A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

Critical Theories of Technology

Critical theories of technology argue that technologies are not separate from society but are adapted to specific social and political systems. Technologies are thus not neutral tools, because they are implicated in the socio-political order they serve and contribute to shaping, nor can they be characterized by a singular “essence of technology” because they evolve historically along with other aspects of society. Just as institutions, laws and customs can be changed by human action, so can technological systems. The substantivist idea of the “autonomy” of technology describes at most certain large-scale technical systems. These systems possess what Thomas Hughes calls “momentum.” However, autonomy in this sense is a contingent feature of technology, not the essential property it appears to be in the theories of Jacques Ellul and Martin Heidegger.

Critical theories of technology are not new. Marx and Dewey each offer representative versions. Nevertheless, some form of instrumentalism continues to prevail in common sense. Hence the scandal provoked in 1964 by Marcuse’s claim that “Technological rationality has become political rationality.” By 1980, when Langdon Winner published his classic article asserting that “artifacts have politics,” the critical view was still controversial but it had gained wider currency. Today it seems self-evident to most students of technology in the humanities and social sciences. The reason to formulate a general concept ...