Michael Adas: Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (1990)
Filed under book | Tags: · colonialism, critique of technology, history, history of technology, ideology, industrial revolution, machine, philosophy of technology, technology
Thorough and systematic study of the role of ideas of technological and scientific superiority in the European outlook on non-European peoples. Covering the historical gamut from the time of Columbus to post-WWII developments and including a stunning array of sources, studies and quotations to buttress its thesis, it is bound to impress even specialists in the field, let alone general readers.
Adas shows us a look at the industrialization of Europe and the colonization of the non-Western world in a viewpoint that is supported and hard to dispute, even if it does not sit easily with the pride associated with being a “Westerner,” as are the majority of his readers. Adas has no problem with this, however, and dives in wholeheartedly. It is hard to dispute him on anything, since he supports all sides and arguments with equal voices in quantity as well as in quality.
The book won the 1991 prize of the Society for the History of Technology.
Publisher Cornell University Press, 1990
Cornell studies in comparative history
ISBN 0801497604, 9780801497605
430 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-7-17)
Comment (0)Andrew Feenberg: Between Reason and Experience: Essays in Technology and Modernity (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · critical theory, critique of technology, dystopia, environment, history of technology, internet, modernity, philosophy of technology, technology
“The technologies, markets, and administrations of today’s knowledge society are in crisis. We face recurring disasters in every domain: climate change, energy shortages, economic meltdown. The system is broken, despite everything the technocrats claim to know about science, technology, and economics. These problems are exacerbated by the fact that today powerful technologies have unforeseen effects that disrupt everyday life; the new masters of technology are not restrained by the lessons of experience, and accelerate change to the point where society is in constant turmoil. In Between Reason and Experience, leading philosopher of technology Andrew Feenberg makes a case for the interdependence of reason—scientific knowledge, technical rationality—and experience.
Feenberg examines different aspects of the tangled relationship between technology and society from the perspective of critical theory of technology, an approach he has pioneered over the past twenty years. Feenberg points to two examples of democratic interventions into technology: the Internet (in which user initiative has influenced design) and the environmental movement (in which science coordinates with protest and policy). He examines methodological applications of critical theory of technology to the case of the French Minitel computing network and to the relationship between national culture and technology in Japan. Finally, Feenberg considers the philosophies of technology of Heidegger, Habermas, Latour, and Marcuse. The gradual extension of democracy into the technical sphere, Feenberg argues, is one of the great political transformations of our time.”
Foreword by Brian Wynne
Afterword by Michel Callon
Publisher MIT Press, 2010
Inside Technology series
ISBN 0262514257, 9780262514255
248 pages
PDF, PDF (updated on 2015-12-22)
Comments (2)Joseph Weizenbaum: Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment To Calculation (1976) [English, German]
Filed under book | Tags: · artificial intelligence, computation, critique, critique of technology, ethics, technology
“Joseph Weizenbaum’s influential book displays his ambivalence towards computer technology and lays out his case: while artificial intelligence may be possible, we should never allow computers to make important decisions because computers will always lack human qualities such as compassion and wisdom. Weizenbaum makes the crucial distinction between deciding and choosing. Deciding is a computational activity, something that can ultimately be programmed. It is the capacity to choose that ultimately makes us human. Choice, however, is the product of judgment, not calculation. Comprehensive human judgment is able to include non-mathematical factors such as emotions. Judgment can compare apples and oranges, and can do so without quantifying each fruit type and then reductively quantifying each to factors necessary for mathematical comparison.”
Publisher W. H. Freeman, 1976
ISBN 0716704633, 9780716704638
300 pages
Review: Amy Stout.
Computer Power and Human Reason (English, 1976, DJVU, updated on 2013-11-22)
Computermacht und Gesellschaft (German, trans. Gunna Wendt, 2001, unpaginated, added on 2013-11-22)