A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

Introduction

“Asian,” in this essay, refers primarily to China and India,¹ as Japan, since its regeneration after the end of the Second World War, counts as an honorary “Western” nation, a mature, developed economy with democratic politics. Furthermore, Japan’s systematic transformation from agrarian feudalism to become a modern society and economy has a history of at least 150 years, beginning with the Meiji Restoration around 1868. By contrast, China and India, in spite of their very different histories, may be said only recently to be systematically en route to transforming themselves from an agriculture/peasant-based society/economy to become industrialized economies.² Each country has more than a billion people; between them, they are responsible for a third of the world’s population.