Research in Philosophy and Technology ed. by Paul T. Durbin (review)

Books 333 nation of divided sovereignties and near-limitless opportunities. Compared to the older industrial nations of Europe, the U.S.A. had an unexpected advantage: 'In "half-wild" America, today's technology did not have to compete with yesterday's technology.' The spirit of experimentation, competition and wide-ranging opportunities has characterized education. Lack of a 'national system', community control of education, proliferation of educational institutions and programs have resulted in a 'creative chaos' in which there is opportunity for many to learn to the limit of their ability in the field of their choice. This is a 'system' conducive to change and innovation, the driving forces of 'The Republic of Technology'. Boorstin's concise and informative analysis should be particularly illuminating for Leonardo readers who view the impact of technology merely as an imposition of foreign, usually USAmerican, origin. Research in Philosophy and Technology. Paul T. Durbin, ed. Vol. I, 390 pp., 1978, $32.50 and Vol. II, 403 pp., 1979, $32.50. Jai Press, Greenwich, CT, U.S.A. Reviewed by J. C. Kapur* At the best of times, even when human societies developed at a leisurely pace, it was an incomprehensible task to delineate the history of philosophy or, as a matter of fact, any intellectual history. But with the explosive proliferation of technology and the casting aside of humans, machines, materials and institutions that hold societies together, to try to give form to the philosophy of technology is a heroic effort. The editors and more than 35 USAmerican and European contributors have approached this objective with integrity and considerable boldness. The papers were presented at a symposium in 1976 in Boston. In Volume I, Carl Mitchum describes in his paper, The Philosophy of Technology: Origins and Issues, the philosophy of technology as the attempt by means of 'reason and insight' to answer fundamental questions about the character and meaning of technology. Durbin in his paper Towards a Social Philosophy of Technology focuses on the communication of meaning in the technical community and suggests many approaches to achieve such an objective, but the conclusions that he draws and the hopes that he expresses do not seem to me to meet the realities of the times. Albert Borgmann's thesis is that technology now articulates the world but the articulation has no focal point, so that technology must itself be articulated. Authors, such as Willis H. Triutt in his paper Values in Science, promote the idea of 'value neutrality in science' and suggest that technology is not neutral. The class structure in the U.S.A. (as also elsewhere) uses technology to support the rich and powerful but hinders the interests ofthe weak and poor. Kai Nielsen suggests that corrective steps involve largely political problems. Volume II contains papers by European contributors who reflect many streams of research in philosophy and technology and make up for many deficiencies that I found in the papers of Volume I. Josef Banka suggests that 'A decrease of technical domination over personal value may be achieved with the help of the Marxist philosophy of man'. He further adds that 'There is a rule which subordinates man to man-made civilization; there is also a rule subordinating this civilization to the demands of the people. Keeping these together is possible only on the grounds of a suitable philosophy of man.' Hans Lenk and Gunter Ropohl in analyzing an interdisciplinary philosophy of technology propose that 'No universal philosopher or social science generalist can successfully analyze the problem of technology without having some competence in the fields of natural science and technology', while Daniel Cerezuelle, in providing a broad sweep of French philosophy of technology, concludes that 'the deterioration ofthe condition of life and the equilibrium of nature was quite visible for sometime. This has not much moved the philosophers-Why?' Bernard Gendron and Nancy Holmstrom provide an incisive analysis in a paper entitled Marx and Alienation. Michael Zimmerman attributes the 'end of philosophy' to technology *Kapur Solar Farms, Bijwasan Najafgarh Road, P.O. Kapas Hera, New Delhi 110037, India. and, because of the fascination with the production of more and more power, 'We Americans are blinded to the ideological character of technology'. He...