The Autonomy of Technology, or Being Passive against Technological Attitude
Subject Areas : Technology ManagementMostafa Taghavi 1 , Yaser Khoshneviss 2
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Keywords: Autonomy of Technology, Technological System, Technological Attitude,
Abstract :
Is technology autonomous? Answering to this question constitutes one of the main topics in the philosophy of technology. In this paper, we have considered this question in two contexts of development, and we have used use and three levels of abstraction containing technology instances, the technological system, and the technological attitude. First, we discuss some of proponents of the autonomy of technologys arguments, especially Elluls ones, and then criticize some Pits arguments against Elluls cases. We think that Pits response is convincing about technology instances. In the case of technological system, his response is metaphysically sound, but sociologically, the question of the autonomy of technological system is reduced to the question of autonomy of technologists society; the question which has been not discussed here. However, we may ask ourselves what moves technologists to develop the technology? We think that this motivation is a consequence of The technological attitude, the attitude in which all things in the world are seen as something for humans utility. We will show that it can not be stated that the technological attitude is autonomous, and maintain that the right interpretation is not the autonomy of technology, rather is the humans passiveness in front of the technological attitude. Thus, we can formulate concern of thinkers such as Ellul and Heidegger about the domination of technology over the human as the passive-ness of human in front of the technological attitude. It can be granted that nowadays people are passive in front of this attitude toward the world, and pay less and less attention to other attitudes such as poetical, religious or even scientific ones. We have to think about strategies for dominating such a passive-ness.
