Reimagining Technology and Society

What is the relationship between Technology and Society? Does technology influence society? Or does society influence technology? Or is there some other way—beyond the ideas of ‘influence’ and ‘cause and effect’—to think about technology and society? But before we can get to a place to think about a different way of imagining the relationship between technology and society, we must first ask ourselves the question: What is technology? By technology do we simply mean an instrument like a cell phone or a rocket ship or an electric car? Or is something more involved? Is technology perhaps first and foremost an ‘idea’? Or is technology a particular way of knowing the world around us? What kind of knowing is this? If it is an idea, then it must involve thinking of some kind. But clearly it also involves making something—usually an object that does something or has a particular function.

In this course, we rigorously enquire into the different meanings of the idea of technology and its relationship to society from the perspectives of philosophy, history, sociology, and anthropology. We examine examples from the past and present as well as the Global South and Global North and explore what the relationship between technology and society could be in the future.

What is the relationship between Technology and Society? Does technology influence society? Or does society influence technology? Or is there some other way—beyond the ideas of ‘influence’ and ‘cause and effect’—to think about technology and society? But before we can get to a place to think about a different way of imagining the relationship between technology and society, we must first ask ourselves the question: What is technology? By technology do we simply mean an instrument like a cell phone or a rocket ship or an electric car? Or is something more involved? Is technology perhaps first and foremost an ‘idea’? Or is technology a particular way of knowing the world around us? What kind of knowing is this? If it is an idea, then it must involve thinking of some kind. But clearly it also involves making something—usually an object that does something or has a particular function.

In this course, we rigorously enquire into the different meanings of the idea of technology and its relationship to society from the perspectives of philosophy, history, sociology, and anthropology. We examine examples from the past and present as well as the Global South and Global North and explore what the relationship between technology and society could be in the future.

After completing this course, will:

• Understand the functions and meanings of technology in society
• Acquire an overview of the important different theories concerning technology
• Demonstrate competence in perceiving the socio-economic impacts of technology in modern society
• Be able to design frameworks in which to understand the social, cultural, political embeddedness and impacts of technology
• Evaluate the functioning and future impacts of new technologies
• Be able to construct a model that places technology within its entangled social, historical and cultural contexts
• Construct and articulate innovative and creative definitions of technology that are better suited to the human and non-human world

Don Ihde, “A Phenomenology of Technics,” in Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition: an Anthology, edited by Robert C. Scharff, and Val Dusek (John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014), pp. 539-560.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Capitalism and the Modern Labor Process,” in Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition: an Anthology, edited by Robert C. Scharff, and Val Dusek (John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014), pp. 74-87.

Adam Briggle, “Philosophy of Technology as Politics,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology, edited by Shannon Vallor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), pp. 191-210.

Sheila Jasanoff, “Technologies of Humility: Citizen Participation in Governing Science,” Minerva, vol. 41, no. 3, Special Issue: Reflections on the New Production of Knowledge (2003), pp. 223-244.

Taina Bucher, “The algorithmic imaginary: exploring the ordinary affects of Facebook algorithms,” Information, Communication & Society, vol. 20, no.1 (2017), pp. 30-44.

Daniel C. Dennett, “Consciousness in Human and Robot Minds,” in Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition: an Anthology, edited by Robert C. Scharff, and Val Dusek (John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014), pp. 588-596.

D.E. Wittkower, “What Is It Like to Be a Bot?,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology, edited by Shannon Vallor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), pp. 358-373.

Aimee van Wynsberghe, “Care Ethics, Philosophy of Technology, and Robots in Humanitarian Action,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology, edited by Shannon Vallor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), pp. 629-646.

Carl Mitcham, “What is Engineering?,” The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Engineering, edited by Diane P. Michelfelder (New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 11-24.

Wybo Houkes and Anthonie Meijers, “Engineering Knowledge,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology, edited by Shannon Vallor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), pp. 128-151.

Buckminster 1969. Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. New York: Simon and Schuster.   Chapters 1, 4 and 8: “Comprehensive Propensities”, “Spaceship Earth”, “The Regenerative Landscape”