How does technology change our pursuit of knowledge ?
The question how does technology change, help or hinder our pursuit of knowledge will be approached by arguments that technology helps in the pursuit of knowledge, then arguments that technology hinders the pursuit of knowledge, and finally (and probably most importantly) the wider implications of the arguments & question.
The exploration of many of the KQs in ToK Optional Theme Knowledge and Technology could start by looking at different ways to define technology, I have tried to do this in my earlier blog post “What is Technology ?” - if you are yet to read that you may want to jump back to check that out.
A note on complexity and simplification.
Anyone undertaking even cursory reading into the technology and knowledge space will quickly be confronted with the word complexity. Virtually all writers agree that a contemporary understanding of the role of technology is becoming ever more complicated, and technology itself is only increasing that complexity. Whilst I do not wish to understate both complexity, and its’ importance, I don’t see it as being a useful starting point for ToK teachers in our work with DP students - it may be our eventual destination, but I think it important to explore some of the underlying processes and phenomena first in order to give a better sense of that complexity. Obviously such parsing can lead to a (justifiable) charge of reductionism, but there is an educational reason for such reductionism.
Technology helps in the pursuit of knowledge.
Technology as a tool.
If we start from the premise that technology is created to solve problems / meet needs then, quite obviously, technology helps in the pursuit of knowledge by giving us new ways to acquire knowledge, reveals new knowledge to us, and allows us to synthesis pre-existing knowledge into new knowledge. This is the fairly conventional, near orthodox, perspective on the role of technology in the construction of knowledge. It’s widely found in the ToK literature, and as such I will not spend too much time on this argument here.
The argument that physical artefacts created to solve problems increase our ability to pursue, acquire, construct (and discover) new knowledge appears to be fairly indisputable. It is, as I will show, highly disputable, but we need to go through the tech as a good tool argument first.
Technological innovation in terms of physical artefacts have always given us access to previously hidden / inaccessible knowledge. Appropriate examples are near inexhaustible, a few examples include: the map allowed for better navigation, the compass allowed for even better navigation, powered flight allowed for faster travel, and the placement of satellites in space, GPS brings all of these technological innovations to give us the knowledge of exactly where we are on the globe at any moment in time. The same arguments can be built for any number of physical technology eg microscopes, printing presses, the crossbow, x-rays etc
The “Tech as tool” argument becomes a little more interesting when we consider the technology as the knowledge which has led to the physical artefacts. For example the knowledge of geometry and algebra which enabled the map to be made, the knowledge of maps and physics which led to the compass, the knowledge of gaseous exchange and displacement which led to the rocket which deployed the satellite etc. This is interesting for two main reasons:
Tech as tool knowledge: causation issues.
Prima facie the cause of technology appears obvious - we create it to fulfil a need or solve a problem, this is often called the Functional explanation. We could ask why we decided to create a specific technology to fulfil a particular need rather than another form of technology, the answer to which is usefulness. This argument is well advanced by James Woodward in his paper A Functional Account of Causation; or, A Defense of the Legitimacy of Causal Thinking by Reference to the Only Standard That Matters—Usefulness (Woodward, 2004). As such we have a way in which Technology helps the pursuit of knowledge, namely in its usefulness to that pursuit of knowledge. Through processes of selection and application the technology is found to be the most useful way in which to pursue (as an umbrella term) knowledge.
The concerns with, and challenges to, the functional explanation arise from the causal relationship between the knowledge, need and technology. Again, a prima facie explanation posits the need as existing first, and thus causing the technology. However the relationship between the knowledge being pursued and the need is not clear - with many technologies we were aware of the knowledge before we had the technology to confirm it (eg we knew the moon existed before we could get there etc) - so not all needs can are uniform, neither are they uniform in their operation.
Further, much technological innovation reveals new knowledge when we apply it (for example we weren’t aware of spike proteins on viruses until we had electro-scanning microscopes) as such the need didn’t exist for the technology to be created. Therefore need (nor function, nor usefulness) do not seem to be necessary, nor even sufficient, conditions for the creation of new technology. If we accept this premise we could build an argument that technology neither helps nor hinders in the pursuit of knowledge, but rather has a more haphazard, unpredictable, directionless effect.
The causes of technological innovation are an issue for us if we hope to answer the help/hinder question - we will need to return to them in more detail when we look at the hinder side of this question.
“Hold up Daniel, you’re taking a very serial, near uni-directional view, of the relationship between technology and the pursuit of knowledge. It’s more nuanced and bi-directional than that.” I hear you cry, and you would be correct. So, let’s look in more detail at the processes of knowledge transfer which could give rise to new technologies.
Tech as tool for knowledge transfer.
Knowledge transfer is the process by which knowledge is transferred from one sphere to another, in ToK we could think of it in terms of transfer across concepts, theories, applications, disciplines, themes or Areas of Knowledge. It is not difficult to construct the fairly conventional argument that technological innovation in one area causes knowledge transfer to another area, which leads to subsequent technological innovation in that area. We often see examples drawn from the US space programme citing such processes. With application to the question regarding the role of technology in our pursuit of knowledge we can consider whether such technology transfer is necessarily causal in the creation of the new technology, whether the need for the new knowledge existed before the transfer (“The Russians took a pencil” story could be much cited here), and whether the transfer actually diminishes the pursuit of other forms of new knowledge in the second area - an issue to which we will return later in this piece.
Examples of such technology transfer that Diploma students may come across in their studies could include the development of fMRI in Natural Sciences led to new knowledge in Bio-Psychology in the Human Sciences, the development of new computer visualisation capability led to new techniques for designing objects and buildings, the development of social psychology in Human Sciences led to new models of epidemiology in The Natural Sciences.
Tech as Knowledge - Helps the Pursuit of Knowledge.
If we approach technology as a knowledge framework, or knowledge which gives rise to artefacts (tools) we start to develop some new ways in which we can argue that technology ‘helps’ the pursuit of knowledge.
A useful starting point for this approach is in the values, methods and purpose of the European Enlightenment (1600s+). At the core of the Enlightenment is a rationalist approach to thinking, and knowledge production / acquisition. That which is thought to be rational was often labelled as ‘useful’ knowledge - useful in that it allowed for greater control of (“instrumentality”) of the environment.
Underpinning the enlightenment is a significant increase in both the overall ‘amount’ of knowledge, and the ‘accessibility’ that people had to that knowledge. We see this at both the level of artefact (eg printing press and book) and at the institutional level (eg universities and public libraries). As such, we can argue that the knowledge framework of the enlightenment, as a technology for organising the world, significantly improved our pursuit of knowledge in terms of the aggregate production of knowledge and access to that knowledge.
However, this argument can be further developed in terms of the role of ‘useful knowledge’ in control (which further helps the pursuit of knowledge). In his article “The Intellectual Origins of Modern Economic Growth.” Mokyr, Joel argues that technology is the application of useful knowledge to control the unexpected (e.g. weather, natural disasters, and social behaviours caused by faith etc).
As such, Mokyr argues that ‘useful knowledge’ both produces technology and is sustained by technology, and could be seen as a form of technology in itself (similar to Heidegger’s ‘essence’). The processes by which useful knowledge affects this are (i) producing cultural cohesion through technological dispersion of knowledge, and (ii) allowing specialisation, professionalisation and expertisation. Both factors significantly increases the material wealth of a society, which further enables technological innovation. Here we see a worked through model of the “Some Knowledge is Tech” approach.
However, in evaluation Charles Gillespie in his book Science and Polity in France at the end of the Old Regime argues that the link between knowledge and technology is at best tenuous, and often knowledge lags behind technological innovation. This argument is taken further by Nathan Rosenberg and Derek Price argue that technology causes knowledge. In order to make this argument we need to separate out formalised, validated, knowledge (such as academic and theoretical knowledge) from applied, pragmatic knowledge. In doing so, we can argue that practical innovation of technology gives rise to new knowledge, and as such further helps our pursuit of knowledge
Rationalism & Specialism.
The premise of Nicholas Maxwell’s book Science, Reason, Knowledge and Wisdom: A Critique of Specialism.” provides us with a strong framework for the claim that Technology is a form of knowledge that helps with the pursuit of further knowledge. Maxwell argues that the function of universalism (ie the reason why we have knowledge) is to answer 4 questions:
1. What kind of world is this ?
2. How do we fit into the world, & how did we come to be ?
3. What is of most value in life, and how is it to be achieved ?
4. How can we help to develop a better human world ?
Maxwell argues that rationalism is a specific form of knowledge which enables specialisation in order to answer those 4 universal questions. These 4 questions are broken down into myriad smaller sub-questions helping us to form smaller solutions to the big questions. Specialisation of knowledge is the academic disciplines which give us subjects, leading to larger groupings as Areas of Knowledge.
Maxwell’s work (built on Popper, amongst others) provides us with a framework for both the Tech as Tool and the Most Knowledge is Tech approach in answering the question how does technology change our pursuit of knowledge ? In précis he is arguing that technology helps us in our pursuit of knowledge as it is the applied form of specialised rational thinking serving to answer the big questions of universalism. In this claim the 4 universal questions constitute the fundamental cause of technology, subject disciplines are the knowledge solutions of those questions, and reason and rationality are the enabling means of the subject disciplines.
For Maxwell ‘intellectual inquiry’ (ie our pursuit of knowledge) is a tool, as such it constitutes technology in itself. He states:
“Intellectual Inquiry is our servant, not our master. It is not in itself any kind of authority or oracle”.
Nicholas Maxwell
Tech as Tool - Hinders the Pursuit of knowledge.
The “Tech as Tool'' approach focuses on the physical artefacts of technology as constituting the technology itself. At first glance it would seem very hard to construct an argument that an artefact that gives us greater capacity to manipulate our environment would, also in turn, somehow hinder our pursuit of knowledge. It seems to be obvious that greater control of our environment would enable improved discovery / construction / acquisition of knowledge.
However the argument that Technology (as a tool) hinders our pursuit of knowledge can be developed on the basis of:
Alienation
Selectivity, Amplification and The long tail.
Homogenisation of knowledge.
Students may be very tempted to focus on the effects of technology on humans (such as reduced attention span, narrowing of interests, mental health etc). If these effects are commented upon it is important that they are explicitly linked to the “pursuit of knowledge”. The knowledge question is clearly focussed on the pursuit of knowledge, as such human effects of technology will need to make the association between psychological effects and the pursuit of knowledge. Nicholas Carr’s 2020 book The Shallows may be of use for students who wish to make this link.
There is obviously significant overlap with the Tech as knowledge approach here, which we will further develop in the next section.
Alienation:
The estrangement of individuals from themselves and others; a feeling of normlessness and powerlessness caused by separation and isolation from an individual’s sense of self, society, and work.
Open Education Sociology Dictionary
Many Human Scientists and Philosophers have written about ‘alienation’ as a product of human interaction with technology, especially relating to production in the workforce. Of particular note here is Robert Blauner’s 1964 account of working on the Ford production line (Peterson 1965).
It could be argued that this process of separation of the individual from their themselves, their wider knowledge community hinders the pursuit of knowledge. The process of alienation (caused by technology) arguably reduces the knowledge that may be acquired / constructed in collaboration with others as we are put into ‘silos’ by technology. Further, it could be argued that the feelings of powerlessness and estrangement caused by the technology reduce the individual’s self efficacy for the pursuit of knowledge. In this scenario individuals feel less confident, and intrinsically less interested, in new knowledge, or the creation of new knowledge.
Selectivity, Amplification and “the Long Tail”.
It is easier for us to understand the processes of selectivity, amplification, and ‘the long tail’ in modern digital technologies than in antecedent technologies, but the same processes apply to all technologies. Let’s take each process in turn, and apply it to the pursuit of knowledge.
Selectivity - technology generally selects both the knower and the knowledge to which they are exposed (eg the knower has to have access to the internet, algorithms will then select knowledge to which the knower is exposed). This process of selectivity hinders our pursuit of knowledge because it reduces the range of diverse knowledge to which we may be exposed, it reinforces the power of the select knowledge to which we are exposed. This is obvious with the modern internet, but the same processes are in play with the establishment of public libraries, the printing press, factories, even the crop rotation system and early Mesopotamia farming processes. In every implementation of technology we increase our control of the environment, consequently reducing our exposure to alternative environmental pressures. As such we reduce our exposure to alternative knowledge sources - these knowledge sources could have been previously unwanted, unpredictable, or thought to be unhelpful.
Amplification - Once selectivity of knowledge occurs the subsequent amplification of the knowledge that we have been exposed to occurs. We generally don’t experience our knowledge world in deficit or lacking, we experience it as ful. As such, if we have been exposed to only a limited range of available knowledge we will ‘amplify’ that to which we have been exposed to become representative of ‘all knowledge’. This process is evident in contemporary social media, but the processes also apply to all antecedent technology (Marx described it as the knowledge function of capitalism – calling it “Commodity Fetishism”).
Much recent political research (AoK Human Sciences) has been done on the role of selectivity and amplification in the rise of populist political movements in Europe and North America. Valentino et al (2013) discuss how selectivity in both pursuit of, and exposure to, knowledge on the internet both causes, and is amplified by, anxiety. Technology causes anxiety (alienation effects), and in turn this causes The Knower to find knowledge which corroborates their viewpoint in order to reduce their anxiety. Arguably, this hinders our pursuit of knowledge as further reducing the range of diversity of knowledge to which we are exposed, and augmenting the knowledge perspectives already held. This leads to a process of homogenisation of knowledge.
The Long Tail
The Long Tail is the theory that the internet offers us a far wider range of knowledge sources (it’s usually applied to business, so those knowledge sources are usually ‘products’ in the literature), and therefore we are able to specialise in niches. The theory would, therefore, probably support the claim that technology helps our pursuit of knowledge.
However, many recent studies have shown that the ‘long tail’ is not actually happening. What researchers are seeing (eg Netessine, Serguei. “Why Tom Cruise Is Still Bankable: Debunking the Long Tail.”) is that faced with a wide choice of knowledge sources we are more likely to fall back on what we know to be safe. This leads to further amplification of well known knowledge sources, and a reduction of exposure to lesser known alternative knowledge sources. This further supports the argument that technology hinders our pursuit of knowledge.
Tech as Knowledge - Hinders the pursuit of knowledge.
Beyond the arguments of the physical attributes hindering our pursuit of knowledge we can look at the KQ from the perspective that understanding technology is a form of knowledge that in turn inhibits the further pursuit of knowledge.
In this we will draw upon two main areas of philosophy:
(i) Aristotle’s 4 causes of technology
(ii) Martin Heidegger’s Question about Technology.
However, of course, ToK is not a Philosophy course, so we’ll just use these two philosphy sources as ‘underlying’ frameworks in order to unpack the knowledge question.
The starting point with this approach is that technology is a form of knowledge, and some (or all) knowledge is a form of technology. This argument is developed in the first blog & video in this series What is Technology? linked here.
How the causes of technology change / hinder our pursuit of knowledge.
Purpose.
We often find that technology is not used for the original purpose for which it was created. For example steam trains were invented to transport coal from the mine to the seaport, were adapted to carry humans, the world wide web was created to locate tanks on a battlefield, the necktie was created to fasten the upper seam of a shirt together etc.
The question arising from this re-purposing of technology is whether the need existed before the repurposing, and the new technology merely fulfills the need. Or, conversley did the new technology ‘create’ a new need which it then fulfilled ? This question is not central to our KQ (How does Tech change our pursuit of knowledge?).
The central concern arising here is whether the new technology (or knowledge) in the process of repurposing has limited our pursuit of knowledge in the area to which the technology has been repurposed ? Or has the repurposed technology led to new questions which further change our pursuit of knowledge ? For example, if the world wide web had not been created for military purposes, and then repurposed as the internet would we have found alternative technologies for sharing and creating knowledge amongst large groups of people ? Would these new technologies have avoided some of the negative consequences of mass group based interaction that we see with the internet ? And, most importantly - did the invention of the internet constrain the pursuit of alternative technologies ?
Potentiality.
The conventional tech as tool approach puts forward a fairly straightforward view that a need exists, knowledge is garnered to create a solution to that need, and that solution is new technology. This new technology in turn gives us access to new knowledge. As such, the argument goes that technology helps our pursuit of knowledge.
However, one of the problems with this argument is that it implies a very narrow set of human needs because the potential of the raw materials is vast whilst the uses that we put them to are relatively narrow. Further, there are a vast range of problems (needs) that we are yet to find solutions for. Some of these problems (needs) are for more pressing than the needs that we have fulfilled through technology. As such, the relationship between needs and technology is far from direct, and unequivocally unilinear.
Obviously we need to build into our argument the complicating external factors of access to technological materials, access to re-combination knowledge and technologies, powers of access to realisation and implementation, culture etc. All of these factors could, arguably, hinder the pursuit of knowledge.
The further, and bigger, knowledge question is the cause of the identification of needs. Are those things that we have identified as needs actually the needs which need fulfilling ? Do those needs necessarily help our pursuit of knowledge ? or is it possible that that which we identify as a need to augment our pursuit of knowledge ends up hindering our pursuit of knowledge ? The logical consequence of this argument is that it has to accept totalitarianism (which results in repressing alternative viewpoints, burning books, censoring the internet etc) is a political technology which fulfills a need which helps our pursuit of knowledge. Obviously I have picked an extreme example, but it is the outliers / exceptions that can illustrate the problems in the original argument (Popper’s Black Swans).
Technology changes our perspective on the world.
If we take the conventional tech as tool argument then we can argue that technology helps us to better understand the world around us. In its role as ‘revealing’ the world it clearly helps us in our pursuit of knowledge. This argument is fairly easy to make with many pre-industrial technologies, particularly those that generally worked in balance with the natural world (eg windmills, waterwheels, hunter-gatherer societies etc). However, it could be argued that technology which enables intensive exploitation of the natural world changes our perspective, and therefore our knowledge, of the world.
The argument here is that modern technologies enable such a high degree of manipulation and exploitation of the natural world that we stop seeing the natural world as a place that we fit into, but a place that has to fit to our needs. As such modern technology elevates us to a position of supreme mastery over the natural world. In turn this means that rather than pursuing knowledge of the world per se modern technology enables us to pursue knowledge of the world for purely extractive and exploitative purposes. As such this hinders our pursuit of knowledge as it limits the perspectives and potentiality that we see in the world.
Closing Thoughts.
As with all good ToK the key terms in the PT need to be unpacked before venturing an exploration of this question. How we define “change / help / hinder” will have a bearing on how we consider the effects of technology identified (somewhat like Aristotle’s causes !). Crucially how we explain / define ‘the pursuit of knowledge’ will influence both our definition of technology, and our judgment of the role that that which is defined has. Interestingly, the ToK Study Guide (first assessment 2020) does not define “the pursuit of knowledge”.
I would argue that the pursuit of knowledge is always contextualised, and that context will have a significant effect on the ways in which technology changes our pursuit of knowledge. This will vary by situation, place, time, knower and the knower’s purpose. In some contexts the pursuit of knowledge could be helped by technology, in other contexts it could be hindered by technology. This change could vary for the same knower, using the same technology for the same purpose in different contexts.
Finally, we come back to the original conundrum running through this series on technology - that is the causes of technology. Most students responding to this KQ may take the premise that technology fulfils needs, the needs constitute the causes of the technology, and therefore the technology helps our pursuit of knowledge. However, the fulfilment of those needs may produce a further set of needs which in turn require further fulfilment. Technology must be seen as an integral and productive part of the knowledge being pursued. The relationship between needs and technology is mutual and reciprocal, as such we could conclude that rather than helping or hindering our pursuit of knowledge technology both changes, and is in itself, our pursuit of knowledge.
Daniel, Lisbon, Jan 2023.
Other Blogs & Videos in this series:
We need to talk about Pune, India.
What do we mean by Technology?
References and Bibliography.
Bell, Kenton. “alienation definition.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary, https://sociologydictionary.org/alienation/. Accessed 24 January 2023.
Bimber, B. “The Internet and Political Transformation: Populism.” Polity, no. 31, 1998, pp. 133-160. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25655419.
Carr, Nicholas G. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. W.W. Norton & Company, 2020.
Gillespie, Charles C. Science and Polity in France at the end of the Old Regime. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press, 1980.
Maxwell, Nicholas. “Science, Reason, Knowledge and Wisdom: A Critique of Specialism.” Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment, UCL Press, 2017, pp. 233–90. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1vxm8p6.14. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023.
Mokyr, Joel. “The Intellectual Origins of Modern Economic Growth.” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 65, no. 2, 2005, pp. 285–351. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3875064. Accessed 20 Jan. 2023.
Netessine, Serguei. “Why Tom Cruise Is Still Bankable: Debunking the Long Tail.” Knowledge at Wharton, 15 December 2017, https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/tom-cruise-threatened/. Accessed 24 January 2023.
Peterson, Richard A. The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 1, 1965, pp. 83–85. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4105309. Accessed 24 Jan. 2023.
Prince, Derek J. de Solla. “Notes towards a Philosophy of the Science / Technology Interaction.” In The Nature of Knowledge: Are Models of Scientific Change Relevant ? edited by Rachel Laudon. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 1984
Rosenberg, Nathan. “Adam Smith on the Division of Labour: Two views or One ?” Economica 32, no. 126 (1965); 127-39
Valentino, Nicholas A., et al. “Selective Exposure in the Internet Age: The Interaction between Anxiety and Information Utility.” Political Psychology, vol. 30, no. 4, 2009, pp. 591–613. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25655419. Accessed 24 Jan. 2023.
Woodward, James. “A Functional Account of Causation; or, A Defense of the Legitimacy of Causal Thinking by Reference to the Only Standard That Matters—Usefulness (as Opposed to Metaphysics or Agreement with Intuitive Judgment).” Philosophy of Science, vol. 81, no. 5, 2014, pp. 691–713. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1086/678313. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.