What is Technology?
Many of the explorations of knowledge questions in the Knowledge & Technology unit of ToK start with the question: "well, what do we mean by technology ?". So, I thought it would be useful to put together a blog which summarises 4 main approaches to how we can think of technology in its relationship with knowledge.
These approaches are very much umbrella approaches - they are rough ideal types to help us to explore that relationship between tech and knowledge, remember the focus is on knowledge, not tech.
The "tech is tool" approach.
The argument here is quite simply that technology is a tool that we use to solve human problems. This is obvious when we look at modern technologies such as the internet, cars, the printing press etc. It then also becomes apparent when we consider technologies from pre-industrial era such as smelting metals, wattle and daub etc.
This approach quickly takes us into non-physical technologies such as mathematics is a technology which allowed us to solve the problem of navigation through map-making, art is a technology which allows us to solve problems of expression and social cohesion etc. Arguably, language is the ultimate technology which allows for all other technological (& therefore knowledge) innovation. This approach has been well explained in the books by Yuval Noah Harari (particularly Sapiens: A brief history of Humankind).
Among the many writers who have taken the "tech is tool" approach are Plato and Rousseau who both argued that technology had a rather negative effect on knowledge and humanity. In Phaedrus Plato argued that that the use of writing had a negative impact on people's ability to remember and think critically. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, wrote about the dangers of technological progress in his work "Discourse on Inequality." He argued that the development of technology had led to the development of private property, which had in turn led to social inequality.
On the other hand, Francis Bacon and Karl Marx, are writers who, in taking the "tech is tool" approach see technology as a positive benefit to the pursuit of knowledge, and the development of humanity. Bacon saw science and technology as being a single unified entity. He argued that science was the best way to uncover universal ordered truths from the disordered chaos of nature. Marx saw technology as a means by which proletarian labour (& bourgeois extraction of it) is quantified, and therefore is a necessary stage for the realisation of socialism. As such, Marx was positive about the influence of technology on the pursuit of knowledge.
I think that this approach is implied, and assumed, in the knowledge questions included in the ToK Study Guide for Knowledge and Technology. This approach may be all that is required of the ToK learner. However,
However, there are some concerns with this approach, concerns which are both general for us as learners, and specific to ToK:
Did these problems, which technology apparently solves, come before the technology or did technology create these problems ? (the problem here is one of causation - what is the cause of an object ?)
If the problems are antecedent to the technology, and technology is the solution to them, then are technology and knowledge actually separate entities ?
If technology and knowledge are intertwined then is there any non-technological knowledge ?
Wider ontological problems arising from the above - if knowledge is a requisite for existence, then is technology also a requisite for our existence ? Are we defined by solving problems ? Is consciousness essentially a task focussed process (Heidegger).
Concerns #1 & #2 conveniently segue into our second approach.
The "Some knowledge is tech" approach.
This approach argues that the knowledge which gives rise to the technology developed to solve the problems that we face is in itself technology. Knowledge such as language (incl. digital coding languages), religion, scientific theories, artistic arrangement etc all give rise to specific technologies which help us to solve a set of problems.
In this approach we start to understand technology as a set of practices rather than merely as a set of objects. Both the object (artifact) and the practices (processes) are seen as being technology. The object itself might be termed "instrumentality" as it was produced to (instrumentally) change the environment - ie to solve a problem. The practices which brought the artifact into being might be termed "productivity" as they gave us an object which, at some point, gave us increased control of our environment for a required purpose. The effect of this categorisation on the acquisition and production of knowledge will be explored in greater detail in subsequent blogs.
This approach also opens the door to a consideration of the social environment within which needs arise, and knowledge develops in order to meet those needs. Of course, this brings a sharp focus on what we define as 'needs', and who has the attendant power to solve that which they define as 'needs' (a quick sub-question: a lot of technology serves 'improvement' - is improvement fulfilment of a 'need' ?). And again, we have significant problems of causation here - what is the order of causation ? Is causation a necessary, or merely, sufficient requirement for the acquisition and production of knowledge ? etc
Overall, this approach also poses a number of challenges for our theory of knowledge:
Is the technology causal to the knowledge or vice versa ? (think about examples - this is more problematic than it first appears).
Both knowledge and technology can be thought of as evolutionary (and sometimes revolutionary) - does knowledge cause technology to evolve, or vice versa ? , and if so, how ?
Do we produce some knowledge which is not to solve problems ? , and if so what, and why ?
A range of ontological questions arising from #3: are we solely a problem solving being ? what about non-problem solving behaviours ? (do they even exist in this definition?). Is consciousness contingent on
Challenge #3 conveniently segues into our next approach.
The "all knowledge is tech approach".
If we accept that technology is a tool to solve problems, and that we accept that that which is known about the world is acquired, pursued and produced to solve problems then we arrive at the position that all knowledge is technology. Conversely, all technology is knowledge (however, this is a little more obvious, and a little less overwhelming). This approach gives rise to some very significant challenges:
Is there any knowledge which is not technology ? We can unpack this question by positioning problems as time, person and situation specific. ie we know things but may not be using them to solve a problem at that moment in time. Someone, somewhere else, may have used that knowledge to solve a problem, and once created this knowledge has been passed to me. This gives rise to a second problem:
Why do we have knowledge which does not solve problems for us ? If we accept that all knowledge can be categorised as technology, and that technology solves problems for us, then why do we know things which don't solve problems for us ?
Our now familiar ontological questions are now even stronger - if all knowledge is technology, and knowledge is a necessary requirement for our existence then this approach inevitably leads to the position that to being human is being technology, or put another way that a human being is technology itself.
And so we, conveniently, segue into our final approach.,
The "we are the tech - unified being approach".
OK, so now we need to work a little out of the realms of conventional ToK, but only to give us better ways to explore some of the ToK KQs posed in the optional theme Knowledge and Technology. Some writers have argued that our very existence, - our very human 'being', is one and the same as technology. Put simply we are technology. This approach, as the culmination of the 3 earlier arguments, aggregates those arguments to posit our 'being'ness as constituting a problem solving set of processes. This is often characterised as consciousness - the idea that consciousness is a referenced intention in the world.
This approach really helps us to start to answer questions about the role of technology in changing our pursuit of knowledge. Rather than tech merely improving, or impeding, our pursuit of knowledge technology reveals the world, and therefore is our very consciousness, our very awareness of the world - it neither improves nor impedes, but in its role as revelation is consciousness itself. This will really help us when we get to questions concerning artificial intelligence, and the biological integration of technology.
However, like the other 3 approaches, this approach poses some significant challenges for our understanding of the role of technology in the pursuit of knowledge:
1. Ethical issues - If tech & being human are one & the same thing, but there is unequal access to tech then is there also unequal access to the experience of being human ?
2. Continuum issues- where does the individuality of the knower begin, and the external universality of tech end ?
3. Categorisation & Organisation issues - why do we bother to have a separate category of knowledge called 'technology' at all ?
Hold Up!! - some of that has nothing to do with ToK!
"Some of those points above appear to be way beyond the scope of ToK". When we start to consider ontological questions such as the nature of existence, the requisite conditions for existence, and the nature of consciousness it appears that we are going well beyond the requirements of the ToK course. However, I believe that we can only tackle some of the technology KQs by considering some of the questions which might (conventionally) be asked by people who we label as existentialists, phenomenologists and ontologists. This will become far clearer when we get to the post on Artificial Intelligence.
Hold Up!! - again!
"Your 4 approaches are all based on one premise. They're all based on, and developments of Approach #1 - that technology is a tool to solve a problem".
Yes - this is a legitimate challenge to the framework outlined here. An equally valid approach would be to start from an entirely different premise, maybe that technology is not caused by problem solving, that technology is caused by, and defined by something entirely different. However, that's a big undertaking - maybe one that I will need to explore in another blog.
Closing thoughts.
We can use these definitions to help us to start to explore some of the knowledge questions in ToK Optional Theme Knowledge & Technology. We will look at 3 broad areas:
How does technology change our pursuit of knowledge?
Is Artificial Intelligence changing our understanding of knowledge?
Ethics and technology.
Those blogs are coming up in the next few weeks - I hope you come back to read them then!
Daniel, Lisbon, Jan 2023
Of further interest on Knowledge & Technology is:
We need to talk about Pune, India.
Women in STEM lesson (for teaching perspectives)
Did Photography change painting?
Bibliography and References.
Bimber, Bruce, 1990, “Karl Marx and the Three Faces of Technological Determinism”, Social Studies of Science, 20(2): 333–351. doi:10.1177/030631290020002006
Franssen, Maarten, and Gert-Jan Lokhorst. “Philosophy of Technology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford.edu, 2009, plato.stanford.edu/entries/technology/.
Plato. Plato's Phaedrus. Cambridge :University Press, 1952
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Discourse on Inequality. 1755. Aziloth Books, 2013.
Weeks, Sophie. 2008. “The Role of Mechanics in Francis Bacon’s Great Instauration”, in Zittel, C., Engel, G., Nanni, R. & Karafyllis, N.C. (eds.), Philosophies of Technology: Francis Bacon and his Contemporaries. Brill. pp. 133-195.
Yuval Noah Harari. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. 2011. Random House Uk, 2019. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190207-technology-in-deep-time-how-it-evolves-alongside-us