What Sort of Essence has Technology?

Authors

  • Wathin Chatkoon Wathin Chatkoon is a graduate student in philosophy at Chulalongkorn University and a lecturer at Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand. He can be reached at: cwathin@hotmail.com

Abstract

The question concerning the essence of technology is still relevant in the philosophy of technology. In the contemporary debate, many constructivist philosophers and sociologists believe this concept is an illusion, an abstraction or an historical misunderstanding, arising from methodological inadequacy in technological studies. However, many essentialist philosophers argue that without its essence, we cannot properly understand an effect that technology has made upon human, society or environment. This paper is a philosophical investigation of this crucial issue. First of all, while essentialists provide contemporary concepts of essence which are helpful in understanding technological phenomena, they cannot deal with technological evaluation at a satisfactory level. On the other side, while constructivists provide strong arguments against an essence of technology and technological determinism, they cannot dismiss technological essence completely. I’ll propose a new concept of essence that takes advantages from both sides: a relational concept of technological commitment, which in itself is indeterminism and also covers evaluation issues.

Downloads

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 1 (2010): January - June 2010

Section

Articles

License

Consent to Publish and Transfer of Copyright
By publishing in Prajñā Vihāra, the author agrees to transfer and assign to Assumption University of Thailand as the Publisher of the Journal, the copyright to the Article in any form, including any and all rights, interests and claims related to it.

The author does retain the following rights:

  1. The right to make further copies of the published article for their use in classroom teaching.
  2. The right to reuse all or part of the published article in a compilation of his or her own works or in textbooks of which they are the author or coauthor.
  3. The right to make copies of the published article for internal distribution within their academic institution.
  4. All proprietary rights other than copyright, such as patent rights.
The author must also guarantee that:
  1. The Article is his or her original work, and has not been published previously and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
  2. It does not contain any matter that is obscene, libelous, or contrary to law.
  3. They have obtained the necessary license or written authority and paid any and all related fees for the use and reproduction of text, tables, illustrations and other copyrighted work from the owners of the intellectual property rights, and can furnish the Publisher copies of the license/written authority and proof of payment of related fees upon the signing of this Agreement.
  4. They have the consent of the Co-Authors of the article upon the signing of this Agreement.
  5. In the event that they intend to republish, reprint or translate all or part of the Article in other publications, they will secure the prior written permission from the journal Editor.

Prajñā Vihāra adopts the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-NC-ND) license