kampen.
Riessen, H. van (1952). Roeping en probleem der techniek. J.H. Kok.
Riessen, H. van (1953). De maatschappij der toekomst. Wever.
Sarlemijn, A. (1984). Historisch gegroeide relaties tussen natuurwetenschap en techniek. TWIM-onderzoekscentrum.
Sarlemijn, A. (1993). Designs are cultural alloys. STeMPJE in design methodology, 191-248. In: Vries, MJ. de, Cross, N. and Grant, D.P. (eds.), Design Methodology and Relationships with Science. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Sarlemijn, A., & Kroes, P. (1988). Technological Analogies and their Logical Nature. In: Durbin, P. (eds) Technology and Contemporary Life. Philosophy and Technology. Springer.
Sarlemijn, A., & Kroes, P. (eds.) (1990). Between Science and Technology. North-Holland Delta.
Regimes of Historicity of Technology: Toward an Epistemology of the History of the Philosophy of Technology
Agostino Cera
University of Ferrara
My contribution starts with recognizing the need to develop an epistemology of the history of the philosophy of technology. This entails a self-reflective effort to move it definitively beyond a merely chronicling dimension (i.e. “antiquarian-monumental”, according to Nietzsche’s classification in the Second Untimely Meditations) toward a fully critical dimension. For this transition to occur, the strictly historical component must be complemented by a hermeneutic one, that is, engaging with the past not merely as memory (recording and preservation) but also as action (taking a stance and even passing judgment). Unlike simple historiography, historicity depends primarily on how we choose to view the past. In the field of the philosophy of technology, integrating this hermeneutic dimension translates into the question: “How many and what meanings have been attributed to the term ‘technology’?”
From an operational standpoint, an important precedent in this field is the work of Carl Mitcham, who distinguishes contemporary philosophy of technology into two fundamental approaches: the “engineering approach” on one hand and the “humanities” or “hermeneutic approach” on the other. My proposal involves broadening the chronological scope considered by Mitcham.
One of the major dividing lines that, often unconsciously, organizes and distinguishes various philosophies of technology is precisely historical. Specifically, whether the history of technology (i.e. the ways in which the concept of “technology” has been conceived over time) should be seen through the lens of continuity or discontinuity. These methodological approaches correspond to two fundamental meanings of technology: 1) As an anthropological constant; 2) As an epochal phenomenon.
In my view, with the rise of the empirical turn and later post-phenomenology, we find ourselves in a context dominated by a continuist and monothematic approach, viewing technology essentially – if not exclusively – as an anthropological constant. Technicity is interpreted as the cornerstone of humanization, the evolutionary success of our species. Anthropogenesis and technogenesis are treated as synonymous. Based on this assumption, any concrete technology from any era (from flint to the atomic bomb, from axes to AI) is seen as an expression or manifestation of this technicity and, as such, of the same "human nature". This implies that, in principle, no technology can be rejected. The ontological naturalization of technology thus becomes a vehicle for its hermeneutic neutralization, reflecting a tendency toward apologetics and justificationism, characteristic of the current mainstream in this field of study.
The alternative is a discontinuist history that, without denying the value of technology as an anthropological constant, identifies breaks in continuity within its history and development. These involve “paradigm shifts” (Kuhn) and “regimes of historicity” (Hartog), which result in substantial transformations, both semantic and hermeneutic, of what we continue to denote with a single term: “technology”.
To make this discussion more concrete, I offer three examples of this critical, discontinuist, and polysemic historicization.
The first, and most famous, is Martin Heidegger’s distinction between classical technology, characterized by Hervorbringen (bringing forth), which mimetically follows natural models, and modern technology, characterized by Herausfordern (challenging), which opposes and seeks to surpass and replace natural models titanically.
The second example is Lewis Mumford’s tripartition of technical regimes, based on Patrick Geddes’ work. In Technics and Civilization, Mumford distinguishes between eotechnic (the “clock age”), paleotechnic (the “steam age”), and neotechnic (the “electric age”).
The third example is Jacques Ellul, whose phenomenology of technology identifies a historical progression from the “technical operation” (“which includes every operation carried out in accordance with a certain method to achieve a particular end”) to the “technical phenomenon” (“which introduces the technological ratio operandi in any human context, that is, ‘in every field men seek to find the most efficient method’”) and to the “technical system” (“technology having become a universum of means and media, it is in fact the environment [milieu] of man”).
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