PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY

IN SPANISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES

 PHILOSOPHY AND TECHNOLOGY
VOLUME 10

Series Editor: PAUL T. DURBIN

Editorial Board

Albert Borgmann, Montana Joseph Margolis, Temple

Mario Bunge, McGill
Edmund F. Byrne, Indiana-
Purdue at Indianapolis
Stanley Carpenter, Georgia Tech
Robert S. Cohen, Boston
Ruth Schwartz Cowan, SUNY -
Stony Brook
Hubert L. Dreyfus, California-
Berkeley
Bernard L. Gendron, Wisconsin-
Milwaukee
Ronald Giere, Minnesota
Steven L. Goldman, Lehigh
Virginia Held, CUNY
Gilbert Hottois, Universite Libre de
Bruxelles
Don Ihde, SUNY - Stony Brook
Melvin Kranzberg, Georgia Tech
Douglas MacLean, Maryland,
Baltimore County
Robert McGinn, Stanford
Alex Michalos, Guelph
Carl Mitcham, Pennsylvania State
University
Joseph Pitt, Virginia Polytechnic
Friedrich Rapp, Dortmund
Nicholas Rescher, Pittsburgh
Egbert Schuurman, Technical
University of Delft
Kristin Shrader-Frechette, South
Florida
Elisabeth Str6ker, Cologne
Ladislav Tondl, Czechoslovak
Academy of Science
Marx Wartofsky, CUNY
Caroline Whitbeck, MIT
Langdon Winner, RPI
Walter Ch. Zimmerli, Bamberg

The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
 OFFICIAL PUBLICAnON OF
THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY AND TECHNOLOGY

PHILOSOPHY AND TECHNOLOGY

VOLUME 10

PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY
IN SPANISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES

Edited by

CARL MITCHAM
The Pennsylvania State University

"
~

SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.

A c.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-94-010-4836-1 ISBN 978-94-011-1892-7 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-1892-7

Printed on acid-free paper

Ali Rights Reserved

© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1993
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1993
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
 PREFACE

This volume grew out of the experience of the First Inter-American

Congress on Philosophy of Technology, October 1988, organized by the
Center for the Philosophy and History of Science and Technology of the
University of Puerto Rico in Mayagiiez. The Spanish-language
proceedings of that conference have been published in Carl Mitcham and
Margarita M. Peiia Borrero, with Elena Lugo and James Ward, eds., El
nuevo mundo de la filosofta y la tecnolog(a (University Park, PA: STS
Press, 1990). This volume contains thirty-two papers, twenty-two
summaries, an introduction and biographical notes, to provide a full
record of that seminal gathering.
Discussions with Paul T. Durbin and others - including many who
participated in the Second Inter-American Congress on Philosophy of
Technology, University of Puerto Rico in Mayagiiez, March 1991 -
raised the prospect of an English-language proceedings in the Philosophy
and Technology series. But after due consideration it was agreed that
a more general volume was needed to introduce English-speaking
readers to a growing body of literature on the philosophy of technology
in the Spanish-speaking world. As such, the present volume includes
Spanish as well as Latin American authors, historical and contemporary
figures, some who did and many who did not participate in the first and
second inter-American congresses.
The primary aim of this volume is simply to introduce readers to a
broad spectrum of philosophical reflection on technology that would
otherwise be obscured from their view. The basic organization of the
volume highlights five more or less well-established centers or loci of
philosophical reflection on technology in the Spanish-speaking world: in
Chile, in Costa Rica, in Mexico, in Spain, and in Venezuela. In each
of these countries there exists a historical tradition and something
approaching a critical mass of scholars with a diversity of perspectives
on philosophical issues associated with technology.
The work of the Center for the Philosophy and History of Science
and Technology of the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagiiez might
also reasonably have been included. But precisely because of its
synthetic commitments and the important involvement of Puerto Rican
scholars in its development, this volume as a whole is witness to the
existence of this other active group of scholars. We project for a future
volume of Philosophy and Technology or Research in Philosophy and
Technology a special symposium on Puerto Rican reflection on
technology, as well as regular publication in the future of more
contributions from thoughout the Spanish-speaking world.

v
 PREFACE
Indeed. supplementary centers of reflection exist throughout the
Hispanic world. in Argentina. in Colombia. in Peru. in Uruguay. and
elsewhere. Some indications of the range of work in these and other
communities are provided in part six.
With regard to each of the six parts I am aware of other contributors
who might have been included. The present collection is not meant to
slight other. equally important work. It is simply one effort. undertaken
within certain constraints of space and time. to bring to the attention of
the English-speaking philosophical community the existence of a rich
dialogue in a companion world. Because of its limitations and
inadequacies. this volume will need to be followed by future publications
extending such work.
TRANSLATION POLICIES
With regard to each article that I have had a role in translating. I am
aware of the limitations of the translations that have been produced. My
intention has been to strive for fidelity to the text. even when it results
in slightly stilted English. in the belief that this is more likely to serve
the best interests of the original philosophical writer and the
philosophical reader. But Spanish is a rich language with many subtle
variations throughout the countries in which it is spoken. and I am sure
that given my inadequate knowledge there are many instances in which
I have not succeeded in realizing my aims. I apologize to both authors
and readers for these weaknesses.
Two specific translation issues call for comment. One concerns the
problem of translating the Spanish tecnica. Given that this term can
have references that are divided among such English language words as
"technique." "technics." and "technology." it is simply not possible to
adopt some simple rule that would apply to the diversity of papers being
translated. Different strategies were adopted for different essays
depending on the context.
A second concern is the Spanish word hombre. Like the English
"man" this now is acquiring connotations that make ser hombre. "human
being." preferable. But especially in those essays with a more historical
character it seemed inappropriate to translate hombre as human being.
The reader should. depending on context. in most cases understand
"man" as a genus not a gender.
In some cases I have slightly expanded or corrected notes and
references without drawing attention to the fact. Any notes that have
been added are placed in brackets.

vi
 PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Because of the way these conferences served as background and
influence on the formation of the present volume, it is important
explicitly to acknowledge those papers included here that are translations
or adaptations of presentations at one of the two Inter-American
congresses on philosophy of technology.
From the first congress (October 1988), with Spanish versions or
summaries appearing in El nuevo mundo de la filosofta y la tecnolog(a:
Carlos Verdugo S., Ethics, Science, and Technology
Luis A. Camacho Naranjo, Science, Technology, and Development:
Some Models of Their Relationships
Edgar Roy Ram(rezBricello, Technological Arguments, Technological
Dangers, and Ethics
Ramon Queralto Moreno, Does Technology 'Construct' Reality?
Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla, The Present and Future of Humanity
Raul Fornet-Betancourt, Ortega and Heidegger: Two Philosophical
Approaches to the Issue of Technics and Their Implications for Latin
America
Margarita M. Pella Borrero, Reflections on Science, Technology, and
Society Education in the Latin American Context
Jane Robinett, The Moral Vision of Technology in Contemporary
Latin American Fiction (earlier version)
From the second congress (March 1991):
Eduardo Sabrovsky J., Thinking Machines and the Crisis of Modern
Reason
Jane Robinett, The Moral Vision of Technology in Contemporary
Latin American Fiction (later version)
Individuals who have made this volume possible or contributed to its
development include all participants in the inter-American congresses.
The following also require special mention: Paul T. Durbin, general
editor of the Philosophy and Technology series, has provided overall
advice and sound counsel at many points. His efforts to assist the
volume editor have gone far beyond the normal responsibilities of any
general series editor, and have been greatly appreciated. The simple
fact is that without his help, his prodding, and his encouragement this
volume would not have happened. His secretary, Mary Imperatore, also

vii
 PREFACE

took responsibility for the layout and composition, and to her and the
Philosophy Department of the University of Delaware I am grateful.
Ms. Annie Kuipers at Kluwer deserves thanks as well for her continued
support, her patience, and her persistence.
Margarita Peiia, Elena Lugo, and Jim Ward, my co-editors for El
nuevo mundo de la filosofta y la tecnolog(a, continued to assist in
various ways with this project. Leopoldo Molina, a visiting scholar in
the Science, Technology, and Society Program at Pennsylvania State
University during 1991, helped clarify structure and select articles, and
provided exceptional translation support. James A. Lynch and Ana
Mitcham also assisted a great deal with translation work. Richard
Dietrich, Assistant Professor of STS at Penn State, did some editorial
work. My secretary, Karen Hull, and our program's assistant secretary,
Betsy Held, typed many of the original articles. And my student
assistant, Mary Paliotta, did quality back-up work on research, typing,
and editing that have measurably improved this volume. Paliotta also
prepared the index.
Excepting the secretaries, all of the above have served in some
capacity as reviewer and/or critic. Others who have also served to help
evaluate contributions include the following: Juan Entralgo (University
of Minnesota), Javier G6mez (University of Castell6n, Spain), Hector
Huyke (University of Puerto Rico, Mayagiiez), Ivan Illich (penn State
University), Waldemar L6pez (Interamerican University), Jose Antonio
L6pez Cerezo (University of Oviedo), Halley Sanchez (University of
Puerto Rico, Mayagiiez), Jose Sanmartfn (University of Valencia,
Spain), Carlos Verdugo (University of Valparaiso, Chile), and Leonard
Waks (Temple University and Penn State University).
The book was done under the shadow of Emiliano Zapata.
Pennsylvania State University CARL MITCHAM

viii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE, Carl Mitcham v
ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS xii
INTRODUCTION: EL DESAFiO DE LA TECNOLOGiA:
AUTHORS AND ISSUES IN PHILOSOPHY OF TECH-
NOLOGY IN THE SPANISH-SPEAKING WORLD,
Carl Mitcham xix

PART I
From Chile
MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA I. / Technology and
Politics: Toward Artificial History? 3
MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA I. /
Globalization: Homogenization with an Increasing
Technological Gap 15
EDUARDO SABROVSKY J. / Thinking Machines and the
Crisis of Modern Reason 39
CARLOS VERDUGO S. / Ethics, Science, and Technology 61
PART II
From Costa Rica
LUIS A. CAMACHO NARANJO / Contributions to the
Philosophy of Technology in Costa Rica 71
LUIS A. CAMACHO NARANJO / Science, Technology,
and Development: Some Models of Their Relationship 81
EDGAR ROY RAMIREZ BRICENO / Ethics, Pernicious
Technology, and the "Technological Argument" 89
PART III
From Mexico
ENRIQUE DUSSEL / Technology and Basic Needs:
Proposal for a Debate on Fundamental Criteria 101
ix
x TABLE OF CONTENTS

JOSE GAOS / On Technique 111

HUGO PADILLA / Technological Objects and Their
Epistemological Base 121
LEOPOLDO ZEA / Satellites and Our Morality 133
PART IV
From Spain
MARiA LUISA GARCIA-MERITA / Technology and Human
Nature 145
MANUEL MEDINA / Philosophy, Technology, and Society 153
RAM6N QUERALT6 MORENO / Does Technology "Construct"
Scientific Reality? 167
MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA / The Design and
Evaluation of Technologies: Some Conceptual Issues 173
JOSE SANMARTIN / From World3 to the Social
Assessment of Technology: Remarks on Science,
Technology, and Society 197
JOSE SANMARTIN / Genethics: The Social Assessment of
the Risks and Impacts of Genetic Engineering 211
PART V
From Venezuela
JUAN DAVID GARCIA BACCA / Science, Technology,
History, and Philosophy in the Cultural Atmosphere
of Our Time 229
ERNESTO MAYZ VALLENILLA / The Present and Future
of Humanity 249
LEOPOLDO MOLINA P. / Education for Freedom versus
Socio-Technical Control by Pedagogical Means 259
 TABLE OF CONTENTS xi
PART VI
From Other Americas
RAUL FORNET-BETANCOURT / Two Philosophical
Approaches to the Problem of Technics and Their Meaning
for Latin America 271
MARGARITA M. PENA BORRERO / Science, Technology,
and Society Education in the Latin American Context 283
JANE ROBINETT / The Moral Vision of Technology
in Contemporary Latin American Fiction 289
JUDITH SUTZ / The Social Implications of Information
Technologies: A Latin American Perspective 297
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 309
NAME INDEX 313
 ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS
CARL MITCHAM, Introduction: El desafto de fa tecnofog(a:
Authors and Issues in Philosophy of Technology in the
Spanish-Speaking World XIX
Centers of Reflection on Technology xxi
Philosophy of Technology in Chile xxi
Philosophy of Technology in Costa Rica xxiii
Philosophy of Technology in Mexico xxiv
Philosophy of Technology in Spain xxvii
Philosophy of Technology in Venezuela xxix
Philosophy and Technology beyond the Centers xxxi
Comparisons and Achievements xxxi

PART I
From Chile
MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA I., Technology and
Politics: Toward Artificial History? 3
Technology, Instrumentality, and Science 3
The End of History as Artificialization of History 4
From Nova Scientia to New Technology 6
The Experience of Chile 8
The Greek Background 9
The Foreground of the Sciences of Administration 11
Again, the Experience of Chile 12

MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA I., Globalization:

Homogenization with an Increasing Technological Gap 15
I. Seven Theses on Technology Transfer 15
1. Technology transfer follows a rule of survival 15
2. Technology transfer is based on a tendency to
emulate efficiency in technological performances 15
3. Technology transfer leads to assimilation and
convergence 16
4. Technology transfer is accompanied by cultural
homogenization 17
5. Technology transfer presupposes constitutive
opposition, inequalities, and disequilibrium 20
6. Technology transfer does not follow its own internal
ru~ W
7. Technology transfer does not autonomously determine a
social system 23

xii
 ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii

II. Technological Diffusion and Modernity 25

The Inherent Problem of Modernity 25
The Problem of Modernization in Latin America 27
Modernization as "developmentism" in Latin America 28
Modernization beyond Latin America 30
III. Final Considerations 33

EDUARDO SABROVSKY J., Thinking Machines and the Crisis

of Modern Reason 39
Introduction 39
Instrumental Rationality and the "Lifeworld" 40
Instrumental Rationality and the Universal Machine 43
John Searle's Critique of Cognitivism 44
Artificial Intelligence: A Radical Critique 46
Technology and the Lifeworld 49
Communicative Coordination versus Instrumental Rationality 51
Conclusion: From a Danger to a Saving Power in Technology 53

CARLOS VERDUGO S., Ethics, Science, and Technology 61

Neutrality of Science, Culpability of Technology 61
The Chilean Case 63
The Positive-Normative Distinction 64
Ethics and the Search for or Selection of Research Techniques 65
The Role of Ethics in the Selection of Means for Solving
Socio-Economic Problems 66

PART II
From Costa Rica
LUIS A. CAMACHO NARANJO, Contributions to the Philosophy
of Technology in Costa Rica 71
1. Constantino Lc1scaris and the Origins 71
2. The Heritage of Lc1scaris 73
3. Results: Philosophy of Technology in Costa Rica 75
4. Conclusion: Science and Technology Policy in Costa Rica 77
Bibliography 78

LUIS A. CAMACHO NARANJO, Science, Technology, and

Development: Some Models of Their Relationship 81
Introduction: Origins of the Discussion 81
The Assembly-Line Model and the Science-Technology
Relationship 82
The Assembly-Line Model and the Science-Technology-
xiv ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS

Development Relationship 84
Toward a New Concept of Development 85
EDGAR ROY RAMIREZ BRICENO, Ethics, Pernicious
Technology, and the "Technological Argument"
89
1. [Ethics involves rationality] 89
2. [Reason must be related to historical conditions] 90
3. [But reason should not be subordinated to history] 90
4. [The historical situation in Latin America] 91
5. [The problem of pernicious technology] 91
6. [Ethical responsibility in science and technology] 92
7. [The "technological argument"] 93
8. [The concept of an "adequate technology"] 94
9. [The issue of development] 95
10. [Ethical dialogue] 96
11. [Critical self-questioning] 97
PART III
From Mexico

ENRIQUE DUSSEL, Technology and Basic Needs:

Proposal for a Debate on Fundamental Criteria 101
1. Technology and the Forces of Production 101
2. Three Social Contexts of Technology 102
3. An Overview of Technological Evolution in Latin America 103
4. The Real Ambit of Technological Options 104
5. The Different Languages of Basic Needs 105
6. Basic Needs and the Technological Project 107
Postscript 1992 108

JOSE GAOS, On Technique 111

[Introduction: Origins of this essay] 111
[Technique, ancient and modern] 112
[Technification of life or technocracy] 113
[Primacy of "vehicles" in technification] 114
[Contrast of acceleration and deceleration] 114
[Homo faber and homo viator] 116
[Homo viator as intensified to absurdity] 117
[Existential ground of this intensification] 118
[That nothing immediately follows from this analysis] 119

HUGO PADILLA, Technological Objects and Their

 ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS xv

Epistemological Base 121

1. Introduction 121
2. The Structure of Technology 122
3. Basic Science and Applied Science 124
4. Inputs of Complex Knowledge 126
5. Distinct Types of Technological Objects 128
6. Explanation of Technological Objects 129
7. Conclusions 130
LEOPOLDO ZEA, Satellites and Our Morality 133
[From nuclear weapons to artificial satellites] 133
[Artificial satellites and Columbus's voyages of discovery] 134
[Morality of groups versus morality of humanity as a whole] 136
[Promise of open conquest threatened by open destruction] 137
[That man may not be capable of seizing the morality
opportunity offered by the new technology] 138
[But there is hope] 140
PART IV
From Spain
MARiA LUISA GARCIA-MERITA, Technology and Human
Nature 145
Technified Nature 146
Technology and Human Nature 147
Effects on the Human Psyche 149
MANUEL MEDINA, Philosophy, Technology, and Society 153
The Myth of Theory 154
The Philosophy of Theory and Technique 156
Philosophy, Technology, and Politics in Antiquity 158
Philosophy and Technocracy 162
RAM6N QUERALT6 MORENO, Does Technology "Construct"
Scientific Reality? 167
1. [Scientific knowledge as part of human knowledge] 167
2. [Technology as a necessary feature of science] 169
3. [Scientific knowledge cannot be reduced to
technological construction] 170
4. [Constructionist charges arise when science is isolated
from its real conditions] 172
MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA, The Design and
xvi ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS

Evaluation of Technologies: Some Conceptual Issues 173

1. The "Logic" of Technological Design 174
2. The Model of Scientific Explanation 176
3. Models of Artificial Intelligence 178
4. Inventions and Projects 181
5. Technological Evaluation 183
6. Efficiency and Control 185
7. Technological Progress 188

JOSE SANMARTIN, From World3 to the Social Assessment of

Technology: Remarks on Science, Technology, and Society 197
1. On the Autonomy of Scientific Theories 197
2. About Basic Science and Applied Science 198
3. On the External History of Science and Traditional
Technology Assessment 200
4. Science and Technology as Social Products 204
First Consequence 205
Second Consequence 206
Third Consequence 207

JOSE SANMARTIN, Genethics: The Social Assessment of the

Risks and Impacts of Genetic Engineering 211
Parameters in the Social Assessment of Technology 212
From Biotechnology to Human Genetic Engineering 214
Genetic Diagnostic Testing in Clinical Contexts 216
A Paradigmatic Genetic Disease: Sickle Cell Anemia 216
A Paradigmatic Genetic Susceptibility to Disease: G-6-PD
Deficiency 219
Clinical Utilization 219
The Minimization of Environmental Factors 220
Human Genetic Engineering in Non-Clinical Contexts 221
Aspects of the Social Assessment of Genetic Testing 222
Epilogue: Toward Genethics 224

PART V
From Venezuela

JUAN DAVID GARCIA BACCA, Science, Technology,

History, and Philosophy in the Cultural Atmosphere of Our Time 229
I. What Is Science?, as the First and Primary Element of Our
Cultural Atmosphere 230
II. Technology, as the Second Element of Our Cultural
Atmosphere 234
 ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS xvii

III. History, as the Third Element of Our Cultural Atmosphere 238

IV. Philosophy: the Fourth Element of Our Cultural Atmosphere 243

ERNESTO MAYZ VALLENILLA, The Present and Future of

Humanity 249
Optical Space and Meta-Technical Spatiality 250
Otherness and Meta-Technics 252
1. [In language] 253
2. [In ontology and epistemology] 254
3. [In society] 255
Conclusion and Perspectives 257

LEOPOLDO MOLINA P., Education for Freedom versus Socio-

Technical Control by Pedagogical Means 259
Dreams of Social Change Through Pedagogical Means 259
Toward an Existential Theory of Education 260
The Challenge of Educational Policy 261
The Meanings of Reason 262
The Humanistic-Critical Movement in Education 263
The Latin American Experience 264

PART VI
From Other Americas

RAUL FORNET-BETANCOURT, Two Philosophical Approaches

to the Problem of Technics and Their Meaning for Latin America 271
Ortega's "Meditaci6n de la tecnica" 271
Heidegger's "Die Frage nach der Technik" 274
The Thought of Ortega and Heidegger in the Light of
Present Needs in Latin America 276

MARGARITA M. PENA BORRERO, Science, Technology, and

Society Education in the Latin American Context 283
Education in Science, Technology, and Society:
Definition and Evolution 283
Science, Technology, and Society Relations from a Latin
American Perspective 284
Science, Technology, and Society Education: Possible
Contributions to Transformation 286

JANE ROBINETT, The Moral Vision of Technology in

Contemporary Latin American Fiction 289
Introduction: Philosophy and Literature 289
xviii ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS

Toward the Moral Vision of Technology 290

From One Hundred Years of Solitude to The House of
the Spirits 291
Conclusion: A Moral Critique 295

JUDITH SUTZ, The Social Implications of Information

Technologies: A Latin American Perspective 297
Analytical Framework I: The Relevance of Information
Technologies 297
Analytical Framework II: Latin America in the 1990s 298
Analytical Framework III: The Evolution of Information
Technologies and Their Potential Impacts 300
A Pessimistic but Probable Scenario 301
Is It Possible to Construct a Different Scenario? 302
Technical perspective 303
Sociocultural perspective 303
Political perspective 304
What Kind of Foreign Support Would the Alternative Require? 306
Conclusion 306
 CARL MITCHAM

INTRODUCTION:
EL DESAFio DE LA TECNOLOGiA:
AUTHORS AND ISSUES IN PHILOSOPHY OF
TECHNOLOGY IN THE SPANISH-SPEAKING WORLD

Philosophy of technology originated in Europe in two different forms,

one among engineers and another among philosophers. i This origin was
part of the modern transformation in the Western philosophical tradition
that followed the rise and then questioning of Enlightenment thought.
At the core of Enlightenment philosophy is a firm trust in and
promotion of that new way of being-in-the-world which is characterized
by modern technology. But this trust and promotion subsists in the
absence of any profound analysis of technology itself or its meaning.
The engineering reflection on the essence and meaning of technology
that developed between the last half of the nineteenth and the first half
of the twentieth centuries constitutes an attempt to fill this lacuna and
is exemplified in the work of thinkers such as Ernst Kapp (1808-1896),
Franz Reuleaux (1829-1905), and Friedrich Dessauer (1881-1963).
Kapp's Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik (1877), the first
book to be entitled a "philosophy of technology," argues for an
anthropology of technology as "organ projection." Reuleaux's
Theoretische Kinematik (1876), upon which Kapp comments, provides
the first comprehensive theoretical framework for the science of
engineering mechanics - and thus for mechanical engineering.
Dessauer's Philosophie der Technik (1927) - especially in its revised
and expanded version, Streit um die Technik (1956) - puts forth a Kant-
like critique of the transcendental preconditions of technology as
invention that extends the work of both Kapp and Reuleaux while
reaching out to engage the thinking of a spectrum of philosophers, social
scientists, and theologians who played various roles in what has been
called the "culture criticism" of technology. I
A radically different focus was developed within the tradition of
culture criticism of technology which emerged as part of an articulation
and analysis of the limitations and weaknesses of Enlightenment
rationalism. As opposed to Enlightenment rationalism, this sometimes
romantic criticism stressed lived existence - and thus can be called, in
very general terms, an "existentialism. " In turning to address
xix
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, xix-xxxvi.
°1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
xx CARL MITCHAM

technology, this existentialism found its major philosophical expressions

during the first half of the twentieth century in works by Jose Ortega y
Gasset (1883-1955) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976).
Of these two, the Spaniard wrote his foundational work on technology
two decades before his German colleague. Because of his support of the
Spanish Republic (1931-1936) and his resultant exile under Franco,
Ortega's life is, moreover, explicitly linked with opposition to fascism.
And in some ways Ortega's thought bridges the culture-criticism and
engineering traditions of philosophical analysis of technology by arguing
the inherently technical character of human life. Like the culture critics,
Ortega appeals to life as the fundamental reality. With his phrase
"raz6n vital" (life-reason) he anticipates later phenomenological
references to a "lifeworld" - so that Ortega's philosophy is sometimes
termed a "raciovitalismo" (vitalist rationalism). In accordance with this
insight, Ortega also defines being human as inherently related to
historical circumstances. As he phrases it in his first book, Meditations
on Quixote (1914), "Yo soy: yo y mi circunstancia" [I am: I and my
circumstance (or historical situation)]. But Ortega also argues in
Meditaci6n de fa tecnica (a series of lectures at Santander in 1933) that
human life is fundamentally an act of invention within historical
circumstances. 2 It is the tension between circumstances and self-
invention - a self-invention that transcends and then alters the
circumstances that I am - that constitutes the dialectic and challenge of
human existence.
Ortega's work has also exercised a major influence on development
in the Spanish-speaking world of what may well be a tradition of
reflection on technology that is even more vigorous than the traditions
in the English, German, or French-speaking worlds - generally thought
of as the loci for the philosophy of technology. Almost certainly, for
instance, as Luis Camacho points out in his history of philosophy of
technology in Costa Rica in this volume, it was here that the first
philosophy journal to take technology as its theme was founded. And
although a few of the contributors to this tradition - most notably
Mario Bunge - have escaped the shadow into which the Anglo,
German, and French philosophical communities have been wont to cast
Hispanic scholarship, not even the names of such major figures as Juan
David Garcia Bacca and Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla would be widely
recognized outside the Spanish-speaking world. The present collection
is a small attempt to begin to remedy this oversight - and to contribute
as well to a deepening of intercultural reflection on the nature and
meaning of technology.
 INTRODUCTION xxi

CENTERS OF REFLECTION ON TECHNOLOGY

The working hypothesis of this collection is that at the present time
in the Spanish-speaking world there are at least five centers of reflection
on technology: in Chile, in Costa Rica, in Spain, in Mexico, and in
Venezuela. Such a hypothesis highlights significant reflection not only
in the mother country of Hispanic culture and in the largest of Spanish-
speaking countries (that is, in Spain and in Mexico) but also its vigorous
development in one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America
(Venezuela) as well as much smaller countries that represent, in one
instance, the longest democratic tradition in Latin America (Costa Rica)
and recent experiences with authoritarianism (Chile).
Philosophy of Technology in Chile
The roots of philosophy of technology in Chile are at least twofold:
the existential isms of Ortega and Heidegger, and an interest in
cybernetics that found expression in the work of Fernando Flores, an
electrical engineer who served as Minister of Industry under Salvador
Allende (1970-1973). (With reference to Ortega and Heidegger, it can
be noted that Ortega's Meditaci6n de la tecnica was first published in
Chile in a pirated edition in 1936, and that Heidegger's "Die Frage nach
der Technik" was first translated into Spanish in Chile in 1983.i As
for Flores, while working for Allende he proposed to establish a
cybernetic network that would turn the chaos of Marxist economics into
some semblance of order - technocracy with a human face. But after
the Pinochet coup, Flores went into exile in the United States where he
pursued the study of philosophy under Hubert Dreyfus at the University
of California, Berkeley. His subsequent efforts to utilize Heidegger to
guide office automation have become something of a cult. 4
During the generation-long hiatus of the Pinochet years (1973-1990)
the work of Marcos Garcfa de la Huerta I., who teaches in the Center
for Humanistic Studies in the College of Physical Sciences and
Mathematics at the University of Chile, reached maturity. Garcfa de la
Huerta's La tecnica y el estado moderno: Heidegger y el problema de
la historia [Technology and the modern state: Heidegger and the
problem of history] (Santiago: Ediciones del Departamento de Estudios
Humanisticos, Universidad de Chile, 1978) is a commentary on
Heidegger's famous speech, "The Self-Assertion of the German
University" (1934), given when he assumed the rectorate at the
University of Freiburg. Written during the dark years of the Pinochet
regime, Garcfa de la Huerta's commentary perhaps offers insights not
otherwise available. s His later Cr(tica de La raz6n tecnocrdtica [Critique
xxii CARL MITCHAM

of technocratic reason] (Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, 1990), written

in 1985 and circulated privately, was finally published after the return
to democracy. The two papers translated here - "Technology and
Politics: Toward Artificial History?" and "Globalization:
Homogenization with an Increasing Technological Gap" - extend the
critical analyses of this latter work within a transnational context.
Eduardo Sabrovsky is an engineer and philosopher who has been
active in trying to bridge the gap between these two worlds. For a
number of years he worked as an independent researcher and consultant
with the Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Transnacionales (ILET),
a home for intellectuals who were not able to get positions in the
universities during the Pinochet years. His books include Hegemonia y
racionalidad po/(tica: Contribuci6n a una teorfa democratica del cambio
[Hegemony and political rationality: Contribution to a democratic theory
of change] (Santiago: Ediciones del Ornitorrinco, 1989) and the edited
collection, Tecnologfa y modernidad en Latinoamerica: Etica, polftka
y cultura [Technology and modernity in Latin America: Ethics, politics
and culture] (Santiago: ILET-CORFU/Hachette, 1992). He also edited
the technology supplement to the biweekly Apsi (1989-1990) prior to a
period as editor of the monthly computer magazine Quinta Generaci6n
(1990-1991). Sabrovsky's "Thinking Machines and the Crisis of
Modern Reason" attempts further bridging between the thought of Jiirgen
Habermas and Heidegger.
Carlos Verdugo, a student of Garda de la Huerta, teaches at the
University of Valparaiso where he is involved with engineering
education. He is also a student of the thought of Karl Popper and as
such quite anti-Marxist, though as he makes clear in his "Ethics,
Science, and Technology" he is also strongly anti-technocracy. Indeed,
this article includes explicit applications of arguments about the non-
neutrality of technology to the areas of social and economic technology.
In order to indicate the broad scope of philosophical reflection on
technology that exists in Chile, it is reasonable to call attention to the
work of Luis Flores Hernandez (Catholic University of Chile), which is
represented in El nuevo mundo de lafilosofta y la tecnologfa (1990) by
a discussion of "Las interrelaciones de la cultura, la ciencia y la tecnica"
[The interrelations of culture, science, and technology]. In this same
volume there is a summary of a paper by Jose Miguel Vera L.
(University of Chile), "Impacto etico de la tecnologfa en la conducta
social (asomandose al siglo XXI)" [The ethical impact of technology on
social behavior (moving toward the twenty-first century)]. At least one
other publication to be noticed is Sergio Silva's La idea de la tecnica
moderna en el Magisterio de la Iglesia, desde pro XII hasta Juan Pablo
II (1985) [The idea of modern technology in the Magisterium of the
 INTRODUCTION xxiii

Church from Pius XII to John Paul II (1985)], Anales de la Facultad de

Teolog(a (pontificia Universidad Cat6lica de Chile), vol. 38, supplement
2 (1987), the only such analysis that exists in any language. 6
Philosophy of Technology in Costa Rica
The development of philosophy of technology in Costa Rica is itself
the subject of an extended narratIve in Luis Camacho's "Contributions
to the Philosophy of Technology in Costa Rica." After describing the
seminal influence of Spanish philosopher Constantino Lascaris (1923-
1979) and his interest in the history and philosophy of science and
technology, Camacho provides an overview of current work and a
bibliography of publications. It would be superfluous to repeat these
here. In his second contribution, "Science, Technology, and
Development: Some Models of Their Relationship," Camacho provides
a substantive illustration of the influence and tradition of reflection
indicated by his first article.
Edgar Roy Ramfrez's "Ethics, Pernicious Technology, and the
'Technological Argument'" further illustrates the tradition described by
Camacho. Ramfrez himself teaches at both the University of Costa Rica
and the Technological Institute of Costa Rica. In this paper he begins
with brief statements on ethics and humanities-social sciences criticisms
of technological development - the kinds of argument that could easily
characterize discussions at the University of Costa Rica. Then, as if to
take in the worldview of the Technological Institute, he considers
prospects for alternative technology and reformulates this concept in a
new way by outlining principles for an "adequate technology. "
In his study of distinctive Costa Rican contributions to the philosophy
of technology, Camacho mentions the founding of the International
Development Ethics Association (IDEA). Because of its significance,
it is perhaps useful to add a further note about this organization.
Although its founding conference was held in Costa Rica (1987) with
leading participation by Camacho and Ramfrez, it has since held
conferences in Merida, Mexico (1989), Montclair, New Jersey (1991)/
and Tegucigalpa, Honduras (1992).
From the Merida conference came a declaration of five ethical
principles for alternative development - respect for personal dignity,
pursuit of peace based on justice, affirmation of local autonomy,
aspiring to a new relationship with nature, and articulation of "a
rationality suited to exploited peoples." Associated with these
principles, IDEA also committed itself "to maintain an international,
intercultural, and interdisciplinary dialogue that brings together
intellectuals, grassroots organizations, and decision-making groups. ,,8
xxiv CARL MITCHAM

This aim to bridge intellectual and practical worlds, originating with

Latin American philosophers who are also philosophers of technology,
is now extending beyond the Americas, as IDEA plans to hold its first
conference outside the Western Hemisphere in Stellenbosch, South
Africa, in August 1993.
Philosophy of Technology in Mexico
The contributions from Mexico, in contrast to those from other
centers of reflection, are dominated by translations from works published
a decade or more ago. The only exception is the postscript to the paper
by Enrique Dussel. The articles in this section are also by established
philosophers, none of which have made technology a major theme in
their works - again except for Dussel. It is to be noted as well that
both Dussel and Jose Gaos were born outside Mexico - in Argentina
and Spain, respectively. Nevertheless, the presence of technology as an
important supplementary theme in the works of Gaos, Hugo Padilla, and
Leopoldo Zea in itself provides a useful contrast to work from the other
centers while it further documents the importance of technology in
philosophical reflection.
Dussel's contribution is taken from his Filosofta de la producci6n
(Bogota: Nueva America, 1984). This book begins by proposing in
section 1 a "philosophy of poiesis," provides in section 2 a study of
Marx's "Historical-Technological Notebook" of 1851, and develops in
section 3 a general theory of the engineering design process. The
analysis as a whole is related to Dussel's theology of liberation, which
can be studied in two books available in English: A History of the
Church in Latin America: Colonialism to Liberation, translated and
revised by Alan Neely (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981), and
Philosophy of Liberation, translated by Aquilina Martinez and Christine
Morkovsky (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1985). In this second volume,
chapter 4, "From Nature to Economics"; chapter 5, "From Science to
Philosophy of Liberation"; and the appendix, "Philosophy and Praxis,"
all anticipate and overlap with some of the analyses in sections 1 and 3
of Filosofta de la producci6n.
The appendix to Filosofta de la producci6n, translated here as
"Technology and Basic Needs: Proposal for a Debate on Fundamental
Criteria," was originally used as a working paper in a preparatory
meeting for a World Council of Churches conference on "Faith, Science
and the Future" held at MIT in July 1979. 9 As such its neo-Marxist
analysis may initially seem dated. But despite the collapse of the
Communist empire, Dussel thinks that Marxist analyses remain viable,
as he attempts to indicate in a brief addition to his text.
 INTRODUCTION xxv

Gaos's essay, "On Technique" (and technification), extends the work

of his mentor, Ortega, into existential depths that Ortega himself only
hints at in the last sections of his Meditaci6n de la tecnica. Gaos is, as
well, the Spanish translator of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit. 1o Inspired by
both Ortega and Heidegger, Gaos seeks to understand modern existence
in its real historical circumstances and in relation to our willingness to
face up to being present in and transcending these technological
circumstances. Analyzing the importance of change, the options of
acceleration and deceleration, ap.d the modern commitment to
technological acceleration as a kind lof end in itself, Gaos argues, more
explicitly than Ortega, that this self-invention is existentially grounded
in a tension between the finite and infinite in human beings.
We should note Gaos's opening comment (written in 1959) about how
"philosophizing about technology h¥ already produced in the last ten
years a whole new philosophical discipline, formally manifest as such in
sections so titled in philosophical! encyclopedias." Such a claim
undoubtedly strikes the English-speaking reader as an excessive
exaggeration if not simply false. . After all, even a decade later
discussion of technology was conspicuous by its absence in Paul
Edwards's authoritative Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967).
Nevertheless, Gaos's claim is quit~ literally true. In the early 1940s
Jos~ Ferrater Mora's great Diccionario de filosofla already had a
substantial entry on "t~cnica. ,,11 And the same is true, both before and
after, for a number of other standard Spanish reference works. 12 The
simple fact is that Spanish-language philosophical discourse has
recognized for much longer than English-language philosophical
discourse the philosophical significance of technology.
Padilla's essay is further testimony to this fact. His "Technological
objects and Their Epistemological Base," an attempt at a logical
empiricist study of technology, at a time when related English-language
analyses were devoted almost solely to science, has become a minor
classic. The need for translating it is in fact pointed out in Luis
Camacho's study of the rise of the philosophy of technology in Costa
Rica. Indeed, Padilla provides what is still one of the most sophisticated
analyses of how modern technology can be grounded in science.
Zea is among the most important Mexican philosophers of the
twentieth century. Himself a student of Gaos - and through Gaos, of
Ortega - Zea is the philosopher who most c6nsistently pursued
. "mexicanidad" as a fundamental philosophical question. Echoing
Ortega, Zea argues that
In attempting to resolve human problems in whatever space or time, we have to take
as our point of departure ourselves as we are; we must begin with our own circumstance
... conscious of our abilities as members of this cultural community called humanity,
xxvi CARL MITCHAM

and of our limitations as children of one circumstance.13

His intellectual histories, El positivismo en Mexico [Positivism in

Mexico] (1943) and Dos etapas del pensamiento en Hispanoamerica
[Two stages of thought in Hispanic America] (1949), have attempted to
do precisely this, and in consequence exercised a pervasive influence.
According to Zea, the historico-philosophical trajectory of Hispanic
America is quite distinct from that of North America and can be
characterized by a continuing failure of people to become one with their
circumstances, to truly experience their own history. The United States
was colonized by families who came into contact with only small-scale
indigenous populations, and who were from the beginning desirous of
establishing new political orders. By contrast, Hispanic America was
founded by conquistadors who wanted to extend an already existing
world, and thus tried to impose their Old World orders on large-scale
and opposing indigenous civilizations. For three hundred years a
resulting mestizo culture was forced to live at odds with itself. Even
the revolutions of the early 1800s were inspired as much by failed
republican efforts in Spain as by authentic desires for freedom and self-
development in the Americas. The attraction of positivism in the early
1900s was, similarly, an attempt to reject New World realities, using
Old World ideas.
"In America," writes Zea,
two opposing political ideologies, democracy and monarchy, . . . were native to the
races that colonized America, the Anglo-Saxon and the Hispanic. From them there
arose two Americas. 14

The result was that Latin America

had to realize by its own effort what North America had received as its heritage ... .
South America had to turn against itself, against what it was, in order to be able .. .
to become what it wished to be. 13

Like Gaos, Zea sees something of this same predicament in the

modern experience of technology. In this sense his essay, "Satellites
and Our Morality," considers how artificial satellites might contribute
to a transformation of morality, carrying the theme of identity beyond
the experience of Mexico, and extending it to that of technological
humanity in general. Since Zea's essay, the ecological crisis has made
the idea of a morality that "would be the work of all of humanity and
not just one small group" - that is, moving from particularistic to
global morality - even more relevant than when Zea argued this
possibility over thirty years ago.
 INTRODUCTION XXVll

Philosophy of Technology in Spain

Philosophy of technology in Spain, as has been indicated, can be
traced back to the work of Ortega y Gasset, who was himself one of the
philosophical originators in this field of philosophy. But during the
Franco years (1939-1975) Ortega's opening was left largely
undeveloped. As in Chile, however, the return to democracy has led to
the flowering of the philosophy of technology, especially within an
interdisciplinary, inter-institutional effort known as the Instituto de
Investigaciones sobre Ciencia y Tecnologfa (lNVESCIT or Institute for
Research concerning Science and Technology).16
One of the best ways to judge the achievements of INVESCIT since
its founding in 1988 is in terms of a series of publications it has
sponsored, most but not all of which are authored by institute associates:
Jose Sanmartin. Los nuevos redentores: Rejlexiones sobre la ingenieria genetica, la
sociobiologia y el mundo feliz que nos prometen [The new redeemers: Reflections on
genetic engineering, sociobiology, and the happy world they promise us]. Nueva
Ciencia 1. Barcelona: Anthropos, 1987. pp. 207.
Carl Mitcham. i. Que es la filosofia de la tecnologfa? [What is the philosophy of
technology?]. Trans. Cesar Cuello Nieto and Roberto Mendez Stingle. Nueva
Ciencia 2. Barcelona: Anthropos, 1989. pp. 214.
Santiago Vilanova. Chernobil: El fin del mito nuclear - El impacto informativo y
bioLOgico del mayor accidente de la industria electronuclear [Chernobyl: The end of
the nuclear myth - The information and biological impact of the great accident of
the nuclear electric power industry]. Nueva Ciencia 3. Barcelona: Anthropos, 1988.
pp.278.
Jose Antonio Lopez Cerezo and Jose Luis Lujan L6pez. El artefacto de la inteligencia:
Una rejlexi6n crftica sobre el determinismo bioLOgico de la inteligencia [The artifact
of intelligence: A critical reflection on the myth of the biological determination of
intelligence]. Nueva Ciencia 4. Barcelona: Anthropos, 1989. pp. 286.
Andres Moya. Sobre la estructura de la teoria de la evoluci6n [On the structure of
the theory of evolution]. Nueva Ciencia 5. Barcelona: Anthropos, 1989. pp. 174.
Manuel Medina and Jose Sanmartin, eds. Ciencia, tecnologia y sociedad: Estudios
interdisciplinares en la universidad, en la educaci6n y en la gesti6n publica [Science,
technology, and society: Interdisciplinary studies in the university, in education, and
in public administration]. Nueva Ciencia 6. Barcelona: Anthropos, 1990. pp. 222.
Josep Puig and Joaquim Corominas. La ruta de la energia [Energy path]. Nueva
Ciencia 7. Barcelona: Anthropos, 1990. pp. 480.
Gilbert Hottois. El paradigma bioelico: Una elica para la lecnociencia [The bioethics
paradigm: An ethics for technoscience]. Nueva Ciencia 8. Barcelona: Anthropos,
1991. pp. 205.
Jose Sanmartin, Stephen H. Cutcliffe, Steven L. Goldman, and Manuel Medina, eds.
Estudios sobre sociedad y lecnologia [Studies concerning society and technology].
Nueva Ciencia 9. Barcelona: Anthropos, 1992. pp. 334. 11
Nicanor Ursua. Cerebro y conocimiento: Un enfoque evolucionista [Brain and
knowledge: An evolutionist approach]. Nueva Ciencia 10. Barcelona: Anthropos,
1993. pp. 377.
xxviii CARL MITCHAM

As should be readily apparent, these volumes indicate a strong interest

in issues arising from relations between society, modern biology, and
biological technology. Five of the ten volumes (numbers 1,4,5, 8, and
10) are on genetic engineering, genetic theories of intelligence,
evolutionary theory, and bioethics. A similar emphasis is reflected in
the first and last papers contributed from Spain to the present volume,
those by Marfa Luisa Garda-Merita and Jos~ Sanmartfn, both members
of the INVESCIT group.
Garda-Merita's short essay, "Technology and Human Nature," briefly
sketches the theme of relations between technology and human nature.
In so doing it points, as it were, to a general context of INVESCIT
concern for what is called the social assessment of technology -
although Garda-Merita herself does not use this term.
Manuel Medina, another INVESCIT member, in "Philosophy,
Technology, and Society, " undertakes a much more substantial historico-
philosophical analysis of science-technology-society relations in classical
antiquity in a way that throws light on our understanding of their
contemporary relations today. The argument of this paper, that theory
reflects both practical skills and social organization - along with an
essay in an earlier volume of Philosophy and Technologyl8 - are closely
related to Medina's De la techne a tecnolog(a I: Techne y theoria: Los
origenes y la epoca clasica (Valencia: Tirant Lo Blanch, 1985).
Ram6n Queralt6, who is not associated with INVESCIT, in "Does
Technology 'Construct' Scientific Reality?," provides an alternative
interpretation of the relation between theory and social practices. For
Queralt6 a constructive influence of technology on theory may exist,
but it is more accidental than essential.
Miguel Angel Quintanilla, also not directly associated with
INVESCIT, has written one of the most comprehensive philosophies of
technology in any language. The article translated here, "The Design
and Evaluation of Technologies: Some Conceptual Issues," is taken from
his Tecnolog(a: Un enfoque filos6fico [Technology: A philosophical
perspective] (Madrid: FUNDESCO, 1989), and highlights the centrality
of design as a little analyzed aspect of modern technology. Related
studies can be found in his articles on "ciencia" and "t~cnica" in Miguel
A. Quintanilla, ed., Diccionario defilosofta contemporanea, 3d edition
(Salamanca: Sfgueme, 1985).
Jos~ Sanmartfn's two essays, along with another published in an
earlier volume of Philosophy and Technology,19 provide a good general
overview of the philosophy of technology of the founding president of
INVESCIT. In "From World3 to the Social Assessment of Technology:
Remarks on Science, Technology, and Society," he takes off from Karl
Popper's theory of objective knowledge to argue the need for social
 INTRODUCTION xxix

assessments of technology. Then, in "Genethics: The Social Assessment

of the Risks and Impacts of Genetic Engineering," he provides a specific
example, a kind of case study of why and how a social assessment of
technology might work. Both papers extend ideas argued in Los nuevos
redentores [The new redeemers] (1987) and Tecnolog(a y futuro humano
[Technology and the human future] (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1990).
Also of note, and indicative of the importance of the work of both
Sanmartin and INVESCIT, are two special issues of the journal
Anthropos. The first is one devoted to the thought of Sanmartin (issue
nos. 82-83, 1988). The second is a special issue edited by members of
INVESCIT on "Filosoffa de la tecnologia: Una filosoffa operativa de la
tecnologia y de la ciencia" [Philosophy of technology: A practical
philosophy of technology and science] (nos. 94-95, 1989), accompanied
by a supplement 14, "Tecnologia, ciencia, naturaleza y sociedad"
[Technology, science, nature, and society], which collects texts from
Heidegger, Husserl, Scheler, Ortega, Garda Bacca, Mumford, Ellul,
Habermas,and Kropotkin, along with a comprehensive bibliography of
SpanisJl. work and translations in the field of philosophy and
technology. :lO
Although the most extensive section of this volume, the collection of
materials from Spain nevertheless clearly falls short in at least one
important respect. It fails to include any translation from the work of
Carlos Paris, one of the teachers of Sanmartin. From Mundo tecnico
y existencia autentica [Technical world and authentic existence] (Madrid:
Revista de Occidente, 1973) through EI rapto de la cultura [The
kidnapping of culture] (Madrid: Manana, 1978; 2d edition, Barcelona:
Laia, 1983) to Cr(tica de la civilizacion nuclear [Critique of nuclear
civilization] (Madrid: Libertarias, 1984; 2d edition, 1991), Paris has
advanced a sustained critical analysis of the technological world. It is
unfortunate that the editor failed to pursue vigorously enough the
possibility of securing a contribution from Paris.
Philosophy of Technology in Venezuela
In Venezuela, Juan David Garda Bacca and Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla
are two major figures in the philosophy of technology who in their work
strongly represent the opposing traditions of engineering and humanities
philosophy of technology. Garda Bacca is intoxicated with the idea that
science and technology constitute a new epistemology and metaphysics.
Mayz Vallenilla is concerned to explore the ways in which ratio
technica, and what he terms "meta-technics," undermine traditional
experience and culture.
Although born in Spain and resident for extended periods in Ecuador
xxx CARL MITCHAM

and Mexico, Garda Bacca spent the major part of his prolific
professional career at the Central University of Venezuela. He has
written books on logic, systematic philosophy, history of philosophy,
and literary essays; he has also done translations and textbook
anthologies. One theme that runs through many of these works is an
attempt to think through science and technology as the new reality of
philosophy and human history. From his early interest in the powers of
mathematical logic to later excitement about the way science transforms
or, as he prefers to say, "transubstantiates" knowing just as technology
transubstantiates acting,21 Garcia Bacca has tried to develop a positive
philosophical appreciation of the new scientific-technological world. The
pamphlet (published by the Central University of Venezuela) that is
translated here as "Science, Technology, History, and Philosophy in the
Cultural Atmosphere of Our Time," provides a succinct summary of
Garda Bacca's basic attitude. Although increasingly well recognized as
a major philosopher of the twentieth century in the Spanish-speaking
world - see, for example, the special volume on Garda Bacca of
Anthropos, issue no. 9 (1982), with its revision (October 1991) - he is
virtually unknown outside this context.
Mayz Vallenilla comes to the question of technology from a quite
different perspective, with philosophical reflection initiated by a concern
for the foundations of human alienation. 22 Because technology is
identified as playing a leading role in alienation, Mayz Vallenilla first
undertook to sketch out a "critique of technical reason"23 and then, as in
the paper translated here as "The Present and Future of Humanity," to
analyze how modern technology, which he prefers to call "meta-
technology" - that is, a kind of technology beyond technology - no
longer extends human perception but instead fundamentally turns against
or contradicts it.24
Both Garcia Bacca and Mayz Vallenilla thus to some extent agree that
modern technology transforms the human condition. The difference
between them is not simply that Garcia Bacca reaches exceptionally
positive conclusions about this transformation, and Mayz Vallenilla is
quite uneasy about it. The difference is that Garda Bacca sees the new
technical way of life as able to include in "transubstantiated" form those
aspects of life that have traditionally been the focus of what are called
the humanities (e.g., poetry, politics, religion), whereas Mayz Vallenilla
sees the humanities as being excluded from a world meta-technically
re-ordered.
Leopoldo Molina, who did his dissertation on the work of Garcia
Bacca, nevertheless brings to bear on techno-educational
transubstantiations a kind of skepticism about their effectiveness and
humanizing influence. At the same time, with regard to the humanistic-
 INTRODUCTION xxxi

critical movement in education, his "Education for Freedom versus

Socio-Technical Control by Pedagogical Means" is also not completely
sanguine.
PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY BEYOND THE CENTERS
The papers included in the final section of this collection serve to
illustrate how even beyond the identified centers of reflection philosophy
of technology is flourishing throughout the Spanish-speaking Americas.
Again it should be emphasized that the authors included here provide no
more than a small indication of a rich diversity.
Raul Fornet-Betancourt was born in Cuba and now resides in
Germany. As his paper on Ortega and Heidegger, "Two Philosophical
Approaches to the Problem of Technics and Their Meaning for Latin
America," indicates, he has in no way lost touch with his cultural roots.
One can readily note the influence of the ideas of Gaos and Zea on his
argument.
Margarita Pefia, from Colombia, quickly sketches the prospects and
problems of "Science, Technology, and Society Education in the Latin
American Context." Her criticisms have implications for North America
and Europe as well.
The essay, "The Moral Vision of Technology in Contemporary Latin
American Fiction," by Jane Robinett - who, although born in the
United States, spent five years in Spain and has been a Fulbright
Visiting Professor in Costa Rica - indicates how reflections on
technology extend even beyond the strictly philosophical literature. The
fact that her work is done in the United States also indicates how the
Hispanic world is now properly beginning to have an impact in the
Anglo-American world.
Judith Sutz is an engineer and social scientist from Uruguay. Her
essay, "The Social Implications of Information Technologies: A Latin
American Perspective," can be read as providing further support for
earlier arguments about the need for social assessments of technology.
COMPARISONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
The uniqueness and unique strengths of this volume deserve to be
stressed. To begin with, this is the first Philosophy and Technology
volume to be devoted to a collection of papers from a geographical or
cultural region. As a result there are more countries represented in this
volume than in any previous one. Indeed, a greater percentage of these
countries are new to the series than in any previous volume except the
first. These two points are highlighted in the following table. (Dual-
country designations signify either an author from one nation teaching
xxxii CARL MITCHAM

in another, or an author with a dual appointment at institutions in two

different countries.)

VollOllt lIum~r IIlIIIlheme Countries rtprtstllttd bJ lIuthors Countries

NetrlTotal
1. Philosophy and Technology Canada, Germany, Germany-Switzerland, 4/4
US
2. Information Technology and Czechoslovakia, Canada-Israel, France, 3n
Computerl in Theory and Practice Germany, Germany-Switzerland, US
3. Technology and Responsibility Belgium, Canada, Germany, Netherlands. 3/6
UK, US
4. Technology and Contemporary Canada-India, France, Germany, In
tire Germany-Switzerland, Israel, US
S. Technological Transformation: Canada, Canada-India, Canada-Israel. 116
Contextual and CoaceptuaI China, Germany, US
lqIIicatiOlll
6. Philosophy of Technology: Canada, China, Germany, Poland, US 115
Practical, Historical and Other
DimeosiOlll
7. Broad and Narrow Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, Spain, US 1/4
Interpretationa of Philosophy of
TechnololY
8. Europe, America. and Germany. Spain. US 013
TechnololY: Philosophical
Penpectivea
9. Democracy in a Technological France, USSR, US 1/3
Society
Total number 01 different countries represented In TOIs. to,: 15
10. Spanish-Language Philosophy Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Cuba- 7/10
of TecbnolOlY Germany, Spain, Mexico. Venezuela,
Uruguay, US

Total number or new countries In Yol. IO/total countries in series: 711l

If the countries represented by authors were taken to be either only

countries of birth or countries of residence but not both, then the
contrasts would be even stronger. Residence only would reduce
volumes 1-9 by two and volume 10 by one; country of birth only would
reduce volumes 1-9 by one and volume 10 by none.
The number of new authors is likewise greater than with any other
volume except the first, which provides a baseline. Volume 1 had 23
authors. In volume 2, 14 of 23 authors were new; in volume 3, 15 of
 INTRODUCTION xxxiii

19 were new; in volume 4, it was 8 of 17; in volume 5, 9 of 19; in

volume 6, 8 of 12; in volume 7, 10 of 19; in volume 8, 7 of 12; in
volume 9, 6 of 14. In the first instance this demonstrates a very strong
commitment on the part of the Society for Philosophy and Technology
to draw new persons into the discussion. But in volume 10 the
proportion of new authors is 19 out of 22 - the highest ratio since the
initiation of the Philosophy and Technology series. By far the greater
number of these are also New World authors - who, it could be
argued, introduce the newest issues.
One final measure of diversity: volume 10 has four women authors.
The closest competitors are volumes 1 and 3, with two and three
women, respectively. (Volume 7 has no women authors; the remaining
volumes have one woman each.) Indeed, the total number of different
women contributors to the series in volumes 1-9 is only 6; all four
women authors in volume 10 are new to this group. On balance this
volume thus clearly brings a large number of new authors and national
traditions into the philosophy and technology discussion.
In some sense many of these articles may nevertheless strike the
sophisticated North American or European reader as naive. Let it be
admitted that there may be senses in which some of the reflections - for
example, those by Gaos and Zea - have a certain naivete about them,
as if they were approaching modern technology through manifestations
that are no longer new. But this in no way invalidates them, and may
in fact help us recover some of our own primary experiences in the face
of postmodern sophistications. By means of the naive qua naive we are
often able to recognize and to reflect the realities of our experience in
ways more direct than later sophistications. In many ways, the
reflections from the Spanish-speaking world collected here reveal more
clearly than we might want it to "el desaffo de la tecnologfa" - the
challenge of technology. Indeed, in so doing they challenge us to return
to our own basic experiences - and thus to rethink technology, stripped
of what is too often only a patina of high-tech rhetoric.
In many other instances, however, the contributions to this volume are
anything but naive. Garda de la Huerta challenges us to consider how
technology alters history. Quintanilla puts forth a sophisticated analysis
of technological design processes. Sanmartfn vigorously takes on the
ethical problems of the new genetics. Mayz Vallenilla provides
phenomenological insight into the new instrumentalization of the senses.
From the metaphysical and epistemological issues addressed by
Sabrovsky, Padilla, and Queralt6 to the ethical-political arguments put
forth by Verdugo, Camacho, Ramirez, Dussel, Sanmartfn, and Sutz -
not to mention the psychological-educational concerns of Garcfa-Merita,
Molina, and Pefia Borrero and the historico-philosophical background
xxxiv CARL MITCHAM

highlighted by Garda Bacca, Medina, Fornet-Betancourt, and Robinett

- this collection also emphasizes the need for comprehensive, synthetic
philosophies of technology. In so doing, Spanish-speaking studies in
philosophy and technology make a contribution to the emerging world
dialogue that serves the philosophical needs - and perhaps even the
technological needs - of humanity as a whole.
Pennsylvania State University

NOTES
1. This origin has been analyzed at greater length in Carl Mitcham, i, Que es La
filosofla de La tecnolog(a? (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1989), Part I. Two revised and
expanded versions of this analysis can be found in Carl Mitcham and Timothy Casey,
"Toward an Archeology of the Philosophy of Technology and Relations with Imaginative
Literature," in Mark Greenberg and Lance Schachterle, eds., Literature and Technology
(Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 1992), pp. 31-65 and 307-309; and Carl
Mitcham, Thinking through Technology: The Path between Engineering and Philosophy
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming), Part I. See also Carl Mitcham
and Elena Lugo, "El panorama de la filosofia de la tecnologia," in Carl Mitcham and
Margarita M. Pena Borrero et al., eds., EI nuevo mundo de Lafilosofla y La tecnolog(a
(University Park, PA: STS Press, 1990), pp. 1-9.
2. "Meditaci6n de la tecnica" was first published in a volume entitled
Ensimismamiento y alteraci6n (Buenos Aires: Espasa-Calpe, 1939). It appeared
subsequently in Jose Ortega y Gasset, Obras completas, vol. 5 (Madrid: Alianza/Revista
de Occidente, 1982). It has also been included in the series of Ortega texts edited by
Paulino Garagorri, Meditaci6n de La tecnica y otros ensayos sobre ciencia y filosofla
(Madrid: Alianza/Revista de Occidente, 1992).
3. See Martin Heidegger, Ciencia y tecnica (Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, 1983).
This volume reprints as a prologue an article by Francisco Soler (from Revista de
Filosofla, vol. 20 [1982]), an introduction by Jorge Acevedo (who is the main person
responsible for this publication), a much revised version of Soler's translation of "Die
Frage nach der Technik" (which was first published as "La pregunta por la tecnica, "
Revista de Filosofla, vol. 5, no. 1 [1958]), and an uncredited translation of Heidegger's
"Wissenschaft und Besinnl!ng." Another Spanish version: "La pregunta por la tecnica, "
trans. Adolfo P. Carpio, Epoca de Filosofla, vol. I, no. 1 (1985), pp. 7-29; reprinted,
Anthropos, supplement 14: "Tecnologia, ciencia, naturaleza y sociedad" (1989), pp. 6-
17.
4. The most readily available presentation of Flores's thought can be found in Terry
Winograd and Fernando Flores, Understanding Computers and Cognition (Norwood,
NJ: Ablex, 1987).
5. In this respect it is perhaps also worth noting that the book, Heidegger and Nazism,
trans. Paul Burrell and Gabriel R. Ricci (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989),
which is the most sustained attack on Heidegger's relations with the National Socialist
Party, was written by Victor Farias, a Chilean scholar exiled in Europe.
6. An English summary of this book can be found in Sergio Silva G., "Notes on the
Catholic Church and Technology," Ellul Forum (Religious Studies, University of South
Florida), issue no. 5 (June 1990), pp. 11-12.
7. Proceedings from this conference: Kenneth Aman, ed., Ethical Principles for
 INTRODUCTION xxxv
Development: Needs, Capacities or Rights (Upper Montclair, NJ: Institute for Critical
Thinking, Montclair State, 1991).
8. Quoted from an IDEA information flyer available from Prof. David Crocker,
IDEA, Philosophy Department, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523
USA.
9. Preparatory readings for this conference: Paul Abrecht, ed., Faith, Science, and
the Future (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978). Conference proceedings: Faith and Science
in an Unjust World, vol. 1: Roger Shinn, ed., Plenary Presentations, vol. 2: Paul
Abrecht, ed., Reports and Recommendations (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980).
10. See Martin Heidegger, EI ser y eltiempo, trans. Jose Gaos (Mexico: Fondo de
Cultura Econ6mica, 1951). Note that the Spanish version appeared a full ten years
before John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, trans., Being and Tune (New York:
Harper & Row, 1962). Also important is Gaos, Introduccion a nEI Ser y EI Tiempon
de Martin Heidegger, 2d edition (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1971), which
fIrst appeared as the introduction to Gaos's translation. Interestingly, it was also Gaos
who brought to the attention of Spanish readers Bernhard Groethuysen's Origines de
I'esprit bourgeois en France (Paris: Gallimard, 1927), with his translation, Laformacion
de La conciencia burguesa en Francia durante el siglo XVIII (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura
Econ6mica, 1943). This study of the self-made Catholic bourgeois, which Benjamin
Nelson (in his introduction to the English version, The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs.
Capitalism in 18th Century France, trans. Mary Ilford [New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, 1968]) says identifIes an existential-social formation overlooked by other social
analysts of the birth of technological modernity such as Max Weber, and could well
have been entitled, "The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," has obvious
implications for Gaos's existential-historical analyses of Mexican experience.
11. Jose Ferrater Mora, Diccionario de filosofta, has gone through six editions,
expanding from one to four volumes. The fIrst edition appeared in 1941, and I have not
been able to locate a copy to confIrm an entry there on philosophy of technology. But
in the 2d edition, 2 vols. (Mexico: Atlante, 1944), there is a one page entry with brief
bibliography. By the 4th edition, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1958), the entry
has increased by half and the bibliography tenfold, with the fIrst acknowledgment of
English-language work, namely Lewis Mumford's Technics and Civilization (1934,
Spanish trans., 1944). In the 5th edition, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1965),
the entry is again slightly larger. In the 6th edition, 4 vols. (Madrid: Alianza, 1979),
there are entries not only on "tecnica," but also an equally substantial entry on "trabajo"
[work] and numerous mentions and cross-references in entries on science, among other
topics.
12. See, for example, the following original and translated works: As early as the
1920s the Enciclopedia universal ilustrada (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1928), vol. 57,
includes philosophically sensitive entries on "tecnica" and "tecnicismo." Andre Lalande,
VocabuLario tecnico y crftico de Lafilosofta (Buenos Aires: Ateneo, 1953), from French,
has entries on "tecnica," "tecnico," and "tecnologfa." Nicola Abbagnano, Diccionario
de filosofta (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, 1963), from Italian, analyzes
"tecnica," "tecnicismo," "tecnocracia," and "tecnologfa." Alberto Caturelli, Lafilosofta
(Madrid: Gredos, 1966), has a fifteen-page chapter entitled, "La tecnica." Hermann
Krings, Hans Michael Baumgartner, Christoph Wild, et al., Conceptos jundamentales
de filosofta (Barcelona: Herder, 1979), from German, has a twelve page entry on
"tecnica." Julia Didier, Diccionario de filosofta, from French (Mexico: Diana, 1983),
has an entry on "tecnica." The Gran Enciclopedia Rialp (Madrid: Rialp, 1984),
includes entries on "tecnocracia" and "tecnologia," both with explicit philosophical
references, as well as entries on "tecnica industrial" and "industrialismo," among others.
The one-volume Enciclopedia de La filosofta (Barcelona: Ediciones B, 1992), adapted
from Italian, has entries on "tecnocracia" and "tecnologia."
xxxvi CARL MITCHAM

13. Leopoldo Zea, Ensayos sobre filosojia en la historia (Mexico: Style, 1948), p. 177.
14. Leopoldo Zea, The Latin-American Mind, trans. James H. Abbott and Lowell
Dunham (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963), p. 77.
15. Ibid.
16. For a more detailed description of the INVESCIT program, see Manuel Medina
and Jose Sanmartm, "A New Role for Philosophy and Technology Studies in Spain,"
Technology in Society, vol. 11, no. 4 (1989), pp. 447-455.
17. Some of the essays in this volume are also available in English in Stephen H.
Cutcliffe, Steven L. Goldman, Manuel Medina, and Jose Sanmartfu, eds., New WoridY,
New Technologies, New Issues (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 1992).
18. Manuel Medina, "Technology and Scientific Concepts: Mechanics and the Concept
of Mass in Archimedes," in Paul T. Durbin, ed., Philosophy and Technology, vol. 8:
Europe, America, and Technology: Philosophical Perspectives (Boston: Kluwer, 1991),
pp. 141-156.
19. Jose Sanmartm, "Alternatives for Evaluating the Effects of Genetic Engineering
on Human Development," in Paul T. Durbin, ed., Philosophy and Technology, vol. 7:
Broad and Narrow Interpretations 0/ Philosophy o/Technology (Boston: Kluwer, 1990),
pp. 153-166.
20. Despite the importance of this collection, one cannot help but notice its failure to
include a number of major Spanish-language philosophers of technology.
21. See, for example, chapter entitled, "Ciencia transustanciadora," in Juan David
Garcia Bacca, Curso sistematico de filosofla actual: Filosojia, ciencia, historia,
diaLectica, y sus aplicaciones (Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1969), pp.
42-51.
22. Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla, Del hombre y su alienaciOn (Caracas: Instituto Nacional
de Cultura y Bellas Artes, 1966).
23. Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla, Esbozo de una crftica de la razon tecnica (Caracas:
Universidad Simon Bolivar, 1974). See also Mayz Vallenilla, Ratio Technica (Caracas:
Monte Avila, 1983).
24. This study is expanded in Emesto Mayz Vallenilla, Fundamentos de la meta-
tecnica (Caracas: Monte Avila, 1990).
 PART I

FROM CHILE
 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA I.

TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS:

TOWARD ARTIFICIAL HISTORY?

With any attempt to understand the relationship between technology

and politics we tend to think in terms of external effects or impacts.
The same usually applies when we deal with the role and historical
significance of new inventions. This attitude, however, ignores an
internal relationship between technology and politics.
Lewis Mumford asserts the existence of just such an inner link
between technology and politics when he argues that the mega-
technologies of early civilizations are inherently "anti-democratic."
These technologies, which were the basis of what are known to us as the
"wonders of the ancient world" (pyramids, etc.) replaced the
"democratic technologies" of the oldest tribal villages, turning society
into a vast "machine."
Langdon Winner, following Mumford, asks in deliberately
provocative terms, "Do artifacts have politics?" His implicit yes points
in the same direction. Taken literally, such a question may seem
misguided or meaningless. Here, however, I will endeavor to show that
if our answer is negative and we adopt a strictly instrumental conception
of technology as a mere means to external ends, this actually impedes
a proper understanding of the true scope and meaning of technological
constructions or complexes within human reality.

TECHNOLOGY, INSTRUMENTALITY, AND SCIENCE

This undoubtedly implies that technology in itself is not to be

confused with either instruments or machines, and that it begins to
reveal its true significance only as an organizational-instrumental system.
That the machine is not the same as the instrument has been shown by,
among others, Franz Reuleaux in his Theoretische Kinematik (1875).
For Reuleaux the machine, being a system of instruments, creates a
new, specific kind of relationship with the body that operates it, and
therefore, we might add, with human reality and nature.
At the same time, it is in the nature of the artifact in general, whether
machine or instrument, to be thought of as "good for (something),"
whereas technology as a whole is good for nothing: it is without end or
object. As Heidegger puts it, "The essence of technology is not in itself

3
Carl Mileham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 3-14 .
.01993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
4 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

something technological." In other words, technology is not the same

as effectiveness or productivity or usefulness, and it cannot be
approached solely from the functional standpoint. Not even the
conception of technology as functional determination of an entity
involves thought about the function of functionality itself.
Here it may be objected that we are only putting forth a verbal
strategy characteristic of philosophy, one designed to get rid of an
eminently practical problem such as that of technology and its impact on
politics. But surely empirical evidence may be marshalled to the effect
that technology has historically imposed conditions on politics, even on
ways of thinking in general, just as much as it has had external effects
on politics. One need only cite McLuhan, Mumford, or Leroi-Gourhan,
among others, in support of this point.
As for the philosophical strategy underlying our approach to the
question, we may well agree that there is one. Such is, however, the
only way to dispel the apparent opacity of the world of artificial objects
and to show fully that, despite appearances, this world is not quite so
innocent and innocuous as certain analytic conceptions contend -
conceptions which see in technology only the application of scientific
knowledge. Indeed, to try to reduce technical reality to some relation
with knowledge, and even to assume that such a link is forged, is also
a philosophical strategy. It fails nonetheless to lead to an understanding
of the form of the technical constitution of human reality and its
significance in public life.
The technology and science relationship was first stated very clearly
by the Greeks; the classic tradition, however, especially Plato and
Aristotle, described the relationship in ways that are no longer sufficient.
The Greeks always understood the politeia as a special kind of techne;
technology for them - in opposition to the moderns - never came to
include the kind of theoretical science ultimately required by politeia.
By contrast, the functional or instrumental determination of an entity
allows an extension of the technical to spheres initially deemed non-
technical - such as society, politics, even philosophy and history. For
thought and action can now be technically determined, that is to say,
artificialized and functionalized. Not only can this be attempted; it may
even be said that such an attempt has been the rule in modern politics.
THE END OF HISTORY AS ARTIFICIALIZATION OF HISTORY
In this light the idea of an "end of history" may be reinterpreted in
non-Hegelian terms. For Hegel the end comes with the integration or
synthesis of all spiritual oppositions and the consequent achievement of
 TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS 5

an absolute or all-encompassing thought. But through modern

technology the piecemeal or partial and qualitative making of artifice
becomes an indefinite quantitative manufacturing. This replaces the idea
of history with the idea of progress, in which technological
transformation continues indefinitely without ever leading to definite
qualitative change.
The phenomenon of progress as a replacement for history may of
course be seen as a development of history itself, as a stage of history
rather than as a definitive phenomenon. But while artificialization of
history proceeds under the form of progress, of techno-productive
development, this phenomenon points to an "end of history" or its
decline conceived as an "act of freedom. "
The artificialization of history thus develops, basically, along two
lines:
1. Through the progressive growth of techno-nature, that is, of a
quantitative development in the world of human-made objects - but,
above all, through the development of techno-organizational ensembles
that define the institutional framework of social practice in general -
and
2. Through the valuation of inventions and the construction of artifice
extended to history itself and thus turned into a history of artifacts or
artificial history.
Anifici was the name given in Renaissance Italy to works of
ingenuity, engines, or useful devices that imitate the creations of nature.
Organon was used by the Greeks to designate both the organs of the
body and the instruments inspired by them or designed to imitate them.
Aristotle calls the hand the "organ of organs," in the twofold sense that
the hand is the corporal instrument par excellence, the one that builds
all other tools, but also as that which inspires tools as copies of manual
functions. The spade, the scraper, the jar, are all imitations of possible
hand functions.
Early modern reflection on technology reproduces this traditional
Aristotelian notion, and then extends it to the point at which technology
is seen as a prolongation of the whole body and its capabilities. This
idea is clearly present before McLuhan in Ernst Kapp's Grundlinien
einer Philosophie der Technik (1877), and in Reuleaux's already
mentioned Theoretische Kinematik. In the Introduction to his Leviathan
(1651) Hobbes writes: "For what is the Bean, but a Spring; and the
Nerves, but so many Strings; and the Joints, but so many Wheels, giving
motion to the whole Body, such as was intended by the Artificer?"
In a similar way, the birth of "social physics" in the 18th century was
the result of imitating or extending physical science and its methods to
the study of the human. This second movement also contributes to the
6 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

tendency to artificialize history and politics. The advance and value

attached to the social sciences in general, including economics, has to
a considerable degree determined the modem concept of politics as
programmed construction of social reality, in other words, as
"development." Comte himself called sociology "social physics."
Durkheim recommended treating social phenomena as if they were
things. And before the creation of the term "political economy," Adam
Smith taught the discipline within the framework of a chair of moral
philosophy at the University of Glasgow.

FROM NOVA SCIENTIA TO NEW TECHNOLOGY

However, if we go back to the beginnings of modem science, the first

"nuove scienze" was Machiavelli's physics of power (The Prince, 1512),
more than a century earlier than the dialogue of Galileo (1638) which
bears that name, and was to be followed a century later by Vico's
Scienza nuova (1725), a treatise on history. What is even more
astonishing is that neither the science of nature nor of history nor of
politics can claim undisputed precedence in the use of the term. The
very first Nova scientia (1537) was a treatise on artillery and ballistics
by Niccolo Tartaglia.
The term "new science" was first used, then, primarily to designate
matters of "applied science," as we would say today. In other words,
the first new sciences all dealt with matters of an eminently practical and
experimental nature; by extension, the term "science" would, as Hans
Jonas has argued, eventually come to be given to theoretical questions
in a distinctly modem sense.
In this regard, it may be recalled that Bacon did not share the
confidence of Descartes in the power of "sovereign reason." On the
contrary, he advances an instrumental theory of knowledge that is far
from Cartesian. The famous formula attributed to him - "knowledge
is power" - very properly summarizes this attitude, as seen in the
Novum organum (1620), where he presents the process of knowledge
according to the model of technical creation. Concepts, aside from their
truth, are useful hypothesis, effective instruments, or appropriate
experimental projects. Knowledge also requires rules of procedure to
reach results; observation of the rules dictated by the method is the
formula for success, or effective intervention.
Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the
effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed (Novum organum
I, iii).
 TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS 7

By becoming an obedient follower, reason gains power. The association

of knowledge with power is also expressed as follows:
Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by
instruments and helps that the work is done. . .. And as the instruments of the hand
either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions
for the understanding or cautions (Novum organum I, ii).

The usual concept of technology fails to take sufficient account of this

relation, already stated so clearly by Bacon. The concept of "applied
science" in particular implies that technology is a kind of derivative or
by-product of knowledge and science, when what Bacon proposes is
precisely the reverse - namely, that for knowledge to be applicable,
knowledge itself must be instrumental, that is, become a "servant" and
"interpreter of nature." The very name of the work leaves no room
for other interpretations: Novum organum means "new instrument," not
"new science," which was the expression used by Tartaglia, Galileo, and
Vico.
The issue here is not a negligible one. The general notion of
technology as simply materialized power or objectified knowledge, is at
the base of any instrumentalist delusion or mediational prejudice, since
it assumes an exteriority of the technical in respect to action in general
and political action in particular. Indeed, the appearance of objectified
power is what first strikes us and conceals the social and political reality
of technology. In other words, there is a tendency to reduce
instrumental power to the power that the artifact in general, whether
instrument or machine, exerts over nature. In our direct sensory
relationship with artifacts, this is what we perceive first, through bodily
fatigue and possibilities of action on the environment. Technology,
however, is also a constituent of social relations and of any other kind
of action, including communications, since communication is exercised
through "means" or media.
Technology as "means of production" further constitutes an element
of the productive system. This is true, too, because the social division
of work is to a considerable extent a technical division of functions, role
sharing, and hierarchical determination. It even conditions social
representations for communication and language, which are always
conveyed by some "medium." There is no communication and then
words, writing, radio, or whatever, just as there is no production
without instruments and machines. Technology is as much a structural
component of human reality as blood is in cell metabolism or age in an
organism. It creates de Jacto a socio-technical order that is also
expressed as a technopolitical phenomenon.
This does not of course preclude that technology is in its turn to some
8 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

extent constituted by the socio-political. The point here concerns the

technical constitution of politics, something equivalent, to a certain
extent and on another plane, to the organic constitution of life or the
constitution of a state, although it is not "decreed." This means that if
the relationship between technology and politics is to be stated from the
point of view of a concern for democracy, this should be done at the
level of technology itself and not only at a "political" level in the
ordinary sense of the word.
The instrumental view of technology as a simple means fails precisely
to lead to a democratic conception. It tends rather to stress a verticalist,
authoritarian form of power, taking for granted the neutrality of
technology while underlining only the relation of technology to
knowledge. In other words, if technology is but the application of
science, it shares with it a minority, even elitist, character. Knowledge,
like skills, belongs to the few, and only these few should decide. The
ignorant masses have nothing to say on decisions that should be made
only by the experts. The foregoing argument is one of the strongest
bases of the technocratic conception of power, that is, of the technical
legitimation of politics.
THE EXPERIENCE OF CHILE
In Latin America we have recently experienced almost a caricature of
the technical legitimation of power. In Chile, for instance, the
overthrow of the constitutional government provided a starting-point for
arguments of this nature. The military government claimed to have
suppressed politics because politics had destroyed democratic institutions
and annihilated all public expression among the civilian population,
including social organizations and unions. This" abolition of politics"
was not, however, just a trick to avoid public judgment; it was also a
way to create a vacuum and impose a new principle of legitimation.
Indeed, if parties and political organizations were outlawed, only the
military remained, which was by definition the reverse of parties or
factions, for it belonged to the entire nation. Who could then object to
decisions that would only respond to the highest interest of the nation,
the judgment of specialists or experts who loved their country?
What technocracy tries to prove, after all, is that politics and
politicians are useless and can therefore be dispensed with - or else
that politics is illusory, not more than the chatter of a handful of
irresponsible people. In brief, like any power, it corrupts.
The figment that the military machine is apolitical was for us a trap
to legitimize each measure that progressively altered the political and
 TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS 9

institutional framework. Whether it was a question of enacting new

labor legislation, privatizing large-scale state-owned companies, or
eliminating university courses, everything was justified as a measure of
economic-administrative "rationalization" - on the grounds that
whatever was reduced or eliminated had come to be "oversized," as the
reigning clicM had it. Indeed, if the amount of money in circulation is
drastically cut in half, everything does become "oversized."

THE GREEK BACKGROUND

From ancient times, however, authoritarianism has found in scientism
an ideological support, which it has exploited at will for its own
legitimation. In this context, Plato's argument with the sophists
regarding the dignity and political role of manual labor is particularly
instructive. Neither Protagoras nor Hippias share the scorn that Plato
shows toward artisans. On the contrary, Protagoras defines the role of
the sophists precisely as a defense of practical knowledge: "When [the
young] have escaped from the technical studies [technai) , " he says, some
"sophists bring them back against their will and force them again into
technical studies, teaching them arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and
music" (protagoras 318d-e).
The word "sophist," in fact, was not originally the pejorative term
into which Plato turned it. Sophos, wise, was one who practiced any
form of sophia, wisdom. Protagoras' version of the myth of
Prometheus is equally illuminating. In it Prometheus steals from
Hephaestus and Athene and gives to human beings "technical wisdom
[entechne sophia] together with fire," so that they can prevail over the
other creatures, which can rely for defense on their strength, endurance,
speed, etc. "Now, although in this way human beings had acquired the
wisdom of daily life, political technique fpolitike techne] they did not
possess" (321d). In this interpretation of the myth, the gift of fire to
mortals constituted a kind of primordial technology transfer. As a
result, Prometheus "stood his trial for theft."
But human beings thus furnished with trades were nonetheless lacking
in the art of politics, of living together in a city. They were therefore
incapable of defending themselves or of waging war; they even fell
victim to animals. For Protagoras, as for Plato and Aristotle, politics
was a form of techne. Only Protagoras contends that all human beings
are qualified to take part in the public life of the polis, whereas Plato
and Aristotle exclude the laborers and artisans. Protagoras agrees with
Plato that the architect can and should state his views in matters of
architecture, just as the sculptor or the painter is the proper person to
10 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

do the same in matters of sculpture or painting. But "when they meet

for a consultation on political virtue . . . they naturally allow advice
from everyone, since it is held that everyone should partake of this
virtue, or else that states cannot be" (323a).
Good sense tells us that it is impossible for human beings not to take
part in justice, otherwise they would not be human. Such is Protagoras'
position. He claims to follow the common view, according to which all
human beings share in questions concerning public life, so that they can
and should be educated to know what is good and just. "Of this I have
given you sufficient demonstration, Socrates," Protagoras concludes,
"that your fellow-citizens have good reasons for recognizing both the
smith and cobbler as competent to advise on political affairs" (324c).
Tradition, however, has instead upheld Plato's view, for even now it
is usual to see politics as the occupation of a few and to associate the
perfection of the city with the knowledge of these few. It is just that
Plato's Republic of philosophers has been replaced by experts or
specialists claiming possession of pure and universal knowledge and the
right to impose it on society as a whole.
Plato himself conceives politeia as techne in a quite modem sense,
that is, as adaptation of means to a predetermined end. The examples
he gives for political techne are always taken from the artistic or manual
crafts, precisely the ones he excludes from politeia, based on recognition
of a hierarchy between theoretical knowledge and the technai or
operating skills. Only those who can govern themselves may govern
others, and these are the sages, the men of theory.
Nevertheless, if, as Protagoras says, competence in governing is not
the outcome of specific knowledge or ability, but of being involved in
decisions or their effects, then it is something completely different from
the knowledge of the expert and different too from the episteme
theoretikos of the sages. For example, the citizens of a city need only
a slight knowledge of nuclear physics to be competent to judge whether
they do or do not want a nuclear power plant constructed within it.
Neither need one be a bioengineer to judge whether one wants human
clones manufactured in a laboratory, or something of that kind.
Plato sees Protagoras' thesis as a clear threat to order in the polis and
the hierarchies of the Republic, which he conceives as corresponding to
hierarchies of knowledge. Aristotle, though both more empirical and
democratic, apparently agrees.
Is it truly the case that a citizen is a person who has the right to share office in the
government, or are the working classes also to be counted citizens? If these persons
also are to be counted who have no share in offices, it is not possible for every citizen
to possess the citizen's virtue; for the true citizen is the man capable of governing. If
on the other hand no one of the working people is a citizen, in what class are the
 TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS 11

various workers to be ranked? ... rrJhe best-ordered state will not make an artisan a
citizen. While if even the artisan is a citizen, then what we said to be the citizen's
virtue must not be said to belong to every citizen, nor merely be defined as the virtue
of a free man, but will only belong to those who are released from menial occupations
(Politics III, iii; 1277b-1278a; Rackham trans. from Loeb Classical Library).

But this argument to exclude artisans from judgment is unsatisfactory,

particularly if we consider that contemporary technologies are much
more threatening than ancient ones, and certainly more hazardous than
the participation of artisans as citizens.

THE FOREGROUND OF THE SCIENCES OF ADMINISTRATION

The ethical and political invalidation of manual laborers in Greek

thought is one of the most significant issues for modern political
philosophy. It is this which established at an early stage the dominance
of theoretical knowledge, which in turn provides the conceptual basis
and fundamental inspiration for the modern technocratic legitimation of
power - although the "technostructure" (Galbraith) remains its
functional and organizational basis.
The conception of politics as the practicing form of the sciences of
administration is equivalent to characterizing technology as the
application of science to dominate nature, and is derived directly
therefrom. This idea is not innocent, as was said earlier, because
scientism is the theoretical expression of a technocratic conception, the
latter being above all a way of exercising power rather than an explicit
political theory. For in its properly modern form, what technocracy
seeks is to suppress politics. Indeed, in its modern origins technocracy
goes back to the political thinking of the 18th century, which conceived
political liberty in a radical sense as liberation from politics. This is,
after all, the meaning of the idea of the "end of the government of
men," and its replacement by the "simple management of things" - in
the expression of Saint-Simon, which is later adopted by Engels.
In fact, Plato had said something similar: In the well-ordered state
most action as such is entirely eliminated and becomes a simple
"execution of orders" (Statesman 305d). Plato's conception, however,
argued that the public function is incompatible with the technical
function, whereas modern technocracy fuses one with the other. Politics
is reduced to a technical function, in the sense of practicing previously
acquired scientific knowledge. In both cases the political sphere
becomes a separate domain, so that it evades democratic regulation and
control. Politics, raised to the condition of theory, invalidates citizen
participation, or rather disables whoever is not a theorist.
12 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

In the classic form of this invalidating-disabling exclusion, public

virtue is deemed to pertain solely to the citizen who practices the theory,
for the knowledge associated with technai remains purely operational.
In the modern form, all those not initiated into expert knowledge are
equally excluded, for only specialists can be responsible for decisions of
a technical or scientific nature - the government being no longer a
political one. In both cases a certain degree of autonomy in the
conception of politics is implied: whether politics is to be eliminated,
or whether it is to be seen as a techne which only theoria can direct.
Classical philosophy validates the governing of a special kind of
human being by absolutizing theory in a theoretical argument to the
effect that politics is precisely the occupation of this special kind of
human being who by nature is inclined to theory. In the modern world
a similar role is played by the "expert" as a result of the "rationalization
of decision making" in the "scientific" study of politics. Like
philosophical theory, scientific knowledge makes the exercise of public
office an exclusive activity. The more the field of competence in
politics is reduced, the more power becomes centralized, and the more
decision making is taken away from the citizens. Technocracy is not
only elitist, it is also authoritarian. A non-authoritarian technocracy
would be a contradiction in terms.
AGAIN, THE EXPERIENCE OF CHILE
The specific forms of technocratic authoritarianism that we have
known in Latin America have only carried to extremes certain aspects
of modern politics which, during the 1960s and 1970s, were already
recognizable everywhere, though perhaps in less dangerous forms.
These aspects may be summarized in what Hannah Arendt describes as
a fundamental distortion of human action, that is, conceiving politics
according to terms and principles derived from manufacturing. The
tendency to program society, to subject society to plans, values, and
ends to some extent extraneous to action itself, is, according to Arendt,
characteristic of this reduction of human action to technological
production.
Needless to say, the most genuine representatives of this counterfeit
history are to be found in the countries of the Second and Third World.
It is not by chance that they have been the champions of "leaping ahead"
and "closing the gap" - in a word, the most vigorous proponents of
planned social change and "development."
The concept of "development" gathers strength precisely where
development is lacking. Simultaneously, the concept assumes an
 TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS 13
empirical model of society that must be imitated, thus giving rise to a
feigned, mimetic conception of history. "Development" is feigned
history and requires a political fiction that makes the social the object of
design and planning, of programmed change and constructed structures.
We give the name "history" both to the res gestae, actions in history,
and to the narration of such actions. Categorizations of history, insofar
as they impose on the res gestae the principle of artificiality or
simulation, suppress history.
In the language of the social sciences the notion of history has already
been removed and replaced. It may even be said that such removal is
the very condition of the survival of the social sciences as "sciences."
Unless and until each science protects its object from the unforeseeable,
that is, from freedom and its incessant siege, its own status and
condition is jeopardized.
It is not by accident that when technology displays all its power,
globally and totally, power is no longer centralized or located but
becomes a ubiquitous, diffused, omnipresent reality. Consider, for
example, the power present in transnational corporations and
international telecommunications networks, through which technology is
deployed over the whole planet. Foucault's "microphysics of power"
constitutes in a wayan expression of this anonymous deployment and
omnipresence. But the microphysics of power presupposes the all
embracing presence of a macro-technology which becomes in turn a bio-
socio-politico-technology. Such is a prospect of the inherent influence
of technology on politics and the challenge it poses.
University oj Chile
REFERENCES
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.
(See especially chapter 6.)
Foucault, Michel. Surveil/er et punir: Naissance de 1a prison. Paris: Gallimard, 1975.
Galbraith, John Kenneth. The New Industrial State. 2d revised edition. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1971.
Garda de la Huerta, Marcos. Critica de 1a raz6n tecnocratica. Santiago: Universitaria
Santiago, 1990. (See especially chapter 14.)
Heidegger, Martin. Die Technik und die Kehre. Pfullingen: Neske, 1962.
Jonas, Hans. The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology. New York:
Harper & Row, 1966. (See especially eighth essay.)
Kapp, Ernst. Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik. Braunschweig: Westermann,
1877.
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1964.
Leroi-Gourhan, Andre. Evolution et techniques. 2 vols. Paris: Albin Michel, 1943 and
1945.
14 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

Mumford, Lewis. The Myth of the Machine. 2 vols. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1967 and 1970. (See especially vol. 1.)
Reuleaux, Franz. Theoretische Kinematik: Grundzuge einer Theorie des
Maschinenwesens. Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1875.
Winner, Langdon. The Whale and the Reactor: A Searchfor Limits in an Age of High
Technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. (See especially part I.)
 MARCOS GARCiA DE LA HUERTA I.

GLOBALIZATION:
HOMOGENIZATION WITH AN
INCREASING TECHNOLOGICAL GAP

I. SEVEN THESES ON TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

Whenever human beings have practiced cannibalism on some regular

basis they have been moved to do so not by hunger but by an idea. In
our own century there are likewise abundant examples of ethnic groups
being obliterated or annihilated in holocausts perpetrated in the name of
some idea. As put forward by the oppressors, the idea at issue claims
some essential difference between oppressors and victims - although
what is in fact always stressed are differences at the level of
technological achievements.
The origin of human beings is actually able to be explained in a
similar way. According to a hypothesis considered plausible by modern
anthropology, one prehistoric hominid group overcame all others
because of its weapons, and thus became the direct ancestor of homo
sapiens. l
A first issue can thus be formulated in the following thesis:
Thesis 1: Technology transfer follows a rule of survival.

Technology transfer follows a rule or principle of survival. In other

words, those who develop more efficient tools, more powerful weapons,
become a threat to those who do not possess them. Any kind of
innovation, then, produced by and within one group, tends to generate
adoptive pressures on other groups with which it is in contact.
From this may be derived a second thesis:
Thesis 2: Technology transfer is based on a tendency to emulate
efficiency in technological performances.
Technology transfer in general derives from a tendency to emulate
efficiency and technological performances of some kind, including forms
of organization. A distinction might be drawn in this respect between
productive instruments and weapons - although any appreciable
15
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Spea/dng Countries, 15-38.
01993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
16 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

difference in any kind of instrumental endowment tends to generate

strategic advantages which are virtually equivalent to military
supremacy.
Metallurgy and agriculture, for instance, permitted urban
development, the social division of labor, and manufacture. These
processes, in turn, made the constitution of regular armies possible,
largely overtaking the archaic military organization of tribal villages.
In fact, the greatest states of the ancient world, as well as the
precolombian empires of the Americas, would be inconceivable without
such basic technological advantages.
According to the last thesis, social groups ought to adopt the
technologies of their more advanced neighbors. Thus,
Thesis 3: Technology transfer leads to assimilation and convergence.
Technology transfer will lead to an assimilation and convergence in
technologies. The situation with technology transfer could be compared
to a system of interconnected bodies of water. If the water level in one
is raised, there will be a corresponding rise in all connected bodies as
well.
However, experience reveals something quite different. Today, for
example, the so-called technological gap is in many cases actually
growing, and indeed tends to increase instead of decrease. Therefore
thesis three appears to be false - unless there exists some other
principle which under certain conditions can be shown to cancel or
neutralize it.
A number of authors have nevertheless spoken in different ways and
from different points of view about the universalization of history,
singling out modern technology as the primary causal agent. Thus, for
example, Martin Heidegger and Kostas Axelos speak about
"planetarism" and "planetarization." Marshall McLuhan maintains that
extensions of the techniques of communication, particularly through
electric and electronic media, tend to convert the whole earth into a
single "global village." Abraham Moles argues that "the whole world
tends to become a huge megapolis." Bertrand Russell somewhat earlier
postulated the necessity of a world administration, in response to the
impending proliferation of modern armaments, especially atomic
weapons, which represent in his view the supreme threat. For Russell
there existed a crucial choice between a world state and world
destruction. 2
It seems to me that the idea of this world unified by and through
technology constitutes a new technological myth, a "brave one world, "
to paraphrase the title of Aldous Huxley's anti-utopian novel. It is a
 GLOBALIZATION: HOMOGENIZATION 17

world integrated by social planning and programming rather than by

genetic engineering and psychological conditioning.
According to thesis three the assimilation and convergence of
technological levels over the whole world ought to have been achieved
some time ago. But this has not happened, as is well known. If we
distinguish a Third World from a First or Second it is precisely on the
basis of their different levels of technological development.
Paradoxically this difference not only distinguishes "developed" from
"developing" or "underdeveloped" worlds, it also brings them together
in the sense of establishing a common standard which admits only of
differences in levels. Greeks and Romans considered the borders of
their own worlds to be absolute barriers separating them from others -
the barbarians or primitives. They even went so far as to question their
essential humanity. Now, by contrast, the "developed" and "under-
developed" become less and less different, while at the same time
becoming more and more unequal.
This leads to the formulation of a new thesis:
Thesis 4: Technology transfer is accompanied by cultural
homogenization.
The tendency to transfer technology to the relatively less developed
areas of the world is accompanied by an increasing homogenization of
societies, because technology transfer both presupposes and produces a
transfer of symbols, that is, of cultural patterns or standards. The
statement that borders tend to disappear, that the world is being unified,
and that its history is becoming planetarized, can be interpreted as
follows. Boundaries between "primitive" and "civilized," first
theoretically undermined by structural anthropology, are now equally
challenged in practice. Even in its more polite form, as when one refers
to "industrialized" and "developing" societies, the distinction changes its
meaning. The inhabitants of the latter peripheral areas are just as much
eager consumers of technology as are the inhabitants of the productive
centers. This is why the productive centers tend to identify us as clients
of their progress rather than as barbarians who need to be held at bay.
But the consumption of new products only engenders a sort of mirage
of progress, an appearance of modernization. It is at once both
necessary and insufficient, in that it offers the goal of progress without
transmitting either its internal logic or its dynamism.
Progress in general tends to generate imbalances. It is by definition
destructive of equilibrium, because not only does it upset the physical
equilibrium of the world, including an increasingly fragile biological
balance, but also the social equilibrium, both as a whole and in its parts.
18 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

It is surprising in this respect that the Renaissance utopias of Thomas

More, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Campanella, which have in common
a more or less explicit technological component, associate technological
advances with greater harmony, peace, and social equilibrium. Perhaps
this is an example of the mythical roots of the modern idea of progress,
which has been linked since its very beginnings with belief in the idea
that humanity is always moving toward a higher stage of culture,
knowledge, and morality - and the securing of greater happiness.
If different levels of technological development tend to encourage
emulation and competition, independent of the competitive character of
the productive system, it is thus because something more fundamental
than progress is at stake. What is being transferred, indeed, is more
than tools, apparatus, equipment, and so on. Hegel hinted that it is not
just objects which are made through work, but freedom as well. 3
But if technology is fundamentally a way of thinking, an
"unconcealing of being," as Heidegger says,4 then it is the great
experiments in social engineering of the 20th century which reveal the
most profound expressions of technical rationality. Global planning,
shock treatments, the militarization of politics are the main forms
assumed by this instrumental rationality. And these can hardly be
regarded as advances in freedom, no matter how efficient they might be.
It is not by accident that the most dramatic and barbaric experiments
in social engineering have almost invariably taken place in the Second
and Third World. They are, in a sense, the political expression of that
emulative and competitive character of the technological process which
has been called the technological "race."
Karl Popper maintains that "all social engineering . . . is doomed to
remain a Utopian dream. ,,5 This is formally correct, though not true.
True utopias are doomed not to remain merely a dream. Popper's
judgment is both too olympian and presupposes a scientistic conception
of truth. The extension to society of the methods used to dominate
nature have become a standard part of our social life, and the negative
or undesirable effects of this extension cannot be conjured away simply
by pointing out their absurdity. The pragmatism which inspires such
effort is not, like that of John Dewey or William James, a theoretical
one. Moreover, the power of technology over society and even over
thought goes beyond the framework of language or expressed ideologies
- although in fact technology exerts an influence over social behavior
and decisions similar to that of ideology. Its coercive power is rooted
in the emulation of performances and competition, as we have seen, and
certainly also in what Popper calls its utopian character - although he
does not grant it any credence since, in his view, social technologies do
not have a scientific basis.
 GLOBALIZATION: HOMOGENIZATION 19

What is characteristic of modern technology in this respect is that its

coercive force takes on the range of global or universal action.
Geographical distance is no longer the obstacle it used to be in relating
different societies that had no physical contact with one another. In fact,
invasions, migrations, and conquests are no longer the means to extend
a culture. Technology is the new means.
Diversity between cultures is no longer possible. Technological
civilization does not easily tolerate different cultures. When it does not
annihilate them entirely, it either gradually dilutes or assimilates them.
This means, from another point of view, that those who do not rapidly
and continually improve their conditions of production are condemned,
by the same global logic, to become a museum curiosity. Technology,
in fact, creates an imperative which is satisfied only by itself. It does
not exclude marginal nations but brings them to center stage, either by
means of some kind of war or famine, or through world-record
inflation, debt, or unemployment.
Technological progress challenges, if not invalidates, the idea that
"history advances on its weakest flank." It confirms, instead, Hegel's
concept that the vanguard of history is represented by the dominant
nation, to which he attributes all rights and prerogatives.
Technological progress contributes to the creation of the most
extensive, rapid, and closely interwoven network of commerce,
transportation, and communications while it helps create a worldwide
system of exchange in which advantages and disadvantages are
asymmetrically distributed. The argument of comparative advantage in
the international division of labor, originally formulated by the classical
liberal theory of economic exchange, is today invested with new
meanings. Now it serves to justify the regressive character of the
international division of labor, sharpening initial distinctions. When the
social division of labor is also a technological division of roles, then
differential instrumental endowments reinforce rather than neutralize
unequal territorial distributions of wealth and power. The ideology of
comparative advantage further means that inequitable distribution of
resources becomes a sort of technological rule.
The tendency to unequal development, so often observed in
comparisons between cities, regions, social sectors - and even in the
fields of culture and science - is both confirmed and reinforced by the
international progress of technology.
It is no surprise, then, that there are some authors who attribute a
regressive social character to science and technology, in the sense that
they contribute to a polarization of wealth and power. As one author
has been so bold to express it: "Let us say frankly that science has
brought more harm than good to the great majority of human beings. ,,6
20 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

The preceding can be summarized in the following thesis:

Thesis 5: Technology transfer presupposes constitutive opposition,

inequalities, and disequilibrium.
Technology transfer and progress in general presuppose constitutive
opposition, unequal growth, growing inequalities, disequilibrium, even
disintegration. Social engineering only partially mitigates these effects
and is, in fact, often an exacerbating agent.
It is also assumed that progress itself, in virtue of its limitless
character, will reintegrate things, bring them into equilibrium, order
them. But we now know that such equalization is impossible. It would
require an unsustainable pressure on primary resources and energy
reserves. Thus the emulative tendency has a physical limit and a
contradictory character: on the one hand there is pressure to emulate and
on the other the impossibility of achieving equality.
Differential technological development seems to contradict the idea
that transfer is founded only on unequal distributions in products or
power, or even on the receptivity of a potential addressee, as sufficient
conditions. An inequality that is too pronounced, for example, inhibits
rather than favors transfer, while a relative parity, by contrast, favors
it. The best transfer takes place when there is less trauma, less
disruption of preexisting structures, partial or local complementarities
notwithstanding. In general, a relatively advanced technology is more
synergistic and tends to reach a higher level faster and to favor further
innovations. By contrast, a low or very low technological level does not
favor connections and interrelationships, and is more resistant, even
when the social milieu is very favorable or receptive.
Synergy of the computer or the laser, for example, seems to depend
to a large extent on the technological system itself, once it has reached
the industrial (or should we say "post-industrial") stage. But we should
not forget the enormous synergy of the first great invention of the
industrial age, the steam engine, which was originally no more than a
hydraulic pump to extract water from the depths of coal mines - but
ended up transforming the entire system of manufacturing and
transportation. 7
Nevertheless, we propose the following thesis:

Thesis 6: Technology transfer does not follow its own internal rule.
Technology transfer does not only or always obey a rule of internal
progression proper to the technological system. It is also responsive to
the life strategies of social groups, to their relative states of
 GLOBALIZATION: HOMOGENIZATION 21

development, as well as to their political boundaries and their intellectual

and moral traditions.
According to a certain conception, society is regulated and guided by
the requirements of the technological system, which exhibits an
autonomous, uncontrollable logic, informing without interference all
goals and decisions. This idea was initially formulated by Jacques Ellul,
who emphasized the lack of social options in the face of the demands
imposed by the whole technological system through each of its distinct
branches or subsystems. 8
It is difficult to take up this idea in all its complexity. It invokes a
philosophy of history or at least a conception of the development of
modern societies, which raises its own special difficulties. For our
purposes, however, its attempts to predict the behavior of the
technological system as a whole have simply failed.
Two decades ago, for instance, Meadows et al. warned that the
present era of progress could not go on indefinitely. 9 The argument had
and still has a certain validity. It stresses the need to impose a kind of
brake on technological development in view of its acceleration over the
last two centuries. To continue the current rate, in fact, foreshadows
the rapid depletion of some raw materials, energy resources, and non-
renewable goods - including land - which will become increasingly
scarce and costly. From this comes the necessity of a program for the
limitation of progress, in order to avoid the threat of a final catastrophic
end to the era of improving technology which we have known until now.
This diagnosis represents a neo-Malthusian theory about the destiny
of industrial civilization as a whole. From another point of view, it
extends models like those of Domar, for instance, or of Marx
concerning the "organic composition" of capital, according to which
permanent innovation is a fundamental necessity specific to capitalism. 10
What especially matters now, however, is that the evolution of
technology itself seems to contradict the autonomous development taken
for granted in the Club of Rome prediction, because the most recent
technologies try either to replace or to save raw materials. Various
examples can be cited: through miniaturization; by the production of
new synthetic substances or the substitution of materials, for instance,
in the case of the transistor and the new superconductors; or even by the
use of genetic engineering and biotechnology in agriculture. It is more
reasonable to think that all these reorientations are directly caused by the
need to prevent the negative effects predicted by Meadows et al than to
suppose the existence of some hidden feedback mechanism or self-
regulation internal to the technological system.
The present suspension of the arms race between the superpowers
provides perhaps another good example of a possible reorientation in
22 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

technological processes. If there is one field in which the blind

mechanism of outbidding one another operates in its purest form, it is
in this competition for power in weapons.
Changes in the space program after the end of the Apollo mission and
the Challenger disaster are equally significant in this regard, because the
first announcements of the new directions always originated from the
White House rather than from NASA engineers.
But we must take the argument a step further.
The operational or functional logic of the technological system on its
own cannot avoid absurdities or correct excesses. It does not even
consider such goals as the preservation of life or improvement in the
quality of life. There is no possible moral criterion to be derived from
the mechanical or technological point of view. On the contrary, it is
possible and necessary to set down some criteria for a biological
morality. Moreover, life itself has its own regulations, while the
technological system as a whole completely lacks self-regulation. Of
course, it has internal coherence, an articulation between its different
branches, rules of development, and so on. But nothing guarantees that
this internal rationality will not be destructive in a global context. That
is why we have to question the attempts to raise social automatism in
anyone of its forms to an absolute, metaphysical status.
When Malthus assumes that demographic development poses a sort of
meta-historical fate, in the sense that it answers only to its own
dynamics, he underestimates precisely the creative or corrective
possibilities, which in this particular case operate through technology,
for exorcising or deferring the threat of a demographic and productive
catastrophe.
At the same time, there has also been a corresponding overestimation
of economic tendencies - not only by Marxism but also in some forms
of liberalism - that grants to "economic contradictions" and market
forces a meta-political status and invasive character that virtually rules
out the possibility of decision making.
We might ask, then, if technological determinism in anyone of its
different forms has not replaced classical mechanicism, in the sense that
it bestows on social automatism a sort of meta-historical rank,
substituting a singular part for the social whole (a point to be considered
in more detail later).
If the state, however, were the one and only corrective agent, the
same argument could be reversed. Assuming that the technological
system produces global dangers, how can this be avoided if not by a
globalization of the corrective agent itself - that is, by a globalization
of the power of the state?
In my opinion this argument is not the same as the previous one
 GLOBALIZATION: HOMOGENIZATION 23
because it presupposes that political practice serves only to promote
specific objectives. It would have no other function nor capacity than
to realize technological goals. But this identification of the goals is only
possible if political action is reduced to the state and if this becomes
absolute. It is in absolute states, in fact, where power is even
technologically legitimized, that is, pretends to exercise a kind of basic
power, founded on the so-called sciences of administration, which posit
this type of knowledge as the exclusive property of a superior class of
"experts. "
Technocracy - from the Greek techne and kratos, force or
domination - is, in this sense, an essentially elitist phenomenon and
represents the domination of one group over the whole of society. It is
entirely different from the bureaucratic phenomenon as defined by Max
Weber, in the sense that it only affects the state apparatus, whereas
bureaucracy is a disease of the whole social body. 11
Technocracy corresponds, then, to an elitist-scientific conception of
power. But if it has often assumed pedantic and threatening forms, this
is not because of its pretensions to scientific infallibility. Still less is it
because of its successes, which have occurred in the realm of the natural
sciences. What Ortega y Gasset called "the terrorism of the
laboratories" was an infantile narcissistic game in comparison with the
arrogance of the sciences of administration, which have protected and
served the totalitarian state. 12
All this goes to confirm the preeminence of politics over technological
rationality. The latter only becomes absolute in absolute states, where
the decision-making process is essentially undemocratic. 13
Consequently, we can put forward a last thesis or hypothesis, which
may be formulated as follows:
Thesis 7: Technology transfer does not autonomously determine a social
system.
The supposedly determining character oftechnological automatism on
the social system is neither factual nor scientific. The idea of technical
automatism is, on the contrary, a hypothesis about the nature of power.
It reduces or nullifies the making of decisions, that is, the political
capacity of society. It reproduces the same error, or at least
inadequacy, as the classical forms of social mechanism, initially
expressed through demographic progression, then through the "economic
contradictions" or even the self-regulation of the market as it is
conceived by some neoliberals. In all these cases, in fact, corrective or
regulative possibilities are denied in the name of a particular form of
autonomy, which is supposed to have a meta-political existence.
24 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

Let me conclude the first part of these reflections by returning to the

original considerations concerning the undesirable effects of
technological progress, with a view now to the introduction of eventual
correctives .
The principal argument in favor of international corrective action for
the tendency toward unequal development does not differ much from the
one most often used within societies. That is to say, technological
underdevelopment not only acts as a brake on innovation, but also as a
source of instability, constituting a challenge to democratic order or
peace.
Russell's prediction concerning the constitution of a world
government, which he saw associated with the proliferation of atomic
weapons has not proved quite correct. Nuclear arms also provide a sort
of technological guarantee of global peace as we know it. But what the
history of the second half of the 20th century reveals is a proliferation
of wars, local conflicts, with conventional weapons. Since the end of
the Second World War there have been more than a hundred of these
limited wars, invariably in the Third World.
It would be difficult not to see in this some relationship with the logic
of technology transfer and with the issue of the growing technological-
economic gap between worlds. The unrestricted operation of this logic
indicates, in essence, that expenditure on the replacement of industrial
and military equipment follows a similar pattern to that of consumption.
In other words, simple purchase or transfer is not enough in itself to
reproduce the whole system. It forces a periodic and each time more
expensive replacement of equipment which devours surplus, exhausts
natural power, and raises indebtedness and disequilibrium. The
formation of a gigantic external debt seems to be a corollary of this
same logic, a sort of financial expression of the gap.
When we said that social automatism does not operate in an
unrestricted way, we wanted to say that it ought not to operate in such
a way - not only as a moral issue, but also as a postulate of practical
reason, based on historical reason. The detection of automatism is the
first step toward its own exorcism. But at present we still lack the
social and legal means, as well as the political organization, to exercise
real democratic control over the undesirable effects of new technologies.
My reservations then about a purely moral response to the undesirable
effects of innovation is that technology itself is an agent of moral
change. It creates a new ethics of efficiency, productivity, and results,
which tends to become a dominant morality.
 GLOBALIZATION: HOMOGENIZATION 25
II. TECHNOLOGICAL DIFFUSION AND MODERNITY
In the analysis of the preceding seven theses we have tried to show
that the planetary extension of technology and of the modern ideal
exhibits a contradictory development that carries with it an inherent
difficulty. We have barely touched on the issue of its inherent
problematicity - which refers, of course, to the fact that modernization
in the Third World has not been the outcome of its own historical and
cultural development. Instead, in large part this development has
involved the imitation of models derived from the nations of the North
Atlantic area, as formalized by the social sciences of the 19th and 20th
centuries.
The Inherent Problem of Modernity
For most of the world modernization has thus ended up being
insufficient, partial, asychronous - or, better said, a failure. But its
rational foundations have for a century been the object of radical
philosophical critiques, so much so that some authors consider it
terminated or completed, even "liquidated, " and that a new
"postmodern" age has been initiated. 14 Precisely this constitutes the
problematicity of modernity: the ideas and principles that initially
sustained it have been eroded and upset, while at the same time they
maintain their power. In other words, those ideas are at once wholly
anachronistic and completely contemporary.
We have admitted also that technology contributes decisively to the
planetary extension of the modern ideal, justifying it as the fate of a
rational core and at the same time seeing it as a strategic key for any
modernization project. That which sociology, economics, and political
science have done in order to rationalize or formalize the modernizing
process has in view the reproduction of this phenomenon, that is, the
eventual transformation of "traditional" societies according to this pattern
or archetype.
Keep in mind, as well, that in dealing with a global project that
encompasses everything from productive forms to science and culture,
the modern ideal has diffused worldwide, without major restrictions. By
contrast, Christianity encountered major resistance and of course could
not achieve the same worldwide extension, in spite of the fact that it was
able to leave intact or almost intact the forms of material life of the
peoples where it went.
This paradox is at the base of the considerations we made earlier with
regard to how technology not only contributes decisively, in virtue of
26 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

certain rules of progress, to its proper diffusion or adoption, while at the

same time it contributes in itself to defining certain characteristics of the
modern paradigm. 15 Of course, the level of technification achieved in
different activities, productive sectors, and branches of defense can be
considered indicators of the level of modernization achieved. The new
methods, artifacts, and weapons are, as well, the most easily and quickly
adopted. They do not require a large amount of interpretation since
their rationality is objectively demonstrated, tested, and calculated by
means of objects.
It is frequently because of this as well that a more generally
developed group adopts some determinate apparatus or instrument from
another less developed group. It is difficult if not impossible to do this
with any other cultural creation that is not of a technological character.
On the contrary, those who are less developed, can and do adopt
everything from morals to gods, although it is technology which is
easiest and quickest to assimilate.
The adoption of the instrumental does not appear to compromise more
substantive and essential aspects. "To modernize" does not have the
same meaning as "to colonize," in the way "to evangelize" once
signified "to Europeanize." Technology takes over without compulsion
and appears "objective" and "neutral." There is no visible political
agent, no conscious will that imposes it. It results from structural needs
and functional demands. It is adopted "freely," without compulsion.
But it is crucial to distinguish the discrete technological object from
the system which encloses it. The object may perhaps be "neutral,"
always responding to human needs, or be the fruit of conscious activity.
But that which is valid for the part is not equally valid, necessarily, for
the whole. The system of objects may have its own relatively
autonomous exigencies, which result in imperatives that get projected
into other, indeed; all spheres.
Consider, for example, discussions about "the limits of growth"
(Meadows et al.), arguments for "zero growth" (Sauvy), and related
ideas. 16
In Latin America "zero growth" has already occurred in many cases,
and even negative growth in others. But this stagnation has had
catastrophic consequences for democratic institutions. Conversely,
progress even in its most regressive and excluding forms, development
characterized only by macrosocial indicators, has been used to legitimize
the most repressive, undemocratic regimes.
The present experience of the Eastern European countries might be
able to confirm the same idea that there is no stable political system if
it impedes or in any way hinders progress. For there seems to be
continuity between technological, economic, and political systems. In
 GLOBALIZATION: HOMOGENIZATION 27
other words, the symbiosis of technology and science with production
and industry has invested techno science with cultural meaning and
political power.

The Problem of Modernization in Latin America

In Latin America, for example, the promise of modernization has

been linked since the beginning of this century with a certain loss in
the legitimacy and the effectiveness of the ruling oligarchies, and the
need to find an answer to the emerging "social issue." This devolved
very quickly into a wider questioning of the social structure and the
social-political regime. In this way modernization has become in this
century an obligatory referent for the right as well as for the left. The
former see in it the means to avert the threat of a global alteration of the
social regime, while the latter considered a social revolution as a
necessary and preliminary condition for modernization.
The challenge of progress acquired in this way an increasing urgency
and seemed to proceed from political necessity more than from the
exigencies of competition and the technological race. Economists were
the first to recognize this, but only in a restricted way. During the
1970s "development" was identified with an ensemble of external
economic indicators, external indicators which seemed to throw out
history and replace it with an abstract, homogeneous temporality on
which a score could be inscribed at will.
Pedro Morande associates the appearance of this "developmentist"
orientation in Latin America with the replacement of European influence
after the Second World War. "The consolidation of the North American
empire," he writes, "and the expansion of its area of influence over the
whole world relegated to a secondary role Latin America's own
reflection and cultural synthesis. ,,17 This in turn produced an
"intellectual break" with the more substantial concerns of the previous
generation of "Latin American nationalists" (he is thinking of Jaime
Eyzaguirre, Jose Carlos Mari.ttegui, and Jose Vasconcelos) relative to
cultural identity and history.
According to Morande, the appearance of this "developmentism" set
the stage for subsequent "theories of programmed social change" in
which structural functionalism prevailed. This in turn led to future
experiments in social engineering. Thus modernization was, according
to Morande, no longer viewed as the result of an historical process
rooted in its own culture and traditions. "Rather, it can be perceived as
a technological option available to all peoples of the earth, always on
condition that they themselves have the will to develop and overcome
obstacles. ,,18
28 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

This conception of modernization appears as a falsification of history,

as an imposed cultural model, deriving from a change in world
leadership.
Morande adds that this phenomenon of a break with the cultural past,
begins to appear as such when developmentism seems to complete its ideological-
political cycle by associating with neoliberalism and with the doctrine of national
security. The obvious and systematic violation of human rights at various levels ...
has brought to the fore the issue of the ethical limits of the technocratic orientations on
social life and the cultural foundations of such orientations. 19

At this point some explanations and qualifications must be made.

Modernization as "Deve[opmentism" in Latin America
The developmentist orientation in economic thought during the 1960s
was primarily sustained by economists from the Comisi6n Econ6mica
para America Latina (CEPAL). This constituted one amongst various
tendencies, without occupying a predominant position in any country of
the area. In Chile, for instance, during moments of obsessive ideology
in politics, the orientation and prescriptions of CEPAL economists were
rejected both by the right and by the left. While the former considered
certain propositions, such as land reform, to be a hidden threat, the
latter equally rejected them as being "reformist."
Very different is the situation with neoliberal ideas which inspire
policies that are forcefully implemented by military regimes through
control of the media and the use of the whole repressive apparatus of the
state. This provoked a forced trans nationalization of the economy and
an abrupt fragmentation of society. A sequence can certainly be
constructed between the conception of development emerging in the
1960s and more recent practices. But any such sequence would have to
be extended further back, perhaps even to the very emergence of the
Latin American republics, which were also politically born with the idea
of realizing an external model or ideal. But the mere questioning of
one's identity and culture is insufficient for facing the urgencies of
modernization which arise after the economic crisis of the 1930s and the
"oligarchic domination crisis" which occurred even earlier. After the
Second World War the problem of modernization became more acute
because of anew, unfavorable period in the international trade of raw
materials resources.
An alternative to Morande's hypothesis could be put forward simply
by maintaining that the decisive break occurred with the interruption of
the democratic regimes rather than with the "intellectual break"
produced by the developmentists in relation to the earlier nationalists.
 GLOBALIZATION: HOMOGENIZATION 29
This does not deny the importance of what Morande calls the "identity
crisis" and the "moral crisis, " but it does underline that these
phenomena are not comprehensible by making an epoche from politics
and trying to explain them just through intellectual evolution or the
internal development of the social sciences.
Morande maintains that
cultural identity is a problem relating to survival itself . . . [and] affects one of the
deepest cores [of society]: values. The universalism of modernization reaches precisely
to this core.20

But this suggests that this identity is already known and that it is
incompatible with "universal values." Only by insisting that some
submission of history and culture to certain values constituted outside the
political realm could one argue that modernization is a historical
falsification of "cultural identity."
One can agree with Morande that "the principle of formal rationality"
inherent to modernity is not compatible with the so-called "traditional
societies" and their cultural particularities, which involve substantive
contents and not just the functionality of a structure. Nevertheless,
pluralism, democracy, and freedom also belong to "formal rationality."
Not only change and innovation are functionalities of progress.
When Morande says that "modernization among us [in Latin
America], as in Europe, was first a cultural rather than a structural
challenge, ,,21 this underestimates structural needs. Developmentism is
also a fact of culture that has to have, like any other modernizing
tendency, a structural and historical basis or substrate. Thus, as we
have tried to show, the adoption of technologies responds to the
requirements of the technological system, and is not mere desire.
Modernization cannot be considered only a result of purely "systematic
theorizations of social thought" originating in Europe and North
America.
Morande's criticism of developmentism initially suggests that it is
oriented toward a search for correctives, with a view toward a new
modernizing proposal, one with greater historical content and more
deeply rooted in its own tradition and culture. But this expectation is
soon disappointed, because the thesis he proposes leads to a rejection of
modernity. On all modernizing projects he places an abstract condition:
their submission to cultural values. One can agree with him that "the
concept of culture is totalizing" insofar as it "defines the character of
values." But this is true only when there is no exclusion of any cultural
facts, claiming they do not belong to history. Otherwise the concept of
culture would certainly not be totalizing.
When Morande speaks of "culture" he is referring mainly to religion.
30 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

He claims that religiosity is a privileged ground of the "founding

cultural synthesis of Latin America produced in the 16th and 17th
centuries, which zealously preserves the diversity and interrelations of
the Indian, Negro, and European stratas. "n This synthesis will show
through and permeate all other orders of the culture and daily life. Thus
he thinks that "to revalorize popular religiosity is to revalorize the past
itself as well as historical continuity. ,,23
Even allowing for this interpretation, however, the issue now is
modern syncretism, not the original syncretism. And regarding this
point, Morande's position does not seem satisfactory. Since he views
modernity from a religious perspective, that is, as synonymous with
secularization, he has to consider it in itself as an essential negation of
the founding cultural synthesis. There is, according to Morande, a basic
incompatibility between the values of modernity and of religiosity, which
is what constitutes "the fundamental problem that lies behind the efforts
to develop the Third World and the North-South conflict. ,,24
Morande suggests that Latin America sociology should open up as a
new perspective a "cultural synthesis that is different as well as
opposed" to the synthesis of Enlightenment modernity. This would be
based on the revalorization that popular religiosity has experienced
(especially through the theology of liberation - although his own efforts
are oriented in another direction). Along with Octavio Paz, he argues
that the Latin American Enlightenment has proved false or nonexistent,
and that consequently modernization has also been insufficient or a
failure. 25 This different "and opposed" orientation ought also and above
all to revalorize sacrifice. "The revalorization of popular religiosity is
for us the revalorization of the problematic of sacrifice. ,,26
Does this imply, perhaps, that the ignoring of historical conditions is
what makes modernization as we have known it possible? And that the
study of history and cultural identity will lead to a rejection of the
sociological patterns of modernization in the terms that have been put
forth in our century?

Modernization beyond Latin America

To lag behind in modernization is not only a private problem of Latin
American societies. There were, and still are even in Europe itself,
certain regional and national pockets apparently immune to modernity.
At the same time there are countries devastated by the war which, in
spite of (or perhaps because of) this destruction, began a forced
rebuilding of their infrastructure and industries. Such provide
impressive counter illustrations of the constructive power of Western
rationality. Japan is one of the most amazing cases in point, which
 GLOBALIZATION: HOMOGENIZATION 31

achieved modernization without a Descartes or a Bacon or even an

Enlightenment. It began simply with its rich craft tradition and in half
a century achieved world leadership. This may be no example to
follow, especially when modernization means also death and destruction
of native communities, but it illustrates the fact that modernization also
consists in a certain capacity to forget - that is, the ability to innovate.
This does not mean that it is possible to ignore the relation of culture
to the modernizing process. On the contrary, because culture is not a
special "sector" nor a particular "structure" within a system, its role is
not limited to being a "super" structure within a system of structures.
All sectorist or structural conceptions of society tend to underestimate
the meaning of culture, to consider it an epiphenomenon, a scab or halo
on the surface of social life.
This is why Louis Althusser, for instance, following the inspiration
of Antonio Gramsci, has to resort to psychoanalysis in order to vindicate
"ideology." The Marxist architecture of "base" and "superstructure" is
evidently unsatisfactory in this regard. 27
With reference to this topic, the psychoanalytic representation of the
mental system relies on the metaphor of composite or successive
"layers," like geological strata, with the unconscious as the deepest and
most archaic level. Its conception of psychic dynamism reasserts the
importance of representations through the "charge" of "libidinal energy"
retained in them.
This conception attains, in fact, a more adequate setting for cultural
phenomena. For example, different kinds of family or sexual
relationships in their various expressions - patriarchialism,
"machismo," authoritarianism, and caesarism - show through and
permeate all social relations. So that if religion informs or conditions
those family or sexual relations, it is no less true that religion is at the
same time determined and permeated by them. In the same way one can
consider phenomena such as women's liberation, the struggle against
apartheid, etc., as stages of social liberation in the sense that the degree
of the oppression of women or ethnic minorities alters, reproduces, and
reinforces at the same time, in its particular sphere, an oppression that
is exercised in a parallel manner in the sphere of labor relations. And
consequently the overcoming of alienation is not just at play in the field
of production and labor.
This means that modernization is not just a "sociological paradigm,"
that the social forms identified as "modem" are just one empirical
manifestation of a more complex phenomenon engaging all human
activity. Therefore, it cannot entirely be constructed according to some
building plan, that is, beginning with some foundation that serves as the
architectural base of the structure, whether this "base" might be
32 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

economic, technological, demographic, etc.

Demography is mentioned because, usually, in the countries on our
continent frequently a third of the population lives in the capital and
nearly half is concentrated in two or three large cities. How can we
speak of modernization, then, when the areas involved are three, four,
or even ten times larger than the average European country, with a
much lower population density?
To think that modernization consists "basically" in technification
would be to reproduce the same mistake. Modernity is not really a
specific dimension of society nor a function of a particular structure. It
is instead a way of being in society that presupposes development and
technification, but which at the same time demands as constituents
freedom, justice, equality - that is, democratization.
By contrast, when modernization is conceived simply as a change of
structures along the lines of the architectural model then it seems to call
for precisely the same rules and principles as the production of artificial
objects. If the architectural model is supplemented with its correlate, the
mechanical model, it is possible to think like Archimedes, "Give me a
place to stand and I will move the world." But with such models and
metaphors there is a high coefficient of fiction regarding society, as well
as the artificialization of politics, because action remains imprisoned
beforehand within the optimization of existing social relations. Just as
in the fabricating process, the means-end relation organizes the whole.
In this case, one already knows in advance "what for." Modernization
becomes like a "product," and it is precisely in the sphere of production
where Machiavelli's formula "the end justifies the means" is always at
work.
The fundamental postulate of all developmentism, whether economic
or technological, is that the sphere of work is where the global order is
to be defined. Thus the most oppressive and tyrannical regimes are very
careful to keep the productive sphere intact, while suppressing all
political activity not exercised by the state. The same monopolization
of power occurs in totalitarian regimes which do interfere with
productive forms.
From this one can deduce that it is precisely the political sphere that
is and must be privileged or protected, because it is only this which
permits no disassociation of "values" and the creation of a common
world. On the contrary, any absolutization of a determinate end, any
prejudgment about the meaning of history, as well as any affirmation of
predetermined values in themselves tends to protect special actors and
to justify a particular domination. Such conceptions merge with the
pretension to construct society, in the sense that they also annihilate
 GLOBALIZATION: HOMOGENIZATION 33
history and eliminate uncertainty. If there is to be history, the end must
be defined through consensus developed in a network of collective
relations. It cannot be defined positively by a theory nor put forth
dictatorially by the state. In this sense it is revealing that the state has
been characterized in liberalism as a "policeman" and in Marxism as a
"machine" - as an agent of repression or war machine which,
moreover, easily becomes as obsolete as the stone axe or the spinning
wheel.
Just as all order that is spontaneous, automatic, or determined by
structures is reifying, every effort to "realize values" is equally another
non-consensual construction. It presupposes an epoche from the
plurality of actors - in short, an epoche from politics.
It is not by accident that neoconservative conceptions grant either the
moral or the economic orders (but not politics) the status of a privileged
or protected position. We have in mind the early Gerald Dworkin and
John Rawls on the one side, Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek
on the other.
In consequence, the real political dimension of society tends to be left
out, or conceived according to the model of technology-fabrication, or
perhaps along the lines of mercantile demand. Latin American military
regimes provide a vivid example of the same strategy. They declare
politics empty in the name of "scientific" government - of the "simple
administration of things," as Saint-Simon called it. The "doctrine" of
national security fills the gap left by the absence of morals and
consensual or democratic legitimacy.
III. FINAL CONSIDERAnONS
What we called the "inherent problematicity" of modernity refers to
the fact that at least since Nietzsche there has existed a radical critique
of modern rationality which has demonstrated the complementarity and
complicity of reason with power and domination. With this, criticism
has destroyed its illusion of purity and at the same time deprived
knowledge of its claim to universality.
Nietzsche especially introduced the effort to expose and denounce this
phenomenon which has become familiar to us, mainly because the
discourse of science has become closely associated with power, to the
point that it has become invested with a direct political significance.
But to denounce modern rationality as exclusively concerned with
domination more than with truth and knowledge implies that the "age of
reason," as the modern age has been called, has been divested of its
legitimacy and fundamental truth. Modernity walks blind. A deep split
34 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

has occurred between modern principles and Western society. There is

a fundamental positivity as well as a fundamental provisionality in every
modernizing effort because modernity has become devoid of meaning.
Philosophy has considered modernity founded in the subject, that is,
has recognized in thinking its principle, admitting thereby that all
responsibility, all initiative, creation, or human work of any kind has in
the individual subject its ultimate principle, foundation, and meaning.
Heidegger, for example, says that
Western history has now begun to enter into the completion of that period we call the
modern, which is defmed by man becoming the measure of and means to beings. Man
is what founds all beings, i.e., in modern terms, the foundation of all objectification and
representation, the subjectum. 1B

For the philosophical reflexive representation of modernity, this

consideration of the subject as origin and principle is correct. It is also
correct to associate the birth of modernity with the emergence of the
new science, and to read in this the epistemological or methodological
implications that philosophy of science commonly does. But just as the
historical meaning of science never appears in a theory of methods or
in a pure epistemology, neither does the discourse of the subject ever
arrive at a conception of the historical meaning of modernity, which is
never reduced to the founding idea which separates "modern times"
from the immediate past.
Who said that philosophy should express an epochal time? Hegel, of
course. He even thought that ideas create or renew the world.
Nevertheless, Hegel did not consider that philosophers should always or
necessarily be the agents who enunciate or promote the presence of ideas
in the world.
If retrospectively Descartes and Bacon are taken as the initial
philosophical expressions of modernity, or the Enlightenment as its
moment of maturity, the Hegelian posterity, on the contrary, does not
recognize itself any more in the positive form of modernity. This
alienation of philosophy with respect to the modern world parallels the
birth of the social sciences. They will progressively define an archetype
or positive paradigm of modernity, whereas philosophy continues its
own critical way without diminishing in any way the autonomy and
dynamism of modern society.
Heidegger expresses this alienation of philosophy from modernity in
an interview with Richard Wisser. When asked "Do you see a social
mission for philosophy?" Heidegger replies in the negative. "If this
question is to be answered, one must first ask 'What is society?' while
thinking how contemporary society is the absolutization of modern
subjectivity, and that a philosophy which has overcome the position of
 GLOBALIZATION: HOMOGENIZATION 35
subjectivity, is not able to join in the conversation. ,,29
That is, sociologized modernity breaks the link within the
philosophical tradition, so that it becomes impossible to understand
modernization as concerned with truth and meaning.
Critical philosophy, and in general philosophy since the
Enlightenment, does not have a meaning comparable to that of
Enlightenment rationalism, which did contribute directly and decisively
to the transformation of the feudal monarchic world. On the contrary,
the post-Enlightenment continues living on the ideas of the 18th century,
and all the radicalism of later criticism has never achieved a similar
historical role. It has been unable to overcome modernity. What is
called "post-modernity" is this failure itself, because it has nothing to do
with the emergence of the new age called modernity, three centuries
before. The only transformation modernity recognizes consists in the
maximization and internal development of the same principles of the
Enlightenment which have already been eroded by criticism.
In the Wisser interview, Heidegger continues:
The question about the demand for a transfonnation of the world leads to a frequently
quoted proposition of Karl Marx . . .: "The philosophers have only interpreted the
world; now the task is to transfonn it." By quoting these propositions and adhering to
them, one overlooks how a world transfonnation presupposes a change in world
representation and that world representation can only be achieved through a sufficient
interpretation of the world. 30

In other words, philosophy, including Marx, supposes that the

transformation of the world is never just a quantitative matter, but
assumes that a change in its representation and interpretation is always
required. A new cultural synthesis would necessarily suppose the
emergence of a new "philosophy."
It was nevertheless Marx who assigned to the development of
productive forces a unique and central role, one never before considered
by philosophy. Such development would be the indispensable condition
for any foundational action by the historical subject (the proletariat). He
did not think, though, that productive development would produce on its
own, spontaneously, through what we call "progress," a new synthesis
constituting the ultimate content of historical change.
There is an inherent and insurmountable difficulty for any conception
of progress which regards it as a spontaneous development. That is, to
attribute to technological productive development the capacity to produce
at the same time a meaning for the whole is an illusion.
Against the idea of a synthesis or spontaneous global ordering, Franz
Hinkelammert makes a claim for the "transcendental non-feasibility" of
such an ordering. He shows that partial disorder is inherent to any
36 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

partial order because it is at once necessary for the parts to strive for
their own ends while there is no necessity for them to strive for the
global end. 3!
This rule of non-facticity is equally valid for the market order -
which is supposed to produce automatically an optimal distribution of
resources - or for the "economic contradiction" which is supposed to
produce a classless society through the action of the proletariat. It is
also valid for technological progress as conceived by Ernst Bloch, where
multiplication in productivity is supposed to surpass, on its own, the
present society founded on work, provoking a qualitative change in
history. 32
In all these cases an analogous error can be detected. Social and
institutional bodies of any kind never carry out on their own a
desideratum; in the best of cases they may "negate the negation," that
is, they eliminate a determinate disease. For instance, the market order
prevents economic absolutism of the state, and the state corrects the
inevitable disorder produced by commercial automatism or technological
progress, and so on. Each particular order will thus be complementary
to others, on the condition that its complementarity can be articulated by
historical reason. All "spontaneous order" is ahistorical, for on its own
it can just generate an x, and this can only be resolved by utopia.
In other words, the structure presupposes the possibility of its being
superseded; it is in itself transcendence. But in each case it faces
determinate problems and it does not achieve a positive state which
definitely cancels out the negative. The identification of a desideratum
with the functionality of a structure is the negation of history. 33
By way of conclusion, then, what has been said above poses an
important question. For, on the one hand, modern politics abrogates the
fulfillment of ends and values, which assimilates it to the same
instrumental rationality as the technological manufacturing process. On
the other hand, it is not through progress itself that human beings realize
superior ends such as justice, liberty, equality, etc. Thus, if there must
be no renunciation of superior values, then a new conception of political
action should be defined, one which ought neither reify values nor
submit itself to constituted ends beyond its own sphere. But at the same
time it should not dissociate the private from the public sphere.
Philosophy, without claiming any hegemony over politics, would have
precisely the task of defining the mode of being of such action.
- Translated by Tony Gould and Carl Mitcham
University of Chile
 GLOBALIZATION: HOMOGENIZATION 37
NOTES
1. Regarding anthropological issues related to prehistoric technology, one principal
source is the works of Andre Leroi-Gourhan. Among the most significant of these
works are Evolution et techniques, vol. 1: L 'Homme et la matiere (Paris: Albin Michel,
1943 and 1971), vol. 2: Milieu et techniques (paris: Albin Michel, 1945 and 1973); and
Le Geste et la parole (paris: Albin Michel, 1964-1965).
2. See, e.g., Kostas Axelos, Vers la Pensee planetaire (Paris: Minuit, 1964);
Marshall McLuhan with Quentin Fiore and Jerome Agel, War and Peace in the Global
Village (New York: Bantam, 1968); Abraham Moles, Sociodynamique de la culture
(Paris: Mouton, 1967); and Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society (London:
Allen & Unwin, 1952).
3. G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenologie des Geistes (1807), N, A: the famous
"Lordship and Bondage" section.
4. Martin Heidegger, Die Technik und die Kehre (Pfullingen: Neske, 1962).
5. Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1957), p. 47.
6. See, e.g., C. Cooper, in Problems of Science Policy (Paris: OECD, 1968).
7. See, e.g., E. J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolutions (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicholson, 1962), especially chapter 2.
8. Jacques Ellul, La Technique ou l'enjeu du siecle (Paris: A. Colin, 1954), and Le
Systeme technicien (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1977). See also Helmut Schelsky, Der
Mensch in der wissenschaftliche Zivilisation (Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1961).
9. Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jergen Randers, and William W.
Behrens III, The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the
Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books, 1972).
10. Evsey D. Domar, Essays in the Theory of&onomic Growth (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1957).
11. See Max Weber, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1920). See also
Weber's "The Essentials of Bureaucratic Organization: An Ideal Type Construction" and
"The Presuppositions and Causes of Bureaucracy," in Robert K. Merton et al., eds.,
Reader in Bureaucracy (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1952).
12. See Jose Ortega y Gasset, "l,Por que se vuelve a la ftlosoffa?" in Obras
completas, vol. 4 (1929-1933), p. 98; and lWJat Is Philosophy? trans. Mildred Adams
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1960), p. 46.
13. This point is treated in greater detail in Marcos Garda de la Huerta, Critica de
la razan tecnocratica (Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, 1990).
14. "Mon argument est que Ie projet moderne (de realisation de l'universalite) n'a
pas ete abandonne ni oublie, mais detruit, 'liquid6'." Jean Fran~ois Lyotard, Le
Postmoderne explique aux enfants: Correspondence 1982-1985 (Paris: Galilee, 1986),
p.2.
15. According to Habermas, the social science understanding of the paradigm of
modernity can be summarized as follows: "The concept of modernization refers to a
bundle of processes that are cumulative and mutually reinforcing: to the formation of
capital and the mobilization of resources; to the development of the forces of production
and the increase in productivity of labor; to the establishment of centralized political
power and the formation of national identities; to the proliferation of rights of political
participation, of urban forms of life, and of formal schooling; to the secularization of
values and norms; and so on." Jiirgen Habermas, The Political Discourse of Modernity,
trans. Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), p. 2.
16. See, e.g., Meadows et al., cited above, note 9, and Alfred Sauvy, Croissance
zero? (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1973).
38 MARCOS GARCIA DE LA HUERTA

17. Pedro Morande, Cultura y modernizacion en America Latina (Santiago:

Universidad Cat6lica de Chile, 1984), p. 17.
18. Ibid., p. 18.
19. Ibid., p. 19.
20. Ibid., p. 122.
21. Ibid., p. 17.
22. Ibid., p. 129.
23. Ibid., p. 130.
24. Ibid., p. 122.
25.0ctavio Paz, Postdata (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1971). See also Paz, Corriente
allerna (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1982); ElogrofiLantropico (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1983);
and Tiempo nubLando (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1983).
26. Morande, Cullura y modernizacion, p. 142.
27. See Louis Althusser, "Ideologie et appariels ideologiques de l'Etat," La Pensee,
issue no. 151 (May-June 1970), pp. 3-38.
28. Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche (Pfullingen: Neske, 1961), vol. 2, p. 61. The
English translation by Frank A. Capuzzi in Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. 4:
Nihilism, ed. David Farrell Krell (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982), p. 28, has
been revised to more closely reflect the German original.
29. Richard Wisser, ed., Martin Heidegger im Gespriich (Munich: Karl Alber, 1970),
p.68.
30. Ibid., pp. 68-69.
31. "The key to this introduction of conscience is the concept of the transcendental
non-facticity of spontaneous order that causes us to set up the problem of human
liberation in terms of the survival of a structure that always is an expression of
negativity." Franz Hinkelammert, Ideolog£as del desarrollo y diaLectica de La historia
(Santiago: Universidad Cat6lica de Chile, 1970), p. 289.
32. Ibid., p. 288.
33. Ibid., p. 293.
 EDUARDO SABROVSKY J.

THINKING MACHINES AND THE CRISIS

OF MODERN REASON

INTRODUCTION
The advent of computers and "telematic" networks - paradigms of
the wave of modernization we are witnessing at the close of the century
- has renewed questions concerning the possibilities and risks associated
with technology. The basic question is whether these fin de siecle
technologies - as could be argued on the basis of the classical diagnosis
of critical theory - are mere elements in the infinite repertory of ruses
of a modern rationality that has now become merely instrumental or
whether, on the contrary, such a characterization has become too
narrow. In the second instance, it might be necessary to move toward
a wider concept of rationality, perhaps along lines suggested by
Habermas's "communicative rationality." In setting limits to the realm
of instrumental rationality, such a concept could facilitate both its
criticism and its containment and, moreover, enable the recognition of
certain non-instrumental aspects that may be present in the same
technological practices. Even more radically, we might come to
recognize a global overcoming of modern rationalism, paradoxically
emerging from the heart of its most overwhelming success,
contemporary high technology.
In its present state, will technology bring new energies to the
"unfinished project of modernity" (Habermas) or precipitate its
conclusion? And if the latter is the case, what is the meaning of this
closure? To the extent that reason provides the paradigm for the
relation between the animal rationale of modernity and the natural,
social, and psychic worlds, such questions transcend merely academic
discussion. They point toward the multiple signs of epochal change
presently accumulating in our culture, and indicated by various signifiers
- to cite just a few: postmodernism, postindustrial society, the society
of information or of knowledge - all of which propose to name this
elusive phenomenon.
This paper intends to re-open philosophical discussion of the danger
and saving power inherent in contemporary technology. Its originality,
if any, will consist in its capacity to bring together two commonly
separated traditions of thought: on the one side, critical theory, within
which the concept of instrumental rationality, as a paradoxical
39
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 39-60.
41 1993Kluwer Academic Publishers.
40 EDUARDOSABROVSKY
culmination of the Enlightenment, has been developed, and, on the
other, a tradition related to cognitivism and its critique, which in
presenting the problem of thinking machines (Le., research in artificial
intelligence) for philosophical discussion, provides a means for updating
the concept of instrumental rationality.
The theses we wish to propose are as follows:
1. Research programs into artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive
science, with their aim of reducing natural language and the practices
of everyday life to sets offormal rules, represent the culmination of the
hegemony of instrumental rationality over human reason - manifested
in concrete terms in the computer or universal machine. No stratum of
reason is exempt from falling, via its translation into programs for the
universal machine, into the vortex of instrumental reason.
2. If cognitivism and AI have perfected the conquest of reason by
instrumental rationality, how can a philosophical critique of AI still be
possible? Where might a ground for it be found that is uncontaminated
by the virus of instrumental rationality?! Confronted by this classical
question of critical theory, and following certain paths offered by
phenomenology, one can discern, at the very core of contemporary
technology, the possibility for non-instrumental, communicative
relations, whose unconcealment would coincide, in some way
necessarily, with the consummation of the hegemony of technology
under the guise of the universal machine. These forms, having their
roots in the Hlifeworld, Hare ontologically anterior to rationality and,
thus, in principle beyond the scope of critical rationalism and its
paradoxes; the ground they offerfor a critique of instrumental rationality
is no longer naked reason but a lifeworld reinvigorated by technology
itself.
More precisely, with supporting evidence from the fields of
management and computer science, we intend to discern, within the
technologies of communications and telematic networks, the emergence
of a communicative means to deal with complexity - communicative
coordination - distinct in principle from instrumental rationality, as well
as a certain possibility for the reintroduction of technology into the
sphere of the lifeworld.
INSTRUMENTAL RATIONALITY AND THE "LIFEWORLD"
The concept of instrumental reason was developed by thinkers of the
 THINKING MACHINES AND THE CRISIS OF REASON 41

Frankfurt School, following Max Weber's disenchanted diagnosis of

modernity. For these scholars, reason, by virtue of its immanent
dynamic, ends by being conquered from within by a subjective
rationality (its paradigmatic exponent being found in the technoscience
of the modern world), which, in a paradoxical way, undermines the very
basis of critical theory and reduces all praxis to the carrying out of
merely individual aims.
According to Habermas, whose reconstruction of the genesis of the
concept of instrumental reason we are, to a large extent, following here, 2
the historical pessimism in which the critical tradition of the Frankfurt
School culminated was nothing other than the result of structural
paradoxes, endemic to the Cartesian framework that governs philosophic
discourse within modernity, which arise as soon as any consideration of
historico-social praxis is undertaken. This Cartesian framework consists
in a certain "philosophy of consciousness," which gives ontological
priority to the subject and to its relations with the world, mediated by
mental representations. Within this philosophy there are two alternatives
which invariably appear from the outset of any consideration of praxis.
In the first, praxis is understood to be an alienation of the subject, which
gets lost in a natural and social world that remains ever foreign, and
with which the subject can only establish relations of a strategic-
instrumental character (means vs. ends). In the second, praxis is
interpreted, from a dialectic point of view, as a historical process whose
goal is the complete rationalization of culture and nature, the
reconciliation of the subject with the objective world until the advent of
the "ethical totality" envisioned by Hegel and secularized by Marx.
It is only in the second of these philosophical views - whose
historical exponents have been Hegel, Marx, Lukacs, and, most
recently, the thinkers of the Frankfurt School - that a place still
remains for a super instrumental and substantive concept of reason
capable, as Kant wanted, of taking on the superior interests of humanity.
Instead, with the supremacy of instrumental rationality - a supremacy
not only factual but, according to Weber, consubstantial with the
processes of differentiation and formation of the cultures of specialists
that characterize the modern world - an unbridgeable abyss opens
between the individual and the world, in such a way that any normative
content remains confined to the privacy of the ordinary life of
individuals, or rather, makes itself exclusively present in extraordinary
experiences. This is the case with Adorno's "mimesis," a form of
recognition of otherness beyond argumentative language and ordinary
experience. It is also the case with the "recollective thinking" of
Heidegger who, by another route, but nevertheless confronting the
42 EDUARDOSABROVSKY

questions posed by the philosophy of consciousness, arrived at similar

conclusions in his reflection on technology - that is, technology as
Gestell, as an "enframing" that presides over and exhausts the entire
field of relations of modern humanity with the world. 3
In Husserlian terminology, which Habermas has again employed in
his attempt to revise critical theory, the apparently uncontrollable rise
of instrumental rationality is driven by the ever increasing complexity
and differentiation of the contemporary "lifeworld. ,,4 Ordinary language,
as the symbolic correlate of the lifeworld, is too burdensome and too
risky a means for coordinating action in such a complex environment.
It is evident that consensuses reached through argument, beyond
constituting, as Habermas would have it, a telos inherent to language,
are in fact fragile, for they may, from moment to moment, be broken
by disagreement. For this reason, says Habermas, "at a certain level of
complexity ordinary language has to be disencumbered by the sorts of
special languages that Talcott Parsons studied in connection with the
example of money. ,,5 Around these languages, pulled from the
lifeworld, subsystems are established, such as the market and the
apparatus of state bureaucracy. These operate under the rule of a
functional rationality that is uniquely concerned with maintaining
systemic equilibria, with total disregard for normative considerations.
The dissolution of traditional worlds of experience, essential to the
rise of modernity, has brought with it a progressively greater
formalization of reason that continually breaks its ties with common
sense. These ties were still present in the pure forms of Kant, which,
as his notion of "pure intuition" suggests, elevate contents belonging to
the spatio-temporal world of common sense to a transcendental plane,
thereby forming the conceptual bridge required for a priori judgments
- a class sui generis of necessary and universal propositions, endowed
with substantive content. However, from the point of view of logical
positivism - a celebration of the triumph of instrumental reason built
on the formalism of contemporary science - the only remaining
structure of necessity is formal logic. Yet the tautologies and
contradictions oflogic are inherently without content, empty; empirically
unverifiable and unfalsifiable, they lack meaning. Propositions
endowed with meaning are, at the same time, purely contingent, and
reduce themselves to a logico-syntactic combination of simple elements:
atoms of a logico-transcendental nature. So, as Habermas says, here
language "shrinks and converts itself merely into a means through which
information is delivered. ,,6
 THINKING MACHINES AND THE CRISIS OF REASON 43

INSTRUMENTAL RATIONALITY
AND THE UNIVERSAL MACHINE

The propositions of formal languages are susceptible to being

generated algorithmically and, according to the well-known results of
Church and Turing, can thus be represented in programs for a universal
or "Turing machine. " In this way it is possible to discern, in the figure
of the universal machine, and in that of its empirical approximation, the
digital computer, the purified form of instrumental reason, the principle
around which the multiplicity of pre-computational technological and
scientific practices are unified. The unification of instrumental reason
under a single principle makes possible the eventual unification of all
technologies around digital electronic technology, which we are in fact
currently witnessing. At the same time, this provides the intellectual
foundation for a unified treatment of multiple domains (mind, society,
living organisms, business conglomerates and organizations, etc.) as
information systems - a treatment which actually characterizes the
approach of the cognitive sciences. 7
Thus, as we stated at the beginning, the contemporary debate
concerning the claims of artificial intelligence (AI) research may supply
the raw material necessary for a new discussion of the issue of
instrumental rationality. From the outset, let us establish that it is not
the properties of a certain superobject (the mind) that are at stake in this
debate, but instead the hegemonic claims of instrumental reason, and
the possibility of critiquing or overcoming them.
With the idea of a "universal machine" capable of emulating any
mechanism, the British mathematician Alan Turing formalized the
principles of instrumental reason and turned the linguistic reductionism
of the logical positivists into a specific program for technological
research. In a famous article published in 1950 in Mind, Turing wrote
In considering the functions of the mind or the brain we find certain operations which
we can explain in purely mechanical terms. This, we say, does not correspond to the
real mind: it is a sort of skin which we must strip off if we are to find the real mind.
But then in what remains we find a further skin to be stripped off, and so on.
Proceeding in this way do we ever come to the "real" mind, or do we eventually come
to the skin which has nothing in it?8

Obviously, Turing's answer to this question was affirmative. There

is no residue in the "real mind" which refuses to be reduced to "purely
mechanical terms." And even though this process of reduction might
experience difficulties due to the state of technology, or even if the
possibility should exist that it might never be accomplished in totality,
such remains the goal, the untouchable telos, that gives meaning to the
44 EDUARDOSABROVSKY
research program that rises from it.
The explicit formulation of a research program in AI dates to the
decade of the fifties. In 1958, two of its founders, Allen Newell and
Herbert Simon, announced that, "Intuition, insight, and learning are no
longer exclusive possessions of human beings: an~ large high-speed
computer can be programmed to exhibit them also." This was not the
first such claim nor the last. But in spite of such promises, which have
been periodically reformulated and eagerly taken up by the mass media,
the fact is that the entire AI research program has failed repeatedly to
fulfill its own expectations in the direction indicated by Turing. For
example, in two of the areas of greatest importance, cognitive simulation
and computer modelling of natural language, "expert systems" have been
developed as well as the possibility of using "dialects" of natural
language to interact with equipment within well defined limits. But to
date little has been achieved that can justify the assumed goal of
mechanically reproducing the behavior of the human intellect.
The disequilibrium between expectations and achievements in this area
has, in fact, given rise to an intense academic debate concerning the
entire AI research program. Clearly, the debate does not aim to
question the usefulness of the tools that have been developed through
such research but instead the discourse within which they have been
articulated. To undertake an examination of the present state of
philosophic discussion concerning these topics, we will use one of the
more recent publications in the field as our conceptual bridge. This is
a paper read by John Searle in March 1990 entitled "Is the Brain a
Digital Computer?"IO
JOHN SEARLE'S CRITIQUE OF COGNITIVISM
Searle returned to the theme of AI ten years after his famous
"Chinese room" argument. ll In that work, basing himself on a
distinction between syntax and semantics, Searle had refuted what he
now calls "AI in a strong sense," demonstrating that mental states cannot
be reduced to computer programs. But now he goes on to confront a
more basic question, what he terms the "cognitivist" thesis, which
supposes that the brain is or might be a Turing universal machine or
digital computer. 12
The argument Searle uses to refute this thesis, or more exactly to
expose its lack of meaning, as he himself claims, is based on a strong
distinction between syntax and causality or, more generally, between
syntactical and intrinsic relations among the elements of a system.
Syntactical relations as opposed to causal relations can only exist as
 THINKING MACHINES AND THE CRISIS OF REASON 45

interpretations dependent upon an observer. The omission of this

difference, or the cognitivist's intent to substitute causal for syntactical
explanations, would be equivalent, Searle says, to the surreptitious
introduction into the theory of a "homunculus" reminiscent of the
dwarves or little children hidden inside circus machines. "The really
deep problem," says Searle, referring to cognitivism, "is that syntax is
essentially an observer relative notion . . . not intrinsic to the system
at all. ,,13 Furthermore, he continues, "It follows that you could not
discover that the brain or anything else was intrinsically a digital
computer, although you could assign a computational interpretation to
it as you could to anything else. ,,14 He concludes by saying,
The brain, as far as its intrinsic operations are concerned, does no infonnation
processing. It is a specific biological organ and its specific neurobiological processes
cause specific fonns of intentionality. In the brain, intrinsically, there are
neurobiological processes and sometimes they cause consciousness. But that is the end
of the story.u

Is this, however, really the end? The radical distinction posited

between syntaxi and causality permits Searle to formulate a critique of
cognitivism while at the same time saving the causal theory of the mind
(only sketched here) to which he is partial. 16 For our part, we propose
to demonstrate that the distinction between causal and syntactical
relations is not so radical as Searle suggests, and that it is therefore
unable to do the work he assigns it. This lends plausibility to our own
hypothesis, in the sense that the cognitivist approach does constitute the
principle which unifies the whole field of modern science and technology
under the principle of instrumental rationality.
Let us first note that insofar as the subjectum, the Cartesian ego in
any of its manifestations, provides the metaphysical substratum for the
philosophical discourse of modernity, Searle's so-called "homunculus
fallacy" is not entirely confined to cognitivism. More specifically, at
least beginning with Kant, philosophy assumes that pure forms which
give coherence to experience (e.g., the paradigm of causality) point to
a subject, a certain transcendental homunculus whose presence is even
discernible in minimalist versions of transcendentalism such as
Strawson's. Given this, Searle's barrier between causality and syntaxi
becomes at least fuzzy.
But beyond this objection it also becomes clear that the attempt to
radicalize the distinction actually leads to a paradoxical conclusion. In
effect, if, as Searle maintains, nothing "is intrinsically a digital
computer," it follows that not even a digital computer can "intrinsically"
be a digital computer. That is, the type of syntactical representation of
the state of a computer which high level programming languages
46 EDUARDOSABROVSKY
provide, in contrast to its representation in terms of electronic physics,
would be extrinsic, and in some way deficient. This conclusion,
however, is rendered false by the actual development of computer
technology, which, in fact, has been made possible by the establishment
of a hierarchy of representational domains - from that of the physical
machine to high level languages - each covering different entities.
Only in the lowest levels (Le., the computational hardware) do the
entities in question possess a physical nature. In the upper levels there
are only objects and relations of a syntactic-formal character, of the kind
"move information A from B to C."
Moreover, the hierarchy among these representational domains is not
arbitrary. Paralleling the advance of instrumental rationality, this
hierarchy has its foundation in the progressive integration of technique
into macro-organizations, whose ruling principles are of a formal, or
systemic-abstract nature. Searle's methodological individualism -
evident in his causal theory of the mind 17 - is blind to this development,
and this same blindness prevents him from seeing that the machines
which figure in the debate concerning AI are not, in the final analysis,
hard but soft. They are not isolated computers, but rationally
administered organizations, that is to say, those vast social machines -
Max Weber's "living machine" 18 - in which modern societies find their
culmination. It is the hegemony of this machinery, its possibilities and
its limitations, which are at the heart of the question regarding thinking
machines.
Searle's attempt to oppose one of its singular moments to the entire
history of the development of instrumental rationality - the one
characterized by the supremacy of causal relations - is bound to fail.
Moreover, the difficulties and the paradoxes inherent in the attempt
actually make this history all the more evident. Through it, knowledge
and the capacity for action have become integrated into organizational
complexes, with their highest levels of command expressed in formal
languages. At the same time, causal knowledge is pushed to the
periphery. 19
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: A RADICAL CRITIQUE
If it is not possible to isolate cognitivism from the global system of
science, or if that distinction is not able to provide sufficient basis to
avoid the absorption without remainder of everything human into the
mechanical - in other words, if cognitivism is not merely an unnatural
growth of reason but its unforgiving mirror - then the critique of AI
must go further, to the very foundation of instrumental rationality
 THINKING MACHINES AND THE CRISIS OF REASON 47

considered as the culmination of modern rationalism. The American

philosopher Hubert Dreyfus, a key figure in the hermeneutic turn in
contemporary philosophy, has developed just such a radical posture.
For him, cognitivism and the AI research program in general do nothing
more than deepen the original gesture of the logos, characterized - in
the terminology of Ryle, which Dreyfus adopts - by the attempt to
translate the "knowing how" inherent in our everyday practices into
explicit knowledge, i.e., into a "knowing that. ,,20 In the final analysis,
what this leads to is the attempt to reduce natural language and praxis
to sets of formal rules, characteristic of AI.
In his critique of AI, Dreyfus has made use of certain theoretical
resources present in the thought of Heidegger or, more precisely, in his
particular reading of Being and TIme, which allow him to interpret
Heidegger's Being in terms of
the shared everyday skills, discriminations, and practices into which we are socialized
[and which] provide the conditions necessary for people to pick out objects, to
understand themselves as subjects, and generally, to make sense of the world and their
lives. . .. Heidegger calls this the nonexplicitable background ... "the understanding
of being" [or, simply, being].21

Here we may note the affinity between Dreyfus's "Being" and

Habermas's concept of the "lifeworld." For Habermas,
Communicative action takes place within a lifeworld that remains at the backs of
participants in communication. It is present to them only in the prereflective form of
taken-for-granted background assumptions and naively mastered skills. 22

Of course, the proposed affinity does not ignore the profound differences
that exist between Dreyfus's and Habermas's overall philosophical
objectives. Yet, beyond these, the connection that may be established
between their ideas - a topic whose full development is beyond the
scope of this paper - will permit us to interpret Dreyfus's objection to
AI in terms of the arguments of critical theory reconstructed by
Habermas, that is, as a radical critique of instrumental rationality which,
by being grounded in a lifeworld revived by technological development
itself, should be able to do without the rationalist presuppositions that
tend to encumber Habermas's thought. We will continue developing
these ideas in greater detail.
For Dreyfus/Heidegger, the separation between subject and object,
between positive data and value judgments, is only a secondary moment
of Dasein, our "being-in-the-world." First, we exist in a continuum of
actions indiscernibly embedded in our language. We do not relate
ourselves to the world as subjects who in any way confront it. The
world appears to us instead in a position of immediacy, which Heidegger
48 EDUARDOSABROVSKY
expresses using the image of Zuhandenheit ("availableness"), that evokes
the idea of manipulability. The subject-object opposition rises whenever
there is a breakdown in the flow of actions. At this moment, a distance
is established, expressed in the image of Vorhandenheit,
"occurrentness"; only then are there subject, object, representations,
decisions, etc. 23
The classic Heideggerian example is that of hammering. For one who
is hammering, it is as though the hammer does not have a separate
existence. It belongs to the background of things that are available
(Zuhandenheit), and only presents itself as a hammer when some break
in the continuum, or some distancing from the background occurs
(Vorhandenheit). Only when the hammer breaks, or when it is lost, or
it damages the wood (or if you need to hammer a nail and you cannot
find the hammer) - only then does its "hammerness" emerge. As
observers, we can speak about the hammer and reflect on its properties,
but for the committed user, who is involved without interruption in
hammering, the hammer does not exist as a separate entity.
The primacy of action, executed within the background conditions in
which we are always immersed, and which, accordingly, cannot be made
totally explicit, makes it impossible to translate human behavior and
language into formal rules. This by itself is enough to doom the goals
of AI. The obstacle here is clearly not supernatural, but arises from
our very natures as social and historical beings, situated within a horizon
of practices and traditions. 24
Now the ontological priority of Dasein with respect to the Cartesian
subject has a correspondence in an analogous relation of precedence
which Heidegger discerns between objects, that is, mere things, and
what he suggestively calls "equipment" (Zeug) , referring in this way to
the network of entities which we encounter in our concerned interactions
in the world. In Heidegger's own words: "We shall call those entities
which we encounter in concern 'equipment . . .'." And he adds: "[T]he
less we just stare at the hammer-thing, and the more we seize hold of
it and use it, the more primordial does our relationship to it become,
and the more unveiledly is it encountered as that which it is - as
equipment. ,,25 Further on in the same text Heidegger refers to the
equipmental nexus of things, for example, the nexus of things as they surround us here,
stands in view; but not for the contemplator, as though we were sitting here in order to
describe the things . . .. The view in which the equipmental nexus stands at fIrst,
completely unobtrusive and unthought, is the view and sight of practical circumspection,
of our practical everyday orientation.26
 THINKING MACHINES AND THE CRISIS OF REASON 49

TECHNOLOGY AND THE LIFEWORLD

Both the examples and the terminology used by Heidegger suggest
that techne would originally be an integral part of the lifeworld and,
even more so, that it would constitute its basic contexture. This
equipmental contexture would at the same time constitute the condition
of possibility for the ontological priority of being-in-the-world, above the
rational reconstructions which characterize logos: the Dasein as user of
equipment would be ontologically anterior to the Cartesian subject and
its cogitations.
Nevertheless, there is an objection to this thesis that places in question
the entire deconstruction of rationalism extracted by Dreyfus from
Heidegger, as well as the radical critique of AI which is its subproduct.
The processes of modernization are, in effect, characterized by a
displacement of traditional and pre-modern technai, by a supplantation
or subordination to rationally planned technological complexes. In this
way, these technai - ascribed, according to Heidegger, to the category
of poiesis and, through that, to the revelation of aletheia or truth -
come to have no more than a residual existence. Moreover, the
equipmental network which subsumes them and gives them sense tends
to be transformed into the avant-garde of the colonization perpetrated by
instrumental rationality into the lifeworld. 27
In this fashion, the processes of modernization could insert the
objectifying logos into the very heart of the lifeworld. With this the
ontological primacy of the Dasein over the Cartesian subject claimed by
Dreyfus/Heidegger could be taken over. Its claim would be nothing
more than an expression of nostalgia for a pre-modern, enchanted world,
whose residual presence might still be sensed at the level of domestic
techniques and practices (e.g., hammering, manipulating objects) which
constitute the paradigmatic examples exhibited in support of their
position. And in fact, when Dreyfus faces this objection - the
challenge of instrumental rationality, understood in terms of "mental
intentionality" as opposed to Dasein's "primordial intentionality,,28 - his
defense appeals, first explicitly, and then in a more circuitous way, to
a kind of regressive utopia.
There are two main arguments that Dreyfus raises against this
challenge. The first one appeals directly to the idea of "a simplified
culture ... an earthly paradise ... in which members' skills mesh with
the world so well that no one ever need do anything deliberately or
entertain explicit plans and goals. ,,29 The second one recognizes that,
In our world subjects often need to relate to objects by way of deliberate action
involving desires and goals, with their conditions of satisfaction. But ... all thematic
intentionality must take place on a background of transparent coping. In order even to
50 EDUARDOSABROVSKY
act deliberately we must orient ourselves in a familiar world. 30

This familiar world is organized in terms of Heideggerian "toward-

whichs" and "for-the-sake-of-whichs," "both non-intentionalistic terms, "
referring the first one to "the end points we use in making sense of a
flow of directed activity," and the second calling attention "to the way
activity makes long term sense. ,,31 Dreyfus explains: "[O]ne is
socialized into some of the for-the-sake-of-whichs available in one's
culture. ,,32 And he adds

for-the-sake-of-whichs need not be intentional at all. I pick my most basic life-

organizing interpretations by socialization, not by choosing them. 33

In this way, appealing finally to the traditions into which we are

socialized, Dreyfus manages to make room for teleological action, while
avoiding concessions to representational intentionality. Nevertheless, his
argument is insufficient, given that it neglects the principal issue, that
is, precisely the capacity of the processes of modernization to dissolve
such traditional nuclei of the "familiar world" to which his defense
appeals. In the end, his failure to take note of this demonstrates that
what is in question is not one or another form of intentionality - and
in this sense, Dreyfus's position may be biased, even if only in a
negative sense, by the question of intentionality - but instead the advent
and development of rationality as an historical event, and not as a mere
"traditional epistemological account" which the philosopher can replace
at will. Understood in this way, the response to the objection would
only be satisfactory if it were to appeal to immanent tendencies in this
same historical development. 34
Let us recapitulate. Dreyfus, basing himself on Heidegger, offers a
radical interpretation of the failures experienced by the AI research
program, establishing an internal and ontological limit to the possibilities
of a rational reconstruction of social practices and techniques.
Nevertheless, facing the challenge of teleological action - the nucleus
of instrumental rationality - he tries to find refuge in tradition. But
this refuge is inherently fragile, given that - at least according to
Weber's understanding of modernity, which Dreyfus does not confront
- instrumental rationality is characterized precisely by its capacity to
dissolve traditional enclaves of meaning. So the door is again left open
for the indefinite progress of instrumental rationality, even including the
dissolution within it of those techniques which are associated with the
lifeworld, as well as for the full realization of the AI research project.
How can we overcome this objection? Certainly not by appealing to
traditional practices, which are, as we have seen, always vulnerable to
the corrosive power of Weberian ratio. Rather, possibly, we must turn
 THINKING MACHINES AND THE CRISIS OF REASON 51

to emerging practices. In what follows we intend to sketch out an

interpretation of certain elements that come from the field of
management and computer science as indicators of a possible
overcoming of the hegemony of instrumental rationality, arising from the
very consummation of its dominion and of the emergence of a new
principle - postmodern, post-Weberian - for the management of
complexity: the communicative coordination of action. In the measure
that this coordination is based on natural language and intersubjective
recognition, we will be talking about a restitution of technology to the
lifeworld.
COMMUNICATIVE COORDINATION
VERSUS INSTRUMENTAL RATIONALITY
The clearest instance of this phenomenon that can be mentioned in
this context is the global crisis of bureaucracies. Not limited to the
political arena, the crisis extends to the economic sphere as well. Large
conglomerates, with their sophisticated tools for planning and rational
decision-making, appear to be losing ground to smaller organizations
capable of coping better with a turbulent environment and accelerating
technological change. The phenomenon tends to be interpreted as a
triumph of the market. But the substitution of one systemic mechanism
for another does not seem to warrant this idea, and invites us to
reconsider meta-systemic factors that might be finding expression
through the market, beyond the neo-liberal interpretation which has
become commonplace.
A recent book by Peter Drucker, the "founding father" of
contemporary management science, asks us to say "adios" to a large
number of received economic and political notions of modernity. 35 In
particular, on evidence coming as much from the economy itself as from
the mathematics of complexity, Drucker shows the non-viability of a
unified economic theory, and, more generally, of any attempt to predict
the behavior of complex systems based on mathematical models,
regardless of the power and sophistication of the conceptual or
computational tools that may be available.
In his interpretation of the limits which confront the development of
expert systems, Dreyfus has elaborated a theory of learning in which
rule-following is confined to the lower levels of the scale that leads to
professional expertise. 36 In contrast to the apprentice, who is guided by
them, experts act "a-rationally" in such a way that "when things are
proceeding normally, experts don't solve Nroblems and don't make
decisions, they do what normally works." And should difficulties
52 EDUARDOSABROVSKY
present themselves, they do not fall back to analytic rationality. Instead,
they enter into what Dreyfus calls "deliberation," characterized by its
holistic apprehension of complex situational configurations - as in the
case of the chess master assessing the chessboard in the middle of a
game - which is the result of lived experience and is impressed into
corporal memory. In this way, Dreyfus shows how modem professional
work itself involves a certain mobilization of resources that belong to
the lifeworld.
The limits of formal models in the management of complexity actually
deprive instrumental rationality of the engine which drives its expansion.
Either complexity continues to impose itself in an increasingly
uncontrollable manner, leading to chaos,38 or another principle for the
management of complexity will appear: communicative coordination.
Starting from the ideas of Dreyfus, Fernando Flores has proposed a new
communicational, linguistic paradigm for management sciences. 39 Flores
has examined the insufficiencies of the rationalist paradigm in
management science expressed in "decision theory" in which the core of
the manager's activity consists in rational selection, through the use of
mathematical algorithms, of optimum alternatives from among a group
of possibilities which in some way appear as given.
For Flores, decision theory suffers from a severe blindness to the real
activity of managers and of office work in general. "In actuality,
secretaries are much more important than any computer equipment in
ordinary usage," and it is there that "the black box of the art of
management makes its appearance. ,,40 However, from the Heideggerian
perspective of Flores, this black box loses its opacity. What managers
do during the greater part of their time is hold conversations. The
linguistic character of management is neither a defect, nor a minor
weakness, nor a waste of time which ought to be minimized in favor of
the aura of scientific seriousness that surrounds "decision-making." On
the contrary, the linguistic character of management is inherent or
"ontological" in Flores's Heideggerian lexicon.
The story of what has happened to the theory of inventories further
illustrates the displacement of formal models in favor of communicative
coordination. In effect, the optimization of inventories through the use
of sophisticated mathematical models represents one of the successes that
consolidated the rise of the then-incipient discipline of operations
research in the 1950s, up to and including its transformation into a
scientific paradigm for the theory and practice of management science.
Today, however, with "just-in-time" methods, the models for
optimization of inventories have become obsolete. Communicative
coordination with suppliers - a meta-instrumental principle - is
sufficient to maintain inventories at a minimum level.
 THINKING MACHINES AND THE CRISIS OF REASON 53

Recently Peter Keen, professor of management sciences at Harvard,

published a book which announced the advent of what he called "just-
in-time-everything, " thereby implicitly extending the validity of
communicative coordination to practically all areas of organizational
activity.41 Similarly, Management in the Nineties, a huge research
project carried out at MIT, recognizes the tendency - which the
technological platform of computer networks makes possible - for the
proliferation and increase in importance of the so-called "weak links,"
that is, the informal web of interactions within organizations.42 Such
weak links constitute the lifeworld of organizations. In this way - and
the phenomenon of horizontal task-oriented work groups replacing
organizational pyramids seems to point in a similar direction - the
telematic technological platform appears to strengthen organizational
lifeworlds, simultaneously giving them a central role in the execution
of organizational objectives. In other words, communicative
coordination, made possible by the technologies of information and
communication - i.e. telematic networks - may restore natural
language to its role in the coordination of action, and in this way
harbors a possibility for a reinsertion of technology into the lifeworld.
CONCLUSION: FROM A DANGER
TO A SAVING POWER IN TECHNOLOGY
We have seen that an affinity exists between "communicative
coordination, " whose emergence has been observed in the very
consummation of the hegemony of instrumental rationality, and
Habermas's "communicative rationality," made current in the latter's
efforts to revise critical theory. Such an affinity supports our hypothesis
of the existence of a certain democratic potential at the core of
contemporary technology.
Now Habermas's larger conception of communicative action, within
which this attempt is inscribed, has its foundation in the notion of the
"rational reconstruction" of communicative practices. Through these
reconstructions, claims to a universal validity that exceed the merely
cognitive dimension (which are carried, even if unconsciously, by
participants in communicative interaction) are made evident, as well as
the resulting tendency toward consensus formally contained in "speech
acts. ,,43
But the radical critique of AI which, following Dreyfus, has been
developed here, does not leave room for a distinction between
instrumental and communicative rationality - the latter endowed with
a substantial, normative content - such as Habermas wishes to
54 EDUARDOSABROVSKY
establish. For Dreyfus, in fact, the rational reconstruction of practices
constitutes the operation par excellence of instrumental reason. In this
way Habermas's heroic attempt to liberate logos from the stigma of
instrumentality, confining it to a single function of language, seems
doomed to failure, as the consequence of being itself founded in
instrumental rationality.
Of course, we have also seen the difficulties which burden Dreyfus's
position. In the face of the antinomy which seems to emerge here - the
nostalgic return to tradition vs. the obstinate affirmation of instrumental
modernity44 - our purpose, at least for the present, is limited to
showing how, even under the prism of that radical critique of modernity
which characterizes Heidegger's thought (as well as that of Dreyfus), the
moderate sort of techno-optimism we are proposing may still hold.
For Heidegger, indeed, an extratechnical logos, an "outside" of
technology that could serve as a basis for its critique and for its
humanization, does not exist. Technology, on the contrary, represents
the destiny of our age, providing modernity as such with its constitutive
and poetic discourse - the peculiar cone of light and shadow which
illuminates into presence the modern dominion of calculable and
available entities, while at the same time veiling its condition of
possibility, Being. The impotence that would affect critical rationalism
before technology does not, however, signify subjugation nor flight into
an uncontaminated world outside of history. 45 It calls instead for what
Heidegger named Geiassenheit, a "comportment toward technology
which expresses 'yes' and at the same time 'no'. ,,46 And, as we have
seen, to the degree that the roots of technology are in some way planted
in the lifeworld - in Heidegger's Being - the energies that the dialectic
discernment implied in Gelassenheit require could also originate from it.
A certain play between presencing and concealment is common to all
historical modes of the manifestation of Being; the forgetting of Being
that it implies - its regression into the background beyond the reach of
determining thought - enables the immersion into the ontic sphere
necessary for the accomplishment of everyday tasks. Nevertheless, the
forgetting that reigns in the era of the universal dominion of technology
is more radical. A forgetting of the second order takes hold of human
beings so that they become "functionaries of technology," forgetting
even this forgetting. This consummate forgetting, from another point
of view, results from a parallel consummation of metaphysics. In this
closure metaphysics does not fade into the void, but its primary
operation - "the project of assigning a single and definitive name to
Being"47 - collapses over the world of ordinary practices; it transmutes
itself in an enlightened furor, into the challenging (Herausjordern)
unconcealing that is technology, in the crystallization of Being under the
 THINKING MACHINES AND THE CRISIS OF REASON 55
label of "enframing" (Gestell). But with this, what does fade out is
metaphysics as an explicit discourse, and with it all vestige of the
concealment that metaphysics is.
It is because of this that, for Heidegger, "when destining reigns in the
mode of Enframing, it is the supreme danger." And he adds, "Thus
the challenging Enframing ... conceals revealing itself and with it that
wherein unconcealment, i.e. truth, comes to pass. ,,48 Moreover,
Enframing disguises even this, its disguising, just as the forgetting of something forgets
itself and is drawn away in the wake of forgetful oblivion. The coming-to-pass of
oblivion not only lets fall from remembrance into concealment; but that falling itself falls
simultaneously from remembrance into concealment, which itself also falls away in that
falling.·9

Nevertheless, "Where danger is, grows the saving power alSO." The
advent of salvation cannot but come from the very breast of technology,
from its essence, from Being itself in the final analysis. Thus what is
called for is a Kehre, a turning, lacking mediation.
We are well aware that what is offered here may be a highly
unorthodox reading of Heidegger's late thought on technology. But our
main concern must be not with developing "correct" interpretations
(which, in any case, are open to philosophical discussion), but to follow
the signs of a certain turning in the process of Weberian rationalization,
which may be opening the possibility for recovering the role of natural
language at the vortex of the social apparatus for the coordination of
action. Heidegger was a radical critic of modern technology (though he
was far from being a "pessimist"); thinking through some of his
categories seems a good argumentative strategy for establishing our own,
more positive version of Heidegger's turning.
How is this possible? In the first place, because nothing can be
accidental in the history of Being. In this the danger is nothing other
than Being itself, and the consummate forgetting still is, although in an
oblique and paradoxical way, a historical modality for the unconcealment
of Being .. More precisely, the turning is an event which must rise from
the consummation of the concealment which technology is. That
consummation could harbor in itself the possibility that concealment, as
concealment, comes to presence in the same way that a photographic
negative - Heidegger himself used the image in one of his courses -
permits, in the very lack of it, an intuition of the presence of light.so
Even more precisely, when
the danger is as the danger, then the trapping that is the way Being itself entraps its truth
with oblivion comes expressly to pass. When this entrapping-with-oblivion does come
expressly to pass, then oblivion as such turns in and abides. Thus rescued through this
abiding from falling away out of remembrance, it is no longer oblivion.'l
56 EDUARDOSABROVSKY
The consummation of metaphysics in the age of technology, in
modernity, is made manifest in the figure of the universal machine. 52
But in this way, it transforms itself into a public affair, capable of
transcending philosophic thought. The logos descends from its pedestal
and under the prosaic form of computer software, moves on to constitute
yet one more resource of the "standing reserve" (Bestand) , a resource
whose possibilities and limitations should then become visible.
Certainly, this descent can be read as a deepening of the imposition
of technology, and to be sure this is one of the possibilities it harbors.
Nevertheless, as we have established, instrumental rationality, which
appears to be the direct beneficiary of the global discrediting of reason,
is experiencing its own crisis. This would seem to indicate that the very
process of Weberian modernization, with all its ominous consequences
- the same that have been brought to light as much by the tradition of
critical theory as in the thought of Heidegger - may be reaching an
internal limit. Simultaneously, casting its shadow beyond the profile of
the universal machine, a revaluation of elements that belong to the
lifeworld is manifested - elements that are, consequently, associated,
beyond mere fixation to the ontic, with the primal truth of Being, i.e.,
with natural language, with the practices and traditions by which we are
socialized (organizational cultures), and with common sense as the non-
transparentable background, which at the same time enables the explicit
coordination of action.
Certainly, we do not intend to reduce Heidegger's Kehre or turning
to this phenomenon. But from the perspective of the emergence of the
saving power in technology, the rise of a postmodern, post-rational
principle for the management of complexity - of the human being as
"manager of technology" as opposed to the "functionary" Heidegger
knew - cannot, by any means, be considered with indifference. 53
Latin American Institute of Transnational Studies

NOTES
1. We might add at this point that our insistence throughout this paper on the
question concerning the basis of critical thought is not merely the result of an
overzealous academic rigor, but rather intends to discern those conditions which critique
requires to make itself effective (presuming that any remain) - in other words, to
question what forces might be present in the historico-social scene in which a
philosophical critique might find support, and make itself true in a substantive sense.
More precisely, with reference to Lewis Mumford's distinction in "Authoritarian and
Democratic Technics" (Technology and Culture, vol. 5, no. 1 [Winter 1964], pp. 1-
8), our research means to isolate certain energies of a democratic character,
paradoxically emerging from the kernel of contemporary authoritarian technology.
 THINKING MACHINES AND THE CRISIS OF REASON 57

2. See Jiirgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, trans. Thomas

McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), part I, pp. 339-399.
3. For a brief discussion of the use of "enframing" as the English translation of
Heidegger's Gestell, see the introduction in Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning
Technology and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977),
p. 19, n. 17.
4. For a discussion concerning the concept of the "lifeworld," see Habermas, Theory
of Communicative Action, part II, chapter 6.
5. Jiirgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans. Frederick
Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), p. 350. Similar ideas are expressed in
Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, part I, pp. 340-342.
6. Jiirgen Habermas, Pensamiento postmetajisico, trans. Manuel Jimenez Redondo
(Madrid: Taurus, 1989), p. 76.
7. See Francisco J. Varela, Connaftre: Les Sciences cognitives (Paris: Seuil, 1989).
Beyond presenting a synthesis of the current paradigm in the cognitive sciences, Varela
proposes an alternative point of view, in certain ways similar to the one discussed at the
end of this paper, which the author calls "enaction."
8. A. M. Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," Mind, vol. 59, whole
no. 236 (1950), p. 25.
9. Herbert A. Simon and Allen Newell, "Heuristic Problem Solving: The Next
Advance in Operations Research," Operations Research, vol. 6, no. 1 (January-
February, 1958), pp. 1-10.
10. "Is the Brain a Digital Computer?" Presidential Address delivered before the
Sixty-Fourth Annual Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical
Association, Los Angeles, California, March 30, 1990 (APA Proceedings, vol. 64, no.
3 [November 1990), pp. 21-37).
11. John Searle, "Minds, Brains, and Programs," Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol.
3, no. 3 (1980), pp. 417-424.
12. To distinguish this basic cognitivist position from "AI in a strong sense" Searle
says: "Granted that there is more to the mind than the syntactical operations of the
digital computer; nonetheless, it might be the case that mental states are at least
computational states and mental processes are computational processes operating over
the formal structure of these mental states. This, in fact, seems to me the position taken
by a fairly large number of people" (Searle, "Is the Brain a Digital Computer?," p. 22).
13. Ibid., p. 27.
14. Ibid., p. 35.
15. Ibid., p. 36.
16. For this, see John Searle, Minds, Brains, and Science (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1984), pp. 13-27. We observe in passing that the type of causation
Searle attributes to the brain is that in which a "superficial feature" (in this case,
consciousness) "is both caused by the behavior of micro-elements, and at the same time
is realized in the system that is made up of the micro-elements." Searle adds, "Those
are exactly the relationships that are exhibited by the relation of mind to brain." The
model for this type of causality, as it becomes manifest in the examples Searle cites, are
physical macroproperties such as the states of the aggregation of matter (liquidity,
solidity, etc.). However, it should be noted that in these cases it is possible to establish
with mathematical precision the relation that exists between the macroproperty in
question and any particular statistical property of the micro elements (e.g., the average
energy of molecules). For this reason, in the measure that Searle is not able to give us
something like the equation of the mind in terms of neurologic elements and processes,
his theory can be said to rest on mere analogy.
17. See previous note.
18. Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Berlin: 1919).
58 EDUARDOSABROVSKY
19. With regard to this displacement (i.e., the mutation of the relations of causality
into information reports within the natural sciences), we are reminded of a suggestive
passage in Heidegger: "Hence physics, in all its retreating from the representation
turned only toward objects that has alone been standard until recently, will never be
able to renounce this one thing: that nature reports itself in some way or other that is
identifiable through calculation and that it remains orderable as a system of information.
It seems as though causality were shrinking into a reporting - a reporting
challenging forth of standing-reserves (Bestand) that must be guaranteed either
simultaneously or in sequence" ("The Question Concerning Technology," in The
Question Concerning Technology, p. 23).
20. See Gilbert Ryle, The Concept ofMind (London: Hutchinson's Universal Library,
1949), chapter 2.
21. Hubert L. Dreyfus, Being in the World: A Commentary on Heidegger's "Being
and Time, " Division I (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), p. 4. The [mal addition
in brackets comes from an early, unpublished version (1986) of Dreyfus's commentary.
The fact that this version has been circulating for several years, and that it has not been
rejected in any way by its author, gives validity to our use of it, to emphasize or clarify
certain points. Dreyfus's reading of Heidegger is suggestive, not only for its potential
richness in terms of a critique of AI, but also because it sets out the theme of technology
at the very center of Heideggerian thought, further permitting us to see in the question
concerning technology a connecting thread between Being and Time and the later works
of Heidegger which explicitly deal with technology.
22. Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, part II, p. 335.
23. For Dreyfus's non-standard translation of Zuhandenheit and Vorhandenheit, see
Dreyfus, Being in the World, p. xi.
24. For an explicit application of these ideas to the critique of AI, see Hubert
Dreyfus, lWtat Computers Can't Do: A Critique ofArtificial Reason (New York: Harper
& Row, 1972; 2d edition, revised, 1979). See also Hubert Dreyfus and Stuart Dreyfus
with Tom Athanasiou, Mind over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise
in the Era of the Computer (New York: Free Press, 1986).
25. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson
(New York: Harper & Row, 1962 [1927]), p. 97 [68]; cited in Dreyfus, Being in the
World, p. 62.
26. Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert
Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), p. 163; cited in Dreyfus,
Being in the World, p. 66.
27. In his article "Between Techne and Technology: The Ambiguous Place of
Equipment in Being and Time" (Tulane Studies in Philosophy, vol. 32 [1984], pp. 23-
35), Dreyfus explores and radicalizes this idea. Starting from the type of relation with
nature implicit in the "equipmentality" of Being and Time (as a source of prime
materials and not as physis) and the type of global totality which equipmental contexture
supposes, Dreyfus concludes that equipmentality is merely an intermediate stage
somewhere between traditional techne and modern technology, and that therefore Being
and Time does nothing more than prepare for the consummation of technological
nihilism. In this manner, the distance between the Cartesian subject and Heidegger's
Dasein shortens, and there is little else but to conclude (despite the fact that Dreyfus
does not discuss this) that the ontology of Dasein no longer offers a basis from which
to criticize AI. This is not the place for us to comment further on such a twist in
Dreyfus's thought (which, in any case, is anterior to the publication of his commentary
on Being and Time as well as Mind over Machine - works which nevertheless still base
their critique of AI on this ontology). Let us say, however, that the distinction between
techne and modem technology in our context is constructed on the basis of the social
device for the coordination of action - ordinary language and traditional practices on
 THINKING MACHINES AND THE CRISIS OF REASON 59

the side of technai, systemic-instrumental rationality and formal languages on the side
of modem technology. In this way we may be able to associate the "equipmentality"
of Being and Time with pre-modem techniques, at the same time leaving open the
possibility of its reapparition in a post-modem technology to the extent that, as we shall
see later, communicative coordination of action replaces systemic-instrumental
rationality.
28. In the unpublished 1986 version of his commentary, Dreyfus puts the objection,
which he attributes to Searle, in this very straightforward way: "I do not tum the
doorknob unless I want to get into my office, or have some other desire or intention,
Searle would argue. This is a serious argument which, if successful, would make
primordial intentionality and mental intentionality equiprimordial, since each would
require the other. So the question must be faced: How can one organize one's day
without intentional states such as plans and goals?" (pp. 51-52).
29. Dreyfus, Being in the World, p. 85.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., pp. 94 and 95.
32. Ibid., p. 95.
33. Ibid., p. 96.
34. In Dreyfus's behalf let us add that he gives a third argument in defense of his
position. Indeed, facing the cognitivist, contemporary version of the philosophical claim
to reduce know-how to know-that, he points out the failure of AI to build expert systems
which can do as well as human experts. "Thus," he says, "the work on expert systems
supports Heidegger's claim that the facts and rules 'discovered' in the detached attitude
do not capture the skills manifest in circumspective coping" (Dreyfus, Being in the
World, p. 86). But of course, philosophical discourses are not validated on the ground
of empirical evidence, especially when they are used to provide, as in Dreyfus's case,
an interpretation of this same evidence. Dreyfus recognizes this. "All this," he adds,
"does not prove that mental states need not be involved in everyday activity, but it does
shift the burden of the proof to those who want to give priority to mental
representations, since they are now in the ... rather typical philosophical position of
claiming that in order for their theories to be true, our way of being must be totally
different from what it appears to be" (Dreyfus, Being in the World, pp. 86-87). But
these philosophers are not alone in this uncomfortable position. As our preceding
analysis of Dreyfus's two main arguments shows, a counterintuitive, utopian postulate
- the "earthly paradise" in which consciousness would be reduced to a "kind of disease"
(Dreyfus, Being in the World, chapter 4, n. 11) - also underlies his position. What this
shows is that, in the final analysis, both Dreyfus and his intentionalistic adversaries fail
to grasp the installation of modem instrumental rationality as a historical event, which
cannot be contested in the field of intentionality, whether "mental" or "primordial."
35. Peter Drucker, The New Realities in Government and Politics. in Economics and
Business. in Society and World View (New York: Harper & Row, 1989).
36. See "Five Steps from Novice to Expert," Dreyfus, Mind over Machine, pp. 16-
51.
37. Ibid., pp. 36 and 30-31.
38. This may be a basis for contemporary interest in chaos theory.
39. Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores, Understanding Computers and Cognition:
A New Foundationfor Design (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1986).
40. Fernando Flores and C. Bell, "A New Understanding of Managerial Work
Improves System Design," Computer Technology Review (Fall 1984), pp. 179-183.
41. Peter G. Keen, Shaping the Future: Business Design through Information
Technology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School, 1991).
42. Although at the present time the entire report has not appeared in print, a
summary of the results has been published by Ernst and Young, under the title The
60 EDUARDOSABROVSKY
Landmark MIT Study: Management in the Nineties.
43. For the role of rational reconstruction in Habermas's theory of communicative
action, see "What Is Universal Pragmatics," in Communication and the Evolution of
Society, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), pp. 1-68, especially
the section, "A Remark on the Procedure of Rational Reconstruction," in which
Habermas alludes to the same distinction of Ryle between "knowing how" and "knowing
that" utilized by Dreyfus.
44. We do not exclude, however, the possibility that Habermas's thought may offer
us a way, if not to solve this antinomy, at least to explore it in depth. We are referring,
for instance, to the Habermasian dialectics between lifeworld and systemic rationality
which fmds its expression in the concept of a "rationalized lifeworld." We are also
referring to the distinction between the world-opening function of language vis-a-vis its
intra-worldly functions, submitted to universal validity claims - the ontological gap
between meaning and validity - and to the mediation between these poles which seems
to characterize critical and philosophical discourse. In the fmal analysis, the specific
nature of modernity, from a Habermasian perspective, could consist in the possibility
of a practice of Enlightenment, of a Bildung which would progressively dissolve these
antinomies.
45. "The flight into tradition, out of a combination of humility and presumption, can
bring about nothing in itself other than self-deception and blindness in relation to the
historical moment" (Martin Heidegger, "The Age of the World Picture," in The Question
Concerning Technology, p. 136).
46. Martin Heidegger, Discourse on Thinking, trans. John M. Anderson and E. Hans
Freund (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 54.
47. M. Haar, "Le Tournant de la detresse ou: comment l'epoque de la technique peut-
elle fmir?," Cahier d Z'HernelHeidegger, ed. M. Haar (1983), p. 340.
48. Heidegger, "The Question Concerning Technology," pp. 26-27.
49. Heidegger, "The Turning," in The Question Concerning Technology, p. 46.
50. The image is that of Gestell as a photographic negative of Ereignis. For a
commentary on this concept, see J. Taminaux, "L'Essence vrai de la technologie,"
Cahier de l'HernelHeidegger, pp. 263-284.
51. Heidegger, "The Turning," p. 43.
52. See the famous interview of Heidegger in Der Spiegel, no. 23 (1976): "S: 'And
what now occupies the place of philosophy?' H: 'Cybernetics'."
53. This paper is part of the research project "Tecnologfa Telematica y Racionalidad
Comunicativa," fmanced by Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Cientffico y Tecnol6gico,
Santiago de Chile (Fondecyt, Project 91-115). A first version, in Spanish, was read
at the II Congreso Interamericano de Filosoffa y Tecnologia, Centro de Filosoffa e
Historia de la Ciencia y la Tecnologfa, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Mayagiiez. I am
very grateful to Claudia Rousseau, Ph.D., who put her best efforts into this translation.
 CARLOS VERDUGO S.

ETHICS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

That human knowledge is a double-edged sword is a very old idea.

In Plato's Republic we find Socrates formulating the question, "Is it not
true that he who knows how to guard against disease is also most able
to infect with it and escape detection?" (333e).· This is one of the first
expressions of the problem concerning the moral responsibility of people
who possess some kind of knowledge or expertise. Actually, the Greeks
not only revealed the close relationship between ethics and applied
knowledge, but they also tried to solve that problem by requiring that
students of medicine follow the Hippocratic Oath. 1
It is important to note that the discussion about moral responsibility
was primarily related at that time to what is called "applied knowledge"
(or technology) and not to "pure knowledge" (or science), the latter of
which was assumed to be concerned only about the search for truth.
Today we are facing a totally different situation. Scientific knowledge
has changed dramatically in character, and is growing so extensively and
rapidly that practically every new item of pure knowledge becomes
potentially applicable, so that no scientist or researcher can avoid the
moral responsibility of meditating on the possible consequences of
scientific investigation. At present, the computer and biological
revolutions, exemplified by developments in artificial intelligence and
molecular genetics and their potential applications, have led many
people, including some scientists and engineers, to talk about the need
to place limitations on certain areas of research and on the use of some
particular types of knowledge. More than ever before in human history
knowledge has become a tremendous power that can be used for the
benefit or detriment of human beings. In this sense, few people would
deny, in principle, that we need to establish some regulations on
scientific activities, including both pure and applied research. After all,
if knowledge is power, it cannot enjoy unlimited freedom. But
limitations and regulations must be based on ethical considerations.
NEUTRALITY OF SCIENCE, CULPABILITY OF TECHNOLOGY
There are, of course, many active and highly trained scientists as well
as some technocrats who reject the idea that the search for knowledge
61
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy o/Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 61-67.
4)1993 KJuwer Academic Publishers.
62 CARLOS VERDUGO

and its possible applications should be limited by ethical or normative

constraints. Their rejection is based on the idea that science rests upon
a strictly objective approach to the study, description, and interpretation
of the universe, including not only nature but human beings and human
societies. Because science is objective, they say, science is value-free
and should ignore any kind of value judgments. In other words, science
is neutral; only the use to which it is put can be good or evil. We have
to discriminate between physics itself and the effects of its use. Closely
connected to this view is the claim that science, as long as it limits itself
to the description of the laws of nature, has no moral or ethical quality.
The thesis that pure science or basic scientific research is value-free
or morally neutral has also been strongly defended by some
contemporary philosophers, most notable among them, Mario Bunge.
According to Bunge, the ultimate goal of basic or pure science is the
search for truth. Basic scientists only seek knowledge or truth for its
own sake.
The natural scientist wants to flOd new laws of nature, and the social scientist wishes to
describe and explain society. Basic scientists, in sum, wish to understand reality, not
to dominate: they are after knowledge, not power. 1

Bunge thus argues that, from the point of view of its goals, basic science
is innocent, does not raise moral problems, is immune to ethical
criticism. "[B]asic scientists have no opportunities for doing harm,
except through simulation, theft, or sloth - and even so the damage
they do is limited. ,,)
But, as Bunge points out, the situation of applied science and modern
technology is quite different. Applied scientists, since they seek truth
that has practical potential, have plenty of opportunities for mischief.
And because technology is a very powerful instrument for the
transformation of reality, it also can be put to good or evil use.
In sum, basic science is innocent, for it seeks only knowledge of what there is, was,
or may be. [But] applied science and technology can be either good or evil, according
to whether they promote life or . . . on the contrary, endanger it. 4

It is important to recognize that according to Bunge ethical

considerations are involved when something can be done for or against
the well being or life of human beings.
Any complete assessment of Bunge's claims would need to include
both empirical and logical considerations. With regard to empirical
considerations, for instance, the idea that by "simulation, theft, or sloth"
scientists can only do limited damage would need to be weighed against
the amount of social power and influence they have over the budget
 ETHICS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 63
allocations in many governments, and the ways they direct funds toward
large-scale research projects that might otherwise go, for instance, to
public health care.
With regard to logical distinctions, that between scientific or research
method and scientific or research techniques, which has been fashioned
by contemporary philosophers of science, is especially relevant. As
Ernest Nagel and Richard Rudner have pointed out, scientific method is
"a procedure of applying logical canons for testing claims to
knowledge. lIS Thus the methodology of a scientific discipline is a matter
of its logic or justification; "the method of a science is, indeed, the
rationale on which it bases its acceptance or rejection of hypotheses or
theories. ,,6 In contrast are "scientific techniques," meaning certain
procedures and instruments used in scientific research - for example,
the technique of measuring the length of light waves by means of a
spectroscope, the use of the telescope in astronomy, etc. Of course,
various scientific disciplines can employ different techniques of
investigation, and unlike the scientific method these scientific techniques
undergo constant change and development. Thus, as I will argue, the
acquisition of pure knowledge or truth might require certain procedures
or scientific techniques which, in fact, could endanger life or human
welfare. This means that basic science, even on Bunge's terms, is not
morally neutral or innocent after all.
But the aim of this paper is not just to analyze the thesis of the
neutrality of science. Its goal is, rather, to show, on the one hand, how
the view that there is a complete divorce between value or ethical
considerations and scientific knowledge can be used as a political
weapon in order to avoid criticism and, on the other hand, to show that
any political use of that alleged divorce is untenable and should be
rejected.
THE CHILEAN CASE
The idea that there is no relationship between value considerations and
science, especially ethical values, has been used in some Latin American
countries with non-democratic governments as a basis for rejecting
criticism made against certain policies adopted by these regimes. Thus
in Chile, for instance, the military government and some supporting
newspapers have in the past dismissed criticisms of economic policies
made by religious or political groups on the ground that these policies
are based on scientific knowledge belonging to the field of economics.
Therefore, the government claimed, ethical or value judgments are out
of place, and are irrelevant for judging which policies should be selected
in order to overcome certain problems.
64 CARLOS VERDUGO

Those arguing in this way assumed that questions such as "How can
inflation be controlled?" or "How can we improve the economic
condition of a country?" are strictly scientific or technological in
character. In order to answer them we need only to appeal to the
scientific knowledge provided by economics, or simply apply such
knowledge in the solution of these problems. In other words, unless
religious and political leaders are experts or trained in economics so that
their criticisms are made qua economists, their views should simply be
dismissed in the same way as scientists qua scientists have no expertise
or authority for criticizing religious beliefs about the moral value of
some religious practices.
I think that this approach is wrong and is based mainly on a basic
failure to appreciate certain important features of two different but
related kinds of questions:
(1) Questions concerning the truth or falsity, acceptance or rejection,
of some scientific hypotheses, including questions about what types of
scientific techniques or procedures are suitable for empirically testing
these hypotheses, and
(2) Questions about what types of procedures can be selected in order
to solve different certain kinds of practical problems, for instance,
economic ones.
In other words, there are two kinds of decisions here, each of which
could in different ways be claimed to be scientific. The first is actually
what might more properly be called scientific; the second is more
properly technological. But in order to state my arguments and
criticisms in a clear way it is useful to examine some very important
working distinctions.
THE POSITIVE-NORMATIVE DISTINCTION
One of the best-known distinctions made by contemporary
philosophers, specially those belonging to the analytical movement,
establishes that we have to separate statements describing how things
are, were, or will be, from statements about how things should be. On
the one side, we are told, there are descriptive statements which are
factual, which deal with what is, exists, or happens, which belong to the
so called "positive realm." On the other side are statements dealing
with what ought to be or indicating value preferences, which therefore
belong to a totally different realm, the "normative realm."
Following from this distinction is the claim that any disagreement
about the truth or falsity of descriptive or positive statements can be
settled, in principle, by empirical procedures such as observations,
 ETHICS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 65
experiments, etc. Disagreements concerning any type of normative
assertions, by contrast, cannot be solved by empirical evidence. The
following quotation from an introductory text on economics illustrates
clearly how widely used and accepted is the positive-normative
distinction:
The statement "It is impossible to break: up atoms" is a positive statement that can quite
defInitely be (and of course has been) refuted by empirical observations, while the
statement "Scientists ought not to break up atoms" is a normative statement that involves
ethical judgments. The questions "What government policies will reduce
unemployment?" and "What policies will prevent inflation?" are positive ones, while the
question "Ought we to be more concerned about unemployment than about inflation?"
is a normative one. ,,7

This quotation rests on the assumption that there are questions

belonging to two different realms; and, therefore, that it is necessary to
accept or to acknowledge that questions such as "How can we reduce
inflation?" can be answered without appealing to any kind of normative
or value considerations. Nevertheless, as I hope to show, value
judgments cannot be avoided when scientists have to make a decision
whether or not to use certain research techniques, as well as when they
have to choose one procedure among others equally effective to test
some given hypothesis. 8

ETHICS AND THE SEARCH FOR OR SELECTION OF

RESEARCH TECHNIQUES

Let us imagine that a physicist tries to answer the question, "Is it

possible to break up atoms?" According to the positive-normative
distinction, some people would claim that this question clearly belongs
to the positive realm because we are just trying to determine whether the
hypothesis "Atoms can be broken up" is true or false, and, obviously,
no value considerations are needed in order to answer this kind of
question. In addition, similar questions such as "What scientific
techniques or procedures can be used to test the hypothesis that atoms
are able to be broken up?" should also be included in the positive realm
because an empirical connection holds between physical conditions F and
result G.
For the sake of argument let us assume not only that our physicist
finds out that if some uranium atoms are hit by certain particles it is
physically possible to produce results that can be described as "atoms
breaking up," but also that there is a very high probability that this
experiment would cause a chain reaction which could lead to the deaths
of millions of human beings. Would we then be willing to accept the
66 CARLOS VERDUGO

claim that the scientific decision whether or not to use that scientific
technique in order to determine the truth of the hypothesis "Atoms can
be broken up" should be made solely on scientific considerations?
I think the answer has to be in the negative. In this case, the decision
whether or not to use a suitable experimental procedure would require
extra-scientific considerations such as ethical judgments about the rights
of other people to live. Clearly there are instances in which the pursuit
of pure science must be guided by ethical concerns.
It is also important to recognize that the example of nuclear
experimentation is not as extreme or exceptional as one might initially
think. The number of people who have been harmed by nuclear
experimentation is actually quite large. 9 Moreover, with the transition
from "little science" to "big science" all kinds of scientific experiments
have potentially large-scale effects. In the social sciences the need to
experiment on human subjects further emphasizes the point at issue.
And, finally, as already mentioned, one of the secondary effects of any
scientific experiment, especially large-scale experiments, is the diverting
of social resources from alternative investments.
THE ROLE OF ETHICS IN THE SELECTION
OF MEANS FOR SOLVING SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROBLEMS
In light of the above discussion let us examine again the quotation
found in the introductory book on economics. According to that
textbook, questions such as "What economic policies will reduce
inflation?" are positive questions, i.e., questions that can be answered
by people trained in economics independent of any value judgments. In
fact, however, economists claim that there are at least two scientific
answers to this question:
(a) Inflation can be reduced if the government reduces expenditures
(for example, by reducing government jobs).
(b) Inflation can be reduced by diminishing the buying power of the
population (for instance, by lowering salaries).
There is no question but that both answers belong to the positive
realm insofar as the truth of (a) and (b) depends solely on some
empirical facts concerning economic processes and certain relationships
among them. But it is also true that any decision about which of these
two equally effective and scientifically adequate answers should be
implemented cannot be based on scientific knowledge alone. This
follows from the view that science can give us only reliable information
about some phenomena and alternative courses of action and, also,
knowledge concerning the probable consequences of such alternatives.
 ETHICS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 67
But the responsibility of choosing one course instead of the other,
together with the consequences we want to accept, involves value
judgments - for example, socio-ethical ones - that science cannot
provide or justify.
In this case, we know that both answers (a) and (b) have different
social consequences. The first leads to unemployment, the second to
salary reductions. But then any citizen or religious group can criticize
the technological decision to solve the problem of inflation using one
scientific truth rather than the other. It is perfectly legitimate, for
instance, to criticize the decision to utilize the scientific truth that
reducing government jobs lowers inflation because of the consequences
that, for example, follow for the workers and their families.
We thus have to conclude that the decision to apply a policy based on
either of these two scientifically adequate answers to a so-called positive
question cannot be based exclusively on scientific or purely technological
considerations and, much less, be justified by appealing to some very
dubious scientific-technological obligation. 10
University of Valparaiso

NOTES
1. For a more extensive discussion on this point, see Karl Popper, "The Moral
Responsibility of the Scientist," Akten des XlV. Internationalen Kongresses jUr
Philosophie, vol. 6 (Vienna: Herder, 1971), pp. 489-496.
2. Mario Bunge, "Basic Science Is Innocent; Applied Science and Technology Can
Be Guilty," in Daniel O. Dahlstrom, ed., Nature and Scientific Method (Washington,
DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1991), p. 96.
3. Bunge, Ibid., p. 97.
4. Bunge, Ibid., p. 104.
5. Ernest Nagel, "Science and the Humanities," in Brand Blanshard, ed., Education
in the Age of Science (New York: Basic Books, 1960), p. 192. The emphasis is
Nagel's.
6. Richard Rudner, Philosophy of Social Science (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-
Hall, 1966), p. 5. The emphasis is Rudner's.
7. Richard G. Lipsey and Peter O. Steiner, Economics, 7th edition (New York:
Harper & Row, 1984), p. 19.
8. For one of the most important arguments in support of the claim that scientific
methodology implies value judgments, see Richard Rudner, "The Scientist qua Scientist
Makes Value Judgments," in B. Brody, ed., Readings in the Philosophy of Science
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970), pp. 540-546. I am very indebted to
Rudner's ideas about the relationship between value judgments and scientific practices.
9. See, e.g., Catherine Caufield, Multiple Exposures: Chronicles of the Radiation
Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
10. The author is grateful to Carl Mitcham for his invaluable and constant support,
and for suggestions that led to substantial improvements of this paper in both content and
English style.
 PART II

FROM COSTA RICA

 LUIS A. CAMACHO NARANJO

CONTRIBUTIONS TO
THE PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY
IN COSTA RICA

1. CONSTANTINO LAs CARIS AND THE ORIGINS

Most contemporary philosophical activity in Costa Rica, from an

institutional standpoint, bears the influence of the work of Constantino
Lascaris Comneno (1923-1979). Although it is difficult to pinpoint the
extent to which his ideas and activities laid down the foundations for
what is done in each specific field in Costa Rica today, it is obvious that
his tireless efforts gave the Costa Rican philosophical scene a scope and
depth that it did not have previously, in spite of earlier work by
philosophers of the caliber of Roberto Brenes Mesen (1874-1947) and
Moises Vincenzi (1895-1963).1
Constantino Lascaris was born in Spain, and earned his doctorate
from the University of Madrid in 1945. That same year he was
appointed associate professor of the history of philosophy at Madrid, a
post he held until 1955. During this period he was also an assistant in
the Spanish Council for Scientific Research.
He arrived in Costa Rica in 1957 at a time when the Universidad de
Costa Rica (UCR) was embarking on an ambitious plan to unify the
different schools and faculties, which had until then remained isolated
from one another. An important part of such a reform consisted in the
creation of the School of General Studies, for which several highly
qualified foreign teachers were hired. It was in association with this
effort that Lascaris arrived in Costa Rica that year.
Lascaris immediately threw himself into the intellectual life of Costa
Rica and over the next decade published a series of books that have
become foundational for philosophical discussion in Central America:
Teor(a de los estudios generales (1958), Concepto de filosofta y teor(a
de los metodos del pensamiento (1959), Fundamentos defilosofta (1961),
and Desarrollo de las ideas filos6ficas en Costa Rica (1964). The theme
of this last book was enlarged with the publication of Historia de las
ideas en Centroamerica (1970).
It was on the basis of this considerable achievement that he became
one of the founders of the Department of Philosophy at UCR, and its
director for several periods beginning in 1969. In 1957 he had been the
founder and first president of the Asociaci6n Costarricense de Filosoffa

71
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 71-80.
01993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
72 LUIS A. CAMACHO

(Costa Rican Philosophical Association). He also founded the Revista

de Filosofla de la Universidad de Costa Rica, today one of the oldest
philosophical journals in the whole of Latin America and the Spanish-
speaking world. Graduate studies in philosophy at UCR were also
initiated in the 1970s as a result of his efforts. In 1973 he established
the Instituto de Estudios Centroamericanos (Institute for Central
American Studies), and in 1975 the Instituto de Teorfa de la Tecnica
(Institute for the Philosophy of Technology) at the Universidad Nacional
(UNA) in Heredia, after creating several courses on this subject at UCR
since 1974. 2
The Instituto de Teorfa de la Tecnica began to publish in 1974 what
was probably the first journal in the world dedicated to the philosophy
oftechnology. Edited by Lascaris, seven issues of Prometeo: Cuadernos
de Teor(a de la Tecnica appeared between 1974 and 1978 and published
a wide variety of authors and articles on theoretical analyses of
technology. The first issue (December 1974) was devoted to the
Marconi (1874-1937) Centenary and included articles on the life and
work of the inventor of radio as well as some general reflections on
technology.
Issue number 2 (December 1975) is slightly more representative and
includes the following:
Ana Zulay Soto, "Tecnicas del jade precolombino costarricense" (pp.
5-19), on Costa Rican jade;
Lino Viccarioli, "Sobre las unidades de medida en Costa Rica" (pp. 20-
27), on measuring standards in Costa Rica;
Eduardo Saxe Fernandez, "Antecedentes y consecuencias de la ciencia
y la tecnica galileanas" (pp. 29-50), on Galileo's science and
technology;
Miguel Gutierrez S., "Tecnica, ideologfa y construcci6n econ6mica"
(pp. 53-59);
Rosibel Morera A., "Homo faber, homo ludens" (pp. 60-68);
a translation from Leucippus (pp. 71-88) by Lascaris;
Gunther Anders, "Tesis para la Era At6mica" (pp. 89-107), translated
by Eduardo Saxe Fernandez; and
a chronicle of activities of the Instituto de Teorfa de la Tecnica (110-
127).
Prometeo eventually became a collection of works published by UNA
but centered on education and not technology.
The fact that Lascaris was also the author of numerous and frequently
polemical short pieces published in such local newspapers as La Naci6n,
as well as a very popular TV commentator, made him a well-known
 PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY IN COSTA RICA 73

figure throughout the country. In this way he became one of those rare
individuals who are at the same time quoted in scholarly works and well
known and loved by the masses. Lc1scaris could not enter a restaurant
or other public facility anywhere in the country without being
immediately recognized and greeted with genuine affection.
As the author of many books, 3 Lc1scaris left in his writings and
recordings a concern for the subject of techniques and technology that
has blossomed and diversified in the country during the years after his
sudden and much lamented departure. At the Fifth Central American
Congress of Philosophy, held at UCR on May 3-8, 1989, for instance,
a roundtable was held devoted to Lc1scaris's thought, in commemoration
of the tenth anniversary of his death. The huge number of people who
attended the event was an indication of the continuing interest in
Lc1scaris's ideas. The diversification can be seen in the boom
experienced in his adopted country in several related disciplines such as
the history of techniques and technology, the ethics of technology, and
the philosophy of technology.
2. THE HERITAGE OF LASCARIS
Consideration of Lc1scaris's heritage may begin with institutions.
Today there exists in Costa Rica, in addition to the Costa Rican
Philosophical Association, the Asociaci6n Costarricense de Historia y
Filosoffa de la Ciencia y de la Tecnologfa (ACOHIFICI or Costa Rican
Association for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology).
It was founded in 1983, and is a member of the Sociedad
Latinoamericana de Historia de la Ciencia y de la Tecnologfa (SLHCT
or Latin American Society of History of Science and Technology), with
headquarters in Mexico City and many international connections. Four
Central American conferences on the history of science and technology
have been organized by ACOHIFICI (1985, 1987, 1989, and 1991), all
of them at UCR.4
At the same time, the Costa Rican Philosophical Association itself
organized the Fifth Central American Congress of Philosophy, held at
UCR in May 1989, where a large number of the papers dealt with the
philosophy of technology.
Neither is it accidental that it was in Costa Rica, in 1987, where the
International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) was founded, with
the participation of philosophers from the United States, Yugoslavia,
Costa Rica, and Scotland. The first IDEA international conference took
place in Costa Rica at UCR, also in 1987.
We should also mention that in Costa Rica a group of teachers and
74 LUIS A. CAMACHO

students work intensively in logic and epistemology, gathered around

what is called the UCR Logic Group. In light of all of this there is no
doubt that Costa Rica is, in the words of SUNY-Buffalo professor J. J.
Gracia, the center of philosophical activity in Central America. 5
Let us mention as well individuals and their works. It is through
individuals that concern for the philosophy and history of science and
technology moved from courses and seminars in the Department of
Philosophy at UCR to the Institute for the Study of Technology at UNA
and the Department of Social Studies at the Instituto Tecnol6gico de
Costa Rica (ITCR). The History of Technology course at UCR includes
an anthology published in 1976 with texts from Plutarch, Virgil, Ortega
y Gasset, Ralph Linton, John Steinbeck, Wilhelm Dilthey, Georges
Gusdorf, and Niels Bohr. 6 The previous year witnessed the founding of
the UNA Institute, with the help of several UCR professors: Rose Marie
Karpinski, Roberto Murillo, Lino Viccarioli, and Giulianna Viccarioli.
All have become important public figures. Lino Viccarioli was
already one of the founders of the Costa Rican Atomic Energy
Commission; his daughter, Giulianna, a physicist by profession,
subsequently came to be associated with research in genetic epistemology
in connection with Piaget's institute in Geneva. Rose Marie Karpinski,
elected congresswoman in 1986, was the President of the Legislative
Assembly in 1987, and Roberto Murillo became the President of the
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientCficas y Tecnol6gicas
(CONICIT or National Council for Scientific and Technological
Research) from 1987 to 1989.
At the UNA Institute, history of science and technology seminars
were offered to regular university students and to high school teachers
as part of a program of continuing education. These activities gave rise
later on to a career in the teaching of technology in high schools;
currently this program is oriented toward the training of computer
teachers.
ITCR also attracts interested individuals. For many years Guillermo
Coronado, who studied history of science at the University of Indiana,
has been the main promoter of this discipline and of the history of
technology in his courses both at UCR and ITCR. These themes have
been picked up by the Cartago Circle, one of the oldest study groups in
the country, which gathers once a week in the city of that name. Long
sessions of the circle have been devoted to discussing the ethical aspects
of technology.
In a country as small as Costa Rica one finds the same persons in
different places. We have seen another member and founder of the
Cartago Circle, Roberto Murillo, as professor both at UCR and UNA,
and as president of CONICIT.
 PIDLOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY IN COSTA RICA 75

By way of summary, one can distinguish the following three stages

in the development of the philosophy of technology in Costa Rica:
Remote antecedents (1957-1975): This period runs from the creation
of the Department of Philosophy (1957) and of the Revista de Filosofta
at UCR, as well as the Costa Rican Philosophical Association, until the
beginning of the history of technology courses and the creation of the
Institute at UNA in 1975.
Period ofprogressive specialization (1976-1983): During these years
important contributions are made to the development of the history of
technology in Costa Rica: CONICIT begins to operate in 1974, papers
on the subject begin to appear, and a Second Central American
Introductory Course on Scientific and Technological Policies and
Planning takes place in Costa Rica in 1976. This course, sponsored by
the Organization of American States and organized by the Argentinean
ECLA (Estudios sobre la Ciencia en Latinoamt!rica) Institute, is held at
UCR.
Period of disciplinary institutionalization (1983-present): The
Ministry for Science and Technology is founded in 1986; in 1987, the
National Science and Technology Program is promUlgated by the
government, and in the same year the National Science and Technology
System is created; in 1983 ACOHIFICI is founded, and IDEA in 1987.
Several conferences in these years are devoted to history and philosophy
of science and technology, and finally in 1988 all concerned institutions
and individuals engage in a national discussion on the occasion of the
drafting of a new program for the scientific and technological
development of the country.
3. RESULTS:
PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY IN COSTA RICA
We have mentioned institutions and persons. Let us turn now to
philosophical results by going back to the Second Central American
Introductory Course on Scientific and Technological Policies and
Planning (1976). The organizers of this course had the good idea of
inviting several people not directly connected with policy-making and
planning, but who were somehow interested in the topics, among them
some philosophers of science. The end result was a renewed interest in
the relation between science and technology, and of both with socio-
economic development. When we try to locate a recent historical event
76 LUIS A. CAMACHO

with which we may relate the national interest in the discussion of

philosophical aspects of science and technology, and the connection of
both with underdevelopment, many lines tend to converge on that
introductory course.
At the same time, Hugo Padilla's article, "Los objetos tecnol6gicos:
Su base gnoseoI6gica," had a great influence among philosophers in the
country and quickly became a necessary reference point in all papers
written on the subject.7 Padilla uses general systems theory to relate
basic science, applied science, technological theory, design,
technological action, technological objects and processes, "soft"
technology and the fulfillment of a desired function in a single scheme.
At a time and place where Ortega y Gasset's Meditaci6n de la tecnica
(1939) was quoted as the last word - and almost the only one - on the
subject, and where several of Heidegger's texts were used without
analysis, this short piece by a Mexican philosopher was a welcome
breath of fresh air, with its great conceptual clarity and wealth of
valuable theoretical suggestions. Any survey of Costa Rican
contributions to what we may call philosophy of technology in the broad
sense finds Padilla's paper quoted again and again. Even today, after
the publication of papers as useful for the clarification of this matter as
George Wise's "Science and Technology, ,,8 the simple scheme found in
Padilla's article continues to be used in courses and lectures.
One of the most important tasks of the philosophy of technology is
clarification of the basic concepts related to the reality with which it
deals. Such an analysis presupposes other tasks. In Costa Rica, the
discussion of basic concepts has moved in at least three directions:
toward analysis of the relation between technology and development,
toward the ethics of technology, and toward the historical relationship
between science and technology. The first has been a frequent topic in
my own writings. As to the second, it is the topic of many writings by
Edgar Roy Ramirez. (Relevant bibliographies for both authors are
provided at the end of this paper.) The third topic has been dealt with
by several of us, including Guillermo Coronado.
As to those periodicals in which the majority of papers have
appeared, four are the most important: VCR's Revista de Filosofia,
ITCR's Tecnolog(a en Marcha and Comunicaci6n, and the now defunct
Desarrollo, published for a while by ACOHIFICI. A special double
issue of Revista, issue nos. 63-64 (1988), contains abstracts of all the
articles published since the first issue in 1957.
 PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY IN COSTA RICA 77

4. APPLICATION:
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY IN COSTA RICA
With regard to the issue of technology and development, the drafting
in 1988 of a new program for the scientific and technological
development of Costa Rica offered an excellent opportunity to employ
all the concepts and ideas accumulated in previous discussions. In the
writing of such a program there was direct participation, requested by
congressman Javier Solis, of philosophers of science and technology.
A team supplied by VCR advised Solis, who introduced the proposed
bill and has kept alive a national debate on the subject. The introduction
of an alternative bill by the Ministry of Science and Technology in 1989
has broadened the debate, which came to a close when the Legislative
Assembly decided the matter in 1990 and approved a law which included
aspects of both drafts.
The program fostered by philosophers begins with a series of
definitions of such terms as science, technology, and development. Its
main idea is that socioeconomic development must be thought of in
connection with the improvement of the individuals who manage to
develop their own capabilities, for which science and technology are
necessary at least to the extent that they play an important role in the
satisfaction of basic needs - among which the need to know is to be
given paramount importance.
The idea that science is only an input in production is emphatically
rejected; even more dangerous is the belief, now fashionable because of
the pressure to repay foreign debt, that science is only a tool to improve
the quality of products that can be exported to international markets.
The notion that development is measured in terms of gross national
product is likewise rejected, as is the oft-repeated idea that development
in a country amounts to repetition of a process that has already taken
place in the economic structure of other countries.
Science and technology represent a complex system within which all
actors are to be held morally accountable. Autonomous technology is
rejected in theory (through an analysis of "technicism" or
"technocratism") and in practice, by way of intense participation in
debates leading to technological policies.
Finally, the relation between technology and cultures has become an
important topic of discussion. The homogenizing tendency of
technology must be counterbalanced by the diversifying forces of
culture, an idea to be found in most Costa Rican authors who write on
these matters. Both technology and culture must be ecologically
conscious, and a rich philosophy of technology will find its necessary
complement in an equally rich philosophy of ecology. Encouraging
78 LUIS A. CAMACHO

philosophical reflection on ecology is a task that remains to be

undertaken in Costa Rica.

University of Costa Rica

NOTES
1. See Constantino Uscaris, Historia de las ideas en Costa Rica (San Jose: Editorial
Costa Rica, 1975), pp. 276-282, for Brenes Mesen. A complete bibliography of
Mesen's works can be found in a dissertation by Maria Eugenia Dengo, En el
pensamiento de Roberto Brenes Mesen (Universidad de Costa Rica, 1959). See also
Uscaris, Historia, pp. 283-292, for Vincenzi's ideas and works.
2. The Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) and the Universidad Nacional (UNA) are
two of three state supported universities. UCR is the older (founded 1843, refounded
1940) and larger (28,000 students); it is also more oriented toward the center politically.
UNA is younger (founded 1973), smaller (12,000 students), and originally leftist-
oriented, although it has recently moved toward the center.
3. A large Uscaris bibliography can be found in Revista de Filosofia de la
Universidad de Costa Rica, issue nos. 49-50 (1981). It is not complete, though, and
must be used in conjunction with the third edition of Desarrollo de las ideas filos6ficas
en Costa Rica (San Jose: Editorial Studium, 1983).
4. The proceedings of the first congress were published in a special issue of the
Revista de Filosofia, issue no. 59. The proceedings of the second appeared as a volume
under the title, Historia de la ciencia y la tecnolog{a: Avance de una disciplina,
published by the Technological Institute of Costa Rica (1989). Another volume,
published also by the ITCR, will include the proceedings of the third congress.
5. J. J. Gracia, E. Rabossi, E. Villanueva, and M. Dascal, El analisisfilos6fico en
America Latina (Mexico: Fondo de Cultural Economica, 1985), p. 472.
6. Constantino Uscaris, ed., Textos para la historia de la tecnica (Ciudad
Universitaria Rodrigo Facio: Universidad de Costa Rica, 1976).
7. This article is included in Filosofta y ciencia en nuestros d{as (Mexico: Grijalbo,
1976).
8. George Wise, "Science and Technology," Osiris, 2d series, vol. 1 (1985), pp.
229-246.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Luis A. Camacho Naranjo (1978), "Mastering Science and Technology as a Life-or-
Death Problem for the Third World" (paper submitted to the XVI World Congress
of Philosophy, Dusseldorf, 1978). In Spanish: "EI dominio de la ciencia y la
tecnologia como problema de vida 0 muerte para el tercer mundo," Tecnolog{a en
Marcha (Instituto Tecnologico de Costa Rica), vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 191-194.
- - - (1980), "Tranferencia de tecnologia y desarrollo: Analisis de un espejismo,"
Comunicaci6n (Instituto Tecnologico de Costa Rica), vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 23-27.
- - - (1982), "El problema de la relacion entre ciencia, tecnologia y desarrollo desde
el punto de vista de los derechos humanos" (paper submitted to the X Interamerican
Congress of Philosophy, Tallahassee, 1981), Revista de Filosofta de la Universidad
de Costa Rica, vol. 20, issue no. 52, pp. 165-169.
 PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY IN COSTA RICA 79

- - - (1983a), "Desarrollo y cultura: Enfoques y desenfoques," Revista de Filosofia

de la Universidad de Costa Rica, vol. 22, issue nos. 55-56, pp. 31-38.
- - - (1983b), Conocimiento y poder (co-author) (San Jose: Editorial Nueva Decada).
pp. 124.
- - - (1984), "Algunas consideraciones fIlos6ficas sobre la relaci6n entre ciencia,
tecnologfa y desarrollo," Desarrollo (Asociaci6n Costarricense de Historia y Filosofia
de la Ciencia and the Asociaci6n Costarricense de Estudios en Ciencia, Technologfa,
Planificaci6n y Politica), issue no. 1 (November), pp. 8-9.
- - - (1985a), "Cuando se habla de ciencia, tecnologfa y desarrollo, ide que se esta
hablando?" Tecnologia en Marcha (Instituto Tecno16gico de Costa Rica), vol. 7, no.
4, pp. 3-6.
- - - (1985b), "Influencia de la tecnologfa en los valores," in Edgar Roy Ramirez,
ed., Ciencia, responsabi/idad y valores (Cartago: Editorial Tecno16gica de Costa
Rica), pp. 55-78. In English: "Technology and Values," in Olinto Pegoraro and
George McLean, eds., The Social Context and Values (Washington: Council for
Research in Values and Philosophy and the University Press of America, 1988), pp.
125-139.
- - - (1986a), "Desarrollo y tecnologfa," in Cicio de Conferencias sobre Ciencia y
Tecnologfa (San Jose: CONICIT), segunda parte, pp. 1-7.
- - - (1987), "Compulsive Technology: Algunas dudas sobre la revoluci6n de la
computaci6n y la asf llamada 'inteligencia artificial'," Desarrollo, issue no. 5
(August), pp. 87-93.
- - - (1988a), "iEn que sentido puede ser 'adecuada' una politica cientlfico-
tecno16gica?" in JII Congreso Latinoamericano sobre PoUticas Cienc(ficas y
Tecno16gicas (San Jose: CONICIT), part one, pp. 1-12.
- - - (1988b), "Etica y ciencia," in Aqua Vitae (San Jose: SNAA), pp. 1-16.
- - - (1989), "Modelos y metaforas en la explicaci6n de la relaci6n entre ciencia y
tecnologia," in Angel Ruiz, ed., Historia de la ciencia y la tecnolog(a (Cartago:
Editorial Tecnol6gica de Costa Rica), pp. 15-22.
- - - (1990), "Ciencia, tecnologia y desarrollo: Algunos modelos de relaci6n," in
Carl Mitcham and Margarita Pena, eds., EI nuevo mundo de la filosofia y la
tecnologia (University Park, PA: STS Press), pp. 90-96.
- - - (1991a), "Some Comments on Peter Penz's 'The Priority of Basic Needs'," in
Kenneth Aman, ed., Ethical Principlesfor Development: Needs, Capacities or Rights,
Proceedings of the International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) Montclair
Conference (Upper Montclair, NJ: Institute for Critical Thinking, Montclair State,
1991), pp. 74-79.
- - - (1991b), "l,De d6nde viene y ad6nde va la fllosoffa de la tecnologia?" Revista
Latinoamericana de Filosofia, vol. 17, no. 1 (Fall 1991), pp. 55-67.
- - - (1992), "Professional Regulations and Technological Innovations in Costa
Rica," Perspectives on the Professions (Illinois Institute of Technology), vol. II, no.
1 (August), pp. 9-10.
- - - (forthcoming), Ciencia y tecnologia en el subdesarrollo (Cartago: Editorial
Tecnol6gica de Costa Rica). pp. 213.
Edgar Roy Ramirez Briceno (1983), with Mario Alfaro, eds., Etica, ciencia y tecnologia
(Cartago: Editorial Tecnol6gica de Costa Rica). pp. 137.
- - - , ed. (1985), Ciencia, responsabi/idady valores (Cartago: Editorial Tecnol6gica
de Costa Rica). pp. 92.
- - - (1987), La responsabilidad itica en ciencia y tecnolog(a (Cartago: Editorial
Tecnol6gica de Costa Rica). pp. 102.
- - - (1988), "Etica y tecnologfa," Comunicaci6n (Instituto Tecno16gico de Costa
Rica), vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 47-49.
- - - (1990), "EI 'argumento' tecnol6gico, la tecnologia perniciosa y la etica," in
80 LUIS A. CAMACHO

Carl Mitcham and Margarita Peiia, eds., El nuevo mundo de fa fiwsofta y fa

tecnowg(a (University Park, PA: STS Press), pp. 205-212.
- - (1991), "Some Third World Comments on First World Development Theory,"
in Kenneth Aman, ed., Ethical Principles for Devewpment: Needs, Capacities or
Rights, Proceedings of the International Development Ethics Association (IDEA)
Montclair Conference (Upper Montclair, NJ: Institute for Critical Thinking,
Montclair State, 1991), pp. 225-227.
- - - (1991), "Necesitamos una etica tecnol6gica transcultural," Revista de fa
COPPPAL [Comite de Partidos Politicos Permanentes de America Latina], vol. 1,
no. 5 (September-October), pp. 17-26.
- - - (1992), "Profession, Costa Rica, and the World Beyond," Perspectives on the
Professions (Illinois Institute of Technology), vol. II, no. 1 (August), pp. 8-9.
 LUIS A. CAMACHO NARANJO

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND DEVELOPMENT:

SOME MODELS OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP

INTRODUCTION: ORIGINS OF THE DISCUSSION

A clarification of the concept of development, and of its relation to
technology, is of more than purely academic interest. Technology is
conceived as the necessary step from underdevelopment to development, 1
as the indicator of the general situation of a country, or as the necessary
condition for human life as such. According to Robert Solow, in a 1956
paper for which he was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize in Economics,
the rate of technolorical progress determines the growth of an
industrialized country.
Consequently, given the importance that the study of technology has
acquired, it is not surprising that since 1976 technology has entered the
philosophical scene as a topic for discussion in the congresses devoted
to philosophy of science, 3 and that in general the present trend is toward
establishing models of the relation between science, technology, and
development. Several factors have influenced this trend. One is a
tendency to consider science as an input of production - at least since
the 1960s as a consequence, among other things, of United Nations
policies. 4 Another is the shift toward social history in studies of history
of science,s as well as the ongoing move in the philosophy of science
toward an ever widenin~ consideration of the factors that influence the
development of science.
In the analysis of the science-technology-development relation one
finds, of course, a practical problem of great importance to
underdeveloped countries - that of the public financing of research. If
we want to promote the type of scientific-technological activity which
goes hand in hand with the type of country we consider developed, and
if for this aim public institutions are created in the style of the national
councils for research which began to operate in Latin American in the
early 1970s, basic questions arise. Toward which enterprise should
public financing be directed? Toward basic science, toward applied
science, toward technology, or (an alternative seldom taken into
consideration) toward traditional native techniques?
81
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish SpeaJdng Countries, 81-87.
°1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
82 LUIS A. CAMACHO

THE ASSEMBLY-LINE MODEL

AND THE SCIENCE-TECHNOLOGY RELATIONSHIP
In the 1960s it was held that socio-economic development was a linear
consequence of the application of technology, and that technology was
but applied science. It was then believed that if a certain percentage of
the gross national product was devoted to scientific research then
technological progress would automatically follow and with it socio-
economic development. Even today it is easy to find examples of this
way of thinking, and official documents of countries like Costa Rica
often justify the public investment in scientific investigation on the
grounds that this ultimately supports technological development. 7
George Wise has labeled this way of thinking the "assembly line
model," and quotes the historian of science John Beer as the first person
to systematize this approach in order to criticize it.8
The assembly line model includes the following beliefs: that
technology is only applied science, that the rate of conversion of science
and technology is in direct proportion to the money spent, and that -
since we know how to install the factories for scientific-technological
invention - the interval between discovery and invention is quickly
diminishing. Another element which completes this viewpoint - one
not mentioned by either Beer or Wise - is the idea that at last we have
discovered what the essence of scientific method is, so that the whole
problem of production of knowledge is reduced to the mastery and
application of the method of science.
This model is very attractive because of its simplicity, and because of
the fact that all elements often seem to be at hand. There is money for
scientific research, for the application of science to the solution of
practical problems, for the move from invention to innovation by way
of application of products and processes to the productive apparatus, to
increase the gross national product and the betterment of the per capita
income of individuals. The problem is that the model is not only
simple, but also simplistic.
If the assembly line model were correct, development would be quite
easy. It would consist, above all, in increasing the percentage of GNP
devoted to scientific research, and in creating, after that, the mechanisms
for the transfer of the products of applied science to the productive
apparatus of the country. In practice things do not work this way.
Money invested in research may be lost, for example, because the
results of research may turn out to be inapplicable, or because a
researcher (enticed by higher salaries) decides to join the brain drain, or
for a lack of mechanisms to apply the results of research to the
productive apparatus, even though applied science may be successful in
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND DEVELOPMENT 83

creating practical objects and processes.

But even when the famous "ceteris paribus" clause is invoked there
remain missing factors. These are, above all, of a historical character.
The first has to do with the diadic relation science-technology. There
is no historical ground for thinking that technology is only applied
science, nor even to believe that there is a "normal" entrance to
technology in applied science; such an entrance would look pretty
abnormal from a historical point of view. Nor is it possible to establish
a one-to-one relation between each technological invention and some
scientific idea - either previous, simultaneous, or posterior to the
invention. 9
That technology is not applied science is easy to see in history.
There is no previous science of which Watt's steam engine can be said
to be an application. Other examples abound and point to the fact that
many technological inventions - even those so important that they are
able to give a name to an epoch - were not preceded by corresponding
science. Parenthetically, one might argue that, although there is no
preceding science, there certainly is one after the invention, so that at
any rate some kind of relation between science and technology can be
sustained. This is true in many cases, and in the case of the steam
engine an after-the-invention relation can certainly be identified. But
of course this is not what the theory of technology as applied science
defends.
In the science-technology relation technology does not base itself on
an established science which might be found in scientific institutions or
pursued by its practitioners. There seems to exist, on the contrary, a
double institutionality: science with its institutions, and technology with
its. When practitioners of technology look for a theoretical grounding
for their activity, often they look for it in engineering, but the relations
between the two lines of intellectual activity and corresponding
institutions are more complex than they first appear, even to the point
that a duplication of activities and institutions seems often to be the case.
At the same time, one cannot avoid the issue by simply denying the
existence of any relation between science and technology. The
complexity shown by history may be due, on the one hand, to the fact
that science and technology coexist in tension and, on the other, because
both are related to other factors of an economic, political, and
ideological nature.
In the case of underdeveloped countries the existence of some kind of
science-technology relation could be investigated in more than one area.
A very important possibility, one little taken into consideration by
scientific-technological development planners, is that of native crafts and
techniques. A familiarity with such techniques, which are sometimes
84 LUIS A. CAMACHO

highly sophisticated, can be very helpful for solving complex problems

of production. At any rate, once a solution to such a practical problem
is achieved, this know-how should become available at any time in the
future. As Papa Blanco says, obsolescence is not a technological
necessity but an economic reality. 10
THE ASSEMBLY-LINE MODEL AND THE
SCIENCE-TECHNOLOGY-DEVELOPMENT RELATIONSHIP
If the science-technology diadic relation is difficult to analyze, the
matter becomes even more complicated when we move on to the triad
science-technology-development. The idea that there is a linear relation
may be due to the historical fact that modem science, technology as we
know it today, and the socio-economic phenomenon of industrialization
have taken place in the same geographical locales. Doubtless the three
elements are somehow related to each other - as well as to other
economic, political, and ideological factors. It is thus easy to proceed
to a simplification according to which the industrialized countries today
are the developed countries and this development is only the third stage
in a succession that begins with science and continues on through
technology.
The reduction of science to an input in production makes easier the
identification of applied science with technology, since we can
understand by technology the knowledge that makes possible the
fabrication, use, and maintenance of objects and apparatuses. But this
ignores a very important aspect of science, that is, the knowledge of
nature and of society devoid of any possible application. It is this
theoretical knowledge which makes possible a panoramic vision that the
mere fabrication and use of objects cannot achieve. Such theoretical
knowledge, especially in the social sciences, is particularly important in
underdeveloped countries, but there it is too easily cast aside in favor of
short-term returns on research projects. Sometimes the role of science
is conceived in an even more narrow way, almost as some kind of
quality control and improvement of export products. Then scientific
research is seen as the means to improve a country's competitive
position in international markets, so that hard currency thus obtained can
be used to repay foreign debt.
In any case, it seems more promising to begin reflection on this
triadic relation with an analysis of the notion of development. For the
sake of simplicity, let us begin by seeing the situation from the
perspective of individual countries. First of all, it is obvious that
science, and even technology, are not sufficient conditions for
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND DEVELOPMENT 85

development. Advanced science and technology can be had without

having development. Let us suppose that science policies of a country
seek an improvement in teaching and research in astronomy, and that the
country is geared toward the production of telescopes and other
equipment needed for such a purpose. Suppose further that most people
in such a country enjoy astronomy, and that great progress is made in
astronomical theory and observations. We may even suppose that the
best equipment of this kind is made there. We would then say that the
country has a lot of science and technology, but we would not say that
it is a developed country ipso facto. There is no contradiction in
imagining that the country lacks drinkable water, good roads, good
nutrition, and so on.
By contrast, if we conceive of development as synonymous with high
gross national product, then it is clear that science in a particular
country is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition to achieve it.
The country, for example, could find great quantities of a highly priced
commodity which could become the source of huge amounts of cash.
With it the government might purchase science and technology, and
could even begin to plan a diversified economy by the application of the
newly acquired science and technology. But the fact remains that within
such a country it is not necessary to create scientific-technological
institutions in order to get what is usually called development. One
could argue, of course, that at a historical and global level science and
technology have been necessary conditions for development conceived
as a determinate level of gross national product. But the planning of
science and technology today is done on a country by country basis and,
at least in some less developed countries, a situation like the one
previously described might well obtain.
TOWARD A NEW CONCEPT OF DEVELOPMENT
The preceding considerations point toward the need for a more
adequate conception of development. In several articles Jerome Segal,
a scholar at the Center for Philosophy and Public Policy of the
University of Maryland, has posed with great clarity the paradox arising
from the fact that everybody talks about development but nobody seems
to know what it is. ll An identification between development and gross
national product could lead us to the not very comforting idea that a
country could be developed even though the basic needs of the majority
of the population were not met - even though most of the population
lived in ignorance, or even though the increase in the gross national
product might be due to drug trafficking.
86 LUIS A. CAMACHO

If our insistence is on the satisfaction of basic needs, then we must

include among these the need to know, which gives rise to theoretical
science. Also, popular participation in decision-making processes seems
to be a basic need; otherwise we would have happy slaves but not free
agents. It is obvious that the satisfaction of basic needs, with the need
to know and popular participation among them, can be obtained without
very sophisticated technology.
It is obvious that the majority of underdeveloped countries, with their
present growth rate, will never attain the level of gross national product
of the wealthiest countries today. If we take into account how the mass
media have promoted the lifestyle of the rich allover the planet, and
that such a lifestyle has become the aspiration of the masses everywhere,
one could reasonably conclude that for the vast majority of human
beings living at this moment the kind of material existence we associate
with the term "development" is only a failed aspiration, a frustrated
desire.
Hence we must pose anew the relation between science, technology,
and development as a function of the kind of development we aim to
achieve. If it is a matter of merely increasing the gross national product
no matter what, without paying attention to the consequences of the
measures undertaken, then the role of science will be reduced to that of
a mere subordinate element of production. This will deprive us of the
possibility of understanding natural and social reality, which has hitherto
been the most typical function of science. It is also possible that such
an approach will deprive us of the possibility of understanding the
phenomenon known as underdevelopment, and in this way our ability to
solve the serious problems associated with this phenomenon will be
impaired.
A more mature conception of development leads to the qualitative
aspects of the life of the individual within society. Instead of defending
limitless growth, the emphasis should rest on the attainment of goals
defined as the actualization of potentialities of individuals, different
potentialities according to different people, but all of them contributing
to the greater wealth of society in harmony with nature. In this sense
an increase in the gross national product achieved by the irreversible
destruction of nature, or of individuals as persons, should not be
considered development.
Paraphrasing the title of an article by the Costa Rican philosopher
Roberto Murillo, we may summarize everything said so far by saying
that what is needed is a more developed notion of development. 12
University of Costa Rica
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND DEVELOPMENT 87

NOTES
1. See, e.g., Wassily Leontieff, "The Structure of Development," Scientific
American, vol. 209, no. 3 (September 1963), pp. 148-154 and 159-166.
2. Robert Solow, "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," Quarterly
Journal of Economics, vol. 70 (1956), pp. 65-94.
3. In that year's congress of the Philosophy of Science Association there was for
the fIrst time a session devoted to philosophy of technology, with contributions from
Paul T. Durbin, Mario Bunge, Edwin T. Layton, Jr., Max Black, and Ronald N. Giere.
See volume 2 of Frederick Suppe and Peter D. Asquith, eds., PSA 1976 (East Lansing,
Michigan: Philosophy of Science Association, 1977).
4. A good exposition of this way of thinking may be found in Developpement par
la science, published by UNESCO in Paris in 1969. I have used the Spanish version
Desarrollo por la ciencia (Madrid: Ministerio de Educaci6n y Ciencia, 1970). The
preface and the introduction, by Jacques Spaey, are specially revealing.
5. Thomas S. Kuhn, in the inaugural presentation at the XVII International Congress
of History of Science, held at Berkeley in 1985, gave a detailed account of how history
of science has moved from a consideration of the internal aspects of classical science to
a study of institutional and social aspects. He took as evidence the topics of the papers
submitted to the most recent history of science congresses.
6. See, for instance, the work of Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); Norwood Russell Hanson,
Patterns of Discovery (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1965); and
Paul K. Feyerabend, Against Method (Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science,
vol. 4, 1970).
7. See, for example, the introduction to the Costa Rican National Program of Science
and Technology 1986-1999 (San Jose: LitografIa e Imprenta Lil, 1987).
8. George Wise, "Science and Technology," Osiris, 2d series, vol. 1 (1985), pp.
229-246.
9. Wise (p. 232) mentions the results of research undertaken by three economists,
John Jewkes, David Sawers, and Richard Stillerman, published under the title, The
Sources of 1nvention (London: Macmillan, 1963), where 61 important inventions are
identifIed in which no connection with basic science is to be found.
10. Francisco Papa Blanco, Tecnolog(a y desarrollo (Costa Rica: Editorial
Tecnol6gica, 1979), p. 17.
11. Jerome Segal, "Income and Development," Report from the Center for Philosophy
and Public Policy (University of Maryland), vol. 5, no. 4 (Fall 1985), pp. 9-12. See
also Segal's IDlat1s Development?, Working Paper DN-1 (College Park, MD: Center
for Philosophy and Public Policy, University of Maryland, 1986).
12. Roberto Murillo, "Hacia una noci6n desarrollada de desarrollo," Revista de
Filosojia de la Universidad de Costa Rica, vol. 12, issue no. 35 (1974), pp. 164-169.
 EDGAR ROY RAMfREZ BRICENO

ETHICS, PERNICIOUS TECHNOLOGY,

AND THE "TECHNOLOGICAL ARGUMENT"

Thanks to our discontent with the way certain things work or with the
way certain human beings including ourselves behave, we try to do
something to modify these workings and human behavior. It is
possible to maintain that there can be no justification for such efforts
either because we judge that things are just and precisely the way
they ought to be or because we treat what we suffer, like the pain of
lost love, as caused by something that in the end would fail to satisfy
us anyway. But if either situation occurs, it surely will not be
because our judgment is i"eproachable, but because it has been
damaged and the exercise of rationality weakened.
- Jose Ferrater MoraI

One would have to have been fathered by a "military spirit" to

understand the difference between Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on the
one hand, and Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen on the other. The usual
reasoning is this: the one case is simply combat, the other butchery.
But the plain truth is: in both cases those involved are non-
participants, defenseless old people, women and children, whose
annihilation is supposed to achieve some political-military end.
- Max Bom2

1.
Ethics encompasses beliefs about preferable conduct, attitudes that
contribute to this, norms and rules that orient or guide, and theories that
analyze, examine, deepen, criticize, and justify these beliefs, attitudes,
and norms. An ethical theory is, therefore, a rational endeavor directed
toward practical activity conducive to preferred conduct.
Ethics is referred to in the context of an activity dependent on liberty
or responsibility, in the context of conduct guided by values - conduct
which, in its turn, is submitted to rational discussion. From this
perspective, ethics is not limited to a mere description of human
behavior, but pronounces value judgments on it. Such judgments are
founded on the best knowledge available at the time and on the most
developed capacity for action. In other words, the realization of
properly human action is not opaque to rationality.
89
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Spealdng Countries, 89-98.
°1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
90 EDGAR ROY RAMfREZ

2.
Rationality is a conquest. In some sense, we decide to be rational,
we want to be rational, we learn to be rational. In short, rationality is
not something given. On the contrary, it is a voluntary product that is
individually and socially constructed.
Thus rationality is not and should not be converted into an end in
itself. It is subordinate to grasping truths and to the obtaining of greater
depths in our knowledge.
We judge rationality to be important because we appreciate the truth
and the greater reach of our beliefs.
When we certify certain determinate beliefs as irrational, that is, as
beliefs without foundation, contrary to the best development of our
knowledge, we not only describe but, at the same time, we evaluate
such beliefs. We reject them, we repudiate them. In a similar way, to
say that a belief is rational - when it is - we describe it and also
evaluate it. We accept or recommend it. The evaluation comes from
the preference for rationality over irrationality.
To construct rationality, it is obvious that certain conditions are
necessary. As defined by Mihailo Markovic, these include
the openness of a society toward the rest of the world, a general atmosphere of political
and cultural tolerance, the free flow of information (which includes freedom of self-
expression, of discussion, of travel, of studying any scientifically interesting problem),
. . . a social climate that favors a critical spirit and especially anti-authoritative
attitudes. 3

This is a clear affirmation that rationality is a conquest. But it is not

necessary to insist that the conditions that make it possible also construct
it. Degrees of concrete conditions interact in special ways with degrees
of the realization of rationality.

3.
The opposite situation occurs when error and intolerance take on the
security of a well-worn path - without deviation, without change. This
then favors a created past, invented from some present achievement that
one wants to maintain and a future that one attempts to ward off. All
past time was better because now it is no threat, no challenge, because
it is far away and diffuse. This is part of our nostalgia for the golden
age, for lost paradises.
The weight of tradition converts this into an unalterable rule, that
something is respected merely for being a thing of the past. Reason is
 ETHICS AND PERNICIOUS TECHNOLOGY 91

disfigured into rationalization, into concealment, and is bureaucratized

with ritual.
The design of new ways, defensible in the light of a reason that
knows fallibility and scrutinizes unrealized possibilities, is one of the
modes in which to confront the concealment, the intolerance, the
hostility toward the modernization of thought, conviviality, and action.
According to Whitehead the function of reason is to promote the art of
life, and from this ethical point of view we are interested in the most
extensive well-being of all persons involved. Therefore, whatever
course of action is in opposition to well-being is ethically inferior to one
that does not act in opposition to it.

4.
On our continent - in Central and South America - there are many
who live at the margins of what is human. Fundamental goals such as
feeding all people, educating them, treating their illnesses and providing
them with meaningful jobs, have not been met. It is clear that to live
in a manner that is truly human requires a minimum level of well-
being, the satisfaction of basic needs.
In light of such a situation, certain decisive questions arise: What
type of science - and, above all, what type of technology - will make
the satisfaction of these needs possible for the whole population? What
is development? Development of what and toward what? What
political, economic, and cultural changes are conducive to superior
forms of existence and conviviality?

5.
To continue, consider the case of pernicious technology - an
example through which it is possible to re-conceive ethics as conscience
and to say that some things ought not be permitted to occur or to
continue to occur to human beings.
Pernicious technology is technology conceived, planned, and produced
to cause harm. The existence of such technology is a fatal argument
against the believers and defenders of the ethical neutrality of
technology. Pernicious technology includes what can be called the
technologies of violence which, in turn, subdivides into the technologies
of destruction (war, mutilation, defoliation) and technologies of torture
- to which the Americas have made grand contributions. Another
example of pernicious technology is the technology for manipulating
92 EDGAR ROY RAMIREZ

consumers - not to mention voters.

It is in fact increasingly difficult to distinguish between advertising
and a political campaign. It is as if both are trying to sell a product -
a commercial or political product. It also happens that those who plan
and execute both advertising and political campaigns are more or less
one and the same.
The relation between technologies of manipulation and technologies
of waste or planned misuse is clear. What is included in a technology
of waste? The production of unnecessary things, the production of trash
- which, of course, the consumer pays for! - and the production of
various disposable products. Here also there develops an ominous
relation: the passage from disposable products to disposable people.
Finally, although no less important, we find another example of
pernicious technology in what can be called poisonous technology. This
is the production of pesticides, medicines, and chemicals which, once
their impact on the human and non-human environment is known, are
exported to countries that do not have to reckon with consumer
protection groups, that do not have access to adequate scientific and
technological information, that do not have a community of scientists
and technologists who assume the responsibilities invested in them by
virtue of their special knowledge - and to countries that are devoid of
courageous politicians.
Here we have a case for exercising rationality and ethical
responsibility. The scientific-technological community - though not it
alone - cannot, must not remain indifferent before such forms of
destruction, before such forms of what Henry Shue calls "transnational
transgressions. ,,4 Why? Because of the impoverization of human
possibility that such transgressions bring and to avoid having our
countries continue as technological waste dumps.

6.
A certain convergence is taking place with regard to some central
aspects of ethical responsibility in science and in technology. One
concerns the consensus that it is necessary to disclose in advance as
much as might be known about the risks or dangers of certain unfolding
technologies, to discover the causes of such situations, and to plan
possible corrective actions.
In Latin America, scientists and technologists cannot and should not
occupy themselves only with their own work. Why? Because it is
necessary to create conditions that will make scientific-technological
investigation possible and that will also make possible a more
 ETHICS AND PERNICIOUS TECHNOLOGY 93

conscientious evaluation of knowledge and its importance in lucid

action. This requires avoiding the indiscriminate consumption of
knowledge produced by others.
There is no doubt that one needs intelligence and decisiveness to
combat the dominant "culture," to create alternative forms of practice in
science and technology, and to produce options for conviviality. An
ethical proposal of this kind is provided by Miguel Quintanilla:
New ways of facilitating scientific investigation and understanding will have to be
invented that are not compromised by exploitation, by lies and antidemocratic
manipulation of technological potential and scientific rationality. And it is the job of
philosophers to attend to this dimension of our civilization.'

7.
Another such decisive activity consists in dismantling what, with mild
philosophical humor, can be called the "technological argument" - the
argument that tends to turn technology itself into an ideological
construct. What are the presuppositions or propositions of this
technological argument? Among the principal ones to be identified are
the following:
- Technology is within the reach of all those who desire it.
- Backwardness is measured by lack of technology.
- There is a direct relation between technology and development.
- Development is an obligation.
- The more technology the better, and the latest model is always the
best.
- To oppose certain aspects of technology is to oppose progress, is a
form of regression (as if "technological development" were inevitable
and had to occur as it has occurred or, which is the same thing, that
nothing can be done in the face of it).
- Technology is intrinsically good or, in the worst case, is neutral.
There is no pernicious technology.
- A country with advanced technology is the best country imaginable.
It is better that such countries should exist rather than not exist.
Therefore every effort should be put into bringing such countries into
existence.
- The paradigm countries to be imitated are "the four tigers of Asia":
Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore.
- There are no poor, destroyed, or devastated countries - only
countries in various stages of development.
- Given that there are rational machines, the human being is an
94 EDGAR ROY RAMfREZ

affective machine.
- God is a magnificent computer, the most perfect of all possible or
imaginable computers, and its plan is the best of all possible
programs.
In our countries it is, of course, necessary to create technologies in
order to tackle many of our problems. Otherwise, for example, how
would it be possible to use the resources of a tropical country without
actually creating more human and non-human poverty than was
alleviated? But what is needed is sufficient clarity so that we adopt not
just any technology that is available to deal with such problems - or
any technology that is made available to us by a corporation from
another country because it makes money for that corporation - but
what can modestly be termed "adequate" technologies.

8.
The concept of an adequate technology obviously develops the ideas
of "intermediate" and "appropriate" technologies, as argued for by E.
F. Schumacher. 6 It is also a related to the larger alternative technology
movement that has exercised some influence in both the developed and
developing countries. 7 But intermediate simply stresses that which is
in between the undeveloped and the developed, and appropriate is often
commonly thought of as that which truly stimulates (rather than fails at
stimulating) development. Alternative technologies make the issue of
technological choice sound like a kind of free-will decisionism, cut loose
from all concrete historical circumstances.
The term adequate, by contrast, emphasizes more clearly the need to
make choices relevant or adequate to certain criteria. Thus it is
appropriate to ask, Adequate in what sense? A technology may be said
to be adequate if
- it is user and environmental friendly, that is, non-damaging and, it
is hoped, enhancing to both the human and the non-human;
- it helps to generate new springs of work;
- its consumption of energy, especially oil, is low;
- using it does not require the payment of great sums of money for
patents and royalties;
- it really is transferred to the country in which it is used;
- it is not large scale and is easy to repair;
- it does not increase external debt;
- it sensibly uses renewable resources;
 ETHICS AND PERNICIOUS TECHNOLOGY 95

- it stimulates the confidence and creative capacities of our peoples;

- it serves to resolve our problems and contributes to independence;
and
- it is utilized to obtain a higher quality of life and, in our cases, to
contribute along with other factors to development with scarce
resources.
Because it is sometimes helpful to understand by means of contrast,
it is also reasonable to ask, When is a technology not adequate or when
is it inadequate? A technology can be said to be inadequate when
- it is not ecologically sensitive, produces unacceptable levels or risks
of contamination, squanders primary resources and especially non-
renewable resources, and is destructive of the countryside;
- it is difficult to repair, a complication that increases through
contractual obligations to employ" specialists" and through high prices
on spare parts;
- it is not adapted to cultural conditions - as when its adoption
requires the utilization of foreign technical jargon and brings with it
a tendency to undervalue independent creative capacities; and
- it increases technological dependency by means of contracts that
evaluate knowledge and the region involved simply in terms of the
costs incurred by the sellers of the technology.
Obviously neither the positive nor the negative criteria are mutually
exclusive. They point, in sometimes overlapping and redundant ways,
to a view of technology beyond the technological argument.
To apply these criteria it is necessary that there arise honorable and
responsible technologists, with loyalty to values such as the well-being
of the majority - one that does not sacrifice any person - and to the
quality of life and the quality of the society. They should understand
how knowledge gives power and how the exercise of power involves
responsibility. Thus it is necessary not to give in to the technological
argument with its criteria for development and progress - criteria
which currently measure and define what is or can be for the individual
as well as society.

9.
Everything said up to now brings us to a point of reflection on
development. In the words of F. Mir6 Quesada:
96 EDGAR ROY RAMfREZ

Development and underdevelopment can never be considered globally. It makes no

sense to afftrm, for example, that a town which has unjustly assaulted others and
sUbjugated them is more developed because of its military triumph. It could be such in
an economic or technological sense, but on the contrary from the ethical point of view
or that of human conviviality it can be irreversibly underdeveloped.'

Perhaps because of this it would be preferable to call certain countries

industrialized countries instead of developed countries. The history of
those destroyed is still fresh and, in a great number of cases, in
progress.
Certain authors - for example, Cornelius Castoriadis and Jerome
Segal9 - think that a country is not developed simply because it
produces many goods (this is growth), but rather because it permits or
makes possible societal development. In its tum, a society is developed
when it permits its individual citizens to develop. What is decisive,
then, is the development of individuals, and this has to do with the
satisfaction of basic needs and increases in the quality of life.
Development therefore yields the ideas of potentiality, nature, and
maturity. In this sense it is possible to see underdevelopment as a
negation of human potential. For this reason, too, it is necessary to
affirm that development is for the human being, not the human being
for development.
Part of the ethical fallout from the preceding is constant vigilance,
so that forms of oppression do not supplant forms of liberty, so that
pseudo-commercial culture and the consumption of fantasies do not
supplant superior culture, so that diverse forms of contamination do not
take the place of progress, so that superstition does not overtake
rationality, so that economic imbalances do not replace justice, nor fear
supplant peace.

10.
Ethical or moral dialogue is indispensable in looking for a deeper
lucidity in collective decisions, in the clarification of needs and desires,
and in the eradication of fears. To deal with the problem of technology,
clarity is the crucial necessity. But what is the objective of such clarity?
To lead to a fuller life - one that embraces compassion, respect,
tolerance, independence, good health, justice, work, personal and
communal security - or, in short, well-being. The search is for more
humanistic conditions, more integrity, and more generosity. "What is
truly important is not to live but rather to live well" (Socrates).10 "We
can live and we can live well. But we feel the urge of the trend
upwards: we still look toward the better life" (A. N. Whitehead).ll
 ETHICS AND PERNICIOUS TECHNOLOGY 97
Similar qualities have weight in bringing us to full knowledge and in
bringing our capability into action.

11.

Finally, it is possible to question ourselves with regard to the ethical

responsibility of the scientist and technologist. "The mere fact of being
competent in a certain field confers on the possessor of that competence,
whether it be of a cognitive or of an operative kind, a social
responsibility which can in certain circumstances be extremely far-
reaching in its scope" (Jean Ladriere).12 Underlined in our argument is
the idea that a humanism without science and technology is ineffectual,
and that science and technology without humanism are dangerous. It
is thus necessary to redefine needs in such a way that they serve the
society in the totality of its concrete persons and, at the same time,
make necessary the creation of an ethics that guides means and reaches
valuable ends.
The valuable or the good is what contributes to a greater deployment
of those human potentialities that carry life forward. The invaluable or
the bad is precisely the opposite, that which negates or strangles life and
paralyzes human creativity. At the very base, it deals with fundamental
preferences or values: those which promote life, liberty, equality,
knowledge, and human as well as non-human well being. The valuable
or the good constituted by a conjunction of preferences that is superior
to another which promotes the opposite.
As Kai Nielsen has summarized this perspective,
As our knowledge of [humanity] develops and as our superstitions ... diminish, it is
reasonable to expect that moral deliberation will enable us to achieve a greater
understanding of and agreement about those attitudes and styles of behavior that are
taken to be desirable or admirable. 13

- Translated by Ana Mitcham and Carl Mitcham

University of Costa Rica and Technological Institute of Costa Rica

NOTES
1. Jose Ferrater Mora, De La materia a La razon (Madrid: Alianza, 1979), p. 155.
2. Albert Einstein, Hedwig and Max Born, Briejwechsel: 1916-1955, kommentiert
von Max Born (Munich: Nymphenburger, 1969), p. 274. The English translation in
The Born-Einstein Letters: Correspondence between Albert Einstein and Max and
98 EDGAR ROY RAMiREZ

Hedwig Bornfrom 1916 to 1955, with Commentaries by Max Born, trans. Irene Born
(New York: Walker, 1971), p. 205, is defective.
3. Cited by David Crocker, Praxis and Democratic Socialism: The Critical Theory
ofMarkoviC and Stojanovic (Atlantic City, NJ: Humanities Press, 1983), p. 17, note 44.
4. Henry Shue, "Transnational Transgressions," in Tom Regan, ed., Just Business:
New Essays in Business Ethics (New York: Random House, 1984), pp. 271-284.
5. Miguel A. Quintanilla, A favor de la razon (Madrid: Taurus, 1981), p. 17.
6. E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (New
York: Harper & Row, 1973).
7. For a good although somewhat dated overview inspired by the work of Ivan
Illich, who has lived for many years in Latin America and whose concept of
"conviviality" has already been alluded to, see Valentina Borremans, Guide to Convivial
Tools, Library Journal Special Report no. 13 (New York: Bowker, 1979).
8. F. Mir6 Quesada, "Filosoffa y la creaci6n intelectual," Cultura y creacion
intelectual en America Latina (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1984), p. 265.
9. See, e.g., Cornelius Castoriadis, "Reflexions sur Ie 'developpement' et la
'rationalitt'," Esprit (May 1979), p. 919; and Jerome Segal, "Income and
Development," Report from the Center for Philosophy and Public Policy (University of
Maryland), vol. 5, no. 4 (Fall 1985), pp. 9-12.
10. Plato, Crito 48b.
11. Alfred North Whitehead, The Function of Reason (Boston: Beacon, 1958; first
published 1929), p. 81.
12. Jean Ladriere, The Challenge Presented to Cultures by Science and Technology
(Paris: UNESCO, 1977), p. 112.
13. Kai Nielsen, "Ethics, Problems of," in Paul Edwards, ed., Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1972), vol. 3, p. 132.
 PART III

FROM MEXICO
 ENRIQUE nUSSEL

TECHNOLOGY AND BASIC NEEDS:

PROPOSAL FOR A DEBATE ON FUNDAMENTAL CRITERIA

1. TECHNOLOGY AND THE FORCES OF PRODUCTION

The critical account put forth here does not rest on any doubt about
or underestimation of the role of technology in the progress of
humanity. At the same time its role in advancing the forces of
production for the benefit of humanity may have been perverted from its
fundamental universality and placed in the service of a power struggle
against the human majority.
Human beings have modified nature to satisfy their needs. In this
modification they early on created technical means to enhance
productivity. It is in this ambit of the means of the forces of production
that technics have evolved to a high technological level within industrial
capitalism. Productivity itself has undertaken a new qualitative leap
since implementation of the so-called "scientific-technological
revolution. "
For this reason contemporary humanity cannot avoid confirming the
irreplaceable value of technology in the development of the forces of
production, and with this development attempt to satisfy the basic needs
of all humanity. Without technology it would be impossible to plan for
the fulfillment of such fundamental human needs, which are the
inalienable rights of human beings because of their inherent dignity.
If we demonstrate the complexity of the problem and the inevitable
contradictions that confront us, it is in no way to diminish the
importance of technology but rather to indicate, justly, that in order for
technology to serve humanity and not a system that exploits humanity,
it is necessary to take into account many concrete historical and
structural factors that are not in themselves technological.
An abstract consideration of technology, in its intrinsic rationality as
itself a productive force, can be unrealistic if it does not take into
account the total concrete history in which technology is found and from
which it derives its meaning.
101
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 101-109.
°1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
102 ENRIQUE DUSSEL

2. THREE SOCIAL CONTEXTS OF TECHNOLOGY

The history of technology has not been without its ups and downs.
There have been periods of great creativity, of stagnation, and even
regression. What is certain is that since the eighteenth century
technological progress within the framework of capitalism has been
overwhelming.
In the central capitalist countries (United States, Europe, and Japan),
where technological advances manifest themselves primarily in the
leading sectors (such as electronics, chemistry, energy), science is used
more and more as a privileged means, aspiring to a productivity and
control of processes never before dreamed of. Science thus increases in
instrumental connection with technology; technology is not a mere
application of science. Instead this technological connection responds to
the needs of management and control, obligatorily bringing into the
debate over technology issues of global economic coordination, security,
and militarism. It is a known fact that an extremely high percentage of
scientists and technologists work on jobs that are directly related to
military production.
International capitalism is currently undergoing a crisis, perhaps the
most profound in its history. Attention must be paid to how capitalism
confronts this crisis and what it means in the field of science and
technology. In relation to this, what we see happening in capitalist
countries is the question of technology confronting concrete problems
that are not those of humanity as a whole but are specifically capitalistic,
and which can be reduced to three:
- The issue of the exhaustion of non-renewable resources because of
continual growth.
- Ecological preservation, which is threatened by the development of
capitalism itself.
- The requirements for new technology in the process of the
internationalization of production, and in the productive processes
demanded by worldwide capitalist accumulation with its tight bonds
to the demands of global control.
In this case technology is a necessary means within the capitalist
system directly tied to greater income-yield capacity.
We find countries which develop in a socialist ambit in a very
different situation. The adaptation of technology, in the Cuban process
for example, was preceded by a revolutionary change in economic and
political structures. In contrast to those countries dependent on a
capitalist system, in Cuba the whole work force is simultaneously
committed to the priorities of creating a technology adequate for
development and a technology that plays a role in satisfying the basic
 TECHNOLOGY AND BASIC NEEDS 103

needs of the whole population - objectives that capitalist dependency

has not been able to reach. It is only now, after economic and political
transformation, that it is completely justifiable to give technology a high
priority. The revolutionary global project, in the heart of which
technology plays a role, is oriented toward humanity and its full
realization.
By contrast, in the capitalist dependent countries, such as the rest of
Latin America as well as greater parts of Africa and Asia, the issue of
technology already has a different meaning that is framed by a different
situation. In this case the fundamental technological issues are the
following:
- What kind of technological development would satisfy the basic needs
of the whole population?
- Is technological development or a change in economic and political
structure the highest priority for the fulfillment of basic needs?
Or, from another angle, the issues that come strongly to the fore are
these:
- What impact does technical progress and "continuous technological
change" in the dominant powers have on the economic systems of
dependent countries, including, among others, the ecological
destruction of cleared land and the alarming figures of unemployment
and underemployment?
- What do technologies and sponsors of development contribute to the
support of social transformation in favor of the majority?
3. AN OVERVIEW OF TECHNOLOGICAL EVOLUTION
IN LATIN AMERICA
The current situation of technology in our countries is historically
dependent on the various phases of their incorporation into the
worldwide capitalist system.
In the last decades of the nineteenth century, some Latin American
countries (such as Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico) began to experience
the initial phases of manufacturing production, but only in a framework
dominated by "development toward the outside." It is only since the
crisis of capitalism between the two wars, and especially since 1929,
that the creation of governments responsible to the partial hegemony of
a national bourgeoisie permitted the awakening of certain technologies
that were always dependent but nevertheless partially controlled by a
project of national capitalism - or at least pretended to be so controlled.
At the end of World War II, a developmentist attitude emerged in
the dependent countries that consisted essentially of the supposed
104 ENRIQUE DUSSEL

necessity of counting on capitalist aid and foreign technology, principally

North American, to make development possible. From this option,
firmly in force during the 196Os, the developmentism of Frondizi,
Betancourt, the Christian Democrats, etc., defined the technology of the
central capitalist countries as a privileged means of development. Thus
was born the myth of technologism. The ideology of a universal
technology gained a foothold in the capitalist dependent countries in
which the transnationals began their rapid expansion.
The technological issue considered on an abstract level - as if it
were valid for the whole world - forms the basis of the ideology
which, with the best of intentions and without a bad conscience,
becomes a privileged means for the domination of capitalism over
dependent countries. The "universality" of the technology of
transnationals conceals a mechanism that must be examined.
4. THE REAL AMBIT OF TECHNOLOGICAL OPTIONS
Technologically embodied wealth constitutes the substance beneath the
style of accumulation that has characterized the majority of our capitalist
dependent countries during the last decades. This style was defended by
the ideologies of the dominant classes, which permitted the generation
of a "modern" economic subsector that has as its nucleus transnational
corporations. This pattern of accumulation reinforced the dependency
of our economies, and generated a circle of production, distribution, and
conspicuous consumption - nourished almost exclusively by the
expropriation of surpluses, and a growing regressive distribution of
income that puts majorities at the margins of basic necessities for living
a dignified life.
In other words, more than being just an incomplete "transfer" of
technical progress, what has happened is the appropriation of this
progress by and for the benefit of the privileged sectors and of the
reigning power. This process develops through the functional logic of
the worldwide capitalist market. On the basis of this logic the criteria
for the selection of technologies are not arbitrarily determined. The fact
of wanting to apply intermediate or traditional technologies does not
mean that they can be applied.
Capitalist entrepreneurs make decisions concerning the application of
technologies, although their decisions are firmly conditioned. When
making a technological decision, they apply a conditioned norm: income-
yield capacity. The entrepreneurs cannot decide on the application of
one technology when another promises higher income yield. From this
point of view the most adequate technology is necessarily the most
 TECHNOLOGY AND BASIC NEEDS 105
income producing.
Income-yield capacity is an institutionalized norm incorporated into
the functioning of the capitalist market itself. This norm is objective
and obligatory, and the very competition for capital imposes it and
admits the application of other criteria only within very narrow limits.
Therefore the selection of technologies in keeping with the norm of
income-yield capacity is not an issue that depends on the good or bad
faith of entrepreneurs. Within the framework of competition for capital,
the corporation - no matter how large it is - cannot survive unless it
adheres to this fundamental norm in the functioning of a capitalist
market.
Therefore this situation also marks the limits of possible political
action on the part of the bourgeois state. State action cannot influence
the technical process above and beyond the framework imposed by the
central institutionalized norm, the income-yield capacity of capital.
From this it follows that in a greater or lesser degree, the current
technological process is that which most strictly corresponds to the
criterion of income-yield capacity. If this is true, it can be determined
as well that the technological process is susceptible to reorientation only
to the extent that the criterion of income-yield capacity is susceptible.
5. THE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES OF BASIC NEEDS
In spite of the unavoidable persistence of income-yield capacity as the
base of capitalist logic, references to basic human needs have become
obligatory in discussions about technology.
Technological discourse is structured, for the most part, around
promises concerning the satisfaction of basic human needs. At the same
time, the most pressing problems of the majority of humanity are
problems related to the failure to satisfy these basic needs. But in this
field word and concept are notoriously different. So it becomes urgent
to distinguish between the logic of certain technologies and their illusory
projects and those that attempt to increase, in realistic terms, the rights
of oppressed peoples.
The ideological language of technology defines basic needs as
beginning with subsistence (the consumption of foods to live), and
gradually adds other minimum conditions, to better life and make it
more bearable or more "humane," thus enlarging subsistence to include
health, housing, education.
This hierarchical order - beginning with food and not with jobs for
all - serves ideologically to conceal the question of whether there will
or will not be employment for all. It simultaneously permits the setting
106 ENRIQUE DUSSEL

up of this basic promise: "We are in a position to create food

possibilities so that all can survive (at least through their productive
years)." Thus it is only a fundamentally providential view that would
seek to put aside or de-hierarchize the problem of human dignity -
dignity that can only be effectively satisfied beginning with the right to
work.
Under this conception, the satisfaction of basic needs seems like a
generous concession and not like afundamental right that can and should
be organically structured through participation and the exercise of a
power fundamentally located in a real right of the people.
It is important to denounce the limitations in the satisfaction of basic
needs that this discourse before-hand presumes acceptable, beginning
with its inverted scale of priorities, with its emphasis on minimum
subsistence on through subsidies given to those who are not offered the
possibility of employment.
The language of the people of the dependent nations is structured
beginning with the right to work, which sees the human as a productive,
creative, and dignified being.
The rights to food and to shelter, equally fundamental, derive from
and are shaped by the right to dignified work. Welfare is only
exceptionally and supplementarily accepted - never as a normal
proposition restricted to mere sustenance.
This language refers to the fundamental rights to life and not to mere
subsistence or mere reproduction of work forces, and includes in these
basic rights all that which is implied in the fundamental right to human
life: health, education, peace, security.
It defines liberty beginning with justice, that is, with the fundamental
premise of being a worker with the right to enjoyable work, dignified
housing, attention in the areas of health and education - and all this in
social rather than individual terms.
This block of fundamental rights that is set up with work serving a
mediating function in relation to all other rights, is not an ahistorical and
disconnected group of abstract rights. On the contrary, it is a concrete
program of priorities that serves as a source of the criteria needed to
define a corresponding strategy of development and a new vision of
society.
Therefore this perspective considers that more basic than human needs
are fundamental human rights whose lack of fulfillment goes much
further than a lamentable accident of the malfunctioning of the economy.
In conclusion, the inability of the developmental projects to satisfy
these basic needs, the conscious perception of these as fundamental
rights, the clear vision in respect to the growing failure to satisfy these
needs and the consequent violation of these rights, implies a political
 TECHNOLOGY AND BASIC NEEDS 107

and not only a technical vision of the projects or solution plans

proposed, in the international arena as well as in the national.
The discussion of specific technological options must be framed by
the criteria and priorities that derive, first, from the correct ordering of
basic needs understood as fundamental rights, which are: work, food,
shelter, health, education, etc., and not food and shelter without work.
Second, the discussion of specific technological options must include
appreciation of the real meaning of the break implied in this focus in
relation to the ideological view of technology.

6. BASIC NEEDS AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL PROJECT

The current forms of absorption and utilization of the technological

process, as determined by the existent conditions of power control, are
incompatible with satisfaction of the basic needs of the worldwide
population: work, food, and shelter.
The task is to transform the technological complex so that each human
being can, through work, assure himself or herself of a dignified life
compatible with the developmental level of the existent forces of
production in his or her own context.
Achieving this task involves the application of criteria for
technological selection that assure a configuration of the technological
complex oriented toward the satisfaction of basic needs. Such a
configuration assumes, in tum, for the Latin American countries, a
combination of leading-edge technologies, second-hand technologies,
intermediate technologies, and traditional technologies.
However, this satisfaction of basic needs constitutes a criterion that
is in conflict with the criterion of income-yield capacity. Therefore, the
need to reorient the technological process in a direction different from
the current one necessarily means that we must talk of the demand to
substitute for the criterion of income-yield capacity the criterion of the
satisfaction of basic needs right at the level of the management of the
complex of the economic process. It consequently implies reference to
a substitution for economic relations of a new kind in the capitalist
market. From this derives the demand for another way of development
that must be recognized from our perspective; it involves, as a non-
postponable priority, the needs of the majority of the population.
This requires profound changes in the content of a technology tied to
the production of massive wealth, involving the reorientation of the
production of capital wealth to increase efficiency in the productive
processes that correspond to such wealth.
These demands imply the need to produce actions that tend to
108 ENRIQUE DUSSEL

establish the bases of power necessary for this new type of economic
management.
It would be a sin of naivete to put forth the above-mentioned issues
without certain declarations from the beginning. A project of this
nature requires profound changes in the structures of power that permit
the state to make its own the task of technological research; and the
assignment of resources that the established alternative demands is a
condition sine qua non for this to be viable.
After all is said, we firmly adhere to the vision of a just society,
participative and viable (realizable). Our conviction concerning the
requirements for such viability extends further than mere consideration
of physical and technological resources. In this we include as well those
social and political conditions capable of securing this viability which
tend to satisfy fundamental rights and demands for human dignity.
POSTSCRIPT 1992
The preceding is the translation of a text prepared for a meeting on
technology in the Third World held in Oaxtepec, Mexico, in early 1979.
This meeting in tum was preparatory for the World Council of Churches
conference, "Faith, Science, and the Future," held at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in July 1979. It was included as an appendix to
my Filosofia de la produccion (1984).
Let me take this opportunity, following the collapse of the Soviet
empire (1988-1991) and the ensuing triumphalist reaffirmations of
capitalist theory and practice, to reconsider some of its theses. The
collapse of the Soviet Union and the collapse of real socialism in Eastern
Europe - but not in the Third World - leave a lot unclear about the
technological issue.
I think that in the 1960s the Soviet Union had begun to feel the
effects of a system that attempted "total planning" (Katorovich) - which
is as impossible as "perfect competiton" (F. Hayek) - and of the non-
acceptance since 1921 (the New Economic Plan) of some competition as
a necessary moment in the market. In effect, competition is a
mechanism that transfers value from one capital formation, area, or
nation to another capital formation, area, or nation. In this manner, the
one that has better productivity (technology) creates products with less
value that are therefore in the end less expensive. In this way, in the
market, it can destroy its competitors. With the disappearance of capital
formations with low productivity, obsolete technology also disappears.
The Soviet economy did not have this possibility. In a bureaucratic
regime it is the high ranking employee who makes the decision to
 TECHNOLOGY AND BASIC NEEDS 109
employ new technology. But what bureaucratic advantage can such an
employee gain by implementing a new technology? If it turns out to
be adequate, the merit will be given to others of a higher rank; if it is
inadequate he will be criticized for having proposed it. In this way a
bureaucratic system does not risk technological innovation.
The collapse of real socialism in the Soviet Union and in Eastern
Europe leaves unclear, then, the technological issue, but it in no way
destroys the possibility and necessity of the best planning possible, using
the strategic criteria so necessary in the Third World, in the peripheral
world of the South, that have been outlined here.
-Translated by Ana Mitcham, James A. Lynch, and Carl Mitcham
National Autonomous University of Mexico
 JOSE GAOS

ON TECHNIQUE

A professor of philosophy requested to write an article for a journal

published by a polytechnic institute feels an irresistible temptation to
write about technique. I Especially if he thinks that philosophy does not
have or ought not to have for its object - as is commonly believed, not
without reason, given what has traditionally been taught about
philosophy - the strange or esoteric, the most abstruse, what is most
remote from concrete realities or is farthest removed from life, but that
philosophy has or ought to have for its object what is the most concrete
for the philosopher himself, including even that radical object the
philosopher himself. Philosophy should be a conscious examination of
its own roots, from which could then spring all the stalks or trunks,
branches, flowers, and fruits desired.
One of the characteristics most evident, most general, and most
penetrating in "our" life - without necessarily discussing and
concluding here whether or not it is the only one - is undoubtedly the
invasion and domination of life by "modern technique, " its
"technification" through this technique.
Discovered by reason two decades ago, philosophizing about
technique has already produced in the last ten years a whole new
philosophical discipline, formally manifest as such in sections so titled
in philosophical encyclopedias, and technique has expressly and
repeatedly occupied some of the best philosophers of our day such as
Ortega and Heidegger, who have struggled memorably with this theme.
This is to name only two who are undoubtedly the most eminent in the
Hispanic world and, perhaps, the most influential beyond its boundaries.
It is also understandable that the author of this article, following the
example of his principal teacher2 (who was many years older than the
German thinker), on his own account and at hIS own risk, has been
reflecting on technique for a long time - even before the course, "The
Metaphysics of Our Life," given in 1942 in the Faculty of Philosophy
and Letters at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the
second part of which was devoted to "technocracy" or to the imperialism
of technique in our life. What follows will be a relatively brief and
proportionally dense summary of one part of that course. That it has
not been published until now preserves the relative novelty to which any
article can or ought to aspire. And the author imagines that what was
said more than fifteen years ago has some interest now, as it did then.

111
Carl Mileham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 111-120.
°1993 KJuwer Academic Publishers.
112 JOSE GAOS

The author thinks that interest in philosophy in general and its special
philosophical ideas rests on what people generally think or on what is
called the "exchange of ideas," which naturally and in the end come to
be appreciated because of their own intellectual worth, though perhaps
not only because of this.
The word "t~nica" [English "technique"] is of ancient origin. As
such, it is no more than a slight phonetic and graphic modification of a
Greek word translated into Latin as ars, from which is derived the
Spanish arte [English "art"]. Technique and art thus appear identified
in antiquity. The divergence that has grown up between them cannot
conceal their common origin. Thus the works of technique as of art are
fundamentally products of homo jaber, of the animal fabricator of
utensils, instruments, weapons, ornaments, more or less aesthetically.
The thing thus also appears to be ancient. But it has become common
to talk about "modem technique," with the intention more or less
consciously but always explicitly, of distinguishing" our" technique from
everything that could have been called technique in previous times. Yet
already in classical antiquity there was already technique, and
techniques, and perhaps in a volume much larger than what is commonly
believed: Greek surgery and Roman engineering may be two good
examples. But our technique has to be differentiated from technique in
all previous ages because the techniques of previous ages could not have
a relation with modem science, for the simple reason that in these ages
modem science did not exist. In ages prior to ours there also existed
science, and sciences, and even perhaps in quantities much larger than
what is commonly thought. But there never occurred what has been
occurring since the beginning of the modem period of universal history,
increasing to the point that today there exists an international
organization for the experimental and exact (in the mathematical sense)
research into nature in all areas - the material, macroscopic and
microscopic, the living, also macroscopic and microscopic, and
especially the human as such, individual and collective.
The relations between modem science and technique are very
complex. At first glance, it seems that technique is grounded in science.
In a deeper sense, perhaps science comes from the same source as
technique, that is, a peculiar yearning for power and dominion, not only
over nature - non-human nature - but also over fellow human beings,
whatever previously may have been the ends-and-means relations
between these two domains. And perhaps also there were relations
between such yearning and the "manipulation" of "matter," with a
primacy of touch over sight in classical Greek culture. But this article
is not going to deal primarily with relations between modem science and
technique; only with the relations between modem technique and our
 ON TECHNIQUE 113
life - the life of each of us, each reader of this article and its author.
We could talk about a "technification" of our life in quantitative and
qualitative terms, and also about a "technocracy" in the sense of the
imperialism of technique in our life.
In order to see if not to prove the quantitative extent of technification
in our life compared with life in previous ages within our own Western
culture, perhaps it is sufficient to take a quick glance at each one of us
and at our concentric "circumstances, ,,3 the house, the street . . . ,4
maintaining within the field of the imagination the historical figures of
the men of other ages with their circumstances. On our body, glasses,
in frames or contacts, dentures (not to mention cases and things even
more pathological and made even less public), wrist watches; on our
clothes, zippers; in our pockets, pens, mechanical pencils .... In our
house, electric lights, telephone, radio, television, stereo, refrigerator,
heaters, elevator. . . . In the street, automobiles, metros, traffic lights.
. ., In places of recreation: the cinema. . .. In stores, escalators,
food dispensers. . .. In offices, typewriters, calculators. . .. In
factories, machines as innumerable as they are unnamable by the
common man. On land, on sea, in the air, in outer space: locomotives,
ships, airplanes, artificial satellites ... atomic bombs ....
Most of the named technical artifacts - a new unification, nominal
and more, between art and technique - belong to the domain of
"physical" technique. But there are biological, chemical, psychological,
sociological, economic and other techniques that have made the
imperialism of technique in our life into the imperialism that it really
and truly is. We have taken a quick look at the technical artifacts we
wear in or on our body. How about if we start noticing the technical
artifacts that serve our soul or that are served by it, from the techniques
of publicity and propaganda, economics and politics, those that reach us,
let us say, through the radio, to the techniques of intellectual work in
scientific research?
However, it is significant that the technical artifacts that most strongly
and deeply impress the masses of humanity in our days - to the extent
that the masses are able to comprehend a three-dimensional reality - are
the products of physical technique: vehicles and weapons, and especially
vehicles. Vehicles are not only artifacts for transporting human beings,
although those certainly carry the name, if not exclusively. Vehicles are
all artifacts for transporting anything that human beings are interested in
transporting, in bringing near or sending away: their voice on the
telephone, images on television, destruction and death with weapons,
movement for its own sake, speed for its own sake (as in factory
assembly lines). It is significant, the primacy of vehicles in the
impression made by those technical artifacts on the human masses.
114 JOSE GAOS

Because it is more than probable that the techniques that most radically
and decisively change human life, or human beings themselves, are the
biological and psychological techniques that have already begun to
operate on the very sources of life and on the personal intimacies of
souls. If, in spite of this, the already mentioned vehicles undoubtedly
have primacy, it is because they have special meaning within the
technification of our life. And this special meaning leads us to realize
that we have already crossed from the quantitative to the qualitative
aspects of technification.
Vehicles are for moving or for motion itself. Classical philosophy
recognized movement [or change] as the most obvious phenomenon, the
most general and problematic in the sensible world. At a fundamental
level it has been argued that the origin and matrix of all Western
philosophy, Greek philosophy, was a series of attempts to solve certain
problems concerning change: What are its types? Can substance or
matter change? Does motion include being and non-being? Is the
relation between them rational or not? Does movement require a motor
different from the motion itself? . .. It is at least probable that the
presentation of such problems stemmed from the "living" of certain
characteristic movements specially interesting to human beings: the
downfall of states that had risen to heights of power and wealth; the
fleeting aspects of youth, of maturity, of the prime years of individual
life; the perishability of all this ....
Modern science, or at least modern physics, arose when Galileo
expressly rejected the resolution of such problems concerning the nature
or essence of movement and its causes, in order to focus exclusively on
how local motion or transportation occurs between points in material
space. This restriction, which made movement or change synonymous
with transportation, resulted at the same time in an enormous
amplification of knowledge about how such motion occurs and about all
its consequences: not only physics and modern physical techniques but
the other sciences and techniques that are founded on them.
The issue turns out to be one of the meaning of this restriction and
amplification - beginning with the previously mentioned fact of the
primacy of the vehicles that impress the masses because of the place
they have in human life.
Now speed is an important aspect of local motion, and it contains two
contrasting possibilities: acceleration and deceleration. Here modern
man, the man primarily of physical technique and science, is faced with
two possibilities, acceleration and deceleration. Is it possible to choose
between them? If so, which one will be chosen?
In order to understand the meaning of this question, perhaps it is
necessary to start with the historical fact that modem man already
 ON TECHNIQUE 115
decided in favor of acceleration, with each era becoming more
accelerated in everything: in vehicular transportation in industrial
production. . . .
But, in fact, has this not been unavoidable? Could man have chosen
deceleration? Is it possible for human life under the sign of deceleration
to have meaning?
The question cannot be satisfactorily answered in the negative until
some imaginative novelist presents us with the spectacle of human life
under the sign of deceleration: a life in which human beings take rides
on vehicles in order to go slower than on foot; a life in which, for
example, the passions return like prolonged slow-motion movies; in
which lovers arrive at their appointments saying not "I'm sorry I've
come so late and that we can only be together such a short time, so that
we must hurry" but "How good that we have to wait so long, how good
that extra time for everything will be so slow in coming." How
unfortunate it is that, with the recent proliferation of science fiction (or
pseudo-science fiction, of high or low literary quality), those
philosophical stories of the eighteenth century are not cultivated today.
How unfortunate is the loss of the last two journeys of Gulliver's
Travels - to the country of those accelerated to death and to the country
of the decelerated ones. These are not stories for children, but
philosophical stories - unless one thinks that "philosophy is a
prolongation of childishness." Perhaps one day they will be recovered. 5
"Time waits for no one. ,,6 Time moves forward and its march is
irreversible. Well, there really are phenomena of essential urgency, for
example, surgical operations, medical emergencies, the putting out of
fires, the rescuing of the shipwrecked. And is the intensification of
world production in order to remedy scarcity, world poverty, not an
emergency? Without a doubt. But, to think about it, there are
undoubtedly phenomena of deceleration that are not exclusively or even
appropriately thought of as delays but as decelerations for their own
sake, from the setting out to talk or walk more slowly to the work
slowdowns of employees and industrial workers. The issue would be
then to explore the possibilities of deceleration - within its
unsurpassable limits, although it might begin only with the theoretical
intention of understanding better, by contrast, the phenomena of a
culture of acceleration - its meaning, its possibilities, and also its
limits.
The fact is that modern man, whether by force or not, opted for
acceleration, and this fact - the radical fact of the quality of the
technification of our life, with all its consequences, or this technification
itself in its qualitative disposition, in its already effective reality, the
possibilities of its meaning and perhaps its non-meaning - is that toward
116 JOSE GAOS

which we ought to direct our attention.

Human life has two dimensions: one that stretches out from the
human being toward that which gives a being independence of itself;
another that passes into human being itself. Perhaps this is what the
Greek philosophers meant by poiesis and praxis, respectively. In any
case, these two dimensions are what life is, as, respectively, the life of
homo faber and homo viator, life as production and life as journey.
Homo faber has become homo economicus, which brings about
relations between physical technique and economic technique. The
acceleration of production depends on the acceleration of movement
transmitted vehicularly. Vehicles, in the expanded sense already
indicated, have in industrial production a literally fundamental place that
corresponds in this sector of human life to what they have in the totality
of life. And life as production has brought forth the revolution of the
current world economy with its paradoxes, not to say absurdities.
Production as the ultimate end or goal of the whole economic process,
in place of production for consumption or distribution. Maximum
diversification of products, the mass production line. Production
creating needs to consume. Surplus production, growing indefinitely in
variety and volume, ending in saturation, universal welfare. But at the
same time there are major inequalities in the distribution of national
wealth among citizens and the distribution of global wealth among
different countries; the stockpiling of surpluses of production by one
country in order not to damage others that produce the same products;
the destruction of goods in order to maintain their prices. . .. The
economy of production, is it not in danger of losing its meaning if not
making meaningless the economy as a whole? . . .
Man is an entity itinerant between birth and death - from a past
long before the birth of contemporary individuals and toward a future
that will not only historically go beyond the death of contemporary
individuals but which can also, at least to some extent, indefinitely
prolong each individual after his death. Man is what he does, and
everything that man does, all that he is, has the character of process, of
advance. All human specialization or specification is specialization or
specification of something human in a more general sense, in the double
sense of extension and comprehension. The poetry of professional
poets, the music of professional musicians, the madness of the
professionally crazy (which it is perhaps not superfluous to point out are
not the psychiatrists but the madmen in insane asylums) are
specializations or specifications of the little of the poet, of the musician,
and of the madman in all of us. Analogously, from time immemorial
there have been travelers, and more recently that inferior super-
specialization of the traveler that is the tourist, because human life is,
 ON TECHNIQUE 117
in its essential constitution, dynamic travel, because homo is viator.
Now the essence of travel is defined in turn by the goal and the route,
by the end or the road - if you want, through their ultimate unity. It
is even possible for travel to be vagabondage, the conversion of the road
itself into a continuously renewed end.
Here we find our life - of transportation and speed progressively
impelled, accelerated, overflowing. In the huge cities people expend a
disproportionate amount of their working time simply transporting
themselves from one place to another, from home to work.
"Disproportionate" in the economic sense exemplified by the professor
who rides a bus for an hour in order to teach a one-hour class. The
development of "communications facilities" includes, as is often proudly
said, inter- and intraurban, national and international levels, also
increasingly multiplying the number of people transported some place as
fast as possible, to be left there as short a time as possible or
immediately transported as fast as possible some place else where they
stay as short a time as possible, and so forth. People nowadays may do
more things than before during the same periods of time, but the things
also last shorter periods - and are less meaningful in the end because
among the essential human modes of temporality is the function of
length, duration, slowness, deepening profundity. In an instant an
emotion can break out, but this is not possible for a passion, which
needs years to collect volume and penetrate an entire life.
But let us imagine the advancing acceleration of our life toward its
highest point. What would the image of such a life be? A dehumanized
entity fiercely grasping a steering wheel, pressing the pedal to the floor
with its atrophied feet, in a vehicle that circles Earth or travels through
interplanetary space, without a goal, with a velocity such that it would
not be possible to "stay on the track" - like a moon, a lunatic lunar
body losing its orbit. At the point at which goals and roads have
become annihilated through the vertigo of transportation from one place
to another and the disconnected transformation of the perception of the
trajectory, human life has undoubtedly lost its meaning and abandoned
the "man" of such being.
How, why does man "run" his life in such a direction? What
ineluctable cause or eludable motive did modern man have to opt for the
kinetic possibility of acceleration?
In becoming conscious of certain differences between spiritual and
material activities, one thinks about the increasing materialism of
modern man, along with other characteristics such as increasing
irreligiousness. Perhaps to have proposed the acceleration in his
material activities as his profitable perfection is motivated by an
immoral, even pathological, historical development of materialist needs
118 JOSE GAOS

or appetites, at the cost of spiritual ones. But if, because of this motive
or better reasons, he is able to propose such acceleration as perfection,
the activities of the spirit appear to be more fruitfully carried out with
calmness, in repose.
It was mentioned before that time is required for a passion to come
to its fullness, in itself and in the life of the subject. But the passions
traditionally had a bad reputation as a target of religious or philosophical
moralists. Intellectual activities received a more favorable reception but
philosophical meditation and scientific investigation appear to require the
great patience of what has been called the genius, even in those cases
where the philosopher or investigator is not exactly a genius. But is it
not true that scientific researchers themselves are in a continuous rush
to solve not only the problem of cancer but the problems of atomic
physics, not only those of the peaceful uses of atomic energy but also,
and persistently, that of constructing a clean atomic bomb, that is, one
that permits the continuous construction, perfection, and stockpiling of
atomic bombs? . . .
Be that as it may, there appears to be a deeper answer to the
questions of this part of our discussion.
The one who is in a hurry and hurries himself, hurries and makes
himself hurry because he fears he does not have time to do what he
wants to do. Hurrying is an accusation of a struggle between the
purpose of an action and a temporal limitation. The time of human life
is finite. In this phrase human life is understood as individual. But the
entire time of human life in the historical sense, the life of the human
species or genus, is also finite. And human ambition, individual and
collective, is infinite. If this refers to the yearning for power, for
domination of man over nature and fellow men, then man has to be in
a hurry, has to rush to complete, to consumate such dominion, such
power, not only before the individual possessed of such a yearning
finishes his individual life, but also, perhaps above all, before all fellow
men have died, before Man and Nature have disappeared.
In the depths of modern technique, a struggle between temporal
finitude and the "essential" infinitude of man is unleashed, and this
seems to define modern man as an entity different from all other entities
- different from the lowest of subhumans, with pure temporal and
essential finitude, to the highest of the superhumans, God, with pure
essential and temporal infinitude.
Is it possible finally to draw out, from the revelation of the radical
meaning of modern technique, some practical or poetic technical
conclusion? Do we need amplification of time or reduction of ambition?
An exchange of material ambitions for spiritual benefit? A reversal of
all values?
 ON TECHNIQUE 119
We probably cannot draw such conclusions yet, before having
examined not only physical technique but also those techniques that
operate directly on and in some cases are derived from the living and
the human biological, psychological, sociological ....
Nor can we draw such conclusions before having investigated the
essential relation between the temporal finitude and the infinitude of
man. For the author of this article, this essential relation defines man
alone among all entities; human life alone lives for goods or bads, or
from the perspective of good and bad or from the human as good or
evil. It is possible that man lives his effective temporal finitude as the
greatest evil and his essential aspirations to infinitude as the highest
good ....
But these themes, already mentioned earlier, must be deferred for
another occasion.
This article may come to a close with an observation from the author.
It might be concluded that this article is an expression of a romantic
and reactionary attitude, of one who is a laudator temporis acti and one
who condemns both the present and the future. Because the advance of
history has consisted of the accelerated growth of human life, would the
deceleration of human life both physically and mentally not involve
turning toward the past? But this would be a premature conclusion.
The author of this article has also written: "All proposals in history for
returning to the past make meaningless the march of history itself. But
then, what proof of the meaning of this return could be offered by its
proponents - except that they are far ahead in this march?" What is
the case is that the Zeitkritik, as the Germans would say, is a
complicated thing. 7
- Translated by Leopoldo Molina P. and Carl Mitcham

NOTES
[1. This paper was first published in Acta Politecnica Mexicana, vol. 1, no. 1 (July-
August 1959).]
[2. Gaos was a student of Jose Ortega y Gasset.]
[3. Gaos is obviously alluding to Ortega's existential description of what it is to be
human: "I am myself and my circumstances" - first developed in Meditations on
Quixote (1914).]
[4. The ellipses in the text are the author's, perhaps reflecting the fact that he was
abbreviating portions of his original course outline.]
[5. Gaos alludes to the fact that most people know only the first two of Gulliver's
travels, because these are the ones regularly adapted to children's books. The third,
including a visit to a flying island, is a satire on modem science. In the fourth, the
society of the Houyhnhnms is so "slowed down," as it were, that these truly rational
creatures speak only about what is, never about the changeable, and do not even have
120 JOSE GAOS

the technique of writing.]

[6. The Spanish is· a common saying: "La vida es una faena que se nace hacia
delante. "]
[7. The translation is from "Sobre la tecnica," in J6se Gaos, De antropologfa e
historiografta (Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 1967), pp. 199-214.]
 HUGO PADILLA

TECHNOLOGICAL OBJECTS AND THEIR

EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASE

1. INTRODUCTION

It is often said that the contemporary world is greatly influenced by

science. From the most obvious point of view, this influence is
manifested in the products of technology. The contemporary world
presents the phenomenon of a growing population of technological
objects. These objects are artifically produced in two ways: through the
non-natural creation of objects similar to natural ones - the industrial
chemical synthesis of a natural substance, for example - or through the
non-natural creation of non-natural objects - an airplane or locomotive,
for example.
It is a fact that since antiquity human beings have produced or created
objects. That is, human beings have not been satisfied with having mere
natural objects, born and created in a natural manner. The creation or
artificial production of these objects, if we discard accidental and chance
manipulation, is presumably based on some kind of intention and on
some degree of acquired knowledge - not on inherited instinct, as with
the nest building of birds. The degree of knowledge influences the
production of the object. It influences production in at least two
fundamental ways: either making its production possible or increasing
the efficaciousness of the object itself.
The demographic explosion of technological objects - leading, in the
case of alienated production, to overpopulation - and the overwhelming
role that these play in the modern world makes trivially obvious the
influence of science, that is, of science as a degree of knowledge which
makes possible the creation or the increased efficaciousness of said
objects. Science, as a network of propositions subject to proof or
disproof and elaborated in a methodological manner, has been the object
of special interest. The abundant work done in the present century -
and before as well - in the philosophy of science, the theory of science,
establishes this. In neither quantity nor quality can the same be said
with regard to technology. Aside from commercialistic and economistic
concerns with technology, little can be found that seriously contributes
121
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 121-131.
°1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
122 HUGO PADILLA

to its theoretical analysis.

To undertake such an analysis is a major task. In this work we will
limit ourselves to pointing out some characteristics of the connection
between the stratum of knowledge and the stratum of artificial objects
produced on that basis.

2. THE STRUCTURE OF TECHNOLOGY

Technology is sometimes understood only as applied science, a notion

which implies a certain disdain for basic science (emphasizing
specialized knowledge), sometimes only as a model (plan, project,
design, patent), sometimes only as skill in assembly (construction,
fabrication, action), sometimes only as skill of operation (managing,
operating - soft technology), sometimes only as an object (instrument,
machine, equipment, thing, situation). Each of these conceptions of
technology is partial. The total phenomenon of technology implies the
sum of the previous moments, not simply in an additive but in an
ordered manner, with vector relations between the elements. If we
apply a systems perspective we obtain the indicated relational diagram
(see figure, below) between the elements, including the element of
science, using the following symbols: BS: basic science; AS: applied
science; IT: technological theory; TM(P): technological model (project);
TA: technological action; ST: soft technology; TO(S): technological
object (situation); DFo: obtaining of desired function.
Total Phenomenon of Technology

BS

ST
 TECHNOLOGICAL OBJECTS AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASE 123

Each element is, in tum, a subsystem. The inputs and outputs are
simplified, but they highlight the vertebral relations that go from the
stratum of knowledge to the function which the object fulftlls. The
element IT internally is a conjunction or set of relations which
presupposes being able to bring it about, through what we call
technological research. IT is the product (static perspective) of the
process (dynamic perspective) of research. The same goes for BS and
AS. In the absence of ST there is no output DFo• Within IT there has
to appear what we could call the desired function in a conceptual state
DFc. For example, in a mechanical problem, if it is desired that an
object in motion not be horizontally displaced, it will be necessary to
include within the internal framework of IT the condition

EFx =0
for some axis. Many other conditions could also be specified.
From a formal point of view the structure of technology, as
presented, can be expressed as a graph, that is, as an ordered pair (E,
K), constituted by a finite set of elements, E, and a binary relation

K C ExE

From a static perspective, the structure lacks feedback (the static

perspective will connect with the problem of the explanation of
technological objects). In this case, the properties of the relation K are
(a) reflexivity, (b) transitivity, and (c) asymmetry.
From a dynamic perspective (changing or refining IT; changing or
improving DFo, etc., which along with other aspects can represent what
we might call evolution or technological progress), the structure includes
feedback and, therefore, the properties of the relation K are reduced to
(a) reflexivity and (b) transitivity.
We have said that the elements of the structure can be considered
subsystems. The subsystem IT does not include feedback, nor do BS
and AS. All these subsystems are deductive constructions. The
inductive aspect can appear in the research process, in the setting up of
the internal elements of such subsystems - but this is another problem,
understandable in itself, which refers to a dynamic perspective, not to
the product of such a process. By contrast, in TM(P) and TO(S)
feedback can appear, and in TA necessarily will appear. With the
entrance of ST the problem of managing the functions is created, not
necessarily but as something which is in fact convenient. If this
possibility is taken up, feedback ([ST, TO(S)], [TO(S) , DFJ, [DFo ,
ST]} is created within the relationship K, but does not make impossible
124 HUGO PADILLA

the static approach. All the above means that the formal properties of
the total structure of technology are not always the same as those of its
elements, considered as subsystems. It is clear that from this point of
view the elements of the diagram that express the total structure of
technology are taken as nodes, without considering that internally they
are in tum composed of elements. Therefore, the relation K does not
necessarily have the properties that the relations between the elements
have, if these are considered as subsystems and no longer as simple
nodes.
3. BASIC SCIENCE AND APPLIED SCIENCE
There are two ways to view the relation (or lack thereof) between
basic science and applied science. The first takes applied science as
derivative from basic science, because the former introduces specific
considerations in the latter. In this sense, for example, the texts of
analytical mechanics for engineers (technologists) are presented as based
on classical Newtonian mechanics. The second view takes applied
science as an autonomous field, having weak interactions with basic
science requiring abundant efforts to set up or manage tabular
correlations of variables, determinations of tendencies or behavior, and
results that yield empirical generalizations. These two tendencies are
reflected even in positions and policies concerning education. It is clear
that basic science (in the form of theory) is not equally available in all
fields. But it is unfortunate that when basic science is available policies
insist on promoting the processes of generalization. Disagreements
aside, we see applied science as a transition toward the specific, a
guidepost in the path toward specificity. As J. O. Wisdom says,
The application of Newtonian mechanics to resisting media is applied science; if the
medium is highly specific ... we move into technology .... [A]pplied science, though
a step on the way to do something, is itself an extension of understanding. Applied
science has sometimes been described as concerned with doing, which seems to me to
be wrong in linking it with technology rather than with (pure) science. I

By its very nature, empirical science (which we will call science

based on generalizations) cannot be anything but applied science, since
it does not include theoretical laws and generalizations valid for a variety
of media and circumstances. There is also reason to think of applied
science, whether it arises from a deep theoretical stratum or is obtained
from a base of generalizations, as more related to the goal of increasing
the knowledge which determines basic science than to technology.
Although applied science makes technology possible, it neither
determines nor implies technology. To know better and more
 TECHNOLOGICAL OBJECTS AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASE 125

specifically does not necessarily include making. The inverse is not

true. To make better and more specifically does require a greater
knowledge and more determination.
With the appearance of TT, the input knowledge - which until now
has been considered only as science, whether basic or applied - ought
to be further distinguished. The knowledge input may well be common
sense knowledge, even when supported by extensive experience. This
was the case with the fabrication of artifacts before the modern period,
and to some extent thereafter, insofar as no change is made in ,the kind
of knowlege input - that is, if there is no substitution of scientific
knowledge for common sense knowledge. When the input is common
sense knowledge, it does not matter how much it is accepted or how
extensive it is, the resulting product can be, even in the best case, no
more than a technical object, never a technological object. The history
of technics must not be confused with the history of technologies. The
first began in antiquity, the second relatively recently, where its
possibility is conditioned by modern science. In a strict and even
quantifiable sense, technology does not become overwhelmingly present
until the nineteenth century. The emphasis on geometry is ancient, with
Platonic roots. Grosseteste (De line is) and Roger Bacon (Opus majus)
insisted on its usefulness in making, but the case of geometry is an
exception. Other instances (such as that of the lever, the principle of
Archimedes, etc.) are anticipatory swallows but do not the summer of
technology make. Nevertheless, to want to distinguish is not the same
as wanting to devalue. The history of technics overlaps with the history
of technology. At certain moments there are objects of both species,
parts of them being technical objects and parts being technological
objects. There are technical objects that become technological objects
with a change in the theoretical inputs from common sense knowledge
inputs to scientific knowledge inputs. There are technological objects
whose appearance would have been held up without the previous
existence of the corresponding technical objects. But there are objects
whose appearance, from the beginning and in a definitive way, would
not have been possible without the creation and development of modern
science.
We will now also distinguish between applied science that comes from
basic scientific theory, ASl , and applied empirical science, AS c ' a
product of empirical generalizations. Given that

is the same as
BS -+ AS
126 HUGO PADILLA

we can substitute the first for the second, adding that it is possible to
assume that the transition is brought about through the introduction of
determinate parameters in the formulas of BS.
Excluding the case in which the input to TI would be common sense
knowledge, thus fabricating technical but not technological products, we
have the following pure situations:
BS AS..
~ ~
TI TI
But in fact the knowledge base of technological theories is almost
always more complex, and presupposes combinations of the simple
cases. Most TO(S) are fabricated with knowledge inputs, in their
respective theories, that are not only more complex from the point of
view of the types of knowledge, but also in regard to such types arising
from diverse scientific areas - exhibiting the multidisciplinary character
of technological theories.
4. INPUTS OF COMPLEX KNOWLEDGE
By simple combination of the types of knowledge already indicated,
and including them whether or not they appear as inputs in the
corresponding technological theories, we have
1) BS AS t AS..
2) -BS AS t AS..
3) BS -AS t AS..
4) -BS -AS t AS..
5) BS AS t -AS..
6) -BS AS t -AS..
7) BS -AS t -AS..
8) -BS -AS t -AS..
Cases 5, 6, and 7 yield technological theories which we call scientific
technological theories, TI.; cases 1, 2, and 3 yield mixed technological
theories, TIm; and case 4, empirical technological theories, TI..; case 8
is impossible with respect to scientific knowledge as a contributor to
theory.
Corresponding to each type of technological theory there will be types
of models (plans, projects, formulas, tables, etc.) resulting as outputs:
M., Mm , or M... As a general rule the model of an object or
technological situation is a sum of a finite number of partial models. In
 TECHNOLOGICAL OBJECTS AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASE 127

the same way, the comprehensive technological theory that makes

possible the comprehensive model of the object is a sum of partial
theories. On occasion the diverse elements or parts 'IT of a
comprehensive theory TIc are in fact produced without being a function
of some particular or special comprehensive theory TIc (the theory of
transistors, for example, is produced independently of that which forms
part of the TIc of the comprehensive model of radio reception; the
theory of binary displacement in the algebra of circuits is produced
independently of its bistable elements being able to be transistors). That
is to say, a comprehensive technological theory TIc is always a union
of partial technological theories TIp, but not any union of partial
theories yields a comprehensive teclinological theory. Nevertheless,
from the point of view of theory, it makes no difference that the theory
of a clutch is prior to the theory of a generator. Therefore, from the
point of view of theory, a comprehensive technological theory TIc can
be expressed simply as

without more restriction than what is imposed by the final production of

TO(S), effectively presupposing only those TIpis that could be pertinent
to TIc' The presupposition of pertinence SImply gives form to the
rejection of any set of TI. as able to yield a totally coherent
technological theory. It is rather in the layers of the model where one
can see with greater clarity this presupposition of pertinence, that is, one
can see that some TIpis with their corresponding partial models T .M(p)
enter to form part of a comprehensive model T)1(P), and others (fo not.
The comprehensive model, in contrast to the total theory, is not
representable by
n
TcM(P) = lJTpjM(p)
j=l

but rather by an ordered n-tuple formed by a finite set of partial models

with at least two relations: one, R, functional, and another, S, referring
to spatial or temporal positions

The relation R always appears necessary. Some interpretations of S may

be necessary, but others, mainly related to space, result adventitiously.
128 HUGO PADILLA

In relation with the latter, consider industrial design which has to do

more with aesthetics or with comercialization than with the intrinsic role
of technology. 2 It is curious but true that the intervention of partial
theories is decided at the level of design, not at the level of the
corresponding theories.
The multidisciplinary character of technological theories may be based
on TTp' so that different areas of scientific knowledge are involved. (For
example, in the bank of a highway on a curve to avoid having the cars
leave the curve, and for specific values of r [radius of the curve], and
v [velocity of the car], d [distance between the tires], and g = 9.8
meters/sec2, involved among others are geometry, algebra, mechanics -
BS mechanics, AS, of mechanics, ASo of mechanisms.) In other cases
the multiplidiciplinary character arises from the intervention of various
TTpis within one TTc'
5. DISTINCT TYPES OF TECHNOLOGICAL OBJECTS

Why, if there are distinctions between entities in general, and

distinctions between special objects (for example, the classifications
chemical and biological), and distinctions between sub-elements of
objects (for example, between subatomic particles) - why is it not
possible to distinguish between technological objects? Clearly this does
not deal only with applying whatever criterion, but rather with trying
to understand the distinct types of technological objects on a systematic
basis. It is possible that the development and perfection of a focus
similar to that used in this work will provide this systematic criterion.
The inputs of scientific knowledge BS, AS" AS o which appear in
different TTr.,s, and consequently in the TpM(P)s that compose a TcM(P),
certainly innuence the types of objects, since these inputs are the
knowledge base of (a) the material, (b) the function, (c) the form, and
(d) the production, of the object itself. The role of common sense
knowledge would have to be taken into account again in order to be able
to explain the existence of certain technical-technological hybrids. Many
objects that are commonly considered to be clearly technological (say,
for example, a television set) may contain technical parts (let us say, the
cabinet).
During the moment of the production of an object it is possible to
work on equipment or machines that are clearly technological
instruments, with the material also being technological, while the
conception of the object could still be based only on common sense
knowledge (this is the case, for example, with plastic injector molding
in which objects may be produced that are from a certain perspective
quite simple). In this case scientific knowledge only influences the
 TECHNOLOGICAL OBJECTS AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASE 129

moment of action TA but not the model of the object itself (function,
form). These are objects technically conceived and technologically
produced.
Compound technological objects (which are the majority) admit of
an axiomatic treatment similar to that offered by Mario Bunge for
compound things and the notion of a part. 3 In the case of compound
technological objects, it would be necessary to pay close attention to the
function served by the parts in relation to the function of the whole
object, as well as the rational plan for its assembly/hook-up (logic,
operations, rational theory of action).

6. EXPLANATION OF TECHNOLOGICAL OBJECTS

Not only is it possible to offer explanations for recurring outcomes,

for unvarying regularities and statistical regularities. It also is possible
to offer them for individual outcomes. How does one explain TO(S)?
Frequently, when faced with a technological object, people ask for an
explanation. Frequently also, one responds: "This is something which
is used for ... ," as in Heidegger's analysis of utilities. There is a
reason for this. It deals with the classical functional explanation which,
as Nagel says, "takes the form of indicating one or more functions (or
even dysfunctions) that a unit performs in maintaining or realizing
certain traits of a system to which the unit belongs, or of stating the
instrumental role an action plays in bringing about some goal. ,,4 This
type of explanation appears, for example, in biology. In regard to
technology, it is pertinent in explaining the function of a part in relation
to a TO(S), the function of a TO(S) in relation to a technological
complex. But in every case, a TO(S) is explained, or a part thereof,
only by considering its output DFo. The explanation is incomplete.
TO(S) is an element of a system of relationships. In technology, there
is "knowledge of a thing or field of thinps, having been made according
to a plan - having been constructed." This implies other aspects of
technological explanation.
TO(S) can also be explained by exhibiting how it works, how it is
manipulated, or how it is put into functional operation. When this
happens, it shows how an input ST produces the output FDo. It can also
be explained in relation to how it was assembled or actually constructed,
that is, in relation to the input TA. It can be explained in relation to
how it was based on scientific knowledge K., that is, in relation to the
path UK.,IT], [IT, TM(P)]}. That is, the complete explanation of
TO(S) would be given, symbolizing the previous path by A., as

(EJTO(S) =df (A., TA, ST, DFJ

130 HUGO PADILLA

Every explanation of a technological object will be theoretically

incomplete if it does not have in it this element AI. It is not enough to
know how a technological object is constructed, how it operates, and
what functions it performs. It is necessary to know why it was
constructed, why it operates the way it does, and why it performs the
functions that it does. None of this is possible without the element A.
in the explanation. To know a technological object without knowing the
theory that made it possible is to know it only in a superficial manner.
7. CONCLUSIONS
i) The phenomenon of technology in the modern world is not
theoretically understandable through partial perspectives. It is
neccessary to investigate its internal structure, from the presuppositions
of science to the functions the objects perform. The latter must be
connected also to the social context, although not expressed in the work,
in which the TO(S)s are produced.
ii) The utilization of scientific knowledge defines technological
elements as opposed to mere technics. Within this technological
knowledge, AS! (theoretical) is preferable to ASe (empirical).
iii) The first step toward establishing a technological ontology is to
try to develop a technological taxonomy.
iv) The problem of explaining technological objects points toward the
need for theory and science.
v) In general, there is no philosophy of technology parallel to what
has developed as the philosophy of science. 6
- Translated by Ana Mitcham and Carl Mitcham
National Autonomous University of Mexico

NOTES
1. J. O. Wisdom, "The Need for Corroboration: Comments on Agassi's Paper,"
Technology and Culture, vol. 7, no. 3 (Summer 1966), pp. 367-370.
2. See Pablo Tedeschi, La genesis de las fonnas y el diseiio industrial (Buenos Aires:
Eudeba, 1966).
3. See Mario Bunge, "Metaphysics and Science," General Systems, vol. 19 (1974),
pp. 15-18.
4. Ernest Nagel, 17le Structure of Science (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961),
pp.23-24.
5. Juan David Garcia Bacca, Elementos de filosofia de las ciencias (Caracas:
Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1967), p. 138.
[6. Translated from Hugo Padilla, "Los objetos tecnol6gicos: Su base gnoseol6gica,"
in Lafilosofia y La ciencia en nuestros d{as (Mexico: Editorial Grijalbo, 1976), pp. 157-
 TECHNOLOGICAL OBJECTS AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASE 131

169. The translation of this text was greatly assisted by Luis Camacho, and some small
errors and ambiguities in the original Spanish were corrected by Hugo Padilla, who also
carefully reviewed the translation. The translators express their thanks to both Camacho
and Padilla.]
 LEOPOLDO ZEA

SATELLITES AND OUR MORALITY

Are we facing a new dimension of the human? Is technology, in

expanding the possibilities of man, going to create a new horizon of
values? Will our morality, our strongly old-fashioned morality, remain
static while man is given the possibility of realizing worlds which one
can almost not venture to dream? These and many other questions face
us as a result of the scientific discoveries of the last few years or, better
still, the last few months.' Hardly twelve years have passed [in 1958]
since the moment when the whole world trembled before one of the
most fantastic discoveries, one of the greatest deeds realized by man in
his effort to dominate nature: the discovery and use of atomic energy.
Man entered a new age, which would from then on be called the atomic
age. But how did man enter into this age that should have filled all of
humanity with pride? Everyone remembers. We all remember that
terrible date - August 5, 1945 - as an ominous date in human history.
We did not enter into the atomic age with the happiness of a man who
has overcome an obstacle, but with shame and terror. On August 5,
1945, man demonstrated his capacity not for creation, but for
destruction. An energy, a tremendous energy which, underestimated
within the possibilities that man had established for it, was transformed
by human hands into a powerful instrument of destruction. That which
this force had not done for man in thousands of years, it was doing now
under the direction of man himself. Hiroshima on that day, and
Nagasaki on the ninth day of the same month, signaled the entrance of
humanity into the atomic age.
Thousands and thousands of years had passed since the age when
human beings, almost naked, used clubs or stone axes to defend
themselves and attack others within a primitive morality of warfare.
Nevertheless, in spite of the many thousands of years that have passed,
and in spite of the many technological changes that have occurred
between that age and ours, human morality has not greatly changed.
Humans have abandoned the club and stone only to utilize instruments
more and more effective for defense and attack, but still with their static
morality. The atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki
were, in human hands, nothing else but the sticks and stones in the
hands of our Stone Age ancestors. Nothing has changed, everything has
remained the same; or perhaps only the justification has changed, the
moral justification that primordial humanity did not search for. Far

133
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 133-141.
°1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
134 LEOPOLDO ZEA

from the injustice of this act being pointed out, far from its being
repudiated, it was justified as an act necessary for the good of humanity.
The destruction of a part of humanity was necessary for the good of
humanity in the abstract, even though this abstract, in this instance,
would be embodied in a determined people, in a determined society, and
in a determined group of men with equally limited interests. In this
way, atomic energy, far from serving all of humanity, served only a part
of it and was an instrument of natural dominion that man used against
man. Atomic energy did not serve human happiness, nor did the stone
transformed into the war axe, the steel into sword, lead into bullets, or
Icarus's wings into terrible instruments for bombing.
Nevertheless, this past year, 1957, the fourth of October gave birth
to a new hope that usually only very special circumstances offer. On
October 4, 1957, the world received the news that a new star had
appeared in the heavens. A miniature star, small in size but great in
hopes. A miniature star whose greatness consisted in that it had been
made by man. In this particular case it was made by a man from a
specific country, Russia, but it very well could have been made, as it
would be made later, by North Americans or even Frenchmen,
Englishmen, Indians, or any other group of men. A work, purely and
simply, by men and for men. Men only circumstantially distinct from
other men, different from each one of us only as each one of us is
circumstantially different from others, but no more and no less. In the
end, man could escape from a world each day smaller and more
disputed. A new horizon opened to humanity with the launching of this
first artificial satellite and with the others that would be sent later. Man
was about to satisfy his dreamed ambitions. His ambitions could now
stretch on because man had now the entire universe as horizon of
maximum possibility. What was about to follow? Would man feel
more powerful than ever, or, on the contrary, would he now become
aware of, as he had not become aware of ever before, his little worth
in spite of the greatness of his ever-expanding ambitions?
Nothing could be affirmed at that moment. What is certain is only
that October 4, 1957, reminded us of another October, October 12,
1492, when other men with other small instruments had dared to fight
against nature and had just overcome it. In that far-off month of
October, 1492, man's horizon of possibilities was enlarged also. The
encounter with America put an end to a series of blockades and
hindrances. Humanity grew up and with it its inner possibilities.
Everything became relative: morality, customs, and the like, yet
everything also seemed to be at man's reach, at any individual's reach.
The old world, already very limited for the new man who had made the
discovery of new horizons, had been broken. Among other things, the
 SATELLITES AND OUR MORALITY 135
new man abandoned the idea of reaching for a sky that was always at
the reach of his hand but controlled by an extraneous will not of his
own, and committed himself to the task of becoming master of a world
that was expanding before his eyes. Happiness was no longer something
pertaining to some extraterrestrial world, it was now something possible
to be achieved by man, something within the reach of his possibilities.
Thus this October 4, 1957, reminds us of that October 12, 1492. The
world as a site of opened possibilities for man is again growing. A new
horizon has opened to these possibilities whose character has become
almost infinite. In this occasion these possibilities have transcended the
limits of the earth, of an earth already too small for human needs and
ambitions. Heaven - that heaven which was put inside parentheses by
modern man, by the positivist man, zealous for material conquest - is
now an object of new and serious attention. The sky is already within
man's reach, within the reach of his material, positivist ambitions. The
sky, and with it the infinite worlds that are spread throughout it, already
are within his reach. Toward the conquering of those worlds and their
wealth man has now focused all his efforts. The first thing done was
to jump beyond the orbit of terrestrial attraction; afterwards it would
come to conquering that small world, the nearest to us, the moon; later
on Mars, Jupiter, Mercury, conquering all and everything that could
possibly be conquered, by the present generation or by those to come.
So it was that the earth, in its entirety, was conquered and dominated,
beginning with Columbus's fantastic encounter with the Americas.
But here we should stop and ask ourselves if we, from a moral point
of view, are mature enough to face the possibilities that satellites have
opened up for us? Are our ambitions, so far limited by the limited size
of the earth, going to transform themselves, and with them our morality?
Or are we going to continue living within the framework of our
primitive moral perspective, that one focused on self-defense and attack?
The encounter with the Americas, along with the rest of the world, far
from joining the Western explorers in a great enterprise to the benefit
of all, on the contrary divided and made them dispute the dominion of
the new lands and their inhabitants with the same cruelty with which our
ancestors had fought among each other for the possession of a cave, an
instrument for hunting, or a piece of bloody meat. The world to which
Columbus's encounter gave birth very soon became small and
insufficient for containing Westerners' ambitions. They ended in killing
each other, like our ancestors the troglodytes, for the possession of the
world, though using more effective instruments of destruction. The
highest expressions of these conflicts are the last two GustIy called)
World Wars, which have left two great colossal powers ready to
exterminate each other for the possession of the round world
136 LEOPOLDO ZEA

encountered by Columbus which already has become quite small for

their great ambitions.
Nevertheless, the new situation that has opened the possibility for the
launching of artificial satellites as a means for the conquest of the skies
could well be precisely what could fulfill those ambitions that were not
fulfilled by the discovery of the circularity of the earth. In the present
situation, man's joint effort, his collaboration with fellow men in this
one task, could be a common aim that by necessity should transform our
morality. The infinite range of possibilities that are opened to humanity
should leave all men satisfied, and as a result they should no longer
sustain that primitive moral attitude of self-defense and attack. In the
new era the attack would be aimed against something alien to humanity,
and the defense would also be against something alien that could
endanger our common humanity. Such is the theme that we repeatedly
find in those fantastic stories and movies which have given voice to the
idea of the displacement of man onto planes transcending terrestrial
limitations .
The infinite size of space and the possibility of an equally infinite
conquest would give man a new horizon in human relationships. This
task, if it were to be realized, would be the work of all humanity and
not just one small group. The petty differences among capitalists and
communists, imperialists and colonialists, natives and foreigners, blacks
and whites, and so on, would have to disappear in the face of a labor
that had to be realized within the scope of a wide collaboration involving
all mankind. Others, our fellow men, would no longer be seen as
enemies, but as collaborators in an extraordinary task, a task common
to all humanity. A task that, if realized, would transcend the traditional
differences that up to now have separated men. The human desire to
conquer, as limitless as it might be, would have at its disposal a world
equally infinite in possibilities. Escaping from the limitations of our
terrestrial orbit would also mean being free from the limitations of a
morality also made to fit the size of this orbit. We would need the
imagination of a Jules Verne or an Aldous Huxley in the area of
morality in order to be able to highlight, shape, or draw that which
would be the expression of morality within this infinite range of
possibilities. What would have to disappear is the crux of differences
among men - limitation.
The base of all disagreements resides in the existence of limitations
in the range of man's possibilities. For this reason, Francis I of France,
with his customary cynicism, could declare (regarding differences with
the emperor Charles V of Germany that had impoverished Western
Europe): "We do not have many differences. Charles and I fight
because we are in agreement. We both want the same thing: the
 SATELLITES AND OUR MORALITY 137
dominion of Europe. " Nothing more, nothing less. The world was
already too small for men's ambitions, for men who wanted to have
everything at the reach of their hands.
But what would happen if there were not one single world but many
worlds, an infinite number of worlds which would be at the disposal of
all ambitions, no matter how limitless they might be? Such are the
possibilities that satellites open. Satellites made by men, these small
artificial moons, have broken or can break the Gordian knot of men's
disagreements among themselves, the base of their ancestral differences
and struggles.
But has man attained a stature equal to these possibilities? Or, on the
contrary, does human morality still continue as static as it was in the
past? Will man be able to understand the reach of and possibilities
opened by these recent marvelous discoveries of his prodigious mind?
Will his morality, like his satellites, surpass the atmosphere of his
terrestrial relationships and ambitions? Or, on the contrary, are these
satellites nothing more than another instrument in the service of man's
limited terrestrial ambitions? Can man be interested in anything other
than the dominion of this barbarically-disputed earth and of his fellow
man?
Satellites, instead of having clarified the horizon of man's
possibilities, have complicated it even more. Man does not think in
terms of his universal possibilities but only in terms of his terrestrial
ambitions. The happiness that was produced by the launching of the
first artificial satellite was modified by predictions of possible misuses
of future satellites. Once again many people talk about them as
instruments of death put at the service of some men's ambitions at the
expense of others. Satellites, stars created by man, are transformed into
instruments whose worth does not go beyond the worth that in the past
the club or stone had for troglodyte man. That is, they are, as always,
simple instruments for setting limits to human ambitions, for achieving
or supporting conquests that do not go beyond the limits of this disputed
earth, with all its flora, fauna, and men. Once again, that fear and
selfishness that seemingly never abandon the work of man are making
themselves felt. Indeed, not only politicians but also men of science
have characterized the first satellites (and with them their own limited
dreams of grandeur) as "celestial spies" or "absolute weapons," that is
to say, as instruments of terrestrial dominion over poor mortal fellows
who, by fate, happen to inhabit this earth. In other words, these
satellites have become not instruments for the conquest of the skies, at
the service of all men, but instruments for the dominion of man by man.
Celestial spies, absolute weapons, even more terrible than the most
terrible atomic weapon; instruments of destruction with which half of
138 LEOPOLDO ZEA

humanity could impose slavery on the other half.

Once again one witnesses the same preoccupation with destruction that
was embodied, for our stone age ancestors, in the club or primitive axe,
in the invention of very small stars that could eradicate those men that
could block other men's rather small human ambitions. Instruments to
kill or enslave man, nothing more, nothing less. Stars in the hands of
men whose ambitions, from a moral point of view, do not extend farther
than their limited eyes can see or their minds can take in.
In other words, these are stars put at the service of a kind of men
whose morality has not surpassed the narrow limits imposed on them by
a world already too small for their ambitions. Stars in the hands of men
who, having escaped from their physical limitations, still have not been
able to transcend the morality that created them. Looking at the matter
from a moral point of view, this kind of man still continues to be
preoccupied by his eagerness to place his own interests ahead of the
interests of his fellows or companions. Blinded by his ambitions he
cannot go beyond his limited interests; he still continues moving within
the tiny orbit of his terrestrial ambitions, no matter how big he
conceives them to be. Power, glory, wealth for some men at the cost
of other men's power, glory, and wealth. These men still need to rob
others of some of their limited goods in order that the other's poverty
attests to their own wealth; to make others suffer so that they may be
witnesses to their power; and to kill so that others may recognize their
glory. All of this happens, ironically, at a moment when circumstances
have opened to man possibilities of power, glory, and wealth of which
he had never before dreamed. Because of this he still is busy planning
dominion over his companions instead of looking for ways of joining
them in a common effort to plan dominion over worlds never before
imagined.
Many, too many, are the signs of man's limitations in the face of his
own possibilities. During the same period in which the first artificial
satellite began its orbit, Professor Fred Singer of the University of
Maryland in the United States, made a proposal. 2 (I am not sure it was
a serious affirmation or only an Anglo-Saxon joke.) He proposed that
both the United States and the USSR decide their control over the
world, if not over the cosmos, by bombing the moon. The country that
could make the deepest craters in the moon - craters which could be
given names "in order to perpetuate the names of presidents, prime
ministers and party secretaries" - would control the world. Something
quite sportsmanlike, but which leads to aims that do not reach beyond
the ambitions of Francis I of France and Charles V in the seventeenth
century - ambitions that could have been cleared up in one of those
tournaments that so much delighted Francis I. Moons, suns, and stars
 SATELLITES AND OUR MORALITY 139
as simple targets put at the service of men in order for them to solve
their limited terrestrial ambitions! The nation that hit the best targets
and could destroy more stars and suns would necessarily have to be the
strongest, and therefore the nation to which other nations would have
to surrender. Once again the efficacy of the club and axe appear as
instruments to decide the dominion of men over each other and not of
men over the surrounding world. Man, lord of the universe, at the
expense of others, controlling other men and not permitting them to
exist as equals or as people with whom to collaborate.
And, as a product of all of this, no collaborating or common task, but
instead absurd proposals for an absurd allotment of the moons, the stars,
the suns, that have not been conquered yet. The meaningless discussion
of the right of nations to possess some determined sidereal spaces, the
sovereignty of some at the expense of others; frontiers and parallels that
should not be transgressed within a universe become again very small.
Sidereal charts, codes, effective distribution of the universe in the same
way that the earth is distributed. Interplanetary spacecraft violating the
sovereignty of a nation on Mars or the moon as a pretext for men, on
this long-suffering earth, to kill each other with the best weapons at their
disposal. Entire armies of men fighting in Korea, in India, in
Tanganyika, France, Paraguay, or wherever, to take vengeance on the
transgressing of some border in the Milky Way.
What can we do on the moon? Or what should we do in those
worlds? Observe, spy, and prepare the destruction of moral beings that
inhabit this earth? The real moon has not yet been reached, and already
man has conceived artificial moons that can serve as bases for bombing.
Indeed, news reports inform us that very soon one of the most
aggressive countries in the world is proposing to launch a "still moon,"
one that will stay fixed in the course of day and night. A motionless
moon for what purpose? For inspiring the future poets or for children
to know a new man on the moon? No. This moon would be a
magnificent station for radio and television transmission. Very good
indeed! Always the practical sense of contemporary man! And yet,
there is something more: this artificial moon would have a more
powerful utility: "It would be relatively easy," one of the theoretical
marshals of these useful moons said, "to aim a ballistic projectile from
this spatial platform at any fixed target on the surface of the earth."
Already the moons, suns, and stars are no longer considered
sportsmanlike targets; now the earth itself is the preferred target. It
will permit the best man to be its owner - if someone survives, of
course. What this means is that man has not transcended his old
morality of self-destruction. Man, this man of flesh and bones, remains
an eternal target for man. "The wolf-man in man," as the great cynic
140 LEOPOLDO ZEA

an eternal target for man. "The wolf-man in man," as the great cynic
Thomas Hobbes called him. 3 This is the utility, the only thing that
matters in a world thought of as a testament to the triumph of the best.
Conquering worlds that are not human worlds is meaningless unless it
can serve to make man's will for dominion over other men be felt. Man
still cannot renounce sadism and masochism as an expression of good
fellowship!
Human competition thus continues in the skies - a competition that
has no goal other than that of our troglodyte ancestors, the dominance
of one man over other men, of one social group over another social
group, of one nation over another nation. Not the dominance over the
multitude of worlds that could be reached by men. Thus, once more,
what is lacking is a common task, a human interrelationship that could
permit man to be more successful in his fight against nature.
This fight has a secondary character. It is a useless fight, this
domination over others, alien to what is most important to man. The
race continues so that we will know who has the best weapons to
destroy others. Already one of the statesmen of the modern world, old-
fashioned in his morality, grieved for the time lost because his country
was found to have fallen behind. Not lost time with regard to the
conquest of other worlds, moons and stars, but something useless,
characteristic of despotic nations. An instrument of propaganda, like the
pyramids. What interests the most contemporary men is the conquest
of the earth no matter who would be the winner. "I believe," declared
John Foster Dulles, "that whenever the Soviets achieve something
spectacular, they see its primary benefit as lowering us in public
opinion. ,,4 In his opinion, the conquest of the moon or some planet has
no utility other than that of propaganda. Propaganda to subject one
people to dominance by others. This appears to be the only important
thing in the space race between North Americans and the Soviets. The
people who are the winners in outer space would also apparently be
winners here on earth. The success of one always at the expense of
another; never the possibility that all men could join in efforts to search
for common aims.
If we consider the physical possibilities that have been opened by
technology, are we witnessing a new dimension of what we call human?
Do artificial satellites represent the beginning of a new epoch in the
moral sphere? Unfortunately, not for now. There has not been a single
step in that direction, nor is there likely to be one. Man still continues
with his small ambitions and fears. Man still continues being an enemy
of man. Technology continues to be an instrument, more perfect
everyday, for the dominion of man over his fellows. The possibility of
domination of the universe continues, in his hands, to be the same as
 SATELLITES AND OUR MORALITY 141

atomic energy, gun powder, steel, or rocks: all are equally instruments
to arm or destroy. Man's possibilities are great, but his ambitions
continue to be limited. He still finds no better witness for his power
and glory than that other men be passive targets for them. Power over
the rest, glory at the cost of the rest. Other men always as instruments
for the recognition of that power and that glory - what a humanly
limited goal. Perhaps what man is lacking is that great witness of past
glories: God or the gods! That is to say religion, the kind of religion
that gave man's products a character that reached beyond any human
dimension. Nowadays God or gods are nothing more than the
expression of man's limited humanity, puppets of his ambitions. Man
is still possessed by what modernity calls immanentism. Man is still
locked within himself, self-limited, without the capacity for recognizing
in his companions the greatness he hopes they recognize in him.
Will it always be the same? Perhaps not, but this already brings in
a world of hope (something, incidentally, equally human). But we are
still at the very beginning of a new stage in the dominion of man over
nature. A stage that in progressing, in bearing its first great fruits,
could perhaps change the scope of human morality. Man still does not
live in that world of worlds full of possibilities; this is still a dream that
may be realized in the near future (if man does not commit suicide
beforehand), perhaps then offering us the realization of a new utopia.
A utopia hardly visualized by the best men of yesterday and today.
Until then we leave these reflections as a simple example of our human
limitations.
- Translated by Leopoldo Molina, Carl Mitcham,
and James A. Lynch
National Autonomous University of Mexico
NOTES
[1. This essay, written in 1958, was included in Zea's La cultura y el hombre de
nuestros dias (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1959), pp. 109-
135. Reprinted, with slight revisions, Caracas: Instituto Pedagogico, 1975, pp. 85-
98.]
[2. See, e.g, Fred Singer, as quoted in "Free Zone Urged in Outer Space: U.S. A
Astronautical Delegate Bids U.N. Declare Moon an Independent Area," New York Tunes
(October 10, 1957), p. 20, col. 1.]
[3. See Thomas Hobbes's reference in De cive (1646), Epistle Dedicatory, near
beginning, to homo homini lupus.]
[4. See, e.g., John Foster Dulles, as quoted in "Reply to Moscow: Secretary,
Answering Khrushchev, Favors a Limited Parley,· New York Tunes (October 9, 1957),
p. 1, col. 1.]
 PART IV

FROM SPAIN
 MARtA LUISA GARCfA-MERITA

TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE

We are currently faced with an almost uncontrolled acceleration in the

expansion of various technologies. This enormous expansion influences
human beings in different ways. Technology can modify existing
capabilities, create new ones, and even eliminate abilities that existed
previously. Technology thus has numerous repercussions on human
nature.
But technology also grows out of human nature. For centuries human
beings have tried to construct a comfortable habitat by eliminating all
hardships imposed by nature. In this way, human beings try to "mold"
nature. Since we lack hair to protect ourselves from cold weather, we
invent clothing. Since we do not have claws or fangs to defend
ourselves, we invent weapons. Since we are not naturally equipped to
walk long distances, the strength of other animals has been used. In
addition, human beings learned to dominate different natural phenomena
- and invented fire. Human beings have benefitted from both the use
of means that already exist and the transformation of such means
through the manipulation of physical laws that govern the natural
phenomena.
Today technological devices are found in all human environments -
at work (to make it less harsh or more routine), at home (to avoid
unnecessary labor), in various surroundings (to protect human beings
from hostile conditions such as heat and cold). Technology has
contributed to reducing distances and, therefore, transformed our
conceptions of time and space. We have also been successful in
overcoming problems related to our own bodies, thanks to medicine and
bioengineering.
On the one hand, then, it seems obvious that our society is engaged
in sustained technological improvement. On the other, we gradually
become more and more dependent on these improvements, which thus
to some extent chain and even enslave us - as if we were addicts.
Moreover, although nuclear weapons no longer seem the threat they
once did, we continue to pollute the earth and alter the environment in
ways that threaten our very existence. The technological world we have
created is far from being a wholly comfortable place. It might even be
described as at times hostile, alienating, and murderous.
145
Carl Mileham (ed.), Philosophy a/Technology in Spanish Speaking Cauntries, 145-151.
01993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
146 MARfA LUISA GARCfA-MERITA

TECHNIFIED NATURE
Numerous authors have pointed out how the context in which we live
is now the product of technology. It is difficult to tell which things are
really "natural," since many technical layers have gradually become
sedimented in our lifeworld (Roqueplo, 1983). The food we eat, the
appliances we use every day, our homes, the trees in our gardens and
fields, even the water we drink, are either technical objects (hamburgers,
coffee makers, buildings, hybrid plants, cars, planes, washing machines,
central heating systems, etc.) or the result of manufacturing processes
in which different technologies take part (nitrates for vegetables, water
treatment plants, insecticides for fruit, etc.).
Technologies have transformed ancient scientists - who, at most,
once aimed to sculpt nature - into beings who manipulate and modify
the most hidden and powerful cosmic forces, not only of matter and
energy but also of life. The development of genetic engineering, for
example, has encouraged the manipulation and modification of
cytogenetic messages. Even the physical nature of the human being is
thus becoming a conscious product of technology.
In addition, the knowledge associated with different technical objects
is gradually expanding and becoming far more complicated. As a result,
some technologies originally conceived to help human beings have
turned out to include misunderstood forces and influences. Technologies
set up conditions and demands that are difficult to meet, but upon which
we are increasingly dependent. At the same time, there is a widening
gap between effects produced by the utilization of technical objects and
the understanding of the processes that generate such effects. Witness
the impact of our CFC refrigerants on stratospheric ozone. This
imbalance causes us to have difficulty in "owning" or "possessing" the
very objects and processes we construct.
Paradoxically, those objects created to provide autonomy and to
release human beings from their natural weaknesses are now making
them dependent on specialists who have the ability to design,
manufacture, operate, manage, or repair them. Many objects become
things "unknown" to us. Indeed, as Langdon Winner (1977) argues,
individuals know less and less about the total technological complex of
objects that influence their lives. We all know how to use telephones,
refrigerators, television sets, or air-conditioning systems - but very few
of us know how to repair them. And how many people can cope with
normal health problems without having to fall back upon modern
medical specializations?
The technification of nature creates a new dimension of social
responsibility for scientists and engineers - a responsibility they cannot
 TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 147

escape with appeals to the neutrality of science and technology.

Consider only the issue of social implications. It is becoming
increasingly obvious that technology not only has social effects, but
actually constitutes in itself a social relationship (Ibanez, 1988). The
effects of technology can characterize the most important features of
the societies that adapt them (Levy, 1978). Sanmartin (1988) even
argues that modern science and technology are completely transforming
human nature. Here, however, it is sufficient simply to note that at the
very least technology has a strong impact on human nature.
TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE
When considering relationships between technology and human nature
there are several positions that can be argued. Some authors maintain
that we should not be afraid of technological progress, since it ultimately
depends on human beings. According to Tobar-Arbulu, for instance,
The idea of a mythical technology that cannot be controlled by human beings is not
feasible. There are powerful interests that may lead to an unethical use of science and
technology in business or as a means of neo-colonialism. But this is another issue
(Tobar-Arbulu, 1988, p. 119).

Other authors warn of the dangers involved in technological evolution

and call for more ethical behavior from scientists and engineers in the
fields of nuclear engineering, biomedicine, environmental engineering,
etc. - even in some instances demanding voluntary limitations on
technological power. Along this line, Hottois points out the possible
implications of modern biotechnologies:
Consider the manipulations of procreation. Their intention is always therapeutic and
thus humanistic. Nevertheless, they constitute a true mutation of the species about
which it is impossible to foresee the consequences: if the human being eventually
becomes a "technogene" (engendered technologically) this will affect not only the
existential condition of individuals but even more the nature itself of our species
(Hottois, 1987, p. 283).

In a similar way, Sanmartfn (1987 and 1988) warns of the risks

involved in the use of genetic and microelectronic technologies, and
Mitcham (1988) insists on the urgent need for more ethical professional
attitudes in the use of high technologies. Finally, Ibanez (1988) warns
that new technologies are the most powerful mechanisms of social
control that presently exist, since they increase social imbalance,
accelerate change, and promote dialectics between dependence and
autonomy.
One of the most controversial and paradigmatic aspects of the
148 MARfA LUISA GARCiA-MERITA

relationship between technology and human nature may be that

concerned with the development of computers. As is well known,
microelectronic breakthroughs, programming improvements, and
advances in artificial intelligence have transformed computers into
incredible devices. Electronic machines in many cases are able to work
faster and do jobs more efficiently than any human beings. Computers
are thus replacing thousands of workers in companies and factories, and
thereby threatening employment.
But unemployment is not the only problem. Those who are employed
to work with computers often suffer from the resultant working
conditions. On the one hand, the relationship a human being establishes
with a computer can have specific effects, such as promoting a
submissive behavior (Elejabarrieta, 1987), that can in tum influence
interpersonal relationships. Relationships may be even more damaged
if the incipient videotext system becomes a normal feature of every
household, so that work is done without leaving the home - which will
obviously alter family and organizational relationships. In addition, as
Munduate points out, "In the next fifteen years, nearly half of the work
force will have to change jobs" (Munduate, 1985, p. 409). This implies
an organizational and individual restructuring process that can result in
a qualitative change of inter-group and inter-individual relationships.
On the other hand, the routine and monotony involved in robotized
work can also seriously damage physical and psychological health.
Human beings do not work only in order to meet biological demands.
They work for certain clients or markets, and so gain access to
representations of things instead of the things themselves. Contemporary
human beings are gradually becoming more detached from their work,
less and less taking an active role in it. Everyday technology likewise
tends to isolate individuals and promote loneliness. For instance, the
telephone discourages us from actually meeting people, television
undermines family conversation, automatic cash dispensers make human
contact with bank clerks unnecessary, and so on. All such technological
devices tum us into individuals without interactions - undermining
culture, which is basically social. The group dimension and the
interaction among the members of groups are essential for culture. Such
interactions exist less and less in the technological era (Ellul, 1987).
The retirement problem is also critical. A decline in the job market
has led to a reduction in retirement age at the same time that the life
span is increasing. In the past, a person was considered old at seventy;
people retired at seventy. But most human beings did not live that long,
since the mean life expectancy until 1940 was only fifty-five years.
Today retirement takes place some five to ten years earlier, whereas the
average life span is now above seventy. Retired people thus have
 TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 149
increased amounts of time on their hands, which sometimes makes them
feel like "outsiders" to social reality - even guilty of being alive, a
burden for their families and society in general.
Detachment from professional life (among unemployed youth as well
as the retired) goes beyond the mere suspension of a certain activity.
It implies the adoption of new roles, the restructuring of social and
family spheres. It also alters personal economy and constitutes a shift
from work interests to leisure ones. But, paradoxically, leisured
individuals are also cut off from family and friends, and left to solve
problems on their own, immersed in an indifferent urban crowd. In
such a situation the members of the new technological world often resort
to the creation of artificial support groups in forms varying from youth
gangs to retirement dating clubs.
EFFECTS ON THE HUMAN PSYCHE
Human beings are thus faced with a complex and contradictory
constellation of loneliness, isolation, lack of time, too much time,
monotony, physical exhaustion, and an enormous dependence on
technological devices. All such circumstances provoke anxiety and
uncertainty, and fail to provide human beings with the liberation
promised by modem technology.
The psychic impact appears in different ways: increases in
psychological disorders and the appearance of new diseases. Increases
in psychological disorders in all developed countries during the last
decades is well documented. Incidences of depression, neuroses
(particularly anxiety neuroses), and other psychiatric symptoms exhibit
almost exponential growth. Some authors have also detected a
qualitative change in such disorders. For instance, Gonzalez Seara
(1977) thinks that "life exhaustion" is one of the distinctive illnesses of
the technological era. This life exhaustion is even found among
children: infantile depression rates, together with other psycho-
pathological disorders, have risen enormously. Other authors, such as
Groen (1977), have observed a significant increase in depression
syndromes, and a subsequent rise in suicide rates, along with increases
in deviant behaviors or psychopathologies, psychosomatic disorders, and
drug addiction.
Human beings try to avoid "existential distress" in two ways:
actively, by transforming life into a constant championship of productive
efficiency; and passively, through cultivation of a primitivism in which
rock music and slam dancing, the TV, video games, and drugs all play
roles (Rojo, 1988). Both approaches constitute a sustained effort at
adaptation, again increasing stress.
150 MARfA LUISA GARCfA-MERITA

In the first way, that of efficiency, there arise the two pathologies of
"over-effort" and "over-specialization." But too much work and
responsibility lead to depression (Rojo, 1984). Depression rises. Like
all types of continuous stress, the fatigue produced by extra effort can
provoke the appearance of psychosomatic disease (irritable bowel
syndrome, duodenal ulcer, heart attack), and greater susceptibility to
colds or flu. Over-specialization further implies the loss of creativity.
A subject is only involved in things already known. Over-specialized
individuals are limited to their own discipline, with their thinking
spectrum and room for imagination correspondingly reduced.
In the second way, the primacy of visual and auditory stimulation that
is not accompanied by the content of reading or personal conversation
produces a hyper-functioning in the right brain hemisphere and a
distortion in the left (Bogen et al., 1972). This easily leads to drug
addiction, which can terminate in schizomorphic psychosis. Such effects
are commonly associated with psychotropic drugs, amphetamines, and
alcohol (Rojo, 1984). Drug addiction and psychopathologies can also
be responsible for deviate behaviors that lead to absurd and aggressive
crimes. Other factors also contribute - social anomie, urban sprawl,
and so on.
All such psychological traits can be associated with "technological
progress. " Consequently, it can be argued that although technology
dominates nature and frees human beings from many weaknesses, it also
creates a special culture, a unique "second nature" (as Aristotle would
call it). This new technologized nature - in both its non-human and
human aspects - calls for increased attention and investigation.
One final comment. While human beings concentrate on trying to
solve problems related to possible planetary extinctions as a result of the
nuclear threat or global climate change, we may overlook other matters
such as dehumanization, which although not as violent or dramatic, are
perhaps equally pervasive and just as real. Remember the words of
Zarathustra: "Look! Here is the last Man. "
University of Valencia

REFERENCES
Bogen, J. E., R. DeZure, W. D. Tenhouten, and J. F. Marsh (1972). "The Other Side
of the Brain, N. The AlP Ratio," Bulletin of the Los Angeles Neurological Societies,
vol. 37, no. 2 (April), pp. 49-61. Parts I-III are in vol. 34 (1969).
Elejabarrieta, F. (1987). "Nuevas tecnologfas y participaci6n social," course at the
Universidad Popular, Zaragoza, 1985-1986.
Ellul, Jacques (1987). "Peut-il exister une 'culture technicienne'?," Revue Internationale
 TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 151
de Philosophie, issue no. 161, pp. 216-233.
Gonzalez Seara, L. (1975). El cansancio de la vida, fenOmeno de nuestro tiempo.
Madrid: Karpos.
Groen, J. J. (1977). "Trahajo, stress y enfennedad," in A. Kagan, ed., Trabajoy stress.
Madrid: Karpos.
Hottois, Gilbert (1987). "Humanisme et evolutionisme dans 1a philosophie de 1a
technique," Revue Internationale de Philosophie, issue no. 161, pp. 278-295.
Ibanez, T. (1988). "Las nuevas tecnologfas: Un fen6meno social en 1a encrucijada del
poder y del saber," paper from the Secondo Congreso Nacional de Psicologfa Social,
Alicante, 6-8 April.
Levy, J. M. (1978). 'Confesar 1a ignorancia, revindicar la duda," El Viejo Topo, issue
no. 131, pp. 54-55.
Mitcham, Carl (1988). "Etica profesional en las altas tecnologias," paper presented at
the Instituto de Investigaciones sobre Ciencia y Tecnologia (INVESCIT), Valencia,
9 November.
Munduate, L. (1985). "Nuevas tecnologias y stress," paper from the Primer Congreso
Nacional de Psicologia Social, Granada, 3-7 September.
Rojo, M. (1984). Lecciones de psiquialrfa. Valencia: Promolibro.
Rojo, M. (1988). "Peculiaridades de la crisis actual y sus implicaciones en los
trastornos psiquicos," paper presented in honor of Professor Ram6n Rey Ardid,
University of Zaragoza.
Roqueplo, Philippe (1983). Penser la technique: Pour une democratie concrete. Paris:
Seuil.
Sanmartin, Jose (1987). Los nuevos redentores: Rejlexiones sobre la ingenerfa genetica,
la sociobiologfa y el mundo feliz que nos prometen. Barcelona: Anthropos.
Sanmartin, Jose (1988). "Reflexiones en torno a la cuestionable primacia de 10 te6rico,
o semblanza del cachivache," Arbor, issue no. 507 (March), pp. 29-46.
Tobar-Arbulu, Jose F. (1988). "Tecnologia: Hacia un nuevo juramento hipocflltico,"
Arbor, issue no. 507 (March), pp. 107-130.
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in PolilicalThought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
 MANUEL MEDINA

PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

Unlike science, technology has been overlooked in the philosophical

tradition as a major area for reflection and systematic study; indeed,
with significant exceptions, it has been ignored. Even the philosophy
of science has rarely concerned itself with technology, being generally
more concerned with the theoretical results of scientific research. The
traditional philosophical neglect of technology is due, among other
things, to a series of dogmas latent in the philosophical tradition in
general and in the philosophy of science in particular. This fundamental
dogma affirms the primacy of theoretical knowledge as the authentic,
rational knowledge with which science has been identified since its
beginnings.
Recent philosophy of technology represents a radical shift in this
discriminatory attitude of traditional philosophy toward technics. The
fundamental theoretical presuppositions upon which is based the
supposed hegemony of theory over technics - which is not just
epistemological but also methodological, ethical, and political - are
already to be found in ancient Greek philosophy. As a result of its
initial development, in which Plato and Aristotle articulated different
meanings for episteme and techne, philosophy and technics followed
divergent paths that rarely overlapped. The meaning of the two which
is characteristic of contemporary philosophy of technology is of quite a
different sort from the original confrontation.
Ancient philosophy of science and technology rested on a fundamental
theorist's mystification which was used to justify the presumed
superiority of the theoretical tradition. In the reductionist principles of
their theory of knowledge, philosophers established a basis for
discriminating against traditional pre-theoretical forms of practical
knowledge. From this epistemological doctrine - according to which
our experience of the world is reduced to sensations which contrast with
assertive judgments that represent the only real knowledge -
consequences of the greatest importance were derived. First and
foremost, the human individual was conceived as a passive subject
separated from the environment. Practical knowledge was reduced to
mere subjective sensations, and predicative knowledge was crowned as
the primary form of learning. As far as it represented some sort of
knowledge, technics was reduced to mere concepts judged by predicative
knowledge, while science was seen as passive contemplation and

153
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Phiwsophy o/Techn%gy in Spanish Speaking Countries, 153-166.
01993 KJuwer Academic Publishers. - -
154 MANUEL MEDINA

theoretical representation. In fact both were identified with the

theoretical version of themselves. Lastly, philosophy did not hesitate to
identify the theoretical tradition with "reason" itself, obviously
downgrading the practical tradition in a definitive way.
Nevertheless, practical knowledge and social interactions, primary
results of the active relationships between human beings and their
environments, constitute the real foundations of both technology and
science, as recent social studies of science and technology have showed.
Nevertheless, the theoretical mystique continues to function in the realm
of philosophy. It has led to the practical identification of modern
science with theoretical knowledge and to its analytic philosophical
treatment in terms of discourse and propositional logic, in which
conceptual, logical, and formal questions prevail. The theoretical
conceptions that have led philosophy of science to an academic deadlock
threaten to do the same in analytical currents in the philosophy of
technology.
The philosophical mystification of science and technology goes back
to an old debate between theory-centered philosophy and the practical
tradition of technai. This confrontation represents a political struggle
against craft technics and the democratic political forms that arose in
ancient Greek society as a result of their dominance. This constitutes
the original and paradigmatic confrontation between philosophy,
technology, and society.
THE MYTH OF THEORY

While the scientific tradition was arising in ancient Greece from the
fecund interaction between the practical tradition of early techniques and
the new theoretical tradition, Greek philosophy was beginning the
mystification of theory. To do that the philosophers had to deny, in all
ways, the fundamental importance of the technai in human knowledge
and culture.
Just as theorizing about geometry led the way in scientific theorizing,
the Eleatic school had the definitive word about what would become the
leading philosophical variant of the theoretical tradition. The techne
dialektike or technique of discussion, by which the conflicts in the
assemblies and in the public trials were resolved, took on great political
importance with the introduction of Greek democracy. The Eleatic
philosophers gave this technique a twist that emphasized monologue. In
the new mode of theoretical discourse, the argument did not revolve
around the many familiar realities of tradition and practical experience,
but rather around abstractions. The arguments were based on the logical
interrelationship between abstract concepts, which permitted one to make
 PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY 155

successive connections of statements based on general principles or their

negation, until one reached the desired conclusion. Such arguments
were given as proofs which demonstrated the truth of the assertion in
question and made its acceptance obligatory. I
According to the doctrine of these philosophers, true knowledge was
only accessible by means of the theoretical discourse they had just
invented and which they never tired of praising as "reason" in contrast
with the ignorance and incompetence of traditional practical knowledge.
Nevertheless, from the outset, the theoretical program had to deal with
serious problems. Philosophical theorizing led to paradoxes and all
kinds of absurd and counterintuitive consequences, without that leading
to any concessions in its claims to hegemony. 2
The absurd results, in practical terms, of Eleatic theorizing made
clear their inability to theorize about complex practical domains. In
spite of this (or perhaps precisely because of it) philosophers put forth
a radical solution: the absolute autarchy of theoretical discourse.
Theorizability became the criterion for reality, as the frequent use of the
indirect proof by reductio ad absurdum shows. What escapes
philosophical theorizing did not involve true knowledge, and thus, in the
final analysis, did not exist. 3
The principles of conceptualization and theoretical systematization,
presented as the principles of reason, go on to govern the world of
nature and the cosmos. In reality, we were made to believe that theory
alone represents true knowledge, despite what the common sense of the
practical tradition tells us. True knowledge would thus consist of the
"simple" principles and concepts used by the philosophers to formulate
their theories, theories empty of specifics, but with pretensions to
universal validity.
The original theoretical mystification not only disconnected theory
from any practical knowledge but actually denied that practical
knowledge was knowledge at all. To do so, it contrasted the simplicity
and the uniformity of theory with the complexity of specific
representations of knowledge "born of multiple experience. " To assist
them in their ardous task of presenting ungraspable theoretical entities
and their supporting properties as real, the philosophers fell back on two
creations which, from their very beginnings, have basked in the glow of
an almost mythical halo: the "truth," and theoretical "demonstration."
In the practical tradition, the existence of objects and the effectiveness
of procedures is immediately obvious on putting a technique into
practice. The theorist's doctrine, by contrast, attempts to force a
general acceptance of its concepts and principles by means of their
demonstration as true, that is, as the consequence of a theoretical
monologue in which the concepts are supposed to speak for themselves
156 MANUEL MEDINA

and in which the discourse itself decides about reality. Since the truth
binds us all, according to this doctrine, once this has been accepted as
true, its general acceptance is obligatory.
Faced with the general tolerance of the practical tradition, in which
a multiplicity of sub-traditions and cultures are perfectly acceptable, the
theorist's tradition aspired to become the only valid tradition or a
monolithic culture. As if that were not enough, the primacy of theory
was presented as the victory of reason over superstition and ignorance.
The philosophical theoretical tradition was presented as a demystifying
movement, and in fact is called "enlightenment" by its present followers.
Nevertheless, those who criticized as naive the ancient myths and poems
which put forward the cosmologies and the wisdom of the practical
culture were the very same ones who created new intellectual divinities
and theoretical myths.4 The paradigm theoretical myth is undoubtedly
the Platonic myth of the cave. In it we fmd the characteristic
philosophic inversion expressed in masterly fashion: theory is
represented by the world of light although in reality it should correspond
to that of shadows and fictions.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THEORY AND TECHNIQUE
The early philosophical doctrine was too problematic and rudimentary
to sweep the theoretical tradition to victory. In particular the most
important theoretical developments, those in the field of geometry,
required more adequate foundations. With Plato and Aristotle, the
systematic theory of theory came to be the core of the philosophical
tradition and formed the nucleus of classical philosophy.
The main question here was the justification of already developed
geometric theories, and the principal problems revolved around the
nature of theoretical, geometrical entities, of the relations between the
"ideal" objects of theoretical geometry and those of practical geometry,
and especially of the possibility of theoretical geometry itself. In
general terms, the questions raised concerned how to maintain a
philosophical duality between the theoretical world and the practical
world, what relationship existed between the two, and how one was to
reach the world of theoretical objects, presumably the more important
of the two.
The theory of theoretical geometry led to the first philosophy of
science and technology, which, in tum, generated systematic philosophy
of knowledge. The corresponding questions about epistemology in
general dealt with the possibility of theoretical knowledge (of which
philosophy considered itself the highest expression), its relation to
practical knowledge, and the justification of the epistemological primacy
 PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY 157

of theory. The systematic treatment of these questions was based on

theoretical constructions of language, truth, and proof which left their
permanent, determinant mark not just on the philosophical tradition but
on the whole of European culture.
According to philosophy, all knowledge which deserves the name,
unlike mere sensations, involves a judgment. In other words,
knowledge equals predicative knowledge which is expressed in either
true or false assertions. s Theoretical knowledge is symbolic,
propositional knowledge involving abstract concepts. The theorist's
interest has nothing to do with practical knowledge. In the Aristotelian
contraposition of the geometer's research and the carpenter's work with
respect to the right angle, the former is "a witness of the truth," in other
words, a theoros. However, the theory does not involve merely
knowing something true, such as doxa, a simple belief or opinion which
may constitute true but contingent knowledge. Theoretical assertions
are, by definition, true, necessary, and immutable.
Theoretical truth is approached in two ways. The first, characteristic
of geometers, is by means of logical proof, thus obtaining demonstrative
theoretical knowledge within the framework of an axiomatic
systematization of theories. The second, in the case ofundemonstratable
first principles, is not discursive but depends on direct intellectual
intuition of theoretical objects such as the ideal forms in geometry.
Thus theoretical objects, philosophically isolated from their practical
origins, were converted into the exclusive and proper objects of
immediate theoretical study. This formed the highest faculty of the
philosophers and set them far above carpenters and geometers. The
primacy of theory ends up as the primacy of the philosophical class.
The theorist's characterization of knowledge automatically disqualified
the practical tradition of the technai. For philosophy, know-how which
at bottom involves no judgment is reduced to mere sensation, and
"sensory experience," purely subjective, is not actually a form of
knowledge at all. Despite this, epistemology could not absolutely
disqualify all knowledge from the practical tradition and had to establish
a hierarchy of the technai according to an alleged grading system of
greater or lesser theoretical content.
A techne could be considered knowledge insofar as it involved
predicative content, represented by true. assertions. Such knowledge,
however, ultimately belonged to the realm of the doxa and could never
aspire to the category of actual theoretical knowledge. In the theorist's
version, techne is somehow only a rudimentary and weak form of
theoretical knowledge. 6 In the end, as one of its most lasting
achievements, the first philosophy of science and technique managed to
consolidate and systematize the theorist's mystification of the genesis of
158 MANUEL MEDINA

science with an idea that science had not arisen from theorizing about
original techniques; rather, technique was seen as a rudimentary form
of the more important theoretical knowledge.
The philosophical disqualification of techne was more than merely
epistemological. It also involved changes of value. Contrasting the
research activity of the carpenter and of the geometer concerning the
right angle, Aristotle defined the former as interested in the utility of the
form as a means for the accomplishment of his work. By contrast, the
theorist investigates "what it is or what kind of thing it is." His
disinterested activity is an end in itself and forms part of the ideal of the
contemplative life, the bios theoretikos. It hardly needs to be pointed
out that this latter form was seen as infinitely superior, ethically
speaking.
PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY, AND POLITICS
IN ANTIQUITY
In Greece during the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, craftsmen and
merchants became the most active class of the ancient polis. During
previous ages craftsmen had become slowly institutionalized and
separated from the agrarian world and its myths. The demiurgoi who
already enjoyed considerable prestige - since their activity was linked
with the practice of magic - became technitai with important social
status.
Along with the making and selling of craft products, navigation
experienced a similar rise in importance. The navy not only helped
increase the economic power of craftsmen and businessmen, it also
increased their military and political importance. The fleet, manned by
citizens who owned neither land nor arms, became the basis of Greek
military power, a counterweight to the traditional military preponderance
of aristocratic horsemen and hoplite or armed small land holders.
This reordering of economic and military power gave rise to a new
political configuration that aimed to establish an eqUilibrium between the
aristocratic landowner and the urban classes of craftsmen and merchants.
In this way, democratic constitutions, new forms of life and new
political ideas, were put forth under the impetus of craft technai and
commerce. But in Greek democracy there is an on-going conflict
between oligarchs and democrats in both the struggle for power and in
political theory. On both sides there are active participants associated
with the emergence of the theoretical tradition.
It is in Ionia that a proto-theoretical tradition emerges which can be
clearly distinguished from later philosophical developments by its
positive orientation toward technai and democracy. In fact, before it
 PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY 159
became identified with theoretical knowledge, sophia originally meant
mastery of techniques. 7 The first theorists - Thales, Anaximander, and
Anaximenes - are known for their multiple interests and technical
abilities. Although they belonged to aristocratic families, they were
practical men who dedicated themselves to commerce, took part in
political affairs, and did not identify with the oligarchy.
In their treatises they inaugurated a secular interpretation of the world
that moved away from traditional agrarian myths. Ionian cosmology is
to a great extent a craftsman's cosmology. In it the incipient theoretical
conceptualization of technical processes is extrapolated to the cosmic
realm beyond human reach. The fantastic and superhuman
interpretations of ancient cosmologies are reformulated in terms of
practical experience belonging to technai. Thus, for instance, it is with
fire (that is, with the main instrument of transformation techniques such
as metallurgy, pottery, and alchemy) that Anaximander introduces into
cosmology explanations framed in terms of thermic processes such as
fusion, evaporation, condensation, and rarefaction.
The work of Anaximander is also important because it clearly reveals
the political content of these first theoretical cosmologies. Like the
ancient cosmological myths, theoretical cosmologies exhibit a
legitimation of a political character. The cosmos is a reflection of a
desired juridical order which, in turn, is legitimated as part of a global
socio-natural order. Thus, just as the democratic constitution of the
polis searches for an equilibrium between different social classes, and in
the assembly opposing political parties appear as equals (isonomia), so
in the cosmos diverse elements, that are the origin of all things by
means of multiple transformations, have equal power. In the case of
any alteration in cosmic harmony - originally represented by the
apeiron which is not anyone element but includes them all indifferently
- the equilibrium has to be re-establish ed, "because," as Anaximander
says, "there is a mutual payment of pain and retribution for injustice,
according to the disposition of time. "
The positive treatment of technai in this earlier theoretical tradition
is usually accompanied by a defense of democratic ideas in politics. But
this is far from a standard political attitude. After the Ionian proto-
theorists comes an anti-technical turn with the theoretical tradition of
philosophy, which seems determined to put down craft tecniques. As
we have seen, Eleatic philosophy is opposed to the practical tradition
of technai and accuses it of being deceptive.
The negative political attitude toward the technai is made more
explicit in later classic philosophy. Plato no longer limits himself to
epistemological disqualification; he also warns of the moral and political
dangers inherent in technical innovations. In the same way he criticizes
160 MANUEL MEDINA

the ways of life, well-being, and opulence brought about by progress in

technai, which he considers unsuitable for the education of the young. 8
The political intention is made even more obvious when he criticizes
the vigorous development of the navy and proposes legislation to impede
technical innovation and the practice of technai by free citizens.
According to Plato, the exercise of techniques is to be strictly regulated
and, along with commerce, confined to foreigners and slaves. That is,
techniques and commerce are to be the work of individuals with neither
rights nor opportunities to participate in politics. Moreover, the basic
Platonic objective of politically disenfranchising technai - and opposing
democracy - is self-evident in the confrontation of Plato with the
Sophists regarding the nature of politics.
The position of the Sophists with respect to technai is completely
opposed to that of Plato. For Protagoras, technical knowledge, which
he characterizes as "wisdom or knowledge useful for life," is the
foundation of human culture. The Sophists made technai an object of
systematic reflection. They can be described as having developed the
first general theory of technique founded in craft activities. They
mistrusted the theoretical representation of knowledge (for example, the
theoretical objects in geometry) and their conception of knowledge was
fundamentally practical. From this comes their relativistic conception
of truth as related to the culture and the technical capabilities and
achievements proper to each particular sOciety.9
Their positive attitude toward technai corresponds to a clearly
democratic politics. In this Protagoras follows the Ionian tradition and
Anaxagoras, who says that "humans are the most intelligent of all living
things due to the fact that they have hands." They were both
counselors to Pericles and took an interest in political questions in
support of Athenian democracy. According to Protagoras, Athenians are
doing the right thing "when they accept the opinion of the blacksmith or
the shoemaker on political issues or when they believe that [political]
virtue can be acquired or taught." Furthermore, "When it comes to
deliberating on the subject of political virtue, which deals with justice
and good sense, it is natural that everyone be allowed to speak,
convinced as they are that they ought to participate in that capacity,
since otherwise there would be no cities."
The Sophists undertook what could be called a campaign of political
literacy which was vital for the functioning of democracy and made
philosophers extremely uneasy. Their objective was the training of
citizens in that political techne whose general mastery was necesary to
assure the democratic government of the cities. to Therefore all citizens
were capable of political competency and the final political decisions did
not have to be the monopoly of "experts," but were a concern for
 PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY 161

democratic deliberation. 11
Obviously, in putting forth politics as a techne that may be learned
just like other technai, the Sophists are questioning the exclusive
exercise of politics by the traditional dominating classes. Their
teachings undermine the legitimacy of the oligarchical political order.
This is the main reason why Plato attacks them and attempts to
reconstruct legitimacy in a different conception of politics. According
to the Platonic doctrine which is opposed to the political program of
Protagoras, the capacity to take part in political life is not based on
practical knowledge whose apprenticeship can be generalized, but on
theoretical knowledge. 12
Plato reduces the question of the moral qualification to participate in
politics to a theoretical know-that. This theoretical knowledge deals
ultimately with the "good in itself' which, as the source of all
legislation, ought to be the object of the dialectical (that is,
philosophical-theoretical) knowledge proper to the rulers of the
Republic. 13
Based upon the Platonic vision, in which the characteristic virtue of
the dominant class is theoretical knowledge, there arises the political
primacy of theory and the political disqualification of technai. Political
wisdom gets projected into a region of superior knowledge unattainable
by craftsmen and merchants (who are forced to work with their hands
to live) and is only accessible to a restricted group who enjoy leisure.
From the incompatibility between theoretical and technical mastery, an
incompatibility between political and technical functions is constructed.
In addition to this, the advantage of the division of labor in the domain
of technai is highly praised as an argument to justify specialization in
politics. With this Plato wants to restore the autonomy of a political
universe that favors aristocracy, to which he himself belongs, and to
theoretically undermine democracy. 14
Aristotle transforms this theoriocratic doctrine into a systematic
theory. The Aristotelian position with regard to technitai and their
political participation in democracy does not differ much from that of
Plato. According to Aristotle, "It seems evident that in the city ...
citizens should not live the life of craftsmen or merchants for this kind
of life lacks nobility and is contrary to virtue . . . since for the
formation of virtue and for the political activities leisure is
indispensable. " On this basis, he comes to the conclusion that
"craftsmen should not be considered citizens because they do not possess
the virtue characteristic of citizens" and "the good man, the politician,
and the good citizen should not learn the work typical of that class of
subordinates. ,,15
According to Aristotelian philosophy, the productive activity
162 MANUEL MEDINA

characteristic of craft technai does not involve knowledge as such. The

craftsman limits himself to reproducing in a routine and servile way a
form that has been imposed upon him. This form represents an idea
beyond the technical domain. The craftsman is incapable of creating
or modifying it. As a matter of fact, he cannot even know anything
about it because his activity is a-theoretical. The only one with access
to the form is the theoretician who, as user, determines the form that the
craftsman, at his service, ought to reproduce. Thus technique is subject,
even in practice, to theory, and its virtue and function is to obey.
The supposed political hegemony of theory rests not only on
epistemological theories but also on cosmological mystifications
disguised as conceptions and theories of nature and its relations with
technique. Craft techniques (as opposed to agricultural techniques,
which Aristotle considers the most virtuous of the technai) are radically
counterposed to nature. According to Aristotelian theory, the object
produced by the artisan is not a natural product and everything produced
by craft techniques is therefore less real than natural objects. l
The contrast between theoria and techne, and between techne and
phusis or nature, is parallel to that between the productive activity of the
artisans (or poiesis) and the non-productive activity characteristic of the
leisure classes such as verbal activities and consumption. (Aristotle calls
this praxis.) Praxis is presented as the activity of the free man who is
a user and produces nothing. It goes without saying that these
theoretical and political activities characteristic of Aristotle's domain of
praxis systematically exclude, as "servile," the practical activities of the
craft professions.
For Aristotle those involved with the domain of the productive
techniques are disqualified from partaking in the political domain.
Political deliberation is a matter of theoretical discourse for which the
craftsmen are both epistemologically and practically incapacitated.
Theoretical political knowledge concerning the Good for Man
constitutes, in Aristotle's philosophy, the indispensable foundation for
all political activity. In brief, the free political man is defined as a
theoretical animal.

PHILOSOPHY AND TECHNOCRACY

In Aristotle's sophisticated system, this epistemological and

cosmological disqualification leads to ethical and political incapacitation.
The political content of the philosophical theories of knowledge, of
nature, and of politics, is clearly manifested as the legitimation of non-
democratic political orders. As one of its most enduring achievements,
classic Greek philosophy established the first theoretical foundations of
 PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY 163
technocratic models. Although the original philosophical theories had
very little possibility of ever being carried out - owing to the
idiosyncracies of philosophers and to the reality of political life - their
theoretical constructions and ideas remained as a source of inspiration
throughout the history of political thought.
With the new conception of science put forth beginning in the
seventeenth century, a modern version of theoretical aristocracy arises
- that is, technocracy. In Francis Bacon's New Atlantis we already find
the first vision of a technocratic society. The government of the country
is, in the hands of the wise, assembled in Solomon's House. In the
Baconian model, as in the Platonic version, political power is assigned
to the minority who possess wisdom. However, scientific knowledge
is no longer the result of the theoretical contemplation of Justice or the
Good; it is the result of experimental research.
In his Novum Organum Bacon argues against the ancient conception
of science as a purely theoretical, interpretative, and speculative science,
and in favor of a new science, fundamentally practical and directed
toward invention and anticipation. Bacon believes that "knowledge is
power. " This power is nothing other than the power of nature which
the scientist has appropriated for himself by force.
In the modern period the radical theoretical tradition is gradually
relegated to the ambit of traditional philosophy. The practical mastery
of nature, that is, technical efficacy, presents itself as one of the
principal characteristics of the new conception of science. However, no
matter how much need there is to acknowledge the differences between
ancient and modern conceptions of science, theoretical-aristocratic and
technocratic legitimations of politics follow the same course. Both are
based on the political privileges which a minority's superior knowledge
bestows on experts. In antiquity political qualification was rooted in
political theory; in modernity it is in practical technological capacities.
The philosophical relegation or subordination of technology, and of
practical knowledge in general, within the theoretical hierarchy of
knowledge, has had major academic, pedagogic, cultural, and socio-
political consequences. The primacy given to theory by the early
philosophers left traditional practical knowledge outside the scope of
authentic learning; wisdom was identified with theoretical understanding.
In this way, knowledge became an elitist enterprise. In the world of
modern science the philosophical distinction between pure science,
characterized as basically theoretical, and applied science or technology,
has served to legitimize the demands of scientific research for complete
independence and autonomy relative to society, together with an
exemption of the scientists from responsibility for the negative social
consequences of their research.
164 MANUEL MEDINA

The pretension of scientific neutrality has served to legitimize certain

forms of research as the highest expression of rationality, attaining
results that imply great vital risks. More surprising are philosophical
attempts to extend neutrality to technology as well. There is no doubt,
however, that the most important consequences of the theorist's
mystification are to be seen in an unfortunate philosophical combination
that integrates the identification of science with theoretical rationality,
and the identification of technology with practical rationality, with the
presumed neutrality of both. It is by this path that analytical philosophy
manages to justify science and technology - and, consequently,
technocratic administration - as a result of a suprademocratic exercise
of pure rationality.
Nonetheless, the standard interpretations of science and technology
developed by philosophy are not only too simplistic to account for
contemporary science and technology; they are also in conflict with
actual historical development, as recent historical and social studies of
science and technology have clearly brought to light. If philosophy has
a part to play in the resolution of the problems posed by current
technoscientific developments, it needs a post-theoretical turn. As a first
step towards a post-theoretical philosophy, we need a profound review
of the preconceptions of science and technology relative to society, in
order to overcome any radical contraposition. It is time for a
constructive philosophy of science and technology which can provide
the philosophical foundations for understanding them as social
constructions.
The absolutist reign of the theoretical tradition in European culture
has, since its invention by classic Greek philosophers, remained
unchanged by political and doctrinal revolutions. Its technocratic
version still awaits a philosophical revolution that, with the same goal
as the ancient Sophists, tries to make possible a creative and truly
democratic social participation in the assessment and management of
science and technology.

University of Barcelona

NOTES
1. In the Eleatic argumentations the principles and rules of classical logic (like the
"excluded middle") were formed, as well as the characteristically theoretical manner of
proof, the indirect method of reductio ad absurdum. The Eleatic philosophy hatched the
germ of theorist's mystification which was to battle the practical tradition of the technai.
2. There was, for example, an inevitable collision with the practical tradition, which
led to a confrontation with the theorists' concept of knowledge but also with
cosmological, ethical, and political conceptions. In the field of medicine the first treatise
 PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY 165
in the Hippocratic Collection, entitled A.bout A.ncient Medicine, bears witness to one such
confrontation. The author enters into dispute with those philosophers who saw
themselves as amateur doctors, whose theories "had as much to do with medicine as
with painting." The objections of the defender of the medical techne stress that
practical medicine cannot be expressed in abstract concepts divorced from practice.
The principles of theoretical medicine are useless for specific diagnosis and therapy
and thus do not prepare one for the activity of curing patients. In fact, medicine was
one of the areas where theorizing had negative results. Another front where the battle
visibly raged was in the controversy between the theorists and the Sophists. These
latter, defenders of a practical form of knowledge and culture, considered the theoretical
discourse of philosophers as pure fantasy and seriously questioned the reality of
theoretical objects. The attacks of philosophers against the Sophists document the
campaign to discredit the practical tradition.
3. The program of theoretical absolutism was based upon the fatal distinction between
a "true world" and a "real world" and the corresponding two ways of getting at them:
the "way of truth" and the "way of opinion." According to philosophers the "true
world" was simple and coherent, could be described in a uniform fashion, and was open
only to "reason." That is, the authentic world was one that could be conceptualized by
means of abstract concepts and derived from theoretical general principles within the
framework of consistent theories.
4. Thus we have Xenophanes making fun of the gods of different cultures while at
the same time seriously glorifying a god with cerebral hypertrophy, created in his own
image and likeness: the supreme Theoros. As they brought the sacred into their
theorists' tradition, the philosophers not only designed a god which incarnated pure
theoretical activity, with no contamination from the world of practical knowledge, but
also created their own myths.
5. Such judgments are possible thanks to the symbolic objects that come with
experience, once we have transcended the multiplicity of objects of sensation.
6. Ancient philosophy gave more and more stress to the distinction between technique
and theoretical knowledge, with which science was identified. This contrast runs
parallel to the contraposition between the objectivity, certainty, and necessity of reason,
and the subjectivity, uncertainty, and contingency of sensorial experience.
7. In ancient Ionia there apparently existed a greater appreciation of the technical
activities of craftsmen than in Attica. Their craftsmen were called cheinnas, which
conveys the idea of mastery, whereas in Attica the term was banausos, which refers to
the dirty work of craftsmen who use fire.
8. With all this Plato contrasts and defends the traditional forms of agrarian life
typical of the aristocratic regime. While agriculture is considered noble and of a sacred
character, techne is declared servile, and the work of craftsmen is ethically deprecated.
9. The well-known statement of Protagoras that "man is the measure of all things,
of those which exist inasmuch as they exist and of those which do not exist inasmuch
as they do not exist," can be understood as meaning that practical human creativity,
along with its technical and social achievements, is the content of culture.
10. For the Sophists, the fact that there was a division of labor in craft technai did
not imply specialization in political techne, nor was it an obstacle to equal participation
in political activities. For them, political technique, in contrast with all other
techniques, did not constitute specialized knowledge, since, as is explained in
Protagoras' version of the myth of Prometheus, "everyone participates, because cities
could not exist if only a few took part, as is the case with other technai. "
11. In fact, the qualification to participate in democratic political life presupposed
only an apprenticeship in political techne, which was precisely what the Sophists offered.
The issue was not involvement with theory but a practical training available to all.
12. Socrates intends to demonstrate this to Protagoras when he argues that "everything
166 MANUEL MEDINA

is episteme, whether it be justice, good sense, or bravery." That is to say, just as -

according to Plato - "to know what is and what is not to be feared is bravery" (1), so
too justice and good sense, which are indispensable political virtues, consist of
theoretical knowledge.
13. This dialectical knowledge, on which the education of future leaders is based, is
precisely the specialty of philosophers. In consequence, their mission is to educate the
political class. Yet the philosophers not only ought to train the rulers, they also ought
to e<:ucate them in their "image and likeness." In the end, then, it is the class of
philosophers who ought to exercise power as the trustees of theoretical wisdom.
Obviously what Plato puts over against the democratic regime is a theoriocracy.
14. Plato's theoriocracy is not restricted to doctrinal speculation, and his political
models are typically theoriocratic projects. Neither was the Academy simply a center
of doctrines and theoriocratic projects. It was also a center for anti-democratic political
action. Plato's interventions as the political adviser of Dionysius II of Syracuse, a city
where democracy had been defeated but where his plans also failed, are well known.
His disciples repeatedly tried to put into practice his theoriocratic models, in the name
of which they did not shy away from going to war or from involvement in intrigues and
political assassination. By way of warning, the short-lived government of the
philosophers led to a harsh tyranny.
15. Aristotle's political ideas arise from complex constructions and theoretical
mystifications related to knowledge, nature, and technical and political activities. The
exaltation of theoretical elaborations as the ideal of knowledge is the background music
against which ancient philosophy put into play epistemological mystification, whose
fundamental dogma consists in the primacy of theory as authentic and rational
knowledge. Based on his theoretical constructions about language, truth, and proof
(which will influence not only philosophical tradition but the entire European culture),
Aristotle contructs the epistemological theory of theoretical knowledge, its relation to
technical knowing, and the primacy of the theoretical.
16. Aristotle's conceptions of nature are fundamentally based on theoretical
extrapolations from techniques characteristic of agriculture (the mainstay of the power
of the aristocratic landowner), to which Aristotle as well as Plato attributes a
preeminence of place above the craft techniques that form the basis of urban democracy.
 RAM6N QUERALT6 MORENO

DOES TECHNOLOGY "CONSTRUCT" SCIENTIFIC REALITY?

The question of the objectivity of knowledge and, especially in the

modem age, of the objectivity of scientific knowledge, is a recurrent
issue in the history of philosophy and of science. Contemporary
philosophical discussions again raise this issue by emphasizing the
epistemological influence of technological means in scientific research.
The technological procedures upon which theoretical physics and
cosmology depend give rise to charges of reductionism or
epistemological naivete. According to such arguments, science rests on
a technological reduction that leads in practice to a peculiar
"construction" of scientific objects. As a consequence, questions are
raised about the true limits of scientific objectivity and the general
validity of science.
For example, contemporary elementary particle theory, which is
necessarily formulated in very abstract mathematical terms as a result of
the fundamental presuppositions of this kind of research, is also strongly
influenced by the use of technologies that modify situations of natural
stability for many microphysical "objects." In light of this situation,
analysis leads directly to the question of whether the intensive and
progressive technologization of scientific research constitutes a valid
means for acquiring objective knowledge or constitutes on the contrary
simply a reductionist, instrumental construction of reality.
It is easy to observe a certain antithesis here. On the one hand, much
contemporary scientific research is actually unthinkable without intensive
technologization, which seems to imply reductionism. On the other, it
is impossible to deny the results derived from scientific research by such
means, which seems to imply realism. This opposition suggests the
possibility of resolution through some higher level epistemological
synthesis or integration of the two perspectives.

1.
To begin, it is necessary to situate scientific knowledge within the
domain of human knowledge, and to determine its specific character, in
order to elucidate the epistemological function of technological
instrumentation. The plural forms of human knowledge throughout
history can be explained by the necessary diversity of human cognitive
responses to the world. This reveals different interests - hermeneutical

167
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philcsophy of Technolcgy in Spanish Speaking Countries, 167-172.
°1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
168 RAM6N QUERALT6 MORENO

and epistemological - depending on the circumstances in which human

beings find themselves. It also involves the progressive emergence in
human history of different frames of objectivity, different
epistemological perspectives, which are initially defined by their specific
aims, both theoretical and pragmatic. These frames lead to the
constitution of methodological principles according to those aims and,
finally, to the elaboration of theories and results about the objects
defined by a corresponding frame of objectivity.
In this general cognitive process the basic question, "What is the
object?" constitutes a regulative ideal, in the Kantian sense. Observe
that historically the problem of the "truth" of the object was a goal to
be only progressively attained. This is for two reasons. One is the
intrinsic limits of human understanding. The other is the existential
situation of the knowing subject, which determines many of the specific
aims of the frame of objectivity. Thus human knowledge must be
conceived as a practical and theoretical unity, that is to say, as a kind
of action necessarily conducted under the guidance of both interests,
theoretical and pragmatic.
But an important element lacking in this description, one which is
quite relevant to the issue, is, namely, the ethical factor or the
formulation of anthropological criteria for subsequent applications of
results within a given frame of objectivity. The source of this weakness
is the rupture between scientific knowledge and ethics that is a basic
feature of modernity, as exemplified by the division between pure and
practical reason in Kant. Undoubtedly this is one of the most serious
weaknesses of modern science, because in practice it ignores an essential
feature of human thought - the ethical level of the act of knowing
considered by itself, that is, the ethical character as a matter of fact in
human knowledge. Nevertheless this problem is peripheral to what
follows, because of the epistemological perspective of the present
argument.·
If we now apply such epistemological reflections to scientific
knowledge, we obtain the following constitutive aims of this kind of
knowing. From an historical point of view, the pragmatic aim is that
of the effective domination of nature for general human benefit - that
is, the use (and abuse) of natural resources in order to satisfy human
necessities. The theoretical aim is to consider nature as a whole, in
other words, to elaborate the unity of nature as its most general object.
Both aims are closely related, because the theoretical construction of
the unity of nature enlarges the pragmatic aim, namely, the effective
power over the totality of physical reality. With a greater level of
theoretical unity, we obtain a greater extension in the use of our
technical applications, which in turn is able to enlarge our theoretical
 DOES TECHNOLOGY "CONSTRUCT" SCIENTIFIC REALITY? 169

unity. Notice then the dialectic or feed-back relationship between the

two aims. But during this whole process the regulative ideal of the
search for truth will always be present, since without true though partial
knowledge the fulfillment of either aim, theoretical or pragmatic, would
be impossible.

2.
In accordance with the above analysis, the frame of objectivity in the
case of scientific knowledge must select the features of the object in
which it is specifically interested and, as a result, establish a relevant
methodology. Thus Galileo, for instance, asserts that he will not deal
with general questions about essences or substances, but will only
analyze "some features" of the object. 2 The chosen features are those
that can also be mathematically described and, at the same time,
experimentally tested, even if only indirectly, that is, by means of
measuring instruments.
It is precisely at this moment that the question of technology is
introduced. From the very beginning, then, scientific selection implies
a methodological contribution of technological instruments. In this way,
technology appears as an unavoidable ingredient of the scientific frame
of objectivity - either the wide use of simple technology, as initially,
or the intensive use of a complex technology, as today. The key point
is that technology becomes a condition of the possibility of effective
realization of the frame of objectivity created by scientific knowledge.
But all scientific instrumentation must be used, from beginning to end,
within the regulative ideal of a search for the truth of an object.
It is then possible to argue that the presence of the technological
factor in the scientific process is a natural consequence of the specific
features of the proper frame of scientific objectivity, in accordance with
that specific definition of the scientific task derived from its fundamental
aims. From an historical perspective the subsequent evolution of this
situation is well known. Clearly the technological factor has increased,
as the presence of technology has become an increasingly profound
condition for the constitution of a scientific object - or rather, for
physical reality to be investigated by scientific research. The crucial
point, however, is that such an evolution has always been carried out
within the limits of the scientific frame of objectivity itself, that is to
say, without the creation of a new frame of reference that could modify
either the aims, cognitive interests, or the specific methodology of
modern natural science.
Thus it is reasonable to argue that the technological factor turns into
an actual condition of the possibility of scientific cognitive processes.
170 RAM6N QUERALT6 MORENO

Accordingly, the picture of physical reality is epistemologically

conditioned by technology as an unavoidable characteristic of the
scientific task. Technology becomes a relevant instrument determining
physical objects when applying the scientifc frame of objectivity to
reality.

3.
But it is now possible to return to the basic question: Is the final
result of this process a reductionist "construction" of scientific reality?
To formulate this question properly it is necessary again to highlight
those basic features of human knowledge already analyzed. Knowing
indeed reduces reality to those aspects to which attention is directed.
This kind of reduction, however, does not mean at all that human
knowledge has to be "reductionist" in a negative sense. In any cognitive
process, human reason necessarily delimits reality by focusing on those
features that are most relevant to the fulfillment of its specific aims.
This is for two strongly connected reasons. On the one hand, there are
the intrinsic limitations of human understanding, which implies its
cumulative character. On the other, there is the basic fact that the
human is situated within the world, is a "being-in-the-world , " so that
knowing is conditioned by the limits of this world.
In general terms, the relationship between the human being and the
world is responsible for the selection of features that human reason will
investigate. Human knowledge is conditioned by its necessities -
physical, psychological, and spiritual - within the world. For this
reason, knowledge has an unavoidable plurality of forms, mediated by
specific interests. Even the most general and universal types of human
knowledge - for instance, philosophical knowledge - are influenced
by the effects of this anthropological relationship.
As a result, knowing objectivity is not an absolute or unconditioned
objectivity. Such would only be possible with an infinite understanding,
which simultaneously embraced every possible epistemic perspective.
On the contrary, human objectivity is always relative to the cognitive
frame within which it is constituted.
But this does not imply complete epistemological relativism. Every
frame of objectivity works, at least implicitly, within some form of the
regulative ideal of the search for truth. That is, if human reason
conditionally establishes an epistemological perspective or frame of
objectivity, this happens because the knowing subject produces from
itself the transcendental regulative conditions of valid knowledge within
that frame. One of these conditions is the regulative ideal of truth.
Hence, in the scientific process, as far as it is correctly constituted, a
 DOES TECHNOLOGY "CONSTRUCT" SCIENTIFIC REALITY? 171

partial truth about its objects can be attained. Of course, this will not
be an "absolute" truth, but one relative to the characteristics of the
object that are selected when that scientific frame is constituted. In this
sense, the above reduction of reality is not a specific feature of scientific
knowledge, but a necessary quality of every knowing process.
From this point of view, it is not correct to call scientific knowledge
"reductionist," and certainly not "technologically" reductionist, because
the technological factor is simply a necessary means for the constitution
of the scientific object. Reductionism exists only when we take
scientific knowledge as absolute knowledge, that is, as the only possible
or correct knowledge - reducing every frame of objectivity to a
scientific frame, and in so doing, rejecting any other cognitive endeavor.
Obviously such an attitude refuses to admit the richness of reason -
above all, its capacity for adaptation and creativity.
In fact, the real task is to know and to use each frame of objectivity
within the limits of its epistemological conditions. Many charges against
scientific knowledge - including the one that technology constructs
scientific reality - originate as criticisms of some absolutist claims on
the part of science. Scientific knowledge has often been taken as the
"definitive" paradigm of knowledge, ignoring how it is conditioned by
its aims and its specific way of selecting the features of reality to be
investigated, thereby giving rise to various forms of scientism.
At the same time, the necessary reference to truth in science has often
been devalued. This is the consequence of the reductionist thesis, which
leads in turn to the idea that the results of science are not significant for
the development of other frames of objectivity.
Both the claim of scientism and the charge of reductionism are
mistakes; scientific results possess a reference to truth; they partially
discover how an object functions, and in a certain sense "what the object
is," from a special point of view. In this way the contribution of
science is quite relevant for the completion of any other knowing
process.
Moreover, in the case of scientific knowledge, it is important to
observe that there exist specific methods for controlling and testing
results. Control of scientific objectivity is realized by a set of means
which appraise its content, and by on-going criticism within the
scientific community.
Nevertheless, the content of scientific truth is never unconditioned,
but is influenced by methodology and the aims and interests that have
helped to constitute the scientific frame of objectivity. As for the
technological factor, as long as it is necessarily integrated with the
scientific frame, it is truly required by the proper rationality of such a
frame. Technology is a specific ingredient of scientific objectivity.
172 RAM6N QUERALT6 MORENO

This situation is crucial for analyzing some general philosophical

problems derived from science, such as the scientific picture of the
world or the quest for the nature of matter. Perhaps one could argue
that such an issue is not scientific but philosophical. But the different
philosophical treatments for elucidating it cannot ignore scientific results,
because these undoubtedly possess their respective content of truths.
4.
To conclude, the strong presence of the technological factor in the
process of acquiring scientific knowledge has to be considered a
condition of the possibility for this kind of knowledge. Faced with the
alternative raised at the beginning of this paper between realism and
epistemological constructionism, it is necessary to affirm a synthesis in
which the validity of each aspect is recognized. In fact, the critical
problem can be resolved by showing that it was the isolating of scientific
knowledge from its real conditions, that is to say, from the conditions
of scientific praxis, that gave rise to the formulation of the thesis of
constructionism in the first place.
On the one hand, it seems obvious that, in some sense, the concept
of reality is constructed, because it is the result of a knowing process
conditioned by a selection of aims. But, on the other, this does not keep
it from being true knowledge, because both the regulative ideal of truth
and the methodological self-control of scientific processes assure, within
their limits, the content of truth.
Finally, the important technological influence in scientific processes
is no more than another stage in the progressive definition of the
conditions of the possibility of scientific knowledge. From such a
perspective, we can also begin to understand the relevance of technology
for the ethical aspect of scientific knowledge. But this problem exceeds
the "temporary conditions of the possibility" of the present paper.
University of Seville

NOTES
1. For a clarification of this ethical level of human thought, see Ram6n Queralt6,
"Human Creativity as an Ethical Aspect of Scientific Knowledge," Archives de l']nstitut
International des Sciences Theoretiques, whole no. 28, Actes du Colloque de I' Academie
Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences (Brussels: Ciaco, 1987), pp. 205 ff.
2. In Italian, "alcune affezioni." See Galileo Galilei. Opere. Edizione Nazionale
(Florence: Barbara, 1929-1939), vol. 5, p. 187.
 MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA

THE DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF TECHNOLOGIES:

SOME CONCEPTUAL ISSUES

Technical change is brought about by the modification or combination

of previously available techniques or by new inventions and technical
discoveries. These can result from non-systematic trial and error or
from systematic programs of research and technological development.
In either case, there are two kinds of intellectual operations in the
processes of technical discovery: design and evaluation. Both can be
carried out in a rational, systematic, and scientific way, or in an
empirical and intuitive (though not necessarily irrational) way.
What characterizes industrial technologies and contemporary science-
based technologies is that their development is brought about by means
of systematic programs in search of new techniques, and that in their
design and evaluation scientific knowledge and rational procedures are
employed.
This paper deals with conceptual problems that arise in the design and
evaluation of technologies.) Our principal reference will be science-
based technologies, and our objective is to analyze the conceptual
structure of the operations of technological design, the meaning of the
notions of efficiency and control, and the notion of technological
progress.
We are therefore dealing with the epistemology and axiology of
technics, 2 assuming ontological ideas about the structure of technical
systems developed elsewhere. 3 To begin with, we must note that the
creation of new technical systems involves two separate moments: the
conception of the system and its implementation or execution. Here we
are interested only in the first moment, which is of a conceptual or
intellectual nature - similar, in that, to other intellectual activities such
as the discovery and evaluation of a scientific theory or of a new natural
phenomenon.
Precisely this analogy - between the conceptual operations involved
in technological change and those involved in scientific change -
indicates a useful path for reflection. The basis of the analogy is that
both cases deal with intellectual operations that lead to the discovery of
new things and to their rational evaluation. The difference is that in the
case of scientific discovery what we seek are theories and facts, whereas
173
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Spea/dng Countries, 173-195.
41 1993Kluwer Academic Publishers.
174 MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA

in the case of technical discovery what we seek are artifacts. Scientific

theories and facts are tested according to criteria that we hope will allow
us to advance in our knowledge of reality, whereas we evaluate
technological designs in accordance with criteria that we hope will allow
us to advance in the control of reality. At the same time, scientific
knowledge can be utilized to design technologies, and technologies can
be utilized in the experimental control and evaluation of scientific
theories.
1. THE "LOGIC" OF TECHNOLOGICAL DESIGN
We use the expression "logic of design" in an informal sense,
somewhat in the same way that the expression "logic of scientific
discovery" is used. It refers to an analysis of the formal aspects present
in design operations or in discovery, not to the intention of constructing
a system of rules similar to those of deductive logic, which might allow
us automatically to solve any design problem. The phrase "theory of
design" could also be used, but in this case it might connote an
empirical theory that would study the psychological processes taking
place in the mind or brain of the designer. "Logic of design" is situated
in a prior zone of analyzing of conceptual structures through formal
methods.
For Herbert A. Simon (1969), a leading proponent of the formal
analysis and scientific study of design operations, to design is the same
thing as to devise "courses of action aimed at changing existing
situations into preferred ones" (p. 55). Designing is thus equivalent to
conceiving a plan of action (Broncano, 1988). Nevertheless, in common
language we distinguish between designing a new object, such as a
machine or a house, and conceiving the plan of action to be followed in
order to bring it about (Bunge, 1985). Designing an object naturally
restricts the set of actions necessary and possible to carry out in order
for it to be constructed from a given situation, but not in any single-
minded manner. In terms of our definition of technique, 4 we would say
that the objective of design is to conceive a technique, while the
formulation of a plan of action is equivalent to specifying a particular
carrying out of that technique (to design the execution of a technical
system). Furthermore, a plan of action always refers to a succession of
intentional actions, whereas the designing of an artifact also refers to the
unintentional actions or processes involved in its material components.
It would thus be more appropriate to define the operation of design in
these terms: to design is to conceive an intentional system of actions
capable of efficiently transforming concrete objects in order to achieve
an objective that is considered valuable. Design is, precisely, to
 DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF TECHNOLOGIES 175
conceive a technical system. 5
Thus designing requires carrying out the following operations: to
determine the objective of the system, the components (including the
agents), and the structure (the composition of actions and interactions
that lead to the desired objective). We usually think of the operations
engineers carry out when they prepare a design as those referring
exclusively to physical structures (to the material subsystem), because
we take for granted that both the objective and most of the restrictions
that condition the design are given beforehand, and might be described
as imposed on engineers from outside. But although this schema may
serve to account for specific projects that propose to apply a given
technique to a concrete situation, it cannot account for the general
process of technical design. In technical design, although obvious
restrictions exist (of costs, materials, available scientific knowledge,
and of technical elements susceptible to integration in a new system), in
principle all of them are the object of reconsideration throughout the
entire design process. Objectives may be modified as a result of the
discovery of interesting new possibilities, materials can change if others
are discovered that are more suitable, and even the restrictions of
economic cost may vary as a result of the process of technical
innovation itself.
This complex and highly specific character of technical design
operations does not prevent us from being able to clarify much of its
structure, by considering these operations as a particular case of a much
broader type of intellectual tasks - that of problem solving.
We can characterize a problem as a situation that does not fit into our
expectations. There are two large categories of problems: conceptual
and practical. Conceptual problems arise when a certain maladjustment
in our conceptual structures comes about as a result of a gap or void in
some part of our conceptual system. Conceptual problems can refer
both to our formal or logical-mathematical knowledge and to our
knowledge of the real world and our system of values. The solution to
a conceptual problem consists in reconstructing the adjustment of our
conceptual structures, recomposing them, or incorporating new elements.
Examples of conceptual problem solving are the proofs of theorems in
mathematics, the explanation of facts in empirical sciences, and the
reform of juridical and moral systems.
Practical problems arise when a maladjustment is produced between
our realizable desires and reality itself. The maladjustment can consist
of the existence of a real situation that contradicts our desires or the
absence of a real situation to satisfy them. In both cases the solution
consists in adapting reality to our desires. Most practical problems in
daily life can be solved by using the repertory of skills and tools already
176 MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA

at our disposal. In some cases, however, we need to acquire new skills

or invent new tools, something we do by trial and error, or by
developing a systematic plan to search for a solution. When this plan
is guided by efficiency criteria, we say that the solution sought is a
technical one.
Any practical problem can be represented as a conceptual problem in
which our own actions form part of reality, so that the representation we
make of them is one component of a conceptual structure. This explains
the general interest in the analysis of conceptual problem solving.
Consider first the case of scientific explanation.
2. THE MODEL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION
The scientific explanation of a fact consists of deducing the statement
that describes the fact from a more general theory or hypothesis. We
can represent it schematically as a deductive inference of the following
type:
T Theory
Explanans C .... p Hypothesis
C Circumstantial facts
Explanandum P Phenomenon to be explained
The two conditions necessary in order for circumstances C to be able to
explain the phenomenon P are as follows: (1) the effect P is produced
under circumstances C, and (2) the hypothesis that connects C with P
(C....P) must be deducible from some well established theory (Bunge,
1982; and Quintanilla, 1976).
When scientists face the task of explaining a new fact, they have, on
the one hand, a set of theories relevant to the case and, on the other, a
set of statements describing circumstances in which the fact is produced.
The problem consists of finding a hypothesis that can be a consequence
of some theory and will permit the identification of circumstances
responsible for the production of the fact. To do this, various
hypotheses will have to be verified by experimentally varying
circumstances. A researcher may even be forced to invent a new
theoretical framework if existing theories do not square with confirmed
facts. The final result will be a recomposition of the conceptual
structure in such a way that the fact or phenomenon that is explained
can appropriately fit into the whole.
We can conceive the whole setting in which the intellectual activity
of the researcher is produced as a conceptual context with a series of
elements (predicates, names, relationships, law statements, etc.) that
 DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF TECHNOLOGIES 177
allow the description of facts and the construction of theories. A
researcher's task is to discover paths that enable one to infer descriptions
of facts based on the laws and descriptions of other facts. To do so,
the basic instruments are the rules of deductive logic - those rules
indicating the possible pathways or the basic structure of the whole
conceptual network. Scientific discoveries are, in fact, always
discoveries of a deductive proof, whether we are dealing with the
inference of new facts based on already known premises (theories and
hypotheses), or whether we are dealing with the invention of new
premises (new theories and hypotheses) that allow us to infer, in a way
which is simpler and more fruitful, both old and new facts.
The fundamental difference between the conceptual context relevant
to the analysis of scientific discovery and a context suitable for the
analysis of technical discovery is that the latter involves the
representation of the possible intentional actions concerning concrete
objects. We will call this type of conceptual context an operational or
pragmatic context. 7 Along with theories and representations of facts, of
laws and properties of reality, there are representations of intentional
actions that can transform reality - or, if preferred, representations of
operations.
The introduction of operations in a conceptual context does not alter
the basic logical structure of the context. We can represent an operation
as a law in reference to the behavior of a complex system made up of
an object and the agent of operation. 8 The problem of technical design
consists of discovering, in the operational context, systems of actions
that allow us to link initial situations with desirable objectives in a way
similar to that in which, in a conceptual context, the problem lies in
linking facts through theoretical structures. This enables us to use the
same type of formal instruments for the analysis of design that we use
in the analysis of scientific discovery (Quintanilla, 1980 and 1984).
There is, however, an important difference between conceptual
contexts and operational contexts that must be recognized from the
beginning. Operational contexts have a property of plasticity that
conceptual contexts lack. In order to explain a fact, in a conceptual
context, we have to select a set of statements that describe some of the
circumstances in which the fact is produced, and a set of hypotheses and
theories that allow us to deduce the statement that describes the fact in
question. It is assumed that the selection of one circumstance or another
or the use of certain premises in the explanans does not affect the real
situation. The real circumstances in which the fact is produced remain
constant while we select them, and the laws of nature do not change
simply because we decide to introduce one legal statement or another
in an explanation. But in an operational context, the selection of an
178 MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA

operation generally implies the alteration of the original situation, and

thus leads to a certain recomposition of the whole range of possibilities.
A context is like a network of mine tunnels that the researcher follows
in all directions, trying to find the paths joining one point to another.
But a designer, besides following already open tunnels, occasionally digs
new ones that sometimes create new paths while leaving the rest of the
network intact. At other times the new tunnel produces a cave-in that
alters the whole structure of the mine, obliging one to change plans and
recompose tasks in a new context.
3. MODELS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Artificial intelligence (AI) studies constitute a field of technological
research. The objective here is to design technical systems capable of
solving problems in an intelligent way - that is, in a way similar to
that in which suitably capable human subjects might solve the same type
of problem. This has led AI theorists to analyze the processes typical
of intelligent behavior in an area somewhere between psychology and
formal analysis. 9
One pioneering investigation that contributed to the development of
AI theory was the study of the systems of rules for the deduction of
theorems in logic and mathematics. In principle, these are twofold. One
is the heuristic approach, which tries to reproduce the intellectual
processes that we do in fact use in mathematical reasoning. Another is
the algorithmic approach, whose objective is to establish a
transformation system of logical-mathematical symbols that enable us
"mechanically" to obtain an effective proof of a theorem whenever
possible. One of the earliest results of such studies was precisely the
discovery of procedures for representation of the formal structure of any
intellectual process aimed at seeking a solution to a problem. Here we
shall use the structure of a "production system" (Nilsson, 1982), a
typical structure in research on AI, as the model of an operational
context, in which the logic of the design evolves.
A production system is made up of three elements: a data base, a
system of rules for production or transformation, and a system of
control which can be characterized as a "strategy." The data base
contains all relevant information for describing the "world" to which the
system is applied, including those states of the world that can be
established as goals to be achieved. In the system of rules are all the
transformation operations that can be carried out on the data. In the
system of control are the strategies or ways of applying those rules in
order to obtain a particular result.
Take a concrete case. A production system for playing chess will be
 DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF TECHNOLOGIES 179
made up of a data base with the characteristics of the various chess
pieces, their positions on the board, etc. A system of rules indicates the
movements that can be made by each piece. A set of strategies tells us
how to proceed in applying the rules m order to maximize possibilities
for winning the game.
Various strategies have been designed to solve this type of problem.
One of them is the General Problem Solver or GPS (Newell and Simon,
1983). This is a "heuristic" strategy that attempts to imitate an intuitive
way of reasoning when faced with a problem. The basic idea that
guides the GPS is the principle of the reduction of differences. We can
explain the role of this principle with a simple example (adapted from
Raphael, 1984).
Suppose our data base is made up of three objects: a table, a glass,
and two adjoining rooms. The possible situations are given by the
properties of these objects, consisting of the fact that the glass mayor
may not be on the table, and both the table and the glass may be in
either of the two rooms.

Initial situation Final situation

(a) The glass is on the table (a') The glass is on the floor

(b) The glass is in room A (b') The glass is in room B

(c) The table is in room A (c') The table is in room B

The operations permitted by the rules of transformation consist of

moving the glass from the table to the floor of the same room and vice
versa, as well as moving the table from one room to the other.
Suppose that, as an initial situation, the glass is on the table in room
A, and the goal is to have the glass on the floor in room B. The
method of differences consists of comparing the initial situation with the
final one, of seeing how the two situations differ, and looking in the
system of rules for those that can eliminate those differences. To be
effective, however, it must be kept in mind that application of a rule
may eliminate one difference while preventing others from being
eliminated. (Remember the plasticity of operational contexts.)
The system of rules allows the direct elimination of differences a-a'
and c-c'; but if we apply the rules in this order we cannot eliminate the
difference b-b'. Nevertheless, if we first apply the rule that allows us
to move the table (with the glass on it) from room A to B, then we can
180 MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA

apply the other rule that allows us to move the glass from the table to
the floor, thus obtaining the desired result.
In the area of the automatic demonstration of theorems (Loveland,
1978; and Robinson, 1979) results were spectacular and prompt.
Problems can be represented in terms of production systems. In the data
base are those statements that make up the premises and the conclusion
of the theorem. The rules of production or transformation are rules of
logical inference. The problem consists of designing a strategy that
allows us to move from the premises to the conclusion by applying the
rules of inference. The objective of the first researchers in this field
was to find an automatic procedure for the application of the rules (a
procedure that could be applied mechanically, not heuristically) and one
that would guarantee, in all those cases where it was possible, that the
system would construct an effective proof of the theorem. The basis of
these systems resides in reducing the rules of logical inference to rules
of transformation of formulas, and designing a system of control (a
strategy) that will guide the transformation of formulas to the conclusion
of the inference. The interest of these systems for AI is due above all
to its theoretical transcendence. Any problem posed in a production
system can be understood as a problem of automatic demonstration of
theorems, so that any strategy applicable to the automatic demonstration
can be applied, in principle, to any other system (Garcfa Noriega,
1987).
Indeed, in a production system we can make the specific rules of a
system become part of the data base, like legal statements that restrict
the set of properties and states of the "world." Thus solving a problem
is equivalent to demonstrating that, in this world or data base, the
theorem or statement that describes the final situation is the one that is
demonstrable.
In the previous example, the data base would include not only
statements that described the initial and final situations, but also
operations and "laws" referring to the operations "move a glass" and
"move a table," as well as other laws that are implicit in the example,
such as the idea that if a table is moved with a glass on it, this glass
continues to be on the table although the table is in a different place.
The problem lies in demonstrating that the statement that describes the
final situation is deducible from the laws in the data base in conjunction
with the statement that describes the initial situation.
Apart from the theoretical interest, the possibility of considering any
problem-solving task as a demonstration of theorems has also come to
be of great practical importance in AI investigations by allowing the use
of techniques and methods of mathematical logic in the development of
programming languages and systems of production. One example of the
 DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF TECHNOLOGIES 181

first type is the PROLOG language (from PROgramLOGic) that makes

it possible to formulate data or information bases in terms of statements
in predicate logic (Campbell, 1984; and Berk, 1985). An example of
the second type is the STRIPS program (Stanford Research Institute
Problem Solver), which combines techniques for the automatic
demonstration of theorems with heuristic strategies based on the
elimination of differences (Fikes and Nilsson, 1971).
The problem of the plasticity of operational contexts, or the "frame"
problem as it is known in AI, has also been approached in different
ways.10 STRIPS provides one solution by formulating operational rules
in such a way that in each case the effects of an operation are specified,
indicating both the new formulas that must be introduced into the data
base and those that must be eliminated. For example, the operation of
"moving an object from point x to point y" is defined by specifying the
circumstances in which it can be applied (that the object must be at point
x) as well as the formulas that must be eliminated from the data base
when it is applied (that the object is at point x) and those which must be
added (that the object is at point y). Moreover, research is being done
on non-standard logic systems that will, undoubtedly, enable us to move
forward on the comprehension of properties that are shown by
conceptual contexts to undergo structure changes (McCarthy, 1980; and
McDermott and Doyle, 1980).
For present purposes, models of AI are particularly important. A
production system is a good model of an operational context, and the
design of a technical system can be understood as equivalent to the
definition of a strategy for effectively applying a system of rules for
problem solving. In an important way, then, the formal structure of
technological design is clarified by the fact that in a system of this type
any problem may be posed as equivalent to the demonstration of a
theorem starting from premises that describe the initial situation, possible
actions, and the operational "laws" or rules.
4. INVENTIONS AND PROJECTS
The result of a technological design can be an invention or a project.
The greater part of an engineer's activity consists of designing projects.
The realization of a project consists of designing a concrete technical
system to solve a specific practical problem. To do so, an adequate
combination of available techniques is used. In the AI model, we can
put the designing of a project on the same level as the application of a
particular strategy for solving a concrete problem within the framework
of a particular, previously defined production system.
The real situation, however, is somewhat more complex. Usually the
182 MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA

engineer who faces the task of designing, for example, a project to

construct a bridge with certain characteristics, does not have only one
directly applicable strategy, but rather a whole repertory of partial
technical solutions and possible strategies, which can be combined
according to the parameters of the project. The originality of a project
(that which justifies its being "signed" by its author, like a work of
intellectual creation) lies precisely in the concrete selection of
possibilities the project maker chooses.
Originality and creativity in the designing of technical projects are the
point of contact between technology and art. Just as in a work of art,
in the designing of a project an important role is played not only by
criteria of technical efficiency, but also by criteria of aesthetic taste and
the project maker's own style. Projects of creative architects carry the
marks of their personalities, which enables us to identify each project as
distinctively by some architect. Furthermore, the originality of a project
usually affects the very formulation of the objective of the project itself.
The design of a building with particular functional characteristics (a
hospital, for example) can be made in the standard fashion and applied
to any situation where such functional characteristics are required. But
to design the building in such a way that it also adapts to the landscape
in which it is to be constructed, or to the habits of the population it is
going to serve, or to the predominant architectural cultural traditions of
the location, are specifications added to the project whose
implementation will demand a greater degree of originality. In fact, the
evaluation we make of a project that fulfills such specifications has an
aesthetic component similar to that which is found in the evaluation we
make of a unique individual work of art.
Thus it is possible for a project to be original and creative even
though it is not necessarily anything novel from a strictly technical point
of view. In contrast, an invention is a design that requires technical
novelty - that is, involves the discovery of a new technique. This
novelty may affect the components, results, or the structure of the
technique.
The most radical inventions are those that affect all parts of a
technique, as occurred with the steam engine, the electric motor, the
electric light bulb, the photographic camera, the airplane, the telephone,
radio, television, the transistor, and the digital computer. Such
inventions are artifacts that have new properties, that use components
never before used for equivalent functions, and whose structure is
therefore utterly original.
In the AI model a radical invention is equivalent to the design of a
whole new production system, with an original data base, its own system
of operational rules, and a strategy specifically defined for this system.
 DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF TECHNOLOGIES 183
Nevertheless, an invention need not be quite so radical. The
modification of previously known techniques and their combination into
more complex techniques is perhaps the most important source of
novelty in the history of techniques. Usually the degree of novelty an
invention implies depends on the use of properties and processes of
physical components that had not been used until then for the same
purposes.
Consider the example of the steam engine. Thomas Newcomen's
steam engines at the beginning of the eighteenth century were considered
"atmospheric machines" because the power stroke of the piston came
from atmospheric pressure pushing it into a partial vacuum created by
the condensation of steam in a cylinder. James Watt achieved a notable
improvement in the efficiency of this machine by means of a separate
steam condenser (1765). Then later he used steam pressure for the
power stroke and improved the machine with numerous inventions,
among them, the introduction of the centrifugal controller for speed
regulation (1787).11 What was original about the Newcomen engine was
that it enabled heat to be transformed into mechanical movement. Since
that original discovery numerous inventions have made the machine
more versatile, more efficient, more rapid, and more reliable. But the
most radical invention was the first design that applied the steam
produced in a boiler to a piston, moving it along a cylinder and allowing
the piston then to recover its original position in such a way that a
continuous cycle was produced in its movement.
By analogy with the history of science, we could say that great
inventions inaugurate a new technological paradigm. Beginning with
this paradigm, a whole new set of creative possibilities is opened up.
New problems arise whose solutions require technical innovations. But
at the same time new possibilities are offered for solving old problems.
Unlike the originality of a project, the originality of an invention does
not have much to do with criteria of aesthetic value. What we recognize
as being original in an invention is not its capacity to achieve a
particular objective in a concrete situation, but rather the novelty of the
results that are obtained and the efficiency with which those results are
achieved. The objective of a technical invention is not to solve a
concrete problem, but rather to initiate a procedure that will lead to the
solving of a whole new kind of problem that can cover innumerable
concrete situations. The criteria that we use to evaluate an invention are
simply the criteria of evaluation characteristic of technique.
5. TECHNOLOGICAL EVALUATION
A technological design can be evaluated from two points of view:
184 MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA

internal and external. We refer to internal evaluation when the criteria

take into consideration only factors related to efficiency. We refer to
external evaluation when the criteria relate to the usefulness or value the
design has for the user or society as a whole. Both types of evaluation
take part in technological development, and the criteria that are in fact
commonly used to evaluate a technological design are a mixture of
internal and external. It might even be questioned whether it makes
sense in practice to separate these types of evaluation. Any
technological design must be made within a frame of restrictions
imposed by usefulness criteria, and any evaluation as to the usefulness
of a technique involves its responding to a certain level of efficiency.
In any case, growing interest in the external evaluation of technologies
in contemporary society and the interdependence of internal and external
criteria justify their differentiation and conceptual clarification. Here we
will deal only with internal evaluation. 12
The kind of evaluation to which we refer when we speak of internal
evaluation of technological designs is, to state it simply, what interests
a technologist or engineer. Assuming the usefulness of the objective that
an engineer hopes to achieve with a design, the factors taken into
consideration refer to feasibility, efficiency, and reliability. Of all these
criteria, the most important and at the same time the least precise is
that of efficiency.
The feasibility or realizability of a design is the prior condition that
is required in order for it to be taken into consideration. From a strictly
technological point of view, the conditions of realizability can be of two
types: material and operational. A design is materially realizable if it
does not contradict known natural laws. A design is operationally
realizable if, for its implementation, the necessary skills and knowledge
are available. We could also speak of scientific (equivalent to material),
technological (equivalent to operational), and industrial feasibility.
Industrial feasibility, however, refers to external criteria of evaluation
(economic profitability, among others).
An important part of technological research consists precisely in
making ideas that we believe are physically realizable also operationally
realizable. For example, the research program for the control of fusion
energy is physically realizable, and the idea of the project is to increase
our knowledge of physical processes so as to make it possible to confine
the plasma in operational conditions, and to discover systems for taking
advantage of the energy produced with an adequate performance.
Not just any realizable design is technically valuable. In order for it
to be so, it must also be efficient. The notion of efficiency is, however,
rather ambiguous. It is only precise in the thermodynamic sense. But
the criterion of thermodynamic efficiency, despite the importance it has
 DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF TECHNOLOGIES 185
acquired as a consequence of the energy crisis, is not the only one
relevant to technological design. For example, the energy consumption
of present day personal computers is so negligible that it would be
irrelevant to evaluate the efficiency of a computer in terms of energy
consumption - although in earlier days considerations of this type were
very important in evaluating the technology of the transistor (Braun and
MacDonald, 1984). They are still important in electronic circuit
integration, but more because of the problem of heat energy and its
impact on performance than because of energy efficiency itself.
The notion of performance or productivity of an action, as we have
defined it,13 makes it possible to generalize a certain measure of
efficiency to any property of a system by comparing the magnitude or
importance of the cause with the magnitude or importance of the effect
in relation to any sort of variable. But this does not allow us to evaluate
the efficiency of a system in overall terms (taking all pertinent variables
into account).
One way of solving the problem is to replace the efficiency valuation
with a cost-benefit valuation. In such a case we would understand
technological efficiency in terms of economic rationality (Maattessich,
1978). An action is rational if it uses the most suitable means to reach
the desired goal, which in economic terms means that it maximizes
results and minimizes costs. In order to apply this procedure we need
to define a utility function applicable to each of the components or
variables relevant to the evaluation of a technology. The criteria of
economic rationality would coincide with the performance criteria
applied to each variable separately and would enable us to calculate the
overall performance of the system in terms of that utility function. The
most obvious way of doing this, though not the only way, is to use the
market prices for each of the components and actions that make up the
system.
Nevertheless, the reduction of the notion of technological efficiency
to economic rationality is equivalent to substituting an internal evaluation
criterion for another criterion of external evaluation, and this conceals
the peculiarities of technological rationality. Let us then try another way
to analyze the concept of efficiency.
6. EFFICIENCY AND CONTROL
The general goal of technique is to increase our ability to control
reality, somewhat in the same way that the goal of scientific research is
to increase our knowledge of reality. It is worth developing this
intuitive idea, because from this idea it is possible to give precise
content to the technological concept of efficiency and to clarify the
186 MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA

content of notions such as technological progress and technological

rationality.
In everyday language we use the word "control" with a double
meaning: to direct or govern a process (traffic control), and to oversee
or check a property (quality control). In technical language the notion
of control is used mainly in the first sense, although it does include
components of the second. A thermostat, for example, is a control
device for temperature; it ensures that the temperature does not go
beyond certain limits, and when this happens, it sets in motion processes
that guide the temperature back to some programmed level (Vazquez,
1988).
We can define the general notion of the control of a process in the
following terms: System S controls process P in a system SI, if P
depends on the action of S on SI, and P stays within the fixed limits of
variability.
Consequently, we consider system SI controlled by another system,
S, if S controls at least one process in S'.14
The control of a process can vary in strictness or laxity, depending on
the level of "spontaneous" variability permitted. And the control of one
system by another can vary in extension, depending on the number of
variables in the system that are affected by the control.
The control action need not be intentional. Vito Volterra's equations
define a system of population control for two animal species in the same
ecological niche. Foxes and rabbits can multiply or reduce their
population within certain defined limits as a result of their mutual
interdependence.
Nor is it necessary, in principle, for the intervention in the process to
be reiterated. In some cases one sole action can be enough to set a
process in motion with very restricted variability limits. For example,
the trajectory of a powerful long-range artillery shell is controlled by the
artilleryman at the moment it is fired by fixing the angle of the barrel.
In other cases, successive interventions are required to correct variations
in the process. For example, to correct the trajectory of a remote-
control missile it is necessary to introduce an indefinite number of
correction responses throughout its flight path.
The artificial control of a process is a particular case in which the
control action is intentional and its aim is precisely to manage to keep
the process within certain limits. The same is true, mutatis mutandis,
for the artificial control of the overall behavior of a system.
In this sense it can be understood that the function of any technical
system is to control a part of reality in such a way that its behavior
remains within the limits that are compatible with the objectives of the
system.
 DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF TECHNOLOGIES 187
The degree of artificial control of a particular system depends on
three factors: the level of tolerance of variability compatible with the
objectives of the system, the number of variables to be controlled, and
the degree of correspondence between the objectives of the control
action and the results actually obtained. But it is plausible to think that
all three are interdependent. The stricter the limits of tolerable
variability and the more numerous the variables controlled, the more
guarantee there is that effective control will be possible. It is easier to
redirect the trajectory of a missile after a minor deflection than when
much broader deflections are tolerated. It is more effective for a
security system of a nuclear plant to be based on multiple and redundant
controls than on only one control on one sole variable. And in general
the effective realization of an objective of a technique is more likely to
be achieved the more it depends on artificially controlled processes and
the less it depends on natural processes.
We can characterize the notion of technological efficiency in terms of
the third factor that defines the degree of control. A technical system
increases in efficiency as there is an increase in correspondence between
the objectives and the effective results of the system. Indeed, when we
evaluate an action or a system of actions from the point of view of
technical efficiency, what interests us is the degree to which the results
of the action coincide with the objectives we are intentionally pursuing
by carrying it on. And the reason that this is the predominant criterion
in the internal evaluation of a technology is that efficiency, understood
in this sense, is an indicator of the degree of artificial or intentional
control that enables us to produce the technology in question.
This notion of technological efficiency is independent of any utility
function, but at the same time it enables us to account for other common
interpretations that we give to the concept of efficiency.
Indeed, as a condition for an action to be considered as an intentional
one, it is required that the agent believe that the objective 0 of the
action will be included in the results R actually obtained. The inclusion
of both 0 and R is justified because both the objectives and the results
of an action can be characterized in terms of sets of values of the
variable of the state of the system on which the action is exerted. A
measure of the correspondence of two sets could fulfill one of the
following conditions: if the sets are coextensive, the correspondence is
maximum; if they have nothing in common, it is minimum; in the other
cases, the value of correspondence must reflect the proportion of the
elements that they actually have in common with respect to all the
elements that both contain. These conditions are stipulated in the
following formula:
188 MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA

E(A) = 10 n RI
10 URI
where E(A) represents the efficiency of an action or system of actions
A with the objective 0 and result R, and the numerator and denominator
of the formula represent the absolute numerical values of the designated
sets of intersection and union. The range of the function is the interval
[0,1]; its value is 0 when the objectives and results of the action have
nothing in common, and 1 when they fully coincide.
Intuitively, we consider that an action is inefficient not only when it
does not achieve the anticipated objectives, but also when it achieves
them by squandering resources. This is the sense that we give to the
conception of technical efficiency as the adapting of means to ends, or
"instrumental" rationality. Part of this idea is included in the proposed
definition. Indeed, one of the indicators that we have for knowing
whether a squandering of resources has been produced in an action or
system of actions is the number of results (changes of state of
properties), that are superfluous (not required for the objectives of the
action) and this factor is included in our formula.
The measure is also compatible with the concept of thermodynamic
efficiency. What this actually measures is the waste of energy in the
performance of a mechanical task, and is a particular case of the
measure that we propose. In particular, the maximum technological
efficiency of an engine (no superfluous results and therefore zero waste
of energy in the form of heat) would imply total thermodynamic
efficiency. Since the latter is impossible according to the second law
of thermodynamics, so is the former.
The notion of efficiency is the basis for the definition of other internal
criteria of evaluation, particularly those of effectiveness and reliability.
A technique is effective if it really achieves the objectives for which it
has been designed, that is, in our formula, if 0 n R = O. A technique
is reliable if its efficiency is stable (if it does not significantly vary over
time).
7. TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS
The pessimistic ideologist may think that it is absurd to talk of
technological progress. Each new technique that is applied to solve
some type of problem engenders at least as many new problems as it
solves, and to imagine that any of us would be happier living in the
Paleolithic Age is within the reach of any human mind because free
imagination allows us to place television sets in stone age caves. The
 DESIGN AND EYALUATION OF TECHNOLOGIES 189
truth is, however, that in the evolution of technics, as in so many other
aspects of culture and civilization, it is possible to observe lines of
progress in an obvious sense, independent of whether we can evaluate
such progress as positive or negative from a moral perspective. Indeed,
if there is anything that can be affirmed in the history of technics it is
that through technics, human beings have come more and more to
control parcels of reality and to do so in a more rigorous and complete
manner.
The most fundamental philosophical question that is posed by
technological progress is not the question of its moral goodness or
badness, but rather the understanding of its mechanisms and the causes
that explain the form of technological evolution and the meaning it has.
And the thesis that we defend in this respect is that technological
progress is a consequence of the use of efficiency criteria in the
evaluation of technologies and is, therefore, a phenomenon that can be
understood in terms of factors internal to technology itself. This leads,
then, to an understanding of the rational and therefore the relative
meaning of progress. One of the consequences of this way of phrasing
the question is that a completely perfect technology (the "hyper-
machine") is recognized as an irrational myth.
There are two aspects of technological progress: the appearance of
new techniques that permit us to control new sectors of reality, and the
improvement in the efficiency of these techniques, which enables us to
better control the sector of reality to which each one of them is applied.
Both aspects of technical growth or progress depend on the same
criterion of technological rationality or efficiency of action. Certainly
humanity could adopt a different attitude and, instead of trying to
modify and control the surrounding world, try to adapt human wishes
to reality. But as soon as someone poses the objective of the
transformation of reality so that reality is adapted to human wishes, one
has taken a definitive step toward placing oneself in the vortex of
technological development, from which it is not possible to escape
without abandoning this intention (something which, in a historical
situation such as ours, would be equivalent to suicide).
The desire to survive, to obtain food and protection from the natural
environment, is the origin of the first utensils and technical works.
Improvement in the efficiency of tools made of bones was responsible
for the first attempts to use materials for technical applications, and the
attempt to control variations in temperature was responsible for the first
techniques of the control of a natural process, i.e., of fire.
In general, the technologist who wishes to improve the efficiency of
a device has two ways of doing so: by trying to control more variables
and more relevant processes, and by attempting a stricter control of such
190 MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA

processes. The result in both cases is extension of the technique,

increase in the complexity of the design, and intensification of
intentional intervention. The use and synthesis of new materials, the
standardization of components in mechanical technologies to facilitate
their integration, the substitution of artificial processes for natural
processes in biological technologies, and the refining of systems for the
management of technologies are all results of these two strategies for the
maximization of efficiency.
One of the consequences of this dynamics of technological
development is that as the extension or intensification of technics
increases, so does their versatility and, consequently, the possibilities for
the integration of technical systems and the level of complexity of new
techniques. The introductIon of robots with articulated arms for
manipulating objects is a good example of how the efficiency and
versatility of a technique can increase, multiplying interventions in
processes and designing devices that take care of controlling more
primary processes.
As a simple example, take the following diagram:

Unarllculaled arm ArUcululed arm

It shows a non-articulated mechanical arm A and an articulated robot

arm B in which the task of the robot arm is to move its effector B' in
a straight line parallel to a specified plane, so that the movement is
equivalent to that of mechanical arm A controlled by a driving wheel.
The difference is that the movement of the mechanical arm is rigid. It
always makes the same movement through the same trajectory. But the
robot arm is flexible. It can follow different trajectories and easily
reach an infinite number of different points on a plane. Moreover, Ule
mechanical device cannot compensate for losses of efficiency from
friction and wear or decreased reliability. 'Ole robot, by contrast, can
correct its own deviations and inefficiencies.
 DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF TECHNOLooms 191
The principle on which the action of the robot is based is the division
of the process (following a trajectory) into multiple sub-processes
(segments of trajectory) and the strict control of each. The dividing of
the trajectory into small uniform segments allows for greater control of
each and for greater ease in the eventual adaptation of the whole system
to different trajectories.
Now there are two ways of constructing a robot with an articulated
arm: by using ordinary electric motors to move the articulations, or by
using step-motors, whenever the specifications of the robot make this
possible.
A robot that uses ordinary electric motors needs to incorporate
mechanisms for detecting positions and for braking movements for each
arm. What is needed is a control system that can make continual
corrections in order to compensate for maladjustments caused by the
inertial movement produced in the arms, and to send instructions to start
or stop, and so on.
The control system for an articulated robot arm will follow this
scheme: (1) the division of the trajectory into segments as small as is
appropriate; (2) for each segment, the sending to the motor of each
articulation instruction; (3) processing of signals from the sensors for the
position of the respective articulations, and the calculation of the angular
displacement of each; (4) if this displacement has reached the pre-
arranged limit for the segment of the trajectory, the sending of
instructions to brake and block the motors; (5) checking of the value of
the sensor for the position of the effector, and if it has deviated from the
norm, correcting the position by sending new signals to the appropriate
articulating motors; (6) repetition of the process for the next segment of
the trajectory.
The peculiarity of a robot with articulated arms lies in the division of
a movement into small segments and the control of each. Its difficulties
arise from the need to control the continual rotary movement of the
electric motors. The introduction of step-motors extends the principle
of the division of tasks to the actual functioning of the motors, thus
simplifying the whole process.
A step-motor is an electric motor that acts on short impulses of direct
current. Each impulse generates a small angular displacement of its
shaft, which is blocked by the mechanism of the motor itself until it
receives a new impulse. The incorporation of step-motors into the
articulations of a robot simplifies the control of its movements in an
obvious way. The division of the task to be done into segments is
determined beforehand by the magnitude of the angular displacement
produced by each impulse, in such a way that the only thing that the
control system of a robot has to do is to calculate the angles of the two
192 MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA

arms for each accessible point of the trajectory, and to send the
corresponding number of impulses to each motor. There is no need for
sensors for the position of the sections of the articulated arm, and the
braking and blocking mechanisms are already incorporated into the
structure of the motors.
This example of the articulated robot arm can be used as a metaphor
for what happens in technological development. Efficiency increases as
control increases, and this is achieved by increasing the number of
interventions in the processes and in the depth to which intervention has
taken place, which leads to greater versatility, integration capacity, and
technical complexity.
From this perspective, it could be said that technological progress
follows an inexorable direction toward the total control of reality and
that, guided by the sole criterion of efficiency, the technological ideal
could be characterized as the achievement of the complete machine -
or the hypermachine, as we call it, to give some color to the idea.
Indeed, let us imagine that all real processes are made up of
elementary segments, and that we manage to design technical systems
capable of totally controlling each of the segments or elementary events
possible in the universe. We call the technical device that results from
the integration of all these the hypermachine. The existence of the
hypermachine would apparently mean the attainment of total technical
efficiency. Its potential use would be to achieve whatever goals it set
for itself, and only the goals it set for itself. The problem of the
hypermachine is that it is impossible. It exists only in certain literary
works, in theology books that defend divine omnipotence, and in the
frightened minds of those who prefer to mistrust technology rather than
to understand it.
There are obvious arguments to prove the impossibility of the
hypermachine. First, natural processes are not usually discrete but
continuous. In order to control reality we parcel it into discrete
segments that we try to control, but in principle there is no finite limit
to the segmentation of reality. 15 Second, increase in control and
efficiency is based on the increase of our knowledge, and we know from
logic that our knowledge is inevitably incomplete. Third, total
efficiency implies complete thermodynamic efficiency, which is
impossible. The idea of total control, the hypermachine, is thus an
irrational myth - and is not only unnecessary for understanding the
meaning of technological progress but is in fact incompatible with it.
Progress can be measured by the proximity to a goal or by the
distance covered from a beginning point. The idea of progress applied
to any aspect of human life is always of the second type, although
prejudices that are deeply rooted in our culture continually lead us to the
 DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF TECHNOLOGIES 193
illusion of conceiving ultimate goals for humanity. For example, we can
have concrete knowledge of truths, but not absolute truth itself
(Quintanilla, 1982). With regard to morality, surely we are less and less
bad with time, although we cannot be absolutely good. In art, we enjoy
things that are more and more beautiful, yet absolute beauty, were we
able to conceive it, would surely bore us. And in technics, we want to
control reality more and more, yet we do not wish to control ourselves
and lose our freedom.
Technological progress is, then, cumulative - not theological. It is
a consequence of the search for efficiency in our actions and thus for the
maintaining of a rational attitude. And it has a specific character and
value which need not coincide with moral value.
But the internal criteria, based on efficiency, and the objective of
control of reality, are not the only criteria we use to evaluate
technology. We also use external, social, moral, or political valuations
- or those of an economic nature. On these also depends the concrete
way in which technical change is produced.
- Translated by Susan Frisbie and Belen Garcia
University of Salamanca

NOTES
1. This paper is adapted from Quintanilla (1989), chapter 5, "Disei'io y evaluaci6n
de tecnologias," pp. 89-109.
2. We use the word "technics" with a generic meaning and "technology" with a
specific one. Technologies are that subclass of technics that are based on scientific
knowledge and rational methods of evaluation.
3. See Quintanilla (1989), chapter 3, "Fundamentos de la ontologia de 1a tecnica, "
pp.49-69.
4. A technique is an intentional system of actions, capable of efficiently transforming
concrete objects in order to achieve an objective that is considered to be valuable. See
Quintanilla (1989), chapter 2, "Caracterizaci6n de la tecnica," p. 34.
5. There are, of course, other meanings for the word "design." Artistic design
consists of the conception of a concrete object with aesthetic value, and what is termed
"industrial design" is the application of the criteria of artistic design to industrial
products.
6. We take the notion of conceptual context from Bunge (1974), vol. I, chapter 5.
7. Quintanilla (1988) and Broncano (1988) use the term "set of pragmatic
possibilities" to refer to the set of possible states of a system that are, besides,
potentially desirable for a subject. It is obvious that the set of pragmatic possibilities
is determined by the operational context.
8. In the terminology of Bunge (1982), this is a nomo-pragmatic statement.
9. Boden (1984), Raphael (1984), Cuena el al. (1985), and Mompfu Poblet (1987)
provide comprehensive information on the most relevant research and problems in the
area of artificial intelligence.
194 MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA

10. Nilsson (1982) and Shoham (1988) offer a general interpretation of the frame
problem, relating it to the specific problems of reasoning about the future.
11. See Dickinson (1958).
12. For external evaluation see Quintanilla (1989), chapter 6, "EI desarrollo
tecnol6gico," pp. 111-123.
13. See Quintanilla (1989), chapter 3, "Fundamentos de la ontologia de la tecnica, "
especially pp. 63-64, where we define the magnitude or importance of events in a
system as the distance between initial and final states, and the performance or
productivity of an action of system S on system S' as a relation between the importance
of the event cause in S and the event effeet in S'.
14. This notion of control in a system, although more lax, is compatible with what is
used in cybernetics. See Wiener (1985), and Ashby (1972).
15. See, e.g. N.S. Goel, S.c. Maitra, and E.W. Montroll, On the Volterra and Other
Nonlinear Models of Interacting Populations. New York: Academic Press, 1971.
16. This is one of the arguments used to defend the indeterminist conception of the
universe, even from the point of view of classical physics, as Popper (1984) proposes.

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Boden, Margaret A. (1984). Inteligencia artificial y hombre natural. Madrid: Teenos.
English original: Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man. New York: Basic
Books, 1977.
Braun, E., and S. MacDonald (1984). Revoluci6n en miniatura: La historia y el
impacto de la electr6nica del semiconductor. Madrid: Teenos-Fundesco. English
original: Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
Broncano, F. (1988). "Las posibilidades teenol6gicas: Una linea de demarcaci6n entre
ciencia y tecnologia," Arbor, issue no. 507, pp. 47-70.
Bunge, Mario (1974). Semantics. 2 vols. Boston: D. Reidel.
Bunge, Mario (1982). La investigaci6n cient!fica. Barcelona: Ariel.
Bunge, Mario (1985). Treatise on Basic Philosophy. Vol. VII: Philosophy of Science
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McCarthy, John (1980). "Circumscription: A Form of Non-monotonic Reasoning,"
Artificial Intelligence, vol. 13, no. I, pp. 27-40
McDermott, D., and J. Doyle (1980). "Non-monotonic Logic," ArtificialIntelligence,
vol. 13, no. I, pp. 41-72.
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Mompin Poblet, J., ed. (1987). Inteligencia artificial: Conceptos, tecnicas y
aplicaciones. Barcelona-Mexico: Marcombo-Boixareu.
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McGraw-Hill, pp. 279-293.
Nilsson, N. (1982). Principles ofArtificial Intelligence. Berlin-Heidelberg-New York:
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Popper, K. (1984). The Open Universe: An Argumentfor Indeterminism: From the
Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and
Littlefield.
Quintanilla, Miguel Angel (1976). "EI mito de la ciencia," in M. A. Quintanilla, ed.,
Diccionario de fil!osofla contemporanea. Salamanca: Sfgueme, pp. 65-81.
Quintanilla, Miguel Angel (1980). "EI problema de la racionalidad tecnol6gica, "
Estudios Filos6Ji,cos, vol. 29, no. 8, pp. 105-131.
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Estudios de 16gica y filiosofla de la ciencia II. Salamanca: Editorial Universitaria
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psic61ogos y humanistas. English original: The Thinking Computer: Mind Inside
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Robinson, J. A. (1979). Logic: Form and Function: The Mechanization of Deductive
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Arbor, issue no. 507, pp. 89-96.
Wiener, Norbert (1960). Cibernetica. Madrid: Guadiana. English original:
Cybernetics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1948.
 JOSE SANMARTIN

FROM WORLD3 TO
THE SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF TECHNOLOGY:
REMARKS ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

1. ON THE AUTONOMY OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES

From a well-known point of view, science is thought to constitute a

world of objective entities (World3) different from the objective world
of material things (World1) and the subjective world of minds or mental
states (World2). This is an old trichotomy, of which Popper is the
leading contemporary proponent.
For Popper, the argument that science is an inhabitant of World3 can
be summarized in three propositions: (a) Science is a linguistic
framework consisting of statements. (b) Statements express propositions
or thoughts. (c) Thoughts do not require any knowing subject to exist,
since they are ideas - and, thereby, independent entities - that can be
comprehended by anyone sufficiently familiar with the language or the
totality of designations used. Thus thoughts are not subjective, are not
bound up with anyone thinking individual. They enjoy a separate
ontological status and are the common property of many. Therefore
their objectivity cannot be disturbed by any corresponding mental states
of particular knowing subjects. Even if I am bored or drunk, the
thought expressed by E = mc2 does not change while I am aware of it.
Nor will it be modified because it is comprehended by persons with
different ideologies.
The independence of World3 allows us to proclaim science auton-
omous with regard to the physical, social, and psychological worlds.
Social or psychological characteristics of scientists can be stories
attached to a scientific theory, but they are not factors determining the
structure of any scientific theory. The consistency of a scientific theory
exists independent of any mental state or social status of scientists. A
scientific theory is consistent when it is free from contradiction, when
both A and - A cannot be derived from it. That is all. Moreover,
neither psychological nor sociological elements are factors relevant to the
dynamics of scientific theories. Scientific theories are refuted or
corroborated regardless of scientists' particular mental states or the kinds
of social frameworks involved. The refutation or corroboration of a
scientific theory depends on a "yes" or "no" said by the world to the

197
Carl Mileham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 197-209.
°1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
198 JOSE SANMARTIN

theory.

Logic, on the one hand, and the world, on the other, are the only
determining factors of the structure and dynamics of scientific theories.
Intuitions, beliefs, feelings, values, norms, etc., are outside this range
of relevant factors. They belong to the external history of science.
They may affect the process of formulating a hypothesis. In this
context, it is not odd that anecdotes are told about the invention of
certain hypotheses. It has been said, for example, that the chemist
Kekule had long been trying unsuccessfully to devise a structural
formula for the benzene molecule when, suddenly, he found an
appropriate hypothesis while dozing in front of his fireplace.
Gazing into the flames [Hempel writes] he seemed to see atoms dancing in snakelike
arrays. Suddenly, one of the snakes formed a ring by seizing hold of its own tail and
then whirled mockingly before him. Kekule awoke in a flash: he had hit upon the now
famous and familiar idea of representing the molecular structure of benzene by a
hexagonal ring. I

Although this is true, it is one thing to invent a hypothesis, and

something else to accept the hypothesis as scientific knowledge.
Hypotheses can be accepted into science only if they pass critical
scrutiny, which includes, in particular, logical analysis and empirical
testing. Therefore, appealing to psychological or social elements - to
the external history of science - to account for the structure or
dynamics of science is completely inappropriate.

In accounting for the structure and dynamics of science, it is not

legitimate to appeal to elements that do not strictly fit criteria of analytic
rationality - a rationality bound to the understanding of science as a set
of theories and to the understanding of theories as sets of statements
with objective and autonomous content.
2. ABOUT BASIC SCIENCE AND APPLIED SCIENCE

This traditional understanding of science can be supplemented by a

widespread distinction between pure science (or basic research) and
applied science. Scientific theories belong to pure science. Scientists
do research into pure science without necessarily thinking of
applications. They try only to satisfy the need to know. But at times
some theories are applied. Applied science, then, is simply applied
theories. If a scientific theory has been applied to a technique, the result
will be a technology. From this point of view, technology is technique
 FROM WORLD3 TO SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF TECHNOLOGY 199
with a remarkable added characteristic.
Techniques are arts and crafts. There are arts and crafts without any
underlying scientific theory, so that theoretical ignorance is attached to
practical knowledge. The practitioner knows how to do something, but
not that something is the case. The practitioner can successfully control
events, while ignoring the nature of these events. Such a practitioner
can, for example, produce beer without knowing about the existence of
brewer's yeast. Technology is, on the contrary, technique with an
underlying scientific theory. This theory provides scientific knowledge
about the events earlier controlled by techniques without underlying
science. Such theory is like the eye of technique; it can see the events
controlled by technique. In technology, theory guides technique. This
means that technology will successfully control events previously
explained scientifically. Unlike technique, the success of technology
- its efficiency - does not result simply from increased practical
knowledge, but depends also on underlying scientific theory.
Once a technology to results from the application of a scientific theory
To, to will evolve in parallel to the evolution of To. On the one hand,
the sequence To ... Tn means that there is an increase in scientific
theory, that scientific knowledge grows. This is what constitutes so-
called "scientific progress." On the other hand, "technological progress"
is constituted by the technological evolution that results from a
continuous replacement of worse technologies by better ones. Improved
theories bring about better technologies. In advancing science, we
advance technology. Thus it can be said that, sometimes, scientific is
paralleled by technological progress. This is summarized graphically in
Figure 1.

Knowledge ~
To .... Tl .... T2 .... T3 ....
~ ~ ~ ~
to .... tl .... ~ .... ~ ....
Efficiency •
(where T; are theories, t; are technologies,
and each subsequent ~ is better)
Figure 1. Dynamics of Scientific Theories and Related Technologies

But what does it mean that technologies are replaced by better ones?
Although there are different criteria to account for progress in
technology, there is one theme common to all. One technology is better
200 JOSE SANMARTIN

than another if it is more efficient (or effective). Technological progress

means an improvement in the rate or measure of efficiency, and
efficiency means to work better with lower costs. A technology works
better when it has an increasing capability to detect and control events
(or their causes). As its capability for detecting and controlling events
increases, technology multiplies and diversifies its good effects. In
particular, new technology (better technology) entails improvements in
nature, culture, and society.
One of the most obvious characteristics of technology is that it brings
about (or inhibits) changes in nature. Technological changes in nature
brought about by human beings are addressed to the satisfaction of their
necessities, or better, to the abolishing of necessities. "The necessities,"
argues Jose Ortega y Gasset, "are imposed on human beings by nature;
human beings respond by imposing changes on nature."z These changes
are technological. Nature is re-formed by technology. This re-
formation means that nature is adapted technologically to human beings.
Such adaptation involves technologically abolishing the aspects of nature
that place us in need. In removing necessities imposed on human beings
by nature, we can create increasingly new welfare possibilities.
At least since the Industrial Revolution, such welfare has depended
mainly on the application of technology to industry. Applying
technology to industry means applying scientific knowledge to
production. This entails that science guide production procedures and
increase their measure of effectiveness. The result is higher profit with
lower cost. This yields more wealth. As more wealth is produced,
more wealth can be socially distributed.
Some scientific theories are sometimes applied to techniques, generating
technologies. The improvement of these theories entails the improvement
of such technologies. As technology improves, human beings increase
their welfare: the world becomes more human and, of course, richer.
This could be what is called "social progress. "
3. ON THE EXTERNAL HISTORY OF SCIENCE
AND TRADITIONAL TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
Science has an inner logic of development, independent of
psychological or social elements. Applied science equals technology.
Technology makes it possible for humans to scientifically control and
use their natural environment. This scientific control and use entail
social progress. Thus science developing according to its own inner
logic is the source of social progress. Therefore neither science nor
technology should be impeded by external factors. We should not
 FROM WORLD3 TO SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF TECHNOLOGY 201
interrupt or disturb the successful inner workings of science and
technology by contextual interventions from society. Social progress
depends on science and technology being allowed to run by themselves
- without social intervention.
But there is another point as well. During the Industrial Revolution
not only was technology applied to industry but a new kind of economic
market emerged. This was the free market. Such a market, like science
and technology, demands freedom, the blocking of external influence or
control. Just as science must be free from external constraints, so
technology (applied to industry) must be free from external constraints,
and the economic market must be free from external constraints.
"External constraints" and "contextual interventions from society" are
synonymous here. The global consequence is the idea that an alliance
between science, technology, and the market, as independent from
external interventions by society, equals social progress.
Sometimes (the traditional argument continues) the special autonomy
of technology is contested because the uses of technology are confused
with technology. However, in speaking of the use of technology, it is
conceded that technology is something in itself. Technology is only
applied scientific theory, not necessarily used. One may possess a
technology and not use it. Thus the use of technology is, on the one
hand, extraneous to technology. And, on the other, the use of
technology may be ethically right or wrong. Therefore, technology by
itself is ethically neutral (as neutral as scientific theory). In short, there
is nothing inherently either good or bad in technology. It is use that
may be good or bad. 3
Identifying the uses of a technology with a technology itself leads
people to blame neutral technology for negative impacts raised by wrong
uses. The only way of avoiding these impacts seems to be, then,
relinquishing the technology at issue. This is the current behavior of
Luddites.
The contrary view, not confusing the uses of technology with
technology itself, allows us to assess applied technology. 4

The first step in a Technology Assessment process is to identify positive

and negative impacts.
These impacts may be categorized along disciplinary lines enabling the
assessment to draw on specific expertise (e.g., sociologists to treat
sociological impacts, economists to treat economic impacts, etc.). This
is the so-called EPISTLE (Environmental, Psychological, Insti-
tutional/Political, Social, Technological, Legal, and Economic) impact
classification scheme.
202 JOSE SANMARTIN

In a strict sense, this approach (technological impact assessment) must

assume that a technology has been applied. You can only assess the
effects of causes that have already occurred, the effects of a technology
that has been applied. S
There is however a more farsighted version of this approach.
Potential technological impacts may also be predicted. In fact, early
warning and forecasting was originally the main role attributed to
Technology Assessment. However, forecasting does not entail here that
society is then better able to chart the course of events. Because the
traditional conception of the science, technology, and free-market
complex as a neutral source of social progress involves the idea that
society must not disturb its inner workings, social constraints have
traditionally not been proposed as appropriate solutions for potential
problems raised by a technology. Thus, according to the traditional
image of the science-technology-market complex, these problems should
not be solved by social intervention but through better science, better
technology, and a better market. 6

With the impacts identified, the second step in a Technology Assessment

process is to study or analyze its magnitude.
This is the goal of impact analysis. The magnitude of the impacts is
usually determined by cost-benefit analysis in accordance with the
traditional conception of technology. But in regard to this one can add
two remarks.
First, attention has not usually been paid to negative social impacts
(real or potential). The reason is simple. Even if it seems that
particular persons win or lose, the sum of all technical applications
benefit humanity as a whole, since "the human being without technique, "
as Ortega says, "is not human. ,,7 In contrast to the common adaptation
of the living being to an environment, human beings react on their
environment, adapting it to themselves. The adaptation of this
environment to humans assumes that humans reform the nature that
places them in need. This reform means that humans successfully
abolish the necessities imposed by nature. The way of doing this is
technically to construct a new nature - " a supernature interposed
between man and original nature," as Ortega says. If this assumption
is true, technology would be a better servant to produce this supernature
than technique. For technology is scientific technique, and scientific
technique is more efficient than technique in shaping an artificial milieu.
Second, the cost-benefit analysis of impacts on nature assumes that
nature is a set of economic goods. It means that everything in nature
has a price. s Environmental values (e.g., the values of clean water,
 FROM WORLD3 TOSOClAL ASSESSMENT OF TECHNOLOGY 203
clean air, wilderness, etc.) are then somehow expressed in dollars. The
magnitude of an impact depends on the price of the affected natural
factor. That price, in tum, depends on how much you are prepared to
pay for this unaffected natural factor. This implies that one has ready
answers for questions such as: How much are you prepared to pay for
clean water? How much are you prepared to pay for preserving
endangered species? Perhaps it would be difficult to determine prices
such as these, but according to the traditional image of the science-
technology-market complex, this procedure would be the only
appropriate way of allocating natural factors (as economic goods) in a
rational manner. This allocation would allow us to compare the benefits
of a technology (in particular, a technology applied to industry in a free
market) to its negative natural impacts, and to take rational decisions
about controls. For example, as Thurow says, "the basic problem in
our national debate about pollution controls is that neither side is really
willing to sit down and place a value on a clean environment and then
do the necessary calculations to see whether it can be had for less than
this price. "9
Once the impacts are identified and analyzed, all that remains are policy
options for dealing with the desirable and undesirable consequences.
Minimizing undesirable consequences (if possible) would optimize
desirable effects. It would promote, in tum, the positive public
perception and acceptance of technology.
This last point is very important, because today there is evidence of
an increasingly broad social concern over the deleterious (direct or
indirect) effects of technology. Since technology is applied science, this
concern affects science. Thus science is being less and less perceived
as the foundation for a cornucopia and more and more perceived as a
source of disaster. Science is less and less entrenched in society. This
increasingly negative social perception of science could be the source of
the current crisis in scientific vocations and of contemporary difficulties
in finding managers of innovation.
The supporters of the traditional image of science, technology, and
Technology Assessment blame the crisis on the fact that there is a set of
techno-catastrophists who are almost paranoid opponents of science.
Many philosophers, radical environmentalists, and feminists are said to
belong to this group of scientifically illiterate and uninformed
neo-Luddites. lO Their problems with science and technology are reduced
to a matter of lack of information about science and technology.
Therefore it is necessary to supply society with more scientific and
technological information.
204 JOSE SANMARTIN

However, the real issue is not more information about science and
technology; it is education in Science, Technology, and Society.

4. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AS SOCIAL PRODUCTS

Let us re-examine the traditional conception of the science-

technology-market complex and its relation to Technology Assessment
(TA).
First: What does it mean to say that technology is applied science?
It means that technology results from the application of scientific
theories. What is a scientific theory applied to, when a technology is
produced? Technology results from applying scientific theories to
previous techniques. Technique is historically developed without the
benefit of science. Technique arises empirically either by accident or as
a matter of common experience. 11 Its improvement depends then on
concrete trial-and-error experiences. Technology is scientific theory
added to technique. In this framework, scientific theory explains the
causes of events that were controlled by technique. The improvement
of technologies does not depend on concrete experience, but on
increasingly better scientific theory.
Second: Among the factors involved in a technology, what is prior,
scientific theory or technique? Usually, it is technique. Asking for the
real causes that are controlled by a technique is, in general, the first step
in the search for appropriate scientific theories. Therefore, it is
necessary to complicate Figure 1 by introducing technique, in Figure 2:

Knowledge )
To -. Tl -. T2 -. T3 -.
t*J' ~ ~ ~ ~
to -. tl -. ~ -. ~ -.
Efficiency )
(where T; are theories, t; are technologies, and
t* is a specific technique)

Figure 2. Technique + Scientific Theory = Technology

But neither the genesis nor the development of technique has the same
inner logic as the development of scientific theory. The improvement
of scientific theories depends on increasing our knowledge of efficient
causes, while the origin and the development of techniques depend on
 FROM WORLD3 TO SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF TECHNOLOGY 205
fulfillment of final causes. The improvement of techniques, in
particular, depends on employing trial and error to satisfy needs or
goals. According to results, structural changes may be introduced in
technique. These changes could improve the function of a technique,
even if one is still ignorant of what precisely occurs or why this
improvement in the function of a technique is really produced.
Third: This raises at least two questions. On the one hand, when a
technique becomes a technology, do the intentions, purposes, or goals
fulfilled by this technique stand outside the technology? On the other
hand, why is a certain technique chosen for the application of science?
These questions can be answered altogether. The fulfillment of
intentions, purposes, or goals resides in the development of technologies
too. Usually, these goals are the same ones fulfilled by the respective
techniques. The main difference between technology and technique is
that the first is vastly accelerated in efficiency by having been brought
under applied science. It entails that a technology fulfills definite goals
better than the respective technique. It does not entail that technology
is goal-free.
The goals of technologies are framed by social contexts. Within them,
values normally guide the formulation of ends for technology. In this
sense, technology is called value-laden.
But if this hypothesis is correct, then society is not an add-on that
appears in the last step of a process that starts with pure science.
Technology, as science applied to technique, is not something
autonomous with respect to society. Technology by itself is not free
from social factors. In sum, the social framework in which technology
occurs decisively affects technology.
FIRST CONSEQUENCE: Thus, it is not legitimate to say that
technology provides social progress if its own logic is not disturbed by
social elements extraneous to its essence.
It could be replied that social elements shape the uses of technology,
not the technology itself, because the uses are to satisfy needs, goals, or
purposes. But it is necessary to review the distinction between
technology and the use of technology.
In this context, the term "technology" usually refers to tools. Other
potential references are excluded. Certainly it is much easier to
distinguish between a tool and its use than between a social organization
and its use. The apparent straightforwardness of the distinction between
tools and uses rests, in turn, on the conventional concept of use.
206 JOSE SANMARTIN

According to this conventional concept, people think, as Winner says,

that
once things have been made, we interact with them on occasion to achieve specific
purposes. One picks up a tool, uses it, and puts it down. One picks up a telephone,
talks on it, and then does not use it for a time. . .. The proper interpretation of the
meaning of technology in the mode of use seems to be nothing more complicated than
an occasional, limited, and nonproblematic interaction. ,,12

Problems with technology then force us to solve the question about

how the things are made, how they work, and how they are used.
"How things are made" and "how things work" are the domain of
technologists. The appropriate answers are yielded in terms of
materials, principles, or scientific procedures. To answer "how the
things are used," it is enough to list the different ways in which these
things are used to aid in human activity. The tasks seem easy.
But this conventional concept of technology and use is incorrect.
Even if we consider "technology" and "tool" as synonymous, it is
obvious that technologies are not merely servants of human activity. In
general, "technologies are also powerful forces acting to reshape that
activity and its meaning. ,,13 The very act of using certain technologies
such as phones, computers, faxes, etc., reshapes the human activity of
work and its meaning. These technologies can even give rise to
activities and become forms of life, because "life would scarcely be
thinkable without them. ,,14
SECOND CONSEQUENCE: The interpretation of technologies as
forms of life entails that it is incorrect to see technologies as things with
which, once made, there is only an occasional interaction. On the
contrary, the very existence of certain technologies (for example,
computers), beyond their occasional use, introduces vast transformations
in the texture of life.
Take the case, for example, of the introduction of computers in our
society. Computers not only increase productivity, they also radically
change the process of production. Computers are not only used to do
banking transactions, to write papers, or, through networks, to send
mail; they are radically changing our concepts of time and space. Thus
it is not enough to list occasional uses about "how the technology is
used" or "how it is going to be used." It is necessary to clarify the
transformation of human activity and its meaning through the mediating
role of technological devices - a transformation that alters concepts of
self and sets up new social relationships. In other words, it is necessary
to scrutinize the technology, not its occasional uses, to understand how
 FROM WORLD3 TO SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF TECHNOLOGY 207
it can affect the texture of our lives. Forecasting is required.
Early warning and forecasting was originally the main role of
Technology Assessment. But forecasting does not entail that society is
then better able to chart the course of events. If technological
innovation - without unjustifiable social intervention - is understood
as the basic cause of social progress, one assumes that technological
innovation will be carried forward. The effects or impacts of this
technological innovation are going to happen no matter what.
Forecasting impacts helps us to conform to them. As the guidebook of
the 1933 international exposition in Chicago dedicated to a "century of
progress" declares: "Science finds, Industry applies, Man conforms."
Forecasting then means that it would be convenient to know the potential
effects of a technological innovation. So one will be ready to adapt
human societies (even human nature) to technological impacts. But. ..
THIRD CONSEQUENCE: If technology is value-laden, then social
intervention, or better, the social mastery 0/ technology, is not only
justified, but required.
This means that the forecasting of potential effects of a technological
innovation does not imply the necessity to conform to them; it is
required to chart the course of the events. A potential event is the
generating of a new form of life. Thus, it is not enough on that score
to analyze potential uses of the technology at issue. It is necessary to
identify potential new forms of life that might be produced.
This new task of Technology Assessment, which would better be
called the Social Assessment o/Technology, is very difficult to carry out.
But the contemporary social entrenchment of technology seems to
require it. Only when society begins to play its role in technological
decision making will society begin to see technology in a different way.
To fulfill this objective, it is necessary to enhance new ways of
democratic decision making.
One possible procedure has been proposed, so-called "Constructive
Technology Assessment" (CTA). In order to bring technology within
democratic decision-making processes, technology assessment must be
modified by three new elements:
(1) Assessments of the potential impacts of a new technology must be
able to be brought forward by the social groups concerned or by
representatives of society at large. Here, special technoethics
committees could be useful.
(2) Institutions (parliaments, research units, corporations, etc.) related
to the technological innovation in question must develop possible
technological and, if need be, organizational solutions for problems
208 JOSE SANMARTIN

identified by both "experts" and social groups.

(3) There must be procedures for feedback from social interpretations
to technological design. IS See Figure 3.

Value-laden technology X
•
Committees of TA experts
Social groups involved
• - Parliaments
Technologists •
• techno- - Reconfigured
Redefined • legal or
logical designs social arrangements
Figure 3. Social Assessment of Technology

Such assessment could give rise to positive public perceptions of

particular technologies and help solidify technology in society.
University of Valencia

NOTES
1. Carl G. Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall, 1966), p. 16.
2. Jose Ortega y Gasset, MeditaciOn de /a tecnica, section 1.
3. "Ethically, technology is neutral. There is nothing inherently either good or bad
about it. It is simply a tool, a servant. . . .• This text is found in an advertisement for
the United Technologies Corporation (see Steven L. Goldman, Science, Technology,
and Social Progress, Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 1989, p. 297).
4. See, for example, Alan L. Porter, Frederick A. Rossini, Stanley R. Carpenter,
A. T. Roper, Ronald W. Larson, and Jeffrey S. Tiller, A Guidebookfor Technology
Assessment and Impact Analysis (New York: North Holland, 1980).
5. "After the bulldozer has rolled over us, we can pick ourselves up and carefully
measure the treadmarks," says Langdon Wmner (in The lWIale and the Reactor
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 100.
6. "Better science" implies "more knowledge." "Better technology" implies "more
efficiency." "Better market" implies "more free enterprise." None entails "more social
control. " On the contrary, as social control is increased, less knowledge, less
efficiency, and a worse market are produced.
7. See Ortega y Gasset, "El mito del hombre allende da t6cnica" [The myth of
humanity outside technology], in Obras completas, vol. 9, pp. 617-624. First published
as "Der Mythos des Menschen hinter der Technik," in Otto Bartning, ed., Mensch und
 FROM WORLD3.TO SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF TECHNOLOGY 209
Raum (Dannstadt: Neue DannstidterVerlagsanstalt, 1952), pp. 111-117.
8. See, for example, Langdon Wmner, The lWzale and the Reactor (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 123-127.
9. Lester Thurow, The Zero-Sum Society: Distribution and the Possibilities for
Economic Change (New York: Basic Books, 1980), p. 105.
10. See, for example, W. Hafele, "Energy," in C. Starr and P. Ritterbush, eds.,
Science, Technology, and the Human Prospect (New York: Pergamon, 1979), p. 139.
11. See James K. Feibleman, "Pure Science, Applied Science, and Technology: An
Attempt at Defmitions," in Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey, eds., Philosophy and
Technology (New York: Free Press, 1972, 1983), pp. 36-38.
12. See, for example, Winner, The lWzale and the Reactor, p. 6.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., p. II.
15. See Paul Slaa and E. J. Tuininga, "Constructing Technology with Technology
Assessment," in Miguel A. Quintanilla, ed., Evaluaci6n Parlamentaria de las opciones
cientificas y tecnolOgicas (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, 1989), pp. 99-
111. Slaa and Tuininga add there two examples of CTA. The first is a summary of an
extensive case study carried out by Jasp Jelsma for the Netherlands Organization for
Technology Assessment (NOTA) about recombinant-DNA experiments. The second is
a recent project on the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) - an integration
of the telephone, telex, and data networks - to be installed EC-wide in the course of
the 1990s. According to some leading consumer and privacy organizations, this new
technology is a threat to individual privacy and to the principle of unifonn public access
to telephone service. NOTA also carried out a CTA on this project. First, an overview
was provided of social concerns and proposed modifications. (These are reported in
Paul Slaa, ISDN as Design Problem (The Hague: NOTA, 1988). Second, these
concerns and changes were discussed by all groups involved (industry, trade unions,
consumer representatives, government) in a workshop. Third, based on these
discussions an advisory report was brought to parliament in which political and
organizational proposals are made, see Slaa and E. J. Tuininga, pp. 105-106.
 JOSE SANMARTIN

GENETHICS:
THE SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF THE RISKS AND IMPACTS
OF GENETIC ENGINEERING

The main issue regarding technology is not just finding ever more
precise answers to questions such as "How was it created?" and "How
does it work?" The most crucial issue concerns "How is it going to be
used?"
A socially acceptable answer to this last question cannot be reduced
to offering a list of the particular uses of the technological elements and
systems at issue. As these elements and systems are developed, it very
often happens that they become new ways of life. A technology
becomes a way of life when it brings into being new forms of existence
that wind up seeming essential to life itself.
Thus society usually hinges in some way on technologies, yet
currently people have little opportunity to choose such ways of life.
There are even people (mostly engineers and politicians) who think that
asking for understanding and approval of the consequences of a
technology prior to its use is pure demagogy which can lead to
stagnation or decline in the standard of living. This argument is usually
accompanied by the stipulation that no individual's creative labor should
be interfered with. Quite the reverse, it is said: Humanity has often
progressed thanks to the work of a genius who dared like a pioneer to
go further than was considered morally convenient at the time. History,
it is added, winds up honoring such pioneers, showing just how
unjustified it was to set up limits that have to end up being overcome.
It seems that today we are entering a new social order over whose
dominating ways of life the joint use of two powerful technologies -
computers and genetic engineering - are going to have a decisive
influence. Revolutionary changes, even in our self-comprehension, can
be predicted. We can either trust that pioneers will continue to force us
to advance, no doubt through catastrophic clashes with religious or
mystic-ecological creeds, or we can try rationally to assess the risks and
impacts of these technologies. Such assessments, which would transcend
mere economic analysis and include not only impacts on the
environment, could be called "social assessments."
211
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 211-225.
°1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers. . .
212 JOSE SANMARTiN

PARAMETERS IN THE
SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF TECHNOLOGY
At the risk of oversimplifying this social assessment of technology, I
will deal with a process circumscribed by three parameters:
(1) The first parameter is the strict analysis of such technology.
Every technology is the result of embedding some technique in a
theoretical framework. This framework tries to explain the causes that
are being controlled by the technique without people being conscious of
it. In order for this explanation to be scientific, in a strict sense, the
causes must be quantifiable.
Such an analysis will allow us to separate the technique and the theory
that are woven together in a technology. See figure 1. Identifying the

W~--·W + 4 - - -..... W

Theory

( Technique )
a1 Different theories

.. Bridge-concepts providing a theoretical unification

A Theoretical unification providng interpretive assumption

Figure 1. Technique and Theory in Technology

 GENETHICS: SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF RISKS AND IMPACTS 213

theoretical framework of a technology is very important in order to

identify its key concepts. Among such concepts there might be some
that are transferred from earlier theoretical frameworks, thus providing
theoretical unification or a unified theory. This unification might
provide hypotheses which, in tum, would allow reinterpretation of the
results of such a technology.
For example, the concepts of information and information processing
system play important roles in the theoretical framework of computer
technology. In the framework of information theory, computer
technology embeds the techniques of calculating and sorting. In
cognitive science during the 1980s, the concepts of information and
information processing systems were transferred from information theory
to several theories about the behavior of non-human and human animals.
Through this theoretical unification, the cognitive sciences tried to
explain the behavior of living organisms - from the phototropisms of
a microorganism to intelligent responses of a human or non-human
animal - as the output of a living system that processes information in
the form of sensory inputs. The theoretical framework of the cognitive
sciences, in tum, provided interpretive assumptions of the results of
computer technology. Certain computer processes were reinterpreted
as thoughts. Some interpretive assumptions, provided by the theoretical
unification of the cognitive sciences, have allowed us to reinterpret
computers as entities so similar to human beings that they fall today into
a single new genus, the so-called "informavores."
Such an analysis of computer technology can clarify both the
theoretical framework of the techniques of the technology and the
theoretical unification that eventually makes it possible to interpret the
results of the technology. It can even allow us to better understand the
epistemological character of this unified theory - whether it is scientific
or merely metaphysical speculation, in whose name the results of the
technology are very often interpreted and legitimized.
(2) The second parameter of the social assessment of technology must
attend to the social risks and impacts associated with panicular
technologies. In standard assessments today, attention is not usually
paid to ways of life, values, etc. This is not surprising, when
assessment means only setting a price. It is very often impossible (not
just difficult) to calculate economically the value of social elements that
are not commodities. However, not to assess these social elements is
something that leads many citizens to be suspicious of technology.
(3) The third parameter for the social assessment of technology that
goes beyond a purely economical context has to do with proposed laws
to regulate the development and use of technology. Laws and
regulations in this field should be inspired by ethical principles. I am
214 JOSE SANMARTfN

not, at this time, going to indicate these principles, the foundations of

which demand profound philosophical reflection. I simply refer to the
wide discussion of principles that aim to defend rights that individuals
democratically acknowledge by virtue of their birth.
FROM BIOTECHNOLOGY TO
HUMAN GENETIC ENGINEERING
The following example of genetic engineering should allow me to
clarify some of the foregoing parameters. From a historical point of
view, genetic engineering is the last stage of biotechnology.
Biotechnology, in a strict sense, consists of techniques that, first, allow
us to isolate microorganisms or live cells, starting with vegetable and
animal tissues and, second, allow us to cultivate and use these
microorganisms or cells to obtain metabolic products or to serve as
catalysts for chemical reactions.
The procedures mentioned have not always been consciously carried
out. At least since neolithic times microorganisms have been isolated
and used for fermentation, but the existence of microorganisms has been
known only since the seventeenth century. Prior to this period
techniques were known and used, taking advantage of fermentation, for
instance, to make bread, beer, wine, yogurt, and cheese. What was not
available was the technology, because the causes of fermentation were
unknown. There was technique but no theory.
Today we have the technology - to be more exact, in these contexts,
biotechnology. Compared to traditional techniques, biotechnology shows
two great differences.
The first difference concerns the procedures of contemporary
biotechnology, which are guided. In other words, biotechnology
involves scientifically explained entities or events. Thus there are
theories that explain the causes that had been unknowingly controlled by
earlier biological techniques.
To summarize: The isolation of microorganisms or cells, and their
subsequent cultivation, involves careful planning within a framework that
is set, at least in part, by the theory of evolution, microbiology, and
genetics - in particular, molecular genetics. We begin by isolating
microorganisms or cells that are potentially useful for achieving our
aims. Then we try to determine the diverse forms in which a certain
gene could be present in the individuals of a population. Later, we try
to select appropriate mutants. Finally, we attempt to multiply the
separate microorganisms or cells, creating a line of genetically stable
microorganisms or cells as the end result.
Biotechnologists working in this way do not exhibit great differences
 GENETHICS: SOCliAL ASSESSMENT OF RISKS AND IMPACTS 215

from those engaged in the traditional improvement of vegetables or

animals. But in the 1970s, recombinant DNA technology started to be
increasingly used in place of the traditional selection of appropriate
mutants.
This leads directly to the second characteristic of contemporary
biotechnology. To obtain metabolical products, the most successful
procedure in the last twenty years is the following. To begin, we
choose a certain microorganism; later, we try to insert into its
chromosomes the DNA sequence coding for a given protein from
another individual. The technology that makes the mixing of diverse
genetic materials possible is called recombinant DNA technology.
During the 1980s we were able to synthesize (even industrially)
somatostatin, human insulin, human growth hormone, and interferon
by means of recombin~t DNA and technological manipulation of the E.
coli bacterium. A change in the traditional pharmaceutical industry has
thus taken place. For example, the pancreas of a cow or pig was
traditionally used to produce insulin to treat diabetics. Given the
difference between human insulin and porcine or bovine insulin, the
immune system of some diabetics produces antibodies against the foreign
insulin, neutralizing its action. Using recombinant DNA technology, the
DNA sequence coding for human insulin can be inserted in the genome
of an organism such as E. coli. Under appropriate circumstances, this
microorganism can be raised to a cell-lineage, and the bacteria, like
microscopic assembly-line workers, will produce human insulin.
Thus by the term "genetic engineering" we mean in the first instance
that set of technologies for gene manipulation which includes:
- A technology that allows us to cut an organism's genome at a certain
spot. Like microscopic scissors, restriction enzymes are used.
- A technology that allows us to remove a DNA sequence.
- A technology that allows us to insert a DNA sequence in the genome
of an organism.
Such genetic manipulation has already gone through three phases. In
the first, almost exclusively microorganisms were manipulated. These
manipulated microorganisms have been mostly applied in the
pharmaceutical industry and to a lesser degree in the mining of minerals
that were scarcely profitable using traditional techniques. In the second
phase, vegetables and non-human animals have been genetically
manipulated. Here we can mention the efforts to develop new varieties
of plants (e.g., wheat) capable of fixing nitrogen. In the third phase,
gene manipulation is being attempted on human beings. In this phase,
gene therapies for diseases and even propensities or predispositions to
216 JOSE SANMARTiN

certain diseases are expected.

But, as a second meaning, we include human genetic engineering,
especially technologies that are not strictly manipulative such as:
- Technologies for the mapping and sequencing of the human genome
or for the finding of bases that make up the human genome, and the
localization of the gene coding for proteins (or regulating that process)
among the total human DNA.
- Diagnostic tests for genetic diseases or propensities.
GENETIC DIAGNOSTIC TESTING IN CLINICAL CONTEXTS
Let me now focus on the second of these aspects of genetic
engineering, genetic diagnostic testing, and then turn to the issue of the
social assessment of its risks and impacts.
Genetic diagnosis, in particular genetic screening, consists of locating
gene abnormalities responsible for diseases or propensities. This is, in
theory, easy to attain. If the gene abnormality is known (for example,
a case where one or several bases are replaced by different ones), a
DNA probe can be made that identifies the affected DNA sequence.
This probe is made with a chain of bases (usually, radioactively labelled)
complementary to the sequence of bases that constitute the defective
DNA sequence. In this way, given appropriate conditions, the bases of
both the DNA probe and the defective DNA sequence will adhere to
each other. The radioactive labeling will allow us to identify a pair of
adhered chains. See Figure 2, next page.
Using genetic screening, we can today identify a hereditary disease or
a susceptibility to develop some disease. Consider the following two
paradigmatic cases - one of a genetic disease, the other of susceptibility
or predisposition to disease.
A Paradigmatic Genetic Disease: Sickle-Cell Anemia
The principal cases for genetic screening are constituted by
hemoglobinopathies, such as sickle-cell anemia or thalassaemias. Sickle-
cell anemia is a well known example because it is determined by an
apparently minimal defect in just one gene. A change in one base
causes a valine amino acid to substitute glutamic acid in one of the
chains of human hemoglobin (the beta chain). As a result the
hemoglobin molecule stops being soluble and forms a rigid crystalline
structure inside the red cells that adopt the form of a sickle - hence the
name, "sickle-cell anemia." This structure (see Figure 3, p. 218) causes
GENETHlCS: SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF RISKS AND IMPACTS 217

UNA fWln ••..., ...e rtf

hm"... ccll.

1.lwo 1.1n'" 01 UNA

.....rpu.tt4

... li"":li~c UNA putt(!,

.,e ....Ir.1

lltIAllfllllCt "il ho .... IMU.',. In

Ihf '.'IC'I ONA .C'fIUt'...·c.

Figure 2. Constructing a DNA Probe

the red cells to collapse. Moreover, having lost their elastic capacity,
the red cells with a sickle shape end up obstructing the smallest blood
vessels.
At first this anemia mainly affected African populations. Later, it got
extended among the Afro-American descendants of former slaves who
carried this grave hereditary disorder with them to the New World.
Like almost all mutant genes, whose frequency increases among certain
populations, this particular gene for the sickle-cell trait also played an
important evolutionary role: having a copy of the muted gene for the
sickle-cell trait induces malaria resistance. On the one hand, the
homozygotes for this trait (people who have inherited two copies of the
muted genes from their parents) suffer the painful sickle-cell anemia.
218 JOSE SANMARTIN

On the other hand, it was very likely that normal homozygotes, who had
inherited two copies of the normal genes for the beta chain of
hemoglobin, would have died of malaria. The heterozygotes for the
sickle-cell trait do not develop the sickle-cell disease, and even exhibit
resistance to diseases that people with a normal genetic makeup can
suffer.

Normnl UNA Sickle DNA UNA I)ruile

C C G
A r- Valine A r- Vuline T
T T A

G G C
T - Ilistidine T - "istidine A
A A T

G G C
A - Leucine A - Leucine T
C
G G

T T A
G - Threonine G - lbreonine C
A A T

G G C
G - Proline G
G
- Proline C
C
G

-1
C C G
T - Glutamine A - Valine T
T A
T
C C G
T f - - Glutamine T f - - Glutllmine A
'I' T A

•
•
Figure 3. Normal and Sickle DNA
 GENETHICS: SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF RISKS AND IMPACTS 219

A Paradigmatic Genetic Susceptibility To Disease: G-6-PD Deficiency

There exist propensities that only lead to diseases under certain
environmental conditions. Some specific circumstances of the work-
place environment (e.g., the existence of chemicals, nuclear radiation)
stand out among such environmental conditions. Workers with a
susceptibility or propensity to a disease have one or more genetic DNA
sequences that can potentially lead them to develop a disease under
prolonged exposure to certain agents of the workplace environment.
For example, there are people (mainly members of racial or ethnic
minorities) who have a genetic susceptibility to develop a particular kind
of job-related anemia when they have prolonged exposure to naphthalene
and other industrial chemicals. In this case, the genetic susceptibility is
induced by the so-called "glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase" (or "G-
6-PD") deficiency.
Clinical Utilization
Undoubtedly, from a clinical point of view, the genetic diagnosis of
diseases is going to have increasing value. We are already able to know
about the existence of a hereditary disease at a very early stage. Thus
in some cases we can treat the patient to appropriate therapies in early
stages with spectacularly positive results. It is to be hoped that as
genetic diagnostic tests are improved, the number of diseases detected
in this way will increase with consequent advances in the field of
preventive medicine.
In this sense predictive medicine might be even more important than
preventive medicine. The genetic diagnosis of susceptibility can allow
us, in particular, to identify employees suspected of being predisposed
to a disease when exposed to certain workplace environments. Genetic
information on the future status of their health gathered through genetic
screening could allow employees to plan their lives accordingly. For
example, workers detected as carriers of the G-6-PD deficiency can
decide whether or not to keep their jobs when such jobs subject them to
prolonged exposure to naphthalene. The clinically positive impacts of
genetic diagnosis seem, in short, very important, and they will certainly
increase as the reliability and accuracy of the genetic tests increase.
However, these advantages should not obscure problems that are
already present in clinical contexts in which genetic diagnostic testing
takes place. First, there are issues referring to the reliability and
accuracy of these tests. Second, even if the reliability and accuracy of
the tests increase, it is obvious that interpretive assumptions can have
a strong influence on how they are used.
220 JOSE SANMARTiN

Among contemporary interpretive assumptions there are hypotheses

that depend on unified theories derived from the genetic engineering
technologies. Consider especially theories of biological determinism,
which argue somewhat as follows: Since genes are related to anatomical
and physiological phenotypes, such theories enhance the prospects for
identifying DNA sequences that determine traits of human behavior and
mind. As new technologies are developed for genetic testing and
manipulation, with the potential to remove or alter the controlling genes,
such theories enhance the prospects for locating and removing the
genetic determinant basis of important characteristics of human mind and
behavior. Usually the supporters of these hypotheses at first refer only
to diseases such as schizophrenia or mental retardation. But then they
mention characteristics such as aggressiveness or IQ, and tendencies
such as alcoholism and drug abuse. .
The Minimization Of Environmental Factors
Such theories rely on genetics and genetic engineering. In turn, they
provide frameworks for interpreting the results of gene technologies. In
particular, they provide hypotheses that allow us to interpret a DNA
sequence predisposing to a disease as the basic genetic determinant of
that disease. In this way, the role played by environmental factors is
minimized. In the specific case of occupational diseases, minimizing the
role of the workplace environment entails placing the responsibility on
workers for their health. Accordingly, if employees who undergo
prolonged exposure to certain workplace environmental agents get sick,
it is attributed to individual biology, to genetic predispositions to
disease. Companies do not have to clean up their plants; workers have
to change jobs.
Minimizing the importance of environmental factors in diseases can
have an impact well beyond the clinical setting. It directly enhances the
appeal of a particular belief about the causes of disease. From Pasteur
until now the dominating image of disease has been that of a health
problem caused by invading microorganisms. Medicine has been mainly
anti-biotic. Today this view is starting to give way to a new one.
Developing a disease depends mainly on individual biology, on genetic
makeup. This is obvious in some cases, when there are actual physical
pathologies. It is much less obvious when we seek to identify the root
causes of future physical health problems in the absence of actual
symptoms.
People who believe in biological determinism assert that the role
played by the affected DNA sequences in the appearance of a
predisposition to disease is the most important. Environmental agents
 GENETHICS: SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF RISKS AND IMPACTS 221

such as air pollution, chemicals, or nuclear radiation would not cause ill
health in the absence of DNA sequences determining individual
susceptibility. Thus they assume that individual genetic makeups are the
root causes for human health problems arising from environmental
pollutants and conclude that we must use genetic technology to improve
human biology and induce the appropriate genetic resistances.
HUMAN GENETIC ENGINEERING
IN NON-CLINICAL CONTEXTS
Genetic diagnostic testing does not remain within the clinical context.
This is usually the only place where risks and impacts are analyzed, but
the results obtained by genetic diagnostic testing can be (in fact, are)
transferred to data banks, where they are available to non-clinical
institutions. These data banks gain particular relevance for corporations,
insurance companies, schools, and the courts.
Let me limit discussion here to considering the risks and impacts of
genetic screening in large corporations ("occupational genetic screen-
ing"). The early discovery of genetic susceptibilities is, in theory, of
great advantage to diagnosed workers. Theoretically, such results allow
workers to cease contact with whatever is inducing the development of
a disease.
This is a crucial point. But we must immediately consider the way
in which this "ceasing to have contact" can take place. It is not the
same, for example, if the decision to give up a job is made by the
person diagnosed with (hyper)susceptibility or if it is made by the
employer. It is also not the same whether a decision not to take a job
is made by an applicant in whom a (hyper)susceptibility has been
detected (but who for the most part is perfectly capable) or whether it
is an employer who decides not to hire the applicant so diagnosed
(although the individual is otherwise quite capable).
In the first instance, supposing that there are no economic constraints,
the patient simply decides to take a risk. This is like deciding to sky
dive.
In the second instance, when genetic screening becomes a means
employers use to evaluate and hire workers, companies will almost
certainly be acting to save money by avoiding one or more of the
following costs:
- Costs of cleaning up a work place: By eliminating workers at "high
risk" employers can leave the work place in its current
"contaminated" state. There have already been cases, especially in
the chemical industry, in which the alternative has been to exclude
222 JOSE SANMARTIN

employees rather than decontaminate the work place.

- Costs of worker absenteeism: A person prone to a disease is a worker
who may well probably miss work because of health problems.
- Health costs: It is frequent (at least in the case of large corporations)
that firms are the organizations which fund medical insurance policies
and provide health care. Hiring workers prone to certain illnesses
increases health benefit costs.
- Costs of lawsuits and possible compensation for health damages: This
is a motive that is extraordinarily strong today and the reason why
North American employers are increasingly using genetic screening.
Aspects Of The Social Assessment Of Genetic Testing
On the one side, such advantages for employers must be attended to
by any assessment of genetic screening; on the other, the risks and
impacts should also be considered. These risks and impacts affect, at
first, individual patients, and afterward society as a whole.
Regarding the risks and impacts for individuals, there are at least
three points to be considered.
First, false positives involve diagnosing someone as diseased or as
prone to a disease when this is not the case. This problem depends to
some extent on the reliability and accuracy of diagnostic tests. Some
people think this problem will diminish with increased diagnostic
accuracy, but in the real world of today in which false positives do
occur, they can cause individuals to find themselves involved in, at
times, basic labor decisions with important economic consequences. Or
they can cause social marginalization.
A second risk will not decrease with improvement of the accuracy and
reliability of genetic screening tests. It has to do with an attitude that
has been developing since the first genetic diagnostic tests were
introduced. Even among those realizing that it is not the same to be
heterozygote as it is to be homozygote for a certain disease or
susceptibility, heterozygotes tend to be (and have often been) treated as
homozygotes .
Given that hereditary diseases and susceptibilities are tied to mutant
genes, it is logical that, from an evolutionary point of view, they almost
always affect ethnic or racial minorities. If, moreover, heterozygotes
and homozygotes are dealt with in the same manner, a large part of an
ethnic or racial group could be considered actually or potentially sick.
This is at least ironic, considering that ordinary heterozygotes are the
most fit individuals for dealing with certain environmental circumstances
to which their populations were at one time subject. To treat hetero-
zygotes as actually or potentially sick could have grave economic
 GENETHICS: SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF RISKS AND IMPACTS 223

consequences and marginalize a significant portion of some race or

ethnic group. This could reasonably lead to the suspicion that genetic
diagnostic testing is simply being used to disguise the racist attitudes of
those who defend what they are doing as adopting scientific methods to
improve the health of the labor force.
The third risk is the possibility that diagnosing persons with a
susceptibility to a disease at a later date can jeopardize their present
even when the future disease may never occur. This jeopardy could
force a person to make important decisions about occupation and way
of life on the basis of quite weak statistical probabilities.
Complementary to this economic issue there is a grave ethical
question. Should we inform persons that they have a susceptibility to
develop a disease in the future? Given the lack of excessively high
levels of reliability and accuracy in genetic diagnostic testing; and given
that it is not known why some people having the same susceptibility
develop a certain disease when others do not; and in light of the role
that idiosyncrasies· and environment play in the final appearance of a
disease, is it reasonable or fair to ask a person to bear the burden of
social discrimination - or even the burden of personal knowledge? It
is also the case that the understanding of statistical probabilities among
the general population, and even among experts, is woefully inadequate
to the correct interpretation of much of the existing genetic diagnostic
testing information and results.
Regarding the risks and impacts of genetic diagnosis technologies for
society, there are at least two points to be considered.
First, when there is a choice between decontaminated work places or
"resistant" workers, it is likely that employers will choose to have non-
susceptible workers employed in contaminated work environments.
Genetic diagnostic technologies can be used by employers to promote
two very different kinds of action: keeping genetically susceptible
workers out of specific workplaces, and reducing high levels of pol-
lutants in all work places. We run a grave risk that the second will
take place - which is clearly against the interests all members of society
have to live in a clean environment.
A second serious social risk is that which, in fact, underlies a large
number of the possible negative impacts already mentioned. This
concerns the invasion of personal privacy. Information regarding an
individual's genetic makeup increasingly tends to be transferred from
private case histories to data banks, which then make it available to non-
clinical institutions. Such institutions then can invade personal privacy,
using the genetic information to impose labor and other choices upon
affected individuals.
224 JOSE SANMARTIN

EPILOGUE: TOWARD GENETHICS

In countries such as the United States, where genetic diagnostic testing
can now be introduced on a mass scale, employers are appealing for
such testing to avoid long and costly lawsuits caused by strict health
liability and workplace regulation. I suspect that it is not on the basis
of ethical principles that these employers - who otherwise oppose strict
social regulation of the workplace and who may be trying to circumvent
its principles and implications by genetic testing - are now speaking up
in favor of genetic diagnostic testing.
What I mean by basing social regulation on ethical principles is this.
If genetic technologies in general, and genetic diagnostic tests in
particular, have advantages, risks, and disadvantages for both individuals
and society, then it is obvious that there should first be a social
assessment, then use should be regulated so that the risks and
disadvantages can be minimized and the transgression of rights avoided.
The relevant rights could, in the case of genetic diagnostic testing, be
reduced to one basic principle: Genetic information should not be used
to impose decisions on diagnosed individuals. The formulation of this
right is what I understand as an ethical principle, or better yet as a
genethical principle, the foundation of which need not depend on deep
philosophical reflection. It rests quite simply on the nature of the human
social organizations that respect these rights. (I think that going beyond
this, looking for justifications of another sort, would be philosophically
interesting but is practically unnecessary.)
Once such a genethical principle is established, it is not difficult to
apply it in regulations for specific technologies. It is enough, following
a list of risks and impacts, to start taking preventive measures.
In any case, strict fulfillment of the genethics principle at issue will
remove most actual and potential problems. If, for example, the above-
mentioned principle is respected, then it is clear that
- There will be no problems of economic deprivation, social
marginalization, or social stigma as a result of false positives.
- There is no possibility that heterozygotes will be treated as if they
were homozygotes (in non-clinical contexts).
In each case the information necessary to produce such consequences
would be known only by the diagnosed persons and their physicians.
Furthermore, if concerns about their health on the part of workers
were to become a basis for pressuring companies to alter policies
regarding workplace contamination, then there would be no reason to
worry about the consequences of the use of genetic diagnostic
 GENETIHCS: SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF RISKS AND IMPAcrS 225

technologies. At present, however, numerous indicators point in the

opposite direction. Thus it is important to establish certain preventive
measures for the use of this technology if we do not want to end up
creating a new social class, membership in which would depend on
having an acceptable genome. The best preventive measure I know is
to pursue the social assessment of human genetic diagnostic technology
and then to establish legal regulations for its use based on genethics
principles.

REFERENCES
Hubbard, Ruth, and M. S. Henefm (1985). "Genetic Screening of Prospective Parents
and of Workers: Some Scientific and Social Issues," International Journal of HealJh
Services, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 231-251.
Mitcham, Carl (1989). i Que es Ia filosofla de Ia tecnolog{a? Barcelona: Anthropos.
Nelkin, Dorothy, and Laurence Tancredi (1989). Dangerous Diagnostics: The Social
Power of Biological Information. New York: Basic Books.
Sanmartin, Jose (1990). • Alternatives for Evaluating the Effects of Genetic Engineering
on Human Development,· in Paul T. Durbin, ed., Broad and Narrow Interpretations
of Philosophy of Technology. Boston: Kluwer, pp. 153-166.
Sanmarti'n, Jose, ed. (1991). GenEtica: El impacto social de Ia ingenier(a genetica
humana. Theme issue of Arbor, whole no. 544 (April), pp. 47-70.
Suzuki, David, and Peter Knudtson (1990). Genethics: The Engineering of Life.
Revised edition. Stoddart, 1990. First published by Stoddart, 1988; then with a
subtitle, The Clash between the New Genetics and Human Values, by Harvard
University Press, 1989.
Wmner, Langdon (1986). The Whale and the Reactor: A Searchfor Limits in an Age
of High Technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
 PART V

FROM VENEZUELA
 JUAN DAVID GARCfA BACCA

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, HISTORY, AND PHILOSOPHY

IN THE CULTURAL ATMOSPHERE OF OUR TIME

Our corporeal life is ordinarily spent on earth and within the air. The
earth is almost completely the possession of someone, individual or
state. It is, as the economists say, a good with a price, and a high
price. The air - for now - is a non-valuable good, that is to say, with
no determined or determinable price, either by the amusingly named
democracy of the market or by some authority with more brute power
than grace or efficiency.
Now air is known as a mixture consisting mostly of oxygen and
nitrogen, plus small amounts of water vapor, argon, neon, helium . . .
.I Physical-chemical science tells us that. Life tells us that the air is
atmosphere, a Greek word that in common terms means: sphere in
which we breathe. Such is its vital function; and such has it been for
man, probably for a million years, without noticeable change in
composition. But that air is a mixture of gases in various proportions
is a discovery of science that dates back little more than a century.
The mind, soul, or spirit of man lives within another atmosphere.
Almost coeval with the discovery of the physical composition of the
material atmosphere was the discovery of the atmosphere of the soul,
which has been called the "culture of an age" or "worldview." To know
of what this is composed, and in what proportions, as well as their
tempestuous or daily changes, is an even more modern discovery. Let
us name the discoverer. It is Dilthey. Until him each epoch breathed
in its worldview or cultural atmosphere, in an immediate, unconscious,
global way; but it knew neither what it was nor of what it was
composed. It breathed; it did not know. It lacked something like the
physics and chemistry of its culture.
Our soul or spirit changes much faster and more radically than our
body. In a million years the physical atmosphere has not noticeably
altered, but the cultural atmosphere has been transformed at least six
times - either by the introduction of new elements or by changes in the
proportions of those which already existed. These changes are
equivalent, to put it in physical language, to the introduction of gold
vapor into the air, or to inverting the proportions of nitrogen and
oxygen, twenty percent for the former and seventy-eight percent for the
latter.
The formal components of our cultural atmosphere are science,

229
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 229-247 .
• 1993 KJuwer Academic Publishers.
230 JUAN DAVID GARciA BACCA

technology, history, philosophy, theology, law, art, and so on. What

is the typical proportion of these in our age, that is, what is the
composition of our cultural atmosphere?
The percentages about which I am going to talk clearly do not have
any more than a symbolic value. And, of course, what will be said is
more proposal than pretention to a definitive answer.
Our worldview, our cultural atmosphere, or the air of our spirit is
composed of forty percent science, thirty percent technology [tecnica],
ten percent history; of seven percent philosophy; of five percent law; of
four percent art; of two percent theology, and let us leave two percent
for other elements. In other ages - the medieval, for example - the
proportion of theology must have been eighty percent, with five percent
for philosophy, the "handmaid of theology," and less than one percent
for science. . .. Our atmosphere would have been asphyxiating for
medievals, just as theirs would be for us.
It is thus of decisive importance to know what science, technology,
history, and philosophy are - with "apologies to God" for ignoring the
other components. (A little justice mixed with urbanity will engender
proper respect for this remark.) So let us begin with the theme, What
science is - the oxygen of our cultural atmosphere.
I. WHAT IS SCIENCE? AS THE FIRST AND PRIMARY ELEMENT
OF OUR CULTURAL ATMOSPHERE
What is science for us - for us in the twentieth century? What
science was or was understood to be by Greek, medieval, and
Renaissance men is a matter of history - a history of what we would
propose was of a discreet ten percent importance compared to the
seventy percent for contemporary science and technology. And what
science will be for the men of the year three thousand, thirty thousand,
three hundred thousand, or three billion, is a matter of super-prophecy
that we are not in a hurry to declare, since we have to be modest and
take care not to be ridiculous with epochal or egotistical pretentions.
Science is, for us, an ideal: the ideal of theoretical, technical,
ontological, phenomenological, objective, and systematic knowledge.
Therefore, every field of action and knowledge has become obsessed
with setting itself under the rule of science. From biology, economics,
and sociology to librarianship, journalism, and folklore - all aspire to
become sciences; and sometimes they believe they already are such.
And they flaunt, with mocking innocence or with discreet complacency,
formalities, formulas, conceptualizations, and incipient axioms . . .
before the supreme scientific court presided over for centuries by
mathematics, accompanied now by physics and logic. Contemporary
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, HISTORY, AND PHILOSOPHY 231

philosophy has also adopted such a complex; and it is said of philosophy

that it is the science par excellence, even more a science than all the
others which, unfortunately, being science, do not know either what they
are or ought to be.
Pretensions are one of the cheapest thrills; and the pretentious or
pretenders are content with very little in the name of science. Consider
how little it takes for people to call themselves scientists and to begin to
talk about science, about the crisis of science, etc., compared to all that
is included in the contemporary ideal of science, the ideal of serious
scientists, in the fullness of time and for life.
To take knowledge as an ideal that integrally organizes life is the
enterprise of our time - one that has been increasing since the
Renaissance. Before, in the immediate past, the ideal of human life
was constituted by salvation of the soul, so that life became a journey
through the valley of tears. The model or ideal knowledge was
theology, with its foundation of faith and its high voice of authority.
Thus was salvific action opposed to knowledge of reality. There is a
practical knowledge of reality: one given by the natural senses, one that,
from what is given by the senses, sometimes abstracts ideas and
concepts, while at other times it draws forth experience, makes skilled
experts, dexterous artisans, yielding recipes, procedures, tricks, and little
secrets of work. Beyond this, man invented theoretical knowledge, or
knowledge of reality through theory, theory for knowledge of reality,
and knowing the real through theory, mastering it. Nothing like pure,
contemplative, abstract theory of a final ideal or eternal vision of the
One-True-God, but theory to know what a thing is and, knowing the
what it is, to take advantage of it, transforming it or not, in order to
serve man. This fusion of theory and practice we will call techno-logy
[tecno-log(a] and the learned in it technologists.2 And in it are those
examples of theoretical-practical fusion such as physics and chemistry
. . . or even modern architecture; and other candidates for it such as
economics and biology. The finest part of mathematics and logic - the
theoretical, par excellence - has become theory of the physical, of the
real, and theory directed toward technics, toward ordered and planned
praxis, far from the motley bazaar of inventiveness, bright ideas, tricks,
and recipes of those times in which knowing was, at the most, an ideal
of one part of man - who was destined, it was said, to live in another
world, beyond this one. Certainly it was not the ideal of the integral
and real man now, who is of this world and in a world now for him.
So it is that the modern ideal of science excludes equally both
abstract and empirical knowledge; what it includes is the
theoretical-technical as both its first and second components. The
contemporay ideal of science demands ontological theoretical-technical
232 JUAN DAVID GARdA BACCA

knowledge, disregarding axiological or value knowledge. That is to

say, it does away with every religious, moral, or artistic valuation or
judgment. It disregards them; it does not negate or oppose them,
provided they do not intrude on the field of the scientific arrangements
and attitude. Until Galileo, for instance, theology occupied the field of
astronomy, in part because of the impotence of philosophy as the
handmaid of theology and in part because of the long-term deficiency
of physical science and technology. That is why astronomical opinions
could be referred to as heretical, or close to it. . .. Galileo placed
questions like "What is the center of the world? Does the sun move or
not? Does the earth move or not? Are the stars corruptible or
incorruptible bodies? Are the heavens like the earth or of a different
matter?" ... - placed them, I repeat, on an ontological level, that of
the what is of reality, and disregarded the axiological or moral and
religious valuation. With him was officially inaugurated this component
of the modern scientific plan: ontological theoretical-technical
knowledge. First, we must know what things are; then we will see if
they are of any use for eternal life, if they agree with the Bible, and if
they are fit to be approved by the moralists ....
But while theoretical-technical knowledge has been showing us what
things are, the because of them has had consequences for man, and for
natural morality, not for his eternal life. . .. All of this theoretical-
technical knowledge is in itself subordinate to man. Ontological
theoretical-technical knowledge is anthropological. Science now deals
with what things are, but in a way that ascertains what they effectively
are for man. (Summing up, we now have three components.)
The ideal of science includes still another component: the
phenomenological. The ideal of science, it is said, employing an over-
used word, is Truth. But it has to be recognized that people understand
many things to be true, using a word which so fills the mouth and is
pronounced with an undisguised insinuation of threat and a final decisive
blow. Truth is what in the thing is obvious or manifest to the senses or
understanding; it is thus opposed to the hidden, to the dark and
shadowy. But what, without addition, naturally shows itself to us in
things - things in the air, on the land, both together, to man, in the
sun . . . - are the most insignificant aspects of reality: mere minutiae
and embellishments. Light is as obvious as we could want - as much
a phenomenon as you could imagine, to use the Greek expression. But
what light manifests to us hides what it is; and it is with great difficulty
that we have come to know what light really is, transverse waves in an
electromagnetic field the energy of which condenses in photons. This
is the real, and by knowing this the man who discovered it can produce
light. The truth of its reality is not what is obvious or evident; it is
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, HISTORY, AND PHILOSOPHY 233
what man has obtained through inventions that reveal things. The ideal
of contemporary science is real phenomenology: making appear that
which is hidden in things under the form of their appearances or
immediate natural circumstances. Contemporary science is the most real
phenomenological ontology, not the so-called and much ballyhooed
phenomenology of the philosophers.
This makes four components of the defining ideal of contemporary
science. Let the fifth be objectivity. For science subjectivity, the
conscience, the I, the you, is discarded: no I Galileo, I Leibniz, I
Newton . . . I Einstein. . . . When the objectivity of science is
mentioned, because it surrounds us, we all now understand this means
that the I is excluded - whether it is Plato's, the reigning Pope's,
Oppenheimer's, Gauss's, or Riemann's - as one of the proper and
necessary components of a scientific affirmation, theorem, or axiom.
In phrases such as the "Pythagorean theorem" and "Einstein's theory of
relativity," the mention of names is nothing more than an act of
historical deference, not a step toward demonstration.
But this interpretation of "objective" is of much less importance than
another: objective is impartial in the face of those human attitudes and
bad habits found especially in politics, religion, art. . .. Let those
attitudes and habits be part of individuals, or corporations, churches, or
states. Science belongs to no one. Its acquisitions belong equally to all,
without regard to morals and political or religious conventions. Science,
or theoretical-technical-ontological-phenomenological knowledge is a
good belonging to Humanity. It fulfills, without any pretentious
exhibitionism, the biblical saying: "The sun rises on the evil and on the
good, and it rains on the just and on the unjust. ,,3
In a third sense, objective rules out secrecy. If the circumference
could, in a given moment, hide from us some of its properties or whisk
out of sight some of its points; if the proton could want its mass not to
be discovered - that is to say, could let itself be weighted or not,
however it wanted - science would not be possible. The real has no
secrets; the concealed is not hidden. To paraphrase Einstein, reality is
loyal. 4
Science has no secrets, and it deals with a reality that has none
either. From this it follows that the feeling of security that science
offers the scientist is the great substitute for faith and trust.
Finally, contemporary science completes the harmony of the
components of its ideal with that of the systematic. Negatively, this
excludes from itself encyclopedism, dictionaries, indexes, card catalogs.
Everything can be found in an encyclopedia, in alphabetical order; and
the book itself usually gives us the same matter in a systematic form in
the text and in alphabetical form at the end in its indices. All
234 JUAN DAVID GARCiA BACCA

these encyclopedias, etc., are prescientific instruments. The systematic

excludes erudition and scholars, afficionados, courtesans, and playboys.
But it positively demands order, an order that encompasses everything.
Many procedures have been invented by science to impose order in that
tropical drizzle - continuous and varied - of data, curiosities, bright
ideas, recipes, inklings, findings, affirmations, apparatus, that has been
falling over mind and senses for centuries. I mention five: imposing
order, or systematizing, by the relations of principle and principled
(axioms to theorems), cause and effect, part and whole, abstract and
concrete, natural fact and construct. These are the great models or
molds used to give diverse types of things the systematization of an
inner order. From these molds have come the mathematical things that
structure with scientific principles, the physical things with cause and
effect relations, and so on.
Such procedures or models realize, each one in its own way, the ideal
of systematization.
When then, we employ, the word "Science," let us not take it in vain
or vaguely. It is a kind of theoretical-technical, ontological,
phenomenological, objective, and systematic knowledge, obtained
according to one or more of the five models.
When you hear or read that science is "knowledge of things through
their causes and principles," remember that this is a half or a fourth or
a fifth part of the truth, and that it is missing the decisive part. Science
is an ideal - a chord of six notes, of six far-reaching requirements. If
it sounds once, with its proper tone, science will be contemporary
science: one of the components of the cultural atmosphere of our age.
II. TECHNOLOGY, AS THE SECOND ELEMENT
OF OUR CULTURAL ATMOSPHERE
In order of importance, technology occupies second place among the
components of the normal cultural atmosphere of our age.
But apart from the vague conceptual resonance that sounds in terms
like technics, technical, technocracy, technocrats, technologists, it is
difficult to try to define the what is of technics and contemporary
technology.
That we breathe technology day and night is easy enough to show
by making a summary account of everything that surrounds us, that we
use and consume. And perhaps - apart from some few weak and
barely tolerated trees, some rivers (kindly so-called by tradition, but
without foundation since they have become so choked and smelly), a
sun carefully avoided, a confused bird here and there, a sky rarely
looked at, and some mountains heroically defended by our landscape
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, HISTORY, AND PHILOSOPHY 235
painters - we will not find anything that presents itself and acts in
accord with its natural matter, form, and uses. What do we do that is
still natural with our body and soul? Who still walks on foot, apart
from some poor wretched creatures we call pedestrians? Who goes to
see things themselves, and does not prefer to see them at the cinema or
on television?
Our physical. geographic. spiritual atmosphere is an artificial one,
increasingly artificial. The natural recedes more and more into the
background, to the bottom of the background. And perhaps it will not
be many years before our soul is altered in relation to our body in a
way similar to what has already happened with our voice: which once
emerged through our mouth. throat. and chest but now emerges from
records or magnetic tapes. And machines are already being substituted
in logic and mathematics for the natural potencies which have exercised
a special monopoly in understanding, machines that now "reason" and
"calculate." If we do not invent other chores for the understanding,
soon we will not know what to do with it, and it will become atrophied
like certain organs in our body.
Those who invented cut flint or stone knives, the wheel. distaff.
arrow, pots. staff, rudder, raft, bricks, etc., did not know they were
starting a chain reaction, an avalanche of novelties, of anti-naturalness.
of monsters that. millennium by millennium at first. then century after
century. and now day by day. threatens to suck out the substance of the
natural. including the natural brains of men. and to transubstantiate
everything into anifacts. into anificial being. into technemes.
Let us not trust the meekness with which the broom or the polisher
serves us, the normal and assured docility of the car. the abnegation and
lack of pretension of the loudspeaker. the admirable and inexhaustible
patience of paper. Nor let us be tranquilized by that other serviceability
of formulas. truth tables, axiomatization. systems coordinates. all the
inventions, mental artifacts. which are not offspring of the natural
understanding.
"Blessed be the age and blessed those centuries" in which Aristotle
could, with simple truth. say: "If nature made beds it would make them
like those which. through technics. we make; if through technics we
made plants. we would make them like those engendered by nature."
because "technics does no more than imitate nature. when the latter is
perfect. or help it achieve its perfection when. by accident. it did not
achieve by itself alone the proper perfection. lIS
We would not dare, not even the most devout Aristotelian. to speak
like this: "If nature made airplanes it would make them like those we
make through technology; and if we made a brain through technology
it would be like the natural one, the one we are born with." We would
236 JUAN DAVID GARCiA BACCA

say instead: "If nature tried to make airplanes or submarines, the result
would inevitably end up as fish or birds; if we tried to make a brain the
result would inevitably be an electronic brain." Our art and technology
no longer imitate nature; and nature, with all its perfection on its back,
and all its essential properties and power, will not be enough to make
or engender a plane, a nylon stocking, a submarine, a pencil, a
television set, an axiom set, a logic table, a set of coordinates.
The artificial, artifacts, or technemes belong to a different order than
that of the natural; and the natural, no matter how well it is formed
- gold, marble, linen, uranium, petroleum, iron, . . . - has all been
reduced to matter, form, and properties at the level of raw material. It
has been disqualified in its ontic and ontological constitution - if you
will excuse the use of such highfalutin Greek words.
Between natural and artificial, between nature and technology,
between the most intelligent natural man and the engineer [tecnico] ,
there interposes a fathomless abyss. There is no logical bridge. We
have to jump, with the kind of jump Hegel sometimes called dialectical,
at other times qualitative.
Modern physics, quantum physics, no more than half a century ago
lost the fear of quantitative jumps. If "nature does not jump" - Natura
non facit saltus, in the horrible sounding medieval Latin - technology
does, quantum physics does; and it is one of its typical axioms to
quantify, that is to say: determine the magnitude of the jump, the
magnitude of the energy needed to jump from one level to the other.
We philosophers still suffer - except for some very honorable and
rare exceptions - from permanent quantum fear, from entitative
continuismo [continuity-ism]. In other words, so I can be understood
one way or the other: we suffer from fear of newness, of idolizing
identity, being, about which it has been said since Parmenides that
identity is its essential attribute. And we still believe, between
innocence and ignorance of what is happening in science, in fighting
with each other over what being is, what essence is . . . which is no
less than gigantomania - a giant battle among giants.
St. Theresa could have said truly that "God walks among the cooking
pots too," because the kitchens of her convents were almost natural
kitchens in everything: from the material and shape of their cooking
pots, through fire, to the food. God created nature, the heavens, and
the natural earth and all that is in them. Nothing more consonant then
that among such pots, fire and food, walked God, as he strolled, as the
Bible says, around the Garden of Eden at dusk to take the cool air, very
likely in the tropical stagnation of Mesopotamia.
But in our kitchens, true laboratories, equipped with pressure cookers,
gas and electricity, controllable ovens, washers and dryers, refrigerators,
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, HISTORY, AND PHILOSOPHY 237

would God walk among these as he did among the kitchens of the
troglodytes or in the no more advanced kitchens of the nuns at Avila
near the end of the sixteenth centurl?
Nature has gone to the bottom 0 our appliances, whether in kitchen
or not. Their forms, functions, uses are no longer natural. They are
- and I stress the verb to be - inventions, creations, productions of
man; not of the natural man, but of a man who has improvised by and
for himself in order to be inventor, creator, producer of what neither his
nor external nature could ever have made if left on its own. If some
few, now thousands, are the inventors, humanity has invented the
actions and habits of being served by inventions, which is a second-
hand invention. All men, in all respects, are progressively
transforming, improvising, learning to be second-hand creators with
respect to those first-hand inventors and producers of artifacts: inventors
of a new way of being. (And pardon this premeditated slip of the tongue
implicating metaphysics or first and primary philosophy, as Aristotle
called it.)
But inventions or artifacts are not only refrigerators, cars, televisions,
typewriters, presses, airplanes, masers and lasers. Inventions and
artifacts include our political and social structures, religions, and arts.
That democracy is an invention and artifact in no way disqualifies it;
on the contrary. Set to traverse distances on the earth, we do it better
by car than with our legs; and set to excavate, it is better to work with
a mechanical excavator than with a natural stone cutter, by pick and
shovel. Set and determined to live together, a million men are lucky to
have the invention of modern cities, no matter how deficient their urban
organization might be. And welcome be to the invention of churches
that do not have to act like religious troglodytes in catacombs - in
abandoned quarries, turned into cemeteries and churches. We complain,
sometimes, of the anijicial - cities, cars, telephones, government -
but all of them are our offspring, much greater and better than these
from nature, just as the believer is convinced that he, and the natural,
are profoundly and decisively much greater and better as children of the
creator God, than that which is of its natural parents.
Contemporary man is still a hybrid of natural and artificial, of nature
(or essence) and technology.
If a cow had suddenly a flash of understanding it would think, at
seeing us go by on a motorcycle, that we were a kind of centaur.
Something similar, perhaps, is what eagles think when they see an
airplane.
No such thought will occur to those little dressed up dogs that bark,
a little contemptuously, at us pedestrians from the windows of certain
luxury cars.
238 JUAN DAVID GARCiA BACCA

Really, in true reality, contemporary man is a hybrid of nature and

technology. And the most serious aspect of this is that he is such
because he has invented this manner of being by hybridizing, and he
invents it and imposes it on nature.
We fmd ourselves, then, being everything: nature and men in a
hybridized state. And do we feel strange facing the magnitude and
newness of problems of the all kinds - religious, political, urban, etc.,
even scientific and philosophical - that such hybridization, in its
development, imposes on us - or we impose on and propose to
ourselves as an adventure and enterprise of contemporary man, and, for
that, of the universe, and, consequently, of being?
We must not allow such a way of being ourselves, of making all
being into an adventure and an enterprise, to get lost from sight for a
moment; nor, having been seen, should it be allowed to be cowardly
hidden.
Over against an adventure and enterprise of such high caliber -
pardon my calling it ontological - there does not exist nor can there be
found an Ontological Insurance Agency.
Technology is not a process for inventing and using apparatus or
making buildings, pretentious skyscrapers, or modern Towers of Babel;
technology is the adventurous enterprise invented by man to give
everything a new kind of being: the artificial.
Will such an enterprise terminate in blessedness or in misfortune?
We do not know whether we are able to know this. It deals with
something new in the history of humanity; and the new has neither
guard nor harmonizing octave.
"Those who do not dare will not cross the sea," goes the saying that
Columbus and company must have repeated some centuries ago.
Those who do not dare the technological will not cross the sea of the
natural. The dreadful part is that, as Pascal said in a like situation, we
are already embarked: embarked in technology.
III. HISTORY, AS THE THIRD ELEMENT
OF OUR CULTURAL ATMOSPHERE
Liberty! How many crimes have been committed in your name! goes
the famous saying, apostrophe, or insult - which, if not invented by a
totalitarian, tyrant, dictator, or mock dictator who deems himself a
know-it-all, a wise guy, is fit to be said to the next mock dictator that
may be preparing now his proclaim or pronouncement.
History! How many definitions have been committed in your name!
Since there are so many, one more could pass unheeded, or as it is said
in the delicious jargon of the free market economy, one more is not
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, HISTORY, AND PHILOSOPHY 239

going to alter the price. So I will offer the everyday concept of history.
The craze of making history or of making for everything a history
does not go back many centuries. The history made by God in person
embraced only six days, and on the seventh he rested. The divine
history of the world finished the first Saturday of the very first week of
the world. In six days were made, with the power of the words "Let
there be": the heavens, the earth, firmament, plants, animals, and man.
What happened after the Great Saturday composes human-divine
history: the recounting of those imperfections and havoc caused by man,
patched up by God every now and then in the Old Testament, and
remedied by Christ in the New, although the remedy was one of
multisecularly slow effects. In its entirety, the divine history of the
world loosely encompasses some millennia.
Let us have a few moments of silence to mark reverently the distance
between God and Gamow.
Gamow, in his suggestive book, The Creation of the Universe (1952),
with a sparkling wit well served by the most modern mathematics and
physics, tells us, summarizing the history of the natural-scientific
creation of the world: "Indeed, it took less than an hour to make the
atoms, a few hundred million years to makes the stars and planets, but
three billion years to make man!,,6 With respect to the end of the
universe, and with it human history, it will suffice to remember that our
Sun has about five billion years ahead before its hydrogen is burned up.
Lavishly are we trusted. 1 We accept that with which we are entrusted,
and entrust ourselves to science and technology, which is like trusting
and entrusting our lungs to the air.
God did not make the world in one stroke, all at once. He did it
historically, with a temporal rhythm and temporal order of ascending
creations from heaven to man.
Creation, and history, was set aside by God, and finished with man.
Speaking about ourselves: the human - and I am not other than human
- was the primary intention of creation. The distinct human history of
the world is a product of, and originates in, the sin of Adam and Eve
- or the serpent, if we want to relieve our first ancestors of such an
enormous burden and have him continue to drag his tail [cola] across
history.
But man learned from God how history is made or what history is.
History is made and is a temporal and ordered series of inventions
that leave a coherent trail afterward. Or if you excuse the popular whiff
of the phrase: History is a series of inventions that tell a tale [cola]. 8
Wakes in the ocean were made by the old barges and galleys; and
wakes are produced in the air, very visible, by jet propelled airplanes.
And wakes are left, ostentatiously, by the fireworks at any fair.
240 JUAN DAVID GARCiA BACCA

Bows and arrows are not born, nor are anchors, rudders, and oars,
neither are needles, thread, distaffs, and wool - nor ramparts, plazas,
torches, matches . . . nor consuls, tribunes, the emperor, the pope, a
king, presidents of republics. All these, and infinitely more, are
inventions, the materialization of inspired bright ideas.
But whoever had the bright idea of making fire - and not just waiting
patiently for nature to make it - and succeeded in inventing a fixed and
available procedure for making it - invented, that is, the now simple,
but originally complex combination of flint, iron, and tinder -
unchained an avalanche of inventions that cohere with those that flow
from it once they materialize. Matches are part of the relatively short
trail that began with those primitive tinderboxes. Because matches,
which the parents of those of us born at the beginning of the century did
not have at their disposal, are part of the trial that includes tinderboxes,
the wake of which makes these tinderboxes obsolete, turns them into
museum pieces.
In the wake of the automobile are honorably retired carts, coaches,
stagecoaches; on the expectation of another invention, within the general
line of nullifying space and time with speed, our pretentious automobiles
will be left as "venerable retirees."
In the wake or trail of axiomatic geometry are found wrapped up, in
order, Euclidean geometry and the almost contemporary demonstrations
of Gauss, Lobachevsky, Riemann. And the theory of relativity has
included Newton's physics in its wake or trail, which, at the same time,
relegated medieval and Greek physics to the tail end of the line.
We should not believe that our form of politics, which we call
democracy, is a brainchild of nature like lemon trees, amoebas, the
higher vertebrates, anthills, or wasps' nests. It is an invention, a
product or efficient materialization of an inspired bright idea, of some
adventurous enterprise, as always, by very few. But once it came over
or emerged into the human world, it relegated to the tail those other
inventions or invented social forms that are, or were, constitutional
monarchy, absolute monarchy, tyranny, and tribal regimes. All of these
were in their own time inventions, consolidations of bright ideas and
adventures. Now they are museum pieces, or at most they sometimes
walk about in our world like revered retirees.
History moves in fits and starts or to the beat of inventions.
Sometimes an invention will last for centuries, for lack of another that
relegates or throws it into the wake and devalues it as ancient, outdated,
an anachronism. In musical scores there are notes and chords that
endure as the same through bars and bars, without the danger of
becoming monotonous, thanks to the colossal provision of musical
inventiveness. But in history there are inventions - of political, social,
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, HISTORY, AND PHILOSOPHY 241

religious, scientific, and technical forms - that endure for centuries,

that are obstinate in their persistence. . . These are the backwaters, the
marshes, the traditional isms of history. But as soon as the next
"invention" springs up, they are relegated to the tail end of the line, to
the museum. And this happens to them instantly, as it did to the
portrait of Dorian Gray: old age comes with a sudden stroke to the face,
revealing all defects, prejudices, provincialisms, anachronisms.
Man, it has been said and repeated for almost twenty-three hundred
years, is a "rational animal." That too has gone to the tail end of the
line, to become a part of the wake of a being that man invented for
himself, now that he has become bored of being a natural rational
animal. The being that the contemporary man is inventing for himself
is that of the engineer.
Let us inventory the balance of what we still have in a natural state
and level - in will, understanding, senses, memory - and we will
notice that such natural wealth diminishes now not to the rhythm of
centuries or millennia, but of years.
Quill pens have gone in the wake of our fountain pens. The art
(invented) of writing now has a history. And, in an unacknowledged
way, the presence of our grandparents's inkwells and quills does not
hurt us. But it also does hurt us - making us refrain and repress, hide
and bury with pluperfect Freudian technology - having to confess and
accept that so many, many dear things - efficient and adored, and vivid
and vital in other ages - have become museum pieces, retired, obsolete,
in politics, science, religion, art, technology.
As students, we were sometimes relegated by our teachers to the tail
end of the class. Will we all, in everything, ever learn to go discreetly
and voluntarily to the tail end of history at the opportune moment? For
this we need many things, especially given the vagueness of the qualifier
"many," but among these one stands out: sensitivity to authentic
newness, to newness thickened or set up like concrete in inventions.
Newness that does not thicken into invention is idle chatter [noveler(a).
And a bright idea person who does not become an inventor will never
be more than a daydreamer [novelera). Such daydreamers and their idle
chatter are a typical pest of our age, precisely because it is, in a
spectacularly distinguished way, an age of inventions.
Inventions, adventure, and enterprise form the categorical complex of
history with regard to itself.
There is no science in our day that is not burdened with its history.
Mathematics, the history of mathematics; chemistry, the history of
chemistry; biology, the history of biology; philosophy, the history of
philosophy; art, art history; religion, the history of religions; economics,
the history of economics; technology, the history of technology; and so
242 JUAN DAVID GARCiA BACCA

on with everything else. That is the first instance. In the second

instance appear the philosophy of history and the history of the histories
of philosophy: philosophy of the history of religions, and history of the
histories of dogmas. Ordinarily, because it is almost inevitable, a
history, for example of biology, is, really, the history of the histories of
what has been made of biology. History, in its first or higher instances
is an obsession of our time. The madman who, at this point, made this
certain was Hegel. An inspired madman affirming and determined to
prove that philosophy is history of philosophy, that philosophy is
history. And it must be remembered that in Philosophy Hegel included
or pushed in everything: divine and human - with this classical phrase
to save ourselves a long and always incomplete enumeration.
Philosophy is history. History of philosophy is not a string or parade
of errors, mistakes, patches, inklings, or dawnings of The Philosophy,
autonomous and uniquely true. Philosophy is history in the same way
that man is boy, young man, adult, and old man. The essence of man
- that of "rational animal" - is neither infant nor old; has no age; but
for that reason it is not the real essence of the real man. It is an
abstraction that is neither born nor grows old nor dies. Nobody would
want to be that; nobody would want to be the essential man. Real man
is biological history. No one can say or accuse us of anthropological
historicism or of historicist anthropology. That philosophy is history
is the same as saying that it is an intellectual, emotional, enterprising,
adventurous, living entity. None of this is historicism, no matter how
much it is imputed to Hegel by the followers of eternal or perennial
Philosophy. The slanderers of mutability, Galileo said, should be
condemned to be statues. The slanderers of history should be
condemned to be essence.
History is, then, an eminent and total way to be living. History being
an element of the atmosphere of our age, our age is one of the most
alive, vivacious, living, and full of vitality that has ever existed. And
for the same reason (only inverted), never in any other historical age
have there been so many deaths of such diversity and originality, of so
many new and varied ways of assassination - deaths and assassinations
of political, social, religious, theoretical, artistic, and economic forms.
We should not be frightened now when faced with the quantity and
quality of inventions that invade us from all sides, and kill those things
that preceded them in that subtle and non-malevolent death called
obsolescence or antiqueness.
We should not be frightened either when faced with the new
inventions of human, social, political, economic, religious, artistic,
philosophical, forms of life that burst the boundaries of life, nor with the
deceased - from natural or artificial death - that the new things keep
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, HISTORY, AND PHILOSOPHY 243

making. Let us cry moderately if they are our own; but with tears or
teary eyes, let us fulfill the words of the Gospel: "Let the dead bury
their dead. n9 These are the words of Jesus Christ.
So that he did not say those words, like many others, in vain, we
philosophers above all should take them seriously in everything.
IV. PHILOSOPHY: THE FOURTH ELEMENT
OF OUR CULTURAL ATMOSPHERE
Proverbs are not always supposed to be taken as rules. Some of them
provoke their own breaking. Perhaps one of these is the saying, "The
one who cuts the pie and distributes it always takes the best slice."
In the distribution of "importance" in the cultural atmosphere proper
to our age, philosophy here has given itself the fourth place, with a
symbolic seven percent. The best slices have been taken by science,
technology, and history. We have not given philosophy the least part,
though such would perhaps be the evil wishes of some scientists and
theologians, and other people of no good disposition toward
philosophers.
During the many centuries - from the third to the thirteenth - in
which theology cut and distributed the elements of the cultural
atmosphere that should be breathed by humanity, in order to be saved
theology took or arrogated to itself the lion's share, the biggest and the
best. To philosophy was given the part of the slave; the sciences were
the slaves of that slave. That is to say, philosophy was the housekeeper
of the sciences and technology. Or in a more decorous, but no less real
phrase, the sciences were subordinate to philosophy.
History - which is the life of the integral man, of concrete humanity
- has turned the tables. And now - increasingly since the Renaissance
- philosophy is subordinated to science, technology, and history. More
and more each day, the philosopher is the philosopher of science, of
technology, of history. "You, Professor Garcfa Bacca, are the one who
is subordinate to all," I seem to hear from more than one of my
esteemed colleagues. "Not me. "Nor me." "Nor am I." "None of
II

us will ever be."

Of no value to theocracy, now and for centuries, are its immediate
divine rights, since there is no such political regime in any part of the
world that prides itself on being such a state. Nor have the mediated
divine rights of absolutist kings impeded anything but their glorious
demise from the ambience of history. Nor could Aristotelian physics,
reigning queen for fifteen long centuries and supported by the authority
of Aristotle and ecclesiastical blessings and consecrations, be kept from
being put aside like a hefty antique book for private, almost clandestine
244 JUAN DAVID GARCiA BACCA

use. Not even the reign of Euclidian geometry, undisputed for over two
thousand years, could keep it from turning into just one of so many
equally possible geometries - indeed, the simplest one with respect to
general axiomatic geometry or modem differential foundations.
To Aristotelian logic - the so called natural logic of human
understanding - has happened what would have happened to the best
Roman galley, had it proclaimed itself the natural ship. The presence
of a trans-Atlantic ship suffices to refute such pretentiousness. Modem
artificial logics are as powerful and specialized as cars, planes,
televisions. Aristotelian logic is, at most, a logic for kindergarten or
elementary students. And not even that; because our children now are
beginning to be taught basic mathematics and logic with set theory.
And do we philosophers believe we enjoy some exceptional,
extremely rare and superlative immunity in ontology, metaphysics,
ethics, etc., as something "natural" or "essential" to human
understanding?
I can believe anything, said Oscar Wilde, as long as it is impossible
enough. 10 We must be careful, however, not to accumulate so many
impossibilities that we end up by not being able to believe them.
But, above everything else, what is contemporary philosophy? Or to
what has our present historical time reduced the philosophy of times
past? To what social or humanfimction can we philosophers aspire, and
in what measure contribute to the immediate future of human society?
Many solemn and difficult questions these are to be answered here
and now - in case I could do it. The trouble is that I only know how
to ask questions, and, at most, dare an initiation of a beginnmg of a start
of an answer.
In his Phenomenology of Spirit, after a look at the history of
philosophy, Hegel loses patience and lets out that irreverent but very
true remark: "It is now time for the philosopher to stop being a
philosophos, or lover of knowledge, and to become sophos, or sage. "11
Two thousand years of philosophizing have gone by, aspiring and
sighing for wisdom. Enough now, Hegel seems to tell us, of defining
philosophy as "love of wisdom," leaving, with Plato, being sages to the
gods, and contenting ourselves with those leftovers and crumbs of being
forever aspiring sages.
In 1848 Marx coarsely and cruelly rebuked the philosophers with his
thesis nine on Feuerbach: "The philosophers have done nothing until
now except interpret the world; it is now time for them to set upon
transforming it. "
Hegel and Marx have lost their patience; and according to the ring
with which they would have said those phrases they would sound to us
like irreverent tirades, outrageous insults, or unacceptable threats.
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, HISTORY, AND PHILOSOPHY 245

Marx's phrase undisguisedly tells us: Go to work, go to work as

sociologists! Hegel's says: Go to work, go to work as scientists! Hegel
began to work, saying and doing, in his Science of Logic (1812),
utilizing for it what the scientists of his historical present offered him in
mathematical science, physics, chemistry, biology - Newton, Leibniz,
Lagrange, Laplace, Carnot, those who had not only been "lovers of"
mathematics, physics, or biology but mathematicians, physicists,
chemists, biologists. They were scientists - and engineers. Beside
some of the members of the neo-Kantian school of Marburg, no one
then nor now has in the body of philosophy employed more mathematics
or physics than Hegel. Bear in mind that from 1812 until our day,
physics, mathematics, biology, and technology have advanced
spectacularly in an astonishing way. For the great majority of
contemporary philosophers it is as if such persons as Gauss, Riemann,
Einstein, Heisenberg, Fermi, and Oppenheimer had never come onto
the world. At the most they talk about them by "hearsay," through
quotations - and sometimes through quotations of quotations.
In the middle of the last century a new science was born: political
economy; or economics - the real one practiced for so many centuries,
explosively developed by the industrial revolution. It was fighting to
give itself a scientific shape, at once economics and politics, economy
and social life. Go to work, go to work in sociology under its concrete
form of political economy! Marx told himself. And he set to work for
about forty years, and the result was Das Kapital.
I am afraid that Latin Americans do not like to hear, from the mouths
of Hegel and Marx, or anyone else, not even the Pope, admonitions
telling them to "Go to work, go to work." And I am afraid that the
phrase "go work in science and political economy" will not sound
particularly alluring or flattering to us philosophers. But if I am not
mistaken, such is the task that defines philosophy if it wants to stay
contemporary .
In other times, centuries ago, it was pompously said that the end of
the law and of government, kingly or popular, was "the common good."
"Law is an order of reason, directed toward the common good and
promulgated by the one who is in charge of taking care of the
community. ,,12 Now, ready to work for that common, really common
good, we talk about national resources, national production, about
national income, gross national product - and the authorities propose
increasing their clearly specified budgets a determinate percentage every
year or during a five year period. For the abstract philosophical,
classical, clear, enlightenment-oriented - and inoperative, like the light
of the pole star - has been substituted that task which is concrete,
immediate, a trifle coarse, more efficient, ordered by parliament after
246 JUAN DAVID GARCiA BACCA

voting on a budget and directing the government to its execution. The

care of the community is now called the "budget"; inventing it and
carrying it out with and against human mistakes is the task of our age.
Truth is the philosophical abstract par excellence, and its monopoly.
But science and technology together provide us with "the gross
socio-cultural product of truth, truly real." Real truth, arising from
those productive factors that are science and technology, comprises the
real truth produced by society.
The real society does not progress because of the Idea of the Good;
real progress stems from good assumptions that employ and promote the
social product, gross or net. Philosophy does not progress through the
idea of Truth. It really progresses through the successful enterprises of
science-and-technology.
Philosophy is not presently something like "universal and necessary
knowledge of the supreme causes and principles of all things."
Contemporary philosophy has no definition; it has a task. It had a
definition in those ages in which man did not know very well, and
sometimes not at all, what real man has to do in this real world.
Philosophy had a definition in those ages in which the pole star or the
moon served as a vague orientation or rough calendar. Moon and pole
star were part of another world; we were part of the sublunar world, by
essential or natural condemnation. Now, in our present history, the
moon will serve us as a mine or laboratory or tourist resort. And the
pole star keeps the name pole by transitory condescension; we are better
served by a common automatic pilot.
Contemporary philosophy has no definition; it has an imposed task: to
work in science, technology, and political economy. If it fulfills its task
well, it will end up, possibly, having graduated in metascience,
metatechnology, or metaeconomics ... but no longer in metaphysics.
It will not be love of wisdom, but wisdom, and real wisdom, incarnated,
materialized, corporealized - in the appropriate reality to be
real: contemporary and active - in the flesh, matter, or body of
science, of technology. For this, God, to redeem us firmly, in a truly
real manner, incarnated himself, humanized himself in Christ. If
philosophy does not incarnate itself in our real sciences by virtue of
technology, if it does not run through the adventure of our sciences and
technology, if it does not rise to the enterprise of transforming the
natural world, philosophy will have to keep the definition, "universal
and necessary knowledge of the supreme causes and principles of all
things." Or that of "an interpretation of the meaning of the world" or
"a conception of man and the world."
But no one will pull from the flesh of contemporary philosophers that
frustrating thorn-phrase: "Enough of interpreting the world - ideal-
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, HISTORY, AND PHILOSOPHY 247

istically, realistically, materialistically, spiritualistically. Transform it,

transform it. Go to work, go to work, following the good example of
our sciences and our technology. "
- Translated by Carl Mitcham and Waldemar L6pez Pineiro
Central University of Venezuela

NOTES
[1. All ellipses in the text are the author's, generally indicating something like
"etcetera." Many ellipses have simply been dropped.]
[2. Although Garcia Bacca's text uses both the terms tecnica and tecnologfa, as the
passage indicates he interprets the former in terms of the latter. Hence the general use
throughout the translation of "technology."]
[3. Adapted from Matthew 5:45.]
[4. The last two sentences, "Lo oculto no esIA ocultado" and "Lo real es leal" contain
word plays that are typical of Garcia Bacca but cannot be rendered in English.)
[5. Garcia Bacca is fmt quoting, apparently from memory, Aristotle, Physics II, 8;
199a 12-15. Aristotle .there refers to a house, not a bed. The second quotation, again
slightly adapted is from Physics II, 8; 199a 16-18. The blessing that opens the
paragraph is, of course, a sarcastic adaptation from the rosary.)
[6. George Gamow, The Creation o/the Universe (New York: Viking, 1952), p. 139.
This is the last sentence in the book. It is not italicized in the original.)
[7. "Largo nos 10 f'l&n" paraphrases some famous words of Don Juan in a play by
Tirso de Molina. It refers to the ease with which he would get out of trouble, knowing
he would someday have to pay for his deeds, but not too soon.]
[8. Garcia Bacca is here playing with words again, this time with the meanings of the
Spanish cola - which the English "tail" and "tale" sometimes match, but not always.)
[9. Adapted from Matthew 8:22.)
[10. "Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable." -
Oscar Wilde, "The Decay of Lying, Intentions (1891).)
[11. Note the direct quotation Garcia Bacca presents it as. See Hegel, Phenomenologie
des Geist, "Vorrede," paragraph 5.]
[12. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, Q. 90, art. 4: "Thus from the four
preceding articles, the defmition of law may be gathered; and it is nothing other than
an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the
community, and promulgated. ")
 ERNESTO MAYZ VALLENILLA

THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF HUMANITY

Insofar as it is possible, without being naive, to advance any

prediction at all about the future of humanity, it is possible to say that
the present and future state of humanity depend upon the development
of technics. But technical development as conceived today - that is, as
an activity directed toward the search for mastery (dominium) over
otherness in general- does not have a univocal meaning, nor does it
operate under a single unique modality that is universally accepted.
As a human activity, technics is eminently historical. As such it finds
itself exposed to suffering or provoking the transformations that human
beings bring about through their free agency. This causes its meanings
and ends to be bound in an intimate relation with experimental changes
through the epistemology and ontology of the age. The primary thesis
of this essay is that we live a decisive moment in the historical evolution
of ratio technica (technical reason), the traits of which will have a
parallel influence over the present and future state of humanity. In this
sense, in our judgment, we find ourselves at a crucial juncture. We,
the human beings of our time, are protagonists and witnesses of a
revolution that we are not able fully to comprehend nor to appreciate in
its complexity and extent.
Indeed, against the background of the mode of technics that has
prevailed until now - one with an anthropomorphic, anthropocentric,
and geocentric style and limits - we are witnessing the initiation in our
time of a new project and model in which the underlying logos aims to
transform and overcome previous human and earthly limits. In so doing
it is also radically modifying the style of technical know-how with the
aim of increasing the power at human disposal beyond the bounds
imposed by innate psychosomatic constitution and cognitive capacity.
But it is not easy to perceive the details - even less to explain them
- without considering the general contours and meaning of this
confrontation. For purposes of illustration we have chosen the example
provided by the concept of space - a choice that may appear accidental,
but is in fact carefully selected. The example aims to show how through
the shaping and ordering of spatial otherness the technical logos of
meta-technics provokes radical changes within the very notion of space.
These changes in turn affect all human institutions (linguistic,
ontological, moral, scientific, political, etc.) in which the very process
249

Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 249-258.

°1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
250 ERNESTO MAYZ VALLENILLA

of institutionalization is based on spatial forms.

OPTICAL SPACE AND META-TECHNICAL SPATIALITY
One of the fundamental traits that distinguishes ratio technica as
manifested in our time - in contrast to that made possible by the
primordial technical model that prevailed until now - is the radical
change introduced by its action and products in the notion or concept of
space. Insofar as space is now visualized, organized, and constructed
on the basis of the category of function - in direct opposition to
ordering affected through the category of substance and the array of
criteria based thereon - it is not only possible to detect a basic
modification of its conceptual meaning; but a concomitant variation is
reflected in the concrete, real spatiality of the phenomena in which this
notion is exhibited and incorporated.
Accordingly, instead of representing space as an aggregate of
contiguous or juxtaposed points, elements, or atoms, today space is
conceived and managed as a functional or systemic structure that
constitutes a field or a dynamic whole, the synergy of which determines
its eventual forms and limits. Not being grounded on substantiality, the
characteristics of our spatiality are radically different from - and
sometimes opposed to - those exhibited by the notion when it was
thought about or established on prior foundations.
But the transformation that has taken place in the notion of space is
not reducible to this simple change of categories. At a deeper and more
decisive level what has begun to change in our time has been the inner
ordering and configuring through technics of the logos of spatial
possibility. This has introduced a radical and parallel modification or
transformation in the epistemological and ontological structure of the
traditional notion.
One of the most peculiar traits of meta-technics in this sense is based
on the attempt to create or produce a modality of non-human - trans-
or meta-human - logos or thinking, the forms, laws, and principles of
which are neither identical with nor similar to those that inform and
sustain human discourse. To realize this end, not only has recourse
been made to the variation, modification, or alteration of the innate
constitution and functioning of the human cognitive senses, but also to
their substitution by instruments or equipment whose mechanisms and
operations eliminate (or replace) the senses, thereby producing a meta-
human logos or thinking devoid of anthropomorphic, anthropocentric,
and geocentric references, the correlate of which is configuration of a
trans-human and trans-finite otherness.
Such otherness, as a result, instead of being ordered according to the
 THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF HUMANITY 251
spatio-temporal principles of the human (measured) logos, embodies and
expresses a trans-reality in which - acting as a logos constituting the
ordering imposed by a de-anthropomorphized instrument or apparatus
that replaces the classical subject of the traditional epistemological
framework - can undermine or abolish the spatio-temporal (optical and
metrical) characteristics projected onto otherness by the innate human
senses.
In lieu of these characteristics - replacing them, modifying them,
transforming them - there then appear, under the profile of otherness,
other traits (stemming from tactile, olfactory, auditory, etc., orderings
not necessarily anthropomorphic in character) that, while amplifying the
traditional epistemic spectrum, introduce radical changes in the texture
and significance of otherness.
What we have said - far from being the product of fantasy or a mere
dream of science fiction - is the simple description of the meta-
technical conquests that human beings have already utilized in some of
the instruments constructed to amplify and deepen dominion over
otherness. In effect, instead of the classic microscopes or telescopes -
designed and constructed to utilize light waves and conceived to enhance
by means of the use of mirrors and lenses the constitution and functions
of the human eye - today human beings "see" with the help of sonic
waves or waves invisible to the naked eye, as is illustrated by the use
of sonar or instruments that employ ultrasound to achieve a more perfect
"vision" than the one supplied by other more simple anthropomorphic
artifacts.
This occurs - to cite some well-known examples - in the case of
missiles that search for and locate their objectives utilizing thermal
devices (that is, a thermal rather than optical ordering or organization
of spatiality), which also happens, by the way, with some reptiles.
Nothing thus stands in the way, once the limits of anthropomorphism
and anthropocentrism have been overcome, of being able in a parallel
manner to order spatiality in olfactory terms (as is the case with certain
insects) or by means of unsuspected modalities of a trans-human and
trans-jinite logos - of being able to institutionalize otherness in general
under the form of a super-nature that does not correspond to the innate
anthropomorphic, anthropocentric, or geocentric pattern that has until
now prevailed in the epistemic dealings of humanity with the con-
natural experience of otherness.
Furthermore, and as a complement, there is another aspect of decisive
importance with respect to that super-nature constituted and designed
through meta-technics. In fact, if primordial technics utilizes in its
instruments of knowledge and dominion only the innate forces or
energies available in nature within the confines of our planet, meta-
252 ERNESTO MAYZ VALLENILLA

technics can now resort to a type of energy or force that - possibly

through the same super-nature constructed by human beings - is not
subject to the limits of strictly innate and terrestrial energies.
This means, briefly stated, two distinct though related things, namely:
- that with the creation of this super-nature human beings attempt to
break the original (and limiting) structures of innate nature (or
connatural energies) that exist on our planet; and
- that they intend at the same time to create new structures and
reorderings of matter by means of which to obtain dominion over
nature as a whole, this is to say, precisely in a galactic sense.
OTHERNESS AND META-TECHNICS
Everything said thus far is derived, as is easily recognized, from the
transformation and experimental overcoming of the optical (and
therefore metrical) foundation that until now has prevailed in the spatial
ordering and organization of otherness. Its modification or substitution
by a meta-technical spatiality signifies, at the same time, a radical
change in the meaning and range of the epistemological and ontological
determinations of otherness.
But the consequences of this are neither trivial nor innocent. Indeed,
if we attempt systematically to revise those human institutions in which
this revolution is reflected, it is necessary to acknowledge that its
imprint affects and ought to be exhibited, in a primordial way, in the
etymology, structure, and syntax of language. From this, almost
automatically, its influence incites and provokes modifications in the
fundamental concepts of ontology, in the methodology and foundations
of science, as well as within the systems of categories that hold together
the diverse (though convergent) cultures of this common spatial and
optical ground. Whatever these are, the modification of their underlying
spatial foundation extends into and also affects moral, political, and legal
institutions along with uses, conventions, and the day-to-day dealings
that are based on an optical interpretation of otherness.
Transformation of the optical-spatial foundation of otherness - to say
it in the most direct and simple terms - signifies at the same time a
radical change in the basic beliefs that sustain it. This, in turn, poses
the urgent need to forge a repertoire of categories and principles
(absolutely distinct from current ones) with which to confront, accept,
or interpret this new and unknown world that is deploying itself before
us.
Within the limitations of the present exposition it is not possible to
elucidate the vast panorama of problems that we have so far only
 THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF HUMANITY 253
suggested. Each would require profound, complex, and extensive
research, as well as subtle linguistic and conceptual analysis. With the
sole purpose of pointing out some of the more telling aspects that, as
indicated, can serve as an approach to the worldview that we are
attempting to formulate, we can make the following comments.
1. With respect to language as such, it is immediately possible to
recognize and to demonstrate that, from a semantic point of view, the
majority of linguistic meanings - from ordinary, technical, and even
metaphysical vocabularies - stem from optical-spatial (or, derivatively,
temporal) determinations to which they subsequently and tacitly are
referred. Moreover, the syntactical rules that provide the backbone of
the language have as a logical or ideal horizon - that is, as their
rational foundation - a ratio or logos that is nurtured, in turn, by a
conception of space and time that is presupposed and evidently taken
for granted. Indeed, all the logico-syntactical principles have, as a
horizon of meaning, sustenance, and intelligibility, the substantialist
conception of spatial-temporal otherness derived from Aristotle.
Consider, for example, the meanings of affirmation and negation.
These are, as Husserl calls them, positions (Setzungen, Positionen).
Now every position requires a space (place, site, ambiance) in which to
pose itself, to sustain itself, to situate itself. Within such a spatial
ambiance there takes place the movement or intention (also conceived in
spatial terms) that defines the opposed spatial scheme of negation and
affirmation. This, strictly speaking, is made evident by a very brief
incursion into semantics and etymology:
(a) Negation or the act of negating (in Greek, lx7rolj)ac1L~; in German,
Ablehnung) means - at least with respect to the pre-propositional or
judgment level- to separate, to remove something from something else
(see Aristotle, De interpretatione 17a26). This separating - in which,
as is evident, there is a space - is realized by means of a distancing,
rejecting, or a non-admission, excluding from a certain ambiance or
sphere which is denied. The Greek prefix ix7ro, and the German particle
ab, clearly have a spatial meaning. This corresponds precisely to the
separation and removal contained in the original Aristotelian meaning.
(b) The same occurs - though with an opposite meaning - in the
case of affirmation and the act of affirming. An affirmation (in Greek,
KCX7cXlj)ac1L~; in German, Zustimmung) instead of separating, according
to Aristotle, unites two terms (see De interpretatione 17a25), which
also, as is evident, has a clear spatial meaning. To unite, in effect,
means to reunite: to co-locate a proposition alongside another, to verify
its admission or inclusion within a certain ambiance or sphere. The
prefix KCX7cX has, in this respect, a clear spatial meaning. It signifies,
as a preposition, looking down from or simply toward. This indicates
254 ERNESTO MAYZ VALLENILLA

the spatial direction that realizes the union or reunion of the propositions
in affirmation. This same spatial meaning is present in the German term
ZU, where it indicates a movement of coincidence (Zustimmung) at a
certain spatial point or place.
Now we must inquire, What will become of affirmation and negation
if they are deprived of that spatial meaning - as exclusively embedded
in an optical and substantialist perspective - which nurtures and sustains
their meanings? What will become of a language if its syntax can no
longer count on the values or meanings of traditional negation or
affirmation?
2. All this, which is only suggested with respect to language and its
syntactic norms, can be further confirmed if the basic concepts of
ontology and corresponding foundational epistemological determinations
are duly analyzed. .
It is by no means accidental, in this sense, that one of the oldest and
most venerable ontological formulations of Western philosophy - that
of Parmenides - should start out with a full and complete identification
between Being and Thinking, with the latter implying both intelligibility
and vision and/or sensory perception. To 'Yap a~TO VOfLV ~U7LV Tf KaL
avaL. "For to think and to be said is one and the same thing," says the
third fragment of his famous poem. I Throughout that fragment and
wherever the term vOfTv is found it is necessarily linked with those of
AO'YO<; and ~ov (Jvm), as well as with voo<;, vO'r/J.£a, and lxA.'r/8fULV. Yet
at the same time it should not appear strange that, given the sensory
meaning that the reference to such VO€LV represents, Parmenides should
compare Being with a sphere (u</>clipa) whose attributes - perfectly
homogeneous and balanced within its visual limits (7rfpa<;) - ostensibly
witness to the alleged overcoming of the finite imperfections of seeing
and/or perceiving as such.
2a. But this presence of optical elements in Parmenides' conception
of Being (which are not difficult to trace in the sequence of future
thought) is reaffirmed and evidenced with even greater clarity in a
different yet parallel field. Indeed, whether the concept of Being is
taken in a predicative sense (so that the intellectual procedures by means
of which the copula is established should be examined), or whether it is
taken in an existential sense (so that its characteristics, forms, modes,
and moments are to be examined) - in both cases, without exception,
it is possible to detect the manifest optical-spatial elements that are
embedded in each of its etymologies and meanings.
This is proved, for example, if we examine etymologically the
designations with which the just mentioned procedures that interpret the
meaning of the copula are distinguished. There is the doctrine of
inherence, in which meaning is based on inhering (inesse, b7rapX fLV) ,
 THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF HUMANITY 255

the doctrine of supposition, which involves putting under (sub-positio,

~7r68EO"~), and the doctrine of relation, which involves com-positing
(compositio, O'VP8E(1£~). In each case the spatial connotations are
manifest.
The same results will be achieved if we briefly analyze the
characteristics attributed to Being as a result of the annihilation of its
sensory limit (7r€pcx~), or what expresses and reveals itsforms (such as,
e.g., the "in itself," "out of itself," or "for itself'), or its modes,
possibility and necessity, both derived in Greek as well as Latin from
eminently optical-spatial roots), or, finally, its moments, if by this term
we understand its determination as existence (from the Latin ex-sto) and
as accident (from ac-cido), whose elements are also manifestly spatial.
2b. It is no less significant that in the concept of Being itself it is
possible to find vestiges of optical-spatial elements in the epistemological
determinations that are at its base. In order to shorten examples, we
shall mention only the famous opposition between phenomenon and
noumenon. Just as in the former the presence of the Greek verb tPcx{po
is manifest - and, accordingly, an implicit reference to light (tPw~), as
the agent of the visible - likewise the latter term noumenon stems from
the word pov~ which is, in turn, derived from poeLP.
Referring to this last term - as an expression of the verb to see in
general - it was Husserl who, in our time, defended this as the
supreme condition for giving rise to and legitimizing all rational
affirmations. As he writes in Ideen: Das unmittelbare 'Sehen' [poelll],
nicht blo,P das sinnliche, erjahrende Sehen, sondern das Sehen aberhaupt
als originl1r gebendes Bewu,Ptsein welcher Art immer, ist die letzte
Rechtsquelle aller vernanftigen Behauptungen. "Immediate 'seeing, , not
merely sensuous, experiential seeing, but seeing in the universal sense
as an originally presentive consciousness of any kind whatever, is the
ultimate legitimizing source of all rational assertions. ,,2
3. If the optical-spatial elements animate the most elevated ontological
and epistemological concepts of philosophical action, it is easy to infer
that their influence should be found not only in the design of social
(political, legal, and cultural) institutions created by human beings, but
also within the values that sustain them.
3a. This is in fact what happens. Whether it is in the epistemological
roots that define the phenomena of possession and property in legal
terms (possideo is a synonym of occupo, and this is derived from capio:
to take up, to seize, maintain something within the closed space of one's
grasp); in the territorial notion of sovereignty insofar as it is conceived
as the spatial basis of the state; or in the common space where the
meeting of the community of the faithful takes place, which is what the
term ~""A71O'U:x or ecclesia (communis locus) stands for; or the word
256 ERNESTO MAYZ VALLENILLA

claustrum (closed space) that indicates not just a style of monastic life
but also determines the epistemological architectonics of universities,
where knowledge is divided into presumably autonomous and non-
communicating spheres or fields - throughout all of these meanings we
find the imprint of optical-spatial elements in the design of institutions.
3b. But even beyond the simple design of institutions, the pre-
eminence of the optical-spatial is projected into the values that implicitly
or explicitly act as normative support for them. In this respect, if we
want to investigate the intellectual heritage of such foundational values,
we have to mention Platonic theory as their origin or primordial source.
According to the Platonic canon, values were ideas (lofa, Joo~) and the
ideas were correlates of seeing (lOfLJI): aspects, images, or visible
shapes (species) which ideas offered to vision.
From this, in reference to the Good, the value of values, Plato
compares it to the sun, the light of which helps the human eye, allows
this visual sensor to realize and accomplish its fundamental end. In like
manner the Good, from which the soul obtains the necessary light with
which it is able to know the intelligible, is that which illuminates the
realm where ideas lie, making them not only visible but resplendent.
It is through the power of the Good (aho TO a-ya86J1) - understood
in comparison to a clarifying and intelligible light - that the remaining
values are seen and visualized. The beautiful (TO KaM JI) , the just (TO
OLKaLOJl), even the true (TO lx')..:1186J1), are all thereby seen precisely
through the Good, "that which imparts truth to the known and power of
knowing to the knower." TOVTO TOLJlVJI TO rl}JI liX.~8eLaJl 7rapexoJl TOr~
')'L-yJlWUKop.eJlOL~ KaL !o/ YL-YJlWUKOJln rl}JI 56J1ap.LJI ix7rOOLOOJl T~JI TOU
i:x-ya8oU toeaJl 4>&8L efJlm. 3
It would be almost impossible to find in the whole history of
philosophy a more revealing passage on the preeminence of optical
elements in the configuration of metaphysical thought. From this pre-
eminence, there naturally flows the spatial texture that impregnates the
significance and meaning of its foundations, principles, and concepts, as
well as everything that directly or indirectly is based upon them.
Given its limits, our argument cannot multiply nor indefinitely extend
the search for examples. What is now necessary, in light of the points
made, is to ask the following question: What is the destiny that awaits
this form of thought? What is the destiny of language, of human
institutions and their values, if the optical-spatial elements of the
traditional mode of thought are questioned and overcome by the
advances of meta-technics?
 THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF HUMANITY 257

CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVES

This is the crossroad that confronts the present. The present and
future of humanity depend on the course that humanity plots for itself
in the face of this. We are embarked upon a period of profound and
unimaginable changes whose meanings and bearings cannot yet be fully
nor clearly apprehended.
Weare in a position similar to that of those sailors who at the end of
the fifteenth and the early sixteenth centuries had not perceived the
significance of their own discoveries. Perplexed and confused, they
still believed that the new territories they were visiting were part of the
known world. They thereby missed the very meaning of their
discoveries, not realizing that their presence in those lands embodied an
emerging new reality that would eventually decree the inexorable
breakdown of their own worldview (Weltanschauung).
Such is the case with meta-technics today. It is not just simply that
we are placed before a new phase of technics, one that could easily
insert itself within the development of the previous conception of
technics as its natural outcome or as the fruit of its gradual evolution.
It implies, on the contrary and at the same time, the overcoming in our
time of the traditional anthropomorphic, anthropocentric, and geocentric
characteristics, as well as radical substitutions for all the epistemological
and ontological foundations that had hitherto sustained human
institutional inventiveness and through this technics itself as a display of
rationality.
It is the noetic root of this rationality - through its own pre-eminent
capacity for institutional inventiveness - that has been disrupted by the
creation of its own prodigious production. The design and creation of
a meta-technical logos at once denies and overcomes the inherent
finitude of that very same rationality.
This means - as we shall see even more clearly in times to come
- the gradual and inexorable introduction of new modalities, horizons,
and limits in the deployment of human and trans-human rationality and,
of course, in the syntax of its projects and institutional faces. In
something as simple as this, we think, lie the seeds of the immediate
future.
- Translated by Luis Castro Leiva and Carl Mitcham
International Institute for Advanced Studies (Caracas)
258 ERNESTO MAYZ VALLENILLA

NOTES
1. Hermann Diels and Walther Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokraliker, vol. I
(Zurich: Weidmannsche Verlogsbuchhandlen, 1964), p. 231.
2. Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen PhIJnomenologie und phlJnomenologischen
Philosophie, I, 19; in Husserliana: Gesammelte Werke, vol. III, part 1 (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1976 [first published 1913]), p. 43. English trans. F. Kersten: Ideas
pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982), p. 36. The Greek in brackets is a marginal
annotation made by Husserl in 1929.
3. Plato, Republic, S08e.
 LEOPOLDO MOLINA P.

EDUCATION FOR FREEDOM VERSUS

SOCIO-TECHNICAL CONTROL BY PEDAGOGICAL MEANS

The rise of modern science and technology itself gave rise to

distinctive discussions of what has since the modern period been taken
as a defining characteristic of being human - namely, free will. The
main questions have been: To what extent is science able to know the
foundations of free action? What are the possibilities for the
technological manipulation or control of such action?' Expanding on
such basic questions are a host of more specific ones: Does scientific
and technological progress expand human freedom, as nineteenth-
century positivists believed, or does it limit freedom? Is freedom
different in the so-called "developed" than in the "developing" world?
And most immediately relevant to the present discussion: Is human
freedom subject to socio-technical control by pedagogical means?2
It is not our intention to offer complete answers to these questions,
but only to reflect upon them from the perspective created by the
interaction of contemporary technology and formal education in Latin
America. The importance of such reflection can only increase when
considered from the point of view of those subject to the teaching and
learning process in developing countries, since it is their lives that
constitute the real foundations upon which the institutions we call
schools are based as well as the many hopes for that development that
is the focus of so much Latin American thought and action. 3
DREAMS OF SOCIAL CHANGE
THROUGH PEDAGOGICAL MEANS
Latin American educators have not infrequently imagined new worlds
in which schools become technically organized to solve difficult social
problems such as poverty or injustice. Organizational perfection and
efficient school teaching are also magic ideas that have currently
captured the attention of educational theorists, practitioners, and
administrators throughout the developed world. Indeed, today there
seems to be a wide consensus that scientific and technological advances
in the social sciences should be put at the service of teaching rather than
learning. 4 Child-centered pedagogy has been replaced by teacher-
centered pedagogy assisted especially by the latest advances in electronic
learning. This has in turn reinforced Latin American dreams of having
259
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 259-268.
01993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
260 LEOPOLDO MOLINA P.

pedagogical means play an enhanced role in the pursuit of social

development. 5
But given the disparate realities existing in North and South America,
it is little wonder that such words as "science" and "technology" - not
to mention "organizational perfection" and "efficiency" - are likely to
have quite different meanings in each region. Nevertheless, many Latin
American educational theorists, having been trained in the dominant
positivist culture of the North, continue to believe in science and
technology as panaceas for all the problems of development from
Mexico to Patagonia. 6
For example, having once tried to import from the North the ideal of
equal opportunity in education, Latin American educators now, like their
colleagues in more developed circles, are calling for the introduction of
technologically assisted teaching. Computers and the electronic culture
represent a new means to be utilized by progressive educators - none
of whom are particularly worried about questions of human freedom.
Freedom remains a philosophical issue outside the bounds of realistic
educational planning.
Contrary to such a practical view, we want to ask: What are the
existential conditions at the basis of the true satisfaction of human needs?
And how are those needs related to the prowth of personal freedom in
contemporary Latin American societies?
TOWARD AN EXISTENTIAL THEORY OF EDUCATION

Building on the analyses of Martin Heidegger,8 we can argue that as

existent beings, both teachers and students are always intentionally
transcending themselves in their relations with the world. If existential
anxiety is the normal attitude characterizing a being in search of Being,
then surely teachers and students must be allowed to experience such
anxiety. By existentially apprehending their inner selves and
surrounding circumstances, persons become conscious that their temporal
reality, their finitude, is thus open to a realm of learning that is not
exhausted by any school setting. They thus transcend any formal system
of education, any school program. 9
This means that although it may start with formal schooling, to
become educated cannot be accomplished completely by such means.
Such a process is only one aspect of the more general achievement of
a higher human ideal than becoming formally educated - the
achievement of a state of authenticity. At the same time, authenticity
only becomes real within existing social and political institutions such as
those we call schools. And schools, as historical institutions, belong to
a particular society and culture. 10
 EDUCATION FOR FREEDOM 261

Insofar as this is so, schools are also the carriers of a tradition that is
handed down to each new generation in order to help it deal with the
inexorable threat of temporal, historical disappearance - and the
persistent possibility of meaninglessness. Within the horizon of
continuously threatened meaning, a tradition has its own authority for
any particular group. Here lies the importance of the cultural setting of
any school process. Here also lie the root values with which the schools
have been invested, as agents of both preservation and change.
Without examining in depth the complexity of these assertions, let us
simply sax that a teacher's authority seems to be initially grounded on
tradition. Assuming an existential perspective, however, let us also
note that such authority can degenerate into sheer authoritarianism if it
is not put at the service of existential growth in the student. The teacher
is thus one who has a responsibility for letting pupils, in the process of
learning, free their own existential possibilities. The teacher has to
focus upon this ideal and not simply on reproducing a supposedly
correct view of the world mistakenly called tradition. 12
Out of this freeing of existential possibilities emerges a period of
reliance on and guidance by older fellow students. Beyond this, growth
in autonomy seems to be directly proportional to the development of a
person's possibilities for naming the world and a commitment to the
enrichment of experience. 13 However, human growth rests on the
discovery of our belonging to a realm of meaning that transcends the
beings with whom we find ourselves in immediate experience. 14 If this
is so, then in any culture students becoming existentially mature persons
can enter inexorably, if they are permitted to do so, into a phase of
being their own teachers. This does not mean that students can create
from nothing a new tradition and culture. Tradition will remain always
as the inescapable background for educational action. Given this
dialectical growth between one's inner freedom and one's existential
development, nobody can avoid the determinants of a particular
tradition. We are incarnated beings. IS
Caught within the web represented by institutionalized determinants,
factually present within a socio-cultural milieu, individual freedom is
constituted of existential autonomy grounded in a particular tradition.
It can promote or retard that autonomous growth through which anyone
living in society has to pass. Yet here resides the deepest educational
predicament of human beings: They often grow at the expense of the
growth of their tradition. 16

THE CHALLENGE OF EDUCATIONAL POLICY

What is the impact of such a predicament on the organizational

262 LEOPOLDO MOLINA P.

aspects of education - rational policy formation, administration, and

formal educational practices? The ideal of the rational organization of
educational or cultural experience has been a persistent aspect of
educational theory in both North America and Latin America. 17 Indeed,
since the rise of modernity, and especially of the nation state,
organizational dreams have pervaded formal education, as can be
illustrated through the history of educational administration and the
establishment of teacher training institutions in many countries,
particularly in the United States. IS
Development of the field of educational policy analysis has given new
impetus to this movement. What in European countries was first called
simply pedagogical planning has been bureaucratically expanded in
North America into policy analysis, with the aim of betterin9 the
profession of teaching and rationally reforming the school system. 9
But one may well ask: To what extent can education of the existential
self, of the person, be effectively or technically planned? To what
extent are human potentialities eXlstentially fostered by means of well-
planned, rational institutions? Another version of this question: What
kind of education is a rational education? Does the term "reason" here
refer only to scientific and technological rationality'f'
THE MEANINGS OF REASON
From the perspective of an existential theory of education the term
"rational" must be taken to include more than an effective arrangement
of means toward the accomplishment of some projected end. 21 The term
rational has to encompass apprehension through logos of the plurality
of meanings that open up to us as intentional beings. At the same time,
as Heidegger has argued, the understanding of Being is obscured by the
temporal appearance of pluralities of beings and things, including human
beings. The human use of reason thus must also include the discovery
of that true reality which manifests itself through social, political, and
cultural pluralities - in a word, through traditions. 22
Whether education proceeds through formal schooling or through
lived experiences at home and in the streets, no learner can be deprived
of an ultimate freedom to choose or reject such traditions in a multitude
of ways.23 Indeed, once freedom is taken as the aim of the educational
process certain limitations of the term reason are exposed. In the
analytic sense, reason involves planning out social and individual
experience within a particular tradition. The cult of efficiency in
education develops from such a conception.24 But not all educative
actions can be scientifically or technically rationalized. That special
feature we call freedom belongs to the structure of the self and
 EDUCATION FOR FREEDOM 263
ontologically limits such a reductive possibility. ~ The myth of the
rational administration of formal education is especially dangerous when
it belongs to international agencies interested in the effective planning of
what euphemistically has been called human capital.
From the perspective of Western, technological culture and the person
living within a tradition that has become universally accepted, such an
assumption or attitude nevertheless seems to be unavoidable. The
question no longer seems to be: How can we radically change this
situation? but What can the individual learn from the technological
tradition? Stated more existentially, from the perspective of education
for freedom, we can ask: How can a person be initiated in such a
tradition without sacrificing inner potentialities for freedom? By means
of what intellectual instruments can this be accomplished? How can
technology help in this humanizing enterprise'f6
But such questions can take a different form among the policy analysts
in Latin America, where the meaning of reason and rationality
transcends or goes beyond the pragmatic meaning that dominates in
developed countries. People living in third world countries (Latin
American countries included) must become aware of their own
distinctive traditions of reason and rationality. 27 Following Heidegger
again, we can argue that the kind of rationality that lies in the very
foundations of the mentality of contemporary Western society -
technical or pragmatic rationality - does not fit the educational needs
of people living in countries other than the developed ones.
Paradoxically, the instrumental way of thinking does not grasp the
deepest meaning of either technology or of education.28
A belief in pragmatic or instrumental rationality nevertheless pervades
education schools and teacher training institutions in Latin America that
have been heavily influenced by the United States. 29 In these
institutionalized environments, the social planning view of education is
grounded on a pragmatic view of the process of learning and given
theoretical support by positivist social science research. A whole
methodological apparatus has been created to support this belief.
Statistical methods and the search for objectivistic scientific paradigms
attest to this assertion. 30
THE HUMANISTIC-CRITICAL MOVEMENT IN EDUCATION
A counter-movement in education theory can be found in the works
of humanist-oriented educationalists whose works, though influential,
only quite recently began to be professionally consumed by teachers
trained in education schools or teacher training institutions in the United
States. For Ivan Illich and Paolo Freire,31 for instance, human life is
264 LEOPOLDO MOLINA P.

distinguished by three main characteristics - freedom, autonomy, and

dignity, with freedom being the most radical element. Such thinkers are
committed to promoting the self-unfolding of a human nature that
transcends itself.
The natural goodness of such a nature, the humanist soon realizes,
can readily be hindered by negative societal forces that must be
overcome through the development of critical thought and action. This
development of critical thought thus becomes the proximate aim of
education toward which all humanist theory is oriented. 32 Personal
growth depends on the integration of wisdom, technical knowledge,
historical tradition, imaginative creativity, and courage. All this must
be oriented toward the enrichment of the sense of belonging to a
particular culture as well as to the development of a transcendent-
critical stance toward that culture. 33
Such a process of educational growth and maturation in no way
eliminates reason as such. What it establishes are the limits of analytical
reason understood in the technical or pragmatic sense. Restraint
becomes discipline as self-restraint within the limits of practical reason
- that is, within the limits of personal freedom. The primary rule of
the learner's conduct should be, as Immanuel Kant would say, rational
autonomy.
Without education for freedom there is no practical reason beyond
that of technical or instrumental reason. But within such an education
there opens up the possibility not only for wisdom but also for passion
- passion guided by reason and placed at the service of the human
condition. Only in freedom can we exercise reason. 34
Despite the many misrepresentations of the humanistic movement, this
is the kind of freedom to which humanist educators refer. Freedom
grounds reason - at least the kind of freedom to which even a person
in chains may aspire, and that may even :§ive meaning to existence when
everything seems to be rationally lost, and is on occasion even the
self-discovery of students within the confines but without the help of the
schools.

THE LATIN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Examples of such self-discovery and humanistic pedagogy at the

service of true education actually exist in Latin America outside the
specialized literature of professional educators, and despite technocratic
pressures. Within the catechesis of the poor by the poor that has
become a distinctive feature of the Latin American Catholic Church
there is precisely an education for freedom not found in the schools.36
In some of the secular social revolutionary movements one can point to
 EDUCATION FOR FREEDOM 265
elements of the same kind of education.
What is repeatedly discovered in such education is a duality in the
realm of social possibilities, a duality opening as existential possibilities
for the person acting both as teacher and as student. Things and oneself
exist in a certain way - but they need not remain that way. Conditions
can either be accepted or altered - and in a multitude of ways. Indeed,
even in being accepted there is a human entering into that once
recognized makes it no longer possible that things will simply impose
themselves on the student. With the help of free teachers students can
learn from the world, and then become teachers of the world and
themselves. 37
Thus what needs to be hermeneutically examined is not only the real
teacher-student interaction within the real milieu of the classroom and
school, but also and even more crucially the scientific constructs that try
to keep this world from becoming unreal. The realm of discourse
through which human beings are taught represents the domain for such
a hermeneutical analysis. 38
Given contemporary circumstances of cultural dependency in many
Latin American countries, a whole hermeneutical shift is necessary to
reveal what is concealed in the dominant educational theory. This shift
can easily start by helping teachers and learners become more conscious
of the tradition in which their knowledge and values are rooted. 39 From
the examination of such a tradition and values, they will be in a better
position to understand what is happening in reality and better able to
imagine future institutions such as schools that can help persons grow
as conscious and critical human beings.
In the end this can support the creation of a new existential theory of
education that goes beyond humanistic-critical ideas. This could be a
humanistic social science relying heavily on hermeneutic reflection and
cross-disciplinary analyses. Within this perspective liberal education as
a theoretical realm is no longer to be conceived as a host of separate
fields of study, but as an interrelated process of learning, teaching, and
rational inquiry. 40
Against this background, the separation among educational disciplines
also needs to be transcended. New ways of educating can go beyond the
onesidedness of specialized inquiry (e.g., empirical classroom
observations for statistical analysis; the gathering of instructional data for
story telling) or beyond interdisciplinarity as the institutionalized
gathering of disciplines whose value for the education of human beings
is presupposed (as when students are required to take unrelated courses
in sociology, political science, or psychology).41 What is required is a
transdisciplinarity that illuminates the being-in-the-world of our Latin
American tradition and culture. 42
University of the Andes (Merida)
266 LEOPOLDO MOLINA P.

NOTES
1. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1989); H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr., "Human Nature Technologically Revisited," in Ellen
F. Paul, Fred D. Miller Jr., and Jeffrey Paul, eds., Ethics, Politics, and Human Nature
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), pp. 180-191; and Howard Gardner, The Mind's New
Science: A History ofthe Cognitive Revolulion (New York: Basic Books, 1985); Michael
Posner, ed., Foundations of Cognitive Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989); and
Charles Taylor, "The Significance of Significance: The Case of Cognitive Psychology,"
in Sollace Mitchell and Michael Rosen, eds., The Needfor Interpretation: Contemporary
Conceptions of the Philosopher's Task (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1983); and
Charles Taylor, "The Dialogical Self," in David R. Hiley, James F. Bohman, and
Richard Schusterman, eds., The Interpretive Turn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1991), pp. 304-314.
2. Manfred Stanley, The Technological Conscience: Survival and Dignity in an Age
of Expertise (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 78-185.
3. Gregorio Weinberg, "EI universo de 1a educati6n como sistema de ideas en
America Latina," in Leopoldo Zea, ed., America Latina en sus ideas (Mexico: Siglo
XXI, 1986), pp. 432-445.
4. Daniel P. Liston and Kenneth M. Zeichner, Teacher Educacion and the Social
Conditions of Schooling (New York: Routledge, 1991).
5. Sharon A. Shrock, "A Brief History of Instructional Development," in Gary J.
Anglin, ed., Instructional Technology: Past, Present, and Future (Engelwood, CO:
Libraries Unlimited, 1991), pp. 11-19.
6. G. Psacharopoulos and M. Woodhall Psacharopoulos, Educationfor Development:
An Analysis of Investment Choices (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
7. Ivan Illich, Toward a History of Needs (New York: Pantheon, 1978), pp. 68-92;
and Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (New York: Harper & Row, 1971).
8. See, e.g., Martin Heidegger, "Being and Time: Introduction," in David F. Krell,
ed., Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977), pp. 79-
82.
9. Martin Buber, Between Man and Man, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1955), pp. 83-117; and Maxine Greene, The Dialectics of Freedom (New
York: Teachers College Press, 1988), pp. 1-23.
10. John Dewey, "The School and Society," in Martin S. Dworkin, ed., Dewey on
Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1959), pp. 33-90; and Jerome Karabel
and A.H. Halsey, eds., Power and Ideology in Education (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1977).
11. Georgia Warnke, Gadamer: Hermeneutics, Tradition and Reason (Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 1987), pp. 156-174.
12. Paulo Freire, The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and Liberation, trans. D.
Macedo (South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey, 1985). Introduction by Henry Giraux.
13. John Dewey, Experience and Education (New York: Macmillan, 1938).
14. Donald Vandenberg, Education as Human Right: A Theory of Curriculum and
Pedagogy, "Advances in Contemporary Educational Thought," vol. 6 (New York:
Teachers College Record PreiS, 1990).
15. Gabriel Marcel, Tragic WISdom and Beyond: Including Conversations between Paul
Ricoeur and Gabriel Marcel, trans. Stephen Jolin and Peter McCormick (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1973).
16. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheime and D.G.
Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1991).
17. William J. Paisley and Matilda Butler, Knowledge Utilization System in Education:
 EDUCATION FOR FREEDOM 267
Dissemination, Technical Assistance, Networking (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1983).
18. David Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 126-176.
19. Joel Spring, The American School 1642-1990 (New York: Longman, 1990), pp.
225-258.
20. Jiirgen Habermas, "An Alternative Way out of the Philosophy of the Subject:
Communicative Versus Subject-Centered Reason," in The Philosophical Discourse of
Modernity: Twelve Lectures, trans. Frederick G. Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1991), pp. 294-326; and Harold Brown, Rationality (New York: Routledge,
1988), pp. 178-228.
21. Thomas McCarthy, The Critical Theory of JQrgen Habennas (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 1991), pp. 162-192.
22. Gadamer, Truth and Method (1991), pp. 280-283.
23. See Vandenberg, Education as Human Right (1990).
24. Raymond E. Callahan, Education and the Cull of Efficiency (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1962).
25. Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1992); and Anthony J. Cascardi, The Subject of Modernity
(Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
26. Stanley, The Technological Conscience (1978), pp. 188-249.
27. Francisco Mir6 Quesada, "Ciencia y tecnica: Ideas 0 mitoides," in Leopoldo Zea,
ed., America Latina en sus ideas (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1986), pp. 72-94; and Leopoldo
Zea, Filosofla de Ia historia Americana (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, 1978).
28. S.B. Rosenthal, "Scientific Method and the Return to Foundations: Pragmatism and
Heidegger," Journal of Speculative Philosophy, vol. 2, no. 3 (1988), pp. 192-205.
29. R.F. Dearden, P.H. Hirst, and R.S. Peters, eds., Education and Development of
Reason (London: Routledge, 1972); and Harvey Siegel, Educating Reason: Rationality,
Critical Thinking, and Education (New York: Routledge, 1988), pp. 48-61.
30. J. Robey, "Policymaking, Analysis and Evaluation: A Topical Bibliography of
Recent Research, " Policy Studies Review, vol. 3, nos. 3-4 (May 1984), pp. 521-532; and
DJ. Amy, "Toward a Post-Positivist Policy Analysis," Policy Studies Journal, vol. 13,
no. 1 (September 1984), pp. 207-211.
31. Stephen T. Leonard, Critical Theory and Political Practice (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 136-166.
32. Dieter Misgeld, "Education and Cultural Invasion: Critical Social Theory,
Education as Instruction, and the 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed'," in John Forester, ed.,
Critical Theory and Public Life (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), pp. 77-120.
33. Seyla Benhabib, Critique, Norm, and Utopia: A Study ofthe Foundations of Critical
Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 279-354; and Jeff
Mitscherling, "Philosophical Hermeneutics and 'The Tradition' ," Man and World, vol.
22 (1989), pp. 247-250.
34. William J. Richardson, "Heidegger and the Quest of Freedom," in Joseph
Kockelrnans, ed., A Companion to Heidegger's Being and TllTIe (Washington, DC:
University Press of America, 1986), p. 161; and Paul Ricoeur, Freedom and Nature,
trans., With introduction Erazim V. Kohak: (Evanston: Northwestern University Press,
1966), pp. 482-486.
35. Frithjof Bergman, On Being Free (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1977), pp. 41-53.
36. David Lehmann, Democracy and Development in Latin America: Economics,
Politics and Religion in the Postwar Period (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press,
1990).
37. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972),
pp. 57-118; and Paulo Freire and Antonio Fernandez,Learning to Question: A Pedagogy
268 LEOPOLDO MOLINA P.

of Liberation , trans. Tony Coates (New York: Continuum, 1989).

38. Paul Ricoeur, "Life: A Story in Search of Narrator," in Marion J. Valdes, ed.,
.A. Ricoeur Reader: Re.fkction and Imagination (Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto
Press, 1991), pp. 425-441; and Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the
Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian University Press, 1976), pp. 1-
25.
39. Robert E. Young,.A. Critical Theory of Education (New York: Teachers College
Press, 1990), pp. 167-172.
40. Peter Marsh, ed., Contesting the Boundaries ofLiberal and Professional Education
(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1988).
41. Julie Thompson Klein, Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory and Practice (Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1990), pp. 77-85.
42. Joseph J. Kockelmans, "Why Interdisciplinarity1," in Joseph J. Kockelmans, ed.,
Interdisciplinarity and Higher Education (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1979).
 PART VI

FROM OTHER AMERICAS

 RAUL FORNET-BETANCOURT

TWO PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES

TO THE PROBLEM OF TECHNICS
AND THEIR MEANING FOR LATIN AMERICA

The first difficulty one encounters when thinking about technics

concerns whether it is singular or plural. Technics manifests itself today
in the guise of many technics, as an irreducible plural reality, which
argues against any hypostatizing of the phenomenon by talking about it
with a reductiomst singularity. Technics are not always some one
technique. There are always many technics in the form of radically
diverse manifestations that are impossible to unify in some global
definition that takes account of this complexity.
It is thus necessary to warn of a danger in any attempt at a
"philosophy of technology" that tries to determine too quickly what kind
of thing technics is, and to offer some unique vision of the whole. This
action is dangerous because, beside being inadequate and insensitive to
the complexity of technical phenomena, it tempts us to pass global
judgment, whether positive or negative. 1 In this respect there are many
representative, antithetical positions in traditional philosophy of
technics. 2
Philosophically, then, it is possible to speak in many different ways
about technics. In fact, the arguments of Jos~ Ortega y Gasset and
Martin Heidegger - as representatives of the most philosophical
reflections on technics - enable us to show how even within the horizon
of philosophical understandings, reflection can take radically different
paths. But using Ortega's and Heidegger's reflections as a starting
point, I want to try to clarify the most appropriate way to speak
philosophically about technics in Latin America.

ORTEGA'S "MEDITACI6N DE LA TECNICA"

It is risky, and ultimately inappropriate, to undertake the examination

of a specific question in the thought of a philosopher without first trying
to set it in the conceptual framework of the experience or fundamental
intuition that inspires and shapes his philosophy. This general
methodological principle applies, naturally enough, to Ortega and his
meditation on technics. The intention and limits of the present paper
nevertheless force us to satisfy this principle in the most elementary and
thus deficient manner.
271
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Spealdng Countries, 271-281.
01993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
272 RAUL FORNET-BETANCOURT

Let us begin simply by pointing out that Ortega's meditation on

technology is located in the fundamental perspective established by the
Spanish thinker's central intuition on life as radical reality. Within the
horizon of understanding made possible by this intuition, being human
appears as the foremost manifestation of life as an inescapable and
constant project. Life, and especially human life, is activity, a program
of production and self-production, in the clear creative sense of
"fabrication." For Ortega technics, including modem technology, must
be sought in those human acts by which human beings try to defend life,
to secure it - that is, to realize the configuration of life as continuation,
subsistence. With this, Ortega ties the origin of technics to (human) life
as a given that is insecure and full of necessities, and that therefore
forces us into action. Nevertheless, he warns us against a possible
misunderstanding: "Technics is not what the human being does to
satisfy necessities" (p. 324).3
The characteristic feature of the technical act is the novelty that is
involved by seeking satisfaction for necessities through the introduction
of a fundamental change in the structure or, as Ortega would say, in the
circumstances in which those necessities are experienced. In technics
human beings are not satisfied with what they find in nature, but throw
themselves at it to transform it, so that it yields what it would otherwise
not directly yield. The novelty of this kind of making brought about
by technical action resides in the act by which the human being becomes
a producer. Human beings do not adjust to nature, because human
necessities are not just biological. "The concept of human necessity
covers indifferently the necessary and the superfluous" (p. 327).
By introducing the dimension of the superfluous as part of human
necessity, Ortega points out that human life necessarily entails an
eagerness not just for living but living well. This eagerness for well-
being (not just being) is so necessary that Ortega dares to declare that
it is the greatest human necessity. "Well being and not being is the
fundamental human necessity, the necessity of necessities" (p. 324).
On the basis of human necessities thus construed Ortega links technics
to the essence of human being, its way of being. Humans are beings
whose way of being inevitably implies being through the making of
technics. The reason for this fundamental equivalence between humans
and technical being rests with the postulate of human life as well-being.
The root of the "variability" of technics is its historicity, and the root
of its historicity is its essential dependency on the vital program of being
human. Ortega is thus one of the first philosophers to have clearly
perceived the historical character of technics. As an instance of human
activity, technics happens and evolves, that is to say, has history.
Furthermore, technics is in a certain way the history of the forms
 TWO PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES 273
through which humans have tried to fulfill their programs for being or
well being. In this light, Ortega distinguishes three stages in the
evolution of technics: (1) the technics of chance; (2) the technics of the
artisan; and (3) the technics of the engineer.
Let us focus a moment on the third stage. At the foundation of
modern technics - the technics of the engineer - lies experience or
awareness of the fact that technics is not subject to the personal
limitations of the one who practices it. The historical source of this
shift in perspective is, for Ortega, the invention of the machine. The
appearance of the machine marks a revolution in the relation between
human beings and technics because with the machine it is made clear
that
technics ceases to be what it had been until this point, manipulation, maneuver, and
becomes sensu stricto fabrication. . . . In the machine ... the instrument takes first
place and is no longer that which helps the human, but the reverse: the human becomes
the one who simply helps and supplements the machine (p. 360).

But if the machine has such a meaning in the historical evolution of

technics, it is because its appearance represents the moment in which
human beings become aware of their full technical capacity and their
ability to invent. This capacity for invention, which includes the
certainty of making discoveries, is what separates the engineer from the
artisan, and constitutes what Ortega calls "the technic" (la tecnica). In
other words, with the machine there comes about this radical change in
the relation between humans and their technics, the awareness that
before having any' particular technics they possess the technic ability or
technics in itself. 4
At first it may seem strange that Ortega speaks about the technic
ability to point out the radical turn that is produced in the present age,
since this might seem inconsistent with his conception of technics as a
necessary human activity and, therefore, historical. With technic itself,
however, Ortega is not trying to go beyond the historical-human plane,
pointing toward some abstract, atemporal, metaphysical entity. He
simply wants to point up a separation between the technical function of
being human and human beings practicing many determinate technics.
By doing so he illustrates his basic insight that "technics are only a
posteriori concrete manifestations of the general function of technic as
part of the human" (p. 369).
Beyond this possible misunderstanding, it must be added that with the
awareness of possessing technic before technics, Ortega indicates the
new stage in which human beings, having broken out of a weak and
limited self-awareness, begin to understand themselves within a horizon
of unlimited possibilities. Consciously possessing technic is, in the end,
274 RAUL FORNET-BETANCOURT
synonymous with a new anthropological situation.
In the context of this development in technics, Ortega warns about
two points. The first has to do with the internal possibility that opens
up for the technical process with the discovery that, logically prior to
technics, there is technic. Ortega calls this the "technicism" of modem
technics, including with this the new way that inspires the nuova
scienza: to act methodically, analyzing and experimenting. Technicism
is the concrete manifestation in technics of the union between science
and technics. From this union comes forth precisely the distinctive and
specific configuration of modem technics.
This gives modem technics independence and complete self-confidence. It is not a
magic-like inspiration nor pure chance, but a method, a pre-established path, firm, aware
of its foundations (p. 369).

The second point is directly connected to the idea that the explicit
discovery of a generic technical function puts human beings in a
situation whose real novelty resides in "the awareness of its principal
limitation" (p. 372). In this discovery, which constitutes the unique
achievement of modem technics, Ortega perceives in a remarkable
intuition the danger latent in the present technical process: "technic,
under the appearance . . . of a capacity, unlimited in principle, makes
for the human being who is ready to live upon faith in technic and in it
alone an empty life" (p. 366).
But it must be emphasized that although he points out this danger,
Ortega does not in any way minimize the importance of technics for
modem humanity. On the contrary, Ortega begins with the conviction
that human beings today cannot live without technics, because they are
as immersed in it, and with the same familiarity, as was primitive
humanity in the natural environment. This is why his attention is
focused not on warnings against technics, but on our way of conceiving
and relating to it. For Ortega, the danger of the contemporary evolution
in technics is that human beings will see in technics their only way of
upholding and determining the content of their existence. This would
be a mutilation, because "human life is not only a struggle with matter,
but also the struggle of human beings with theIr soul" (p. 375).
HEIDEGGER'S "DIE FRAGE NACH DER TECHNIK"
In clear contrast to the Spanish thinker who saw in the concept of
human necessity an entry into the field of technics and defined technics
as a kind of human activity having human happiness as an end,
Heidegger establishes from the beginning a profound distinction as the
starting point of his question concerning technics. Stated succinctly the
 TWO PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES 275

distinction is this: "Technics is not the same as the essence of technics"

(p. 5)5
This distinction between technics and the essence of technics is
fundamental in the following ways. First, we find in this distinction the
goal toward which Heidegger's questioning about technics is oriented.
In fact, from this distinction it can be inferred that what is really
important is to understand the essence of technics, and not simply
technics.
Second, in light of his corollary point that "the essence of technics is
not anything technical" (p. 6), Heidegger warns against searching for the
essence of technics in the realm of technics. If the essence of technics
is absolutely non-technical, we must direct our questioning to a more
primordial realm than that of technical artifacts and procedures
themselves. This distinction indicates that Heidegger asks himself about
technics in the context of and in deep and essential connection with the
question about being. This is the same as saying that such a question
is not marginal or secondary for Heidegger. The essence of technics
belongs to the same realm as that which essentially makes us think -
and which is, therefore, devoted to thought as its most sublime task -
that is, to the realm of being.
Third, and almost as a consequence of the second, the distinction
between technics and the essence of technics is of fundamental
importance because it also indicates that making a distinction between
the human and technics necessarily takes us to the essence of technics
as something non-technical. Only from this primordial and fundamental
dimension will it be possible to understand technics in its truth.
This is the way through which Heidegger essentially connects the
question about technics with the central question of his thought, the
question about the truth of being. Moreover, this shows that, for
Heidegger, the question about technics is not just any question. Asking
about technics is today asking about the truth of our reality. Truth and
the essence of technics cannot be seen apart from each other as if they
were two realms oblivious of one another. They are, in the end, the
same realm. Technics properly takes place in the realm opened up
through the unconcealing of truth, since every bringing forth finds its
possibility in the space of the unconcealed.
From this more primordial or fundamental vision that opens the
ordering of technics into the realm of truth, the reduction of technics to
a mere instrument or means is completely overcome. Technics, thought
out from this perspective, does not simply make things or artifacts, nor
is it a simple making. It is, as Heidegger says, a way of unconcealing
or revealing - a way of bringing forth reality. Just as with ancient
technics, modem technics is a constitutive force in its revealing - it
276 RAUL FORNET-BETANCOURT
frees and founds reality.
Nevertheless, it is in the light of this constitutive aspect of all technics
that the true novelty of modem technics stands out, because it brings
forth in a specific, previously unknown way. The way of bringing forth
that dominates and distinguishes modem technics is "provocation." The
decisive tum in modem technics thus consists in the fact that with it
begins to rule a way of bringing forth that implies a planned and
programmed attack on nature. Nature is provoked to give up what is
required of it - or, in other words, is forced with provoking exigencies
that make it give up what is required of it, so that it appears or
unconceals itself as that which is available. Thus the bringing forth of
modem technics is a provocation that not only gives us objects (things),
but also a reserve of resources ready to yield to any requirement or
demand - what Heidegger calls Bestand. As a result of the bringing
forth of modem technics, that which we today call reality exists in the
guise of Bestand or resources.
The bringing forth of reality under the heading of Bestand is, for
Heidegger, the point at which technics is shown decisively not to be a
simple human making. As a mode of revealing, Bestand involves a
provoking bringing forth that cannot be created by any human making.
Stated more concretely, the subject of the provoking bringing forth that
characterizes the modem epoch is not human beings. It is not possible,
then, to define technics in terms of pure human activity, as was done by
Ortega. In contrast to Ortega's anthropological determination,
Heidegger's idea is that humanity does not possess the basic disposition
in which all the technical activities of manufacturing, production,
control, modeling, etc., are constituted as possibilities. True, human
beings are the subjects of technical practices; moreover, they are the
carriers and executors of technical makings and, as such, they may
provocatively engage nature, using it according to their requirements.
The problem is that such technical activities come forth from a reality
over which human beings have no control, because it is not a possibility
that is constituted in and with their technical making. This is the
primordial, fundamental possibility of the unconcealing or revealing of
the world as a reality able to be technically modeled and controlled.
Technics is not, therefore, merely a human affair, but an ontological
possibility in which even the human has been included as carrier of the
historical-concrete realization of this possibility.

THE THOUGHT OF ORTEGA AND HEIDEGGER

IN THE LIGHT OF PRESENT NEEDS IN LATIN AMERICA
As was said at the beginning, our main concern in the study of
 TWO PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES 277
Ortega's and Heidegger's conceptions of technics is to analyze their
possible meaning for the elaboration of a philosophical reflection on
technics from the perspective of the present situation in Latin America.
Ortega and Heidegger, in spite of fundamental differences, have a
common standpoint that is decisive for our attempt to use their positions
in our search for counsel concerning how to think philosophically about
technics from the perspective of our continent. We refer to the idea,
with which we agree, that technics has become for modern human
beings the ground in which they are standing and being. In fact, for
Ortega as well as for Heidegger, technics is not just one more simple
ingredient, element, or component, among others, of our life and world.
It is not a trait or characteristic that can be isolated and separated from
the rest of the circumstances of our lives. Technics is the circumstance,
the surrounding situation in which we are and from which we have to
be and make.
To the questions "Where and how are we?" and "How do we live?"
contemporary humanity cannot answer by making an abstraction from
technics, because technics is constitutive of the world configuration.
Technics is part of the fundamental situation that informs the state in
which humanity finds itself today, and which in fact penetrates the
dynamics of human life itself. From this fundamental situation, which
we call fundamental because it answers the question about the texture of
the ground in which humanity exists today, human beings are not free.
This idea of technics as the fundamental situation of modern human
beings is decisive for considering Ortega and Heidegger in relation to
their possible meaning for a Latin American reflection on technics. This
is true not only because from it stems the complementary thought that
today technics cannot be judged as something radically anti-human and,
for that reason, to be completely rejected. It is true also because of the
fact that technics in its development, and given the socio-political basis
in which its progress is made, endangers the being of humanity. After
many catastrophic experiences with technics, almost no one doubts that
this is not just a possible danger, but an active force that is already
undermining part of our human substance - or what we believe to be
our human substance.
Ortega as well as Heidegger, each from his particular perspective, has
warned about a real danger hidden in the process of the technification
of life and the world. Both insist that technics has in some way become
a necessity and, consequently, that the attitude of wanting to banish
technics from human life is not possible. Most simply, without technics
the material base of life would be radically endangered.
In saying that we agree with the fundamental points established by
Ortega and Heidegger with regard to the meaning of modern technics,
278 RAUL FORNET-BETANCOURT
we indicate, of course, that these points reflect our own conviction or
the personal point of view from which we see the problem of technics
in Latin America. We begin, however, with an assumption that
evidence about the meaning of technics can also be found in Latin
America. But with this assumption things become complicated - since
this is a debatable starting point. Without trying to reconstruct the
history of the debate, recall that even prior to the founding of its nation
states, Latin America had begun a discussion about whether in these
countries national life should conform to the pattern of European and
North American civilization or whether it was necessary to look for
national orientations within their own cultural substrata.
As historical-cultural illustrations, recall the very different programs
proposed by two of the greatest figures of the intellectual conscience of
Latin America, Domingo Sarmiento and Jos6 Marti, 6 or the reaction of
the indigenist movement against those European influences which ruled
at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries in
many Latin American countries. For even more recent examples,
demonstrating that this is not a thing of the past, simply consider
contemporary literature, where the matter of our cultural identity
continues to be discussed with unusual vigor. 7 There is also evidence
in our philosophy, which discusses with increasing intensity the issue of
the relationship between our culture and Western scientific rationality.
And, of course, we must not forget the field of theology, which, with
Latin American liberation theology, is contributing in no small way to
this question.
The preceding brief and general indications show that we are, in fact,
in the presence of a true quaestio disputata, because the questions
"from where" and "where to" by which Latin America must be defined
are far from having definitive answers. Thus to take as a starting point
that Latin American reality is debatable and troublesome implies that
although this reality has to some extent come from Europe, Latin
America has not been defmitively incorporated in the dynamics of
Western civilization.
But let us clarify this starting point. With Ortega and Heidegger, we
hold that technics is also constitutive of reality in Latin America and
that, as such, it configures the fundamental situation in which the great
majority of the Latin American population lives. But it does not follow
from this presupposition that we have decided the matter of the identity
of Latin America in favor of what can be called its European or Western
face, because our assumption also includes a basic distinction between
context and culture. By "context" we understand the global framework
that defines the shape of the political-economic organization which
determines the official course of our countries, while "culture"
 TWO PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES 279
designates the inherited substrata within which we exist with simple
awareness of being here. In the concrete case of Latin America, this is
expressed - although perhaps somewhat less clearly for the mestizo -
in being woven into a tapestry with a clearly rational texture, but one
equally rich in symbolic, magical, and mythic connotations.
In light of this distinction between context and culture, the analyses
of technics by Heidegger and Ortega acquire a distinctive character for
philosophical reflection on this issue in Latin America. In the first
place, especially with Heidegger, a possibility is opened up for asking
ourselves from our own situation about the ability we may still have to
"put technics in its place" - that is, not only to set technics in a context
that it itself determines and configures, but to relate it to the dimension
of cultural significance that relativizes the totality of the technical
context. Heidegger's question about the possibility of a Gelassenheit
in the context of technics, as a sign that the human could recover the
indigenous within the framework of a technoscientific civilization, can
be for us a leading idea that drives us to look for our own possibilities
to make technics a part of culture.
Keeping in mind the weight of our own technical context, that is, that
we cannot and should not banish technics from our nations, but also
remembering tl1e-resistances thaCderive from our varied cultures that
open up alternative engagements with reality, we must make the task for
our philosophical reflection about technics a thinking about this
phenomenon following the Heideggerian model of saying both "yes" and
"no" to technics. To make technics a part of culture is a program that
says "yes" to technics, since it considers technics a necessary
phenomenon for the cultivation of life in a state of well-being, as Ortega
would say. But, at the same time, saying "no" to technics makes it
relative, differentiates and analyzes its adaptability in the fundamental
referential system of the correspondent culture.
Thus to ask, How does a technics fit within this culture?, presupposes
the possibility of rejecting, in the name of the cultural substrata, certain
technical achievements, certain technics. This implies the discovery of
some kind of relationship with technics that is not simply technical -
that is, that the situation created by the technical context, in which only
the technical has value, has been broken, and that a criterion for
evaluation is available to discern the course of the development of
technics. Our purpose is not to create a culture centered on technics,
nor to try to mold culture to the requirements of technical development.
It is more to center and to concentrate our cultures, thus opening
ourselves up to technics in a way that can situate and apply it to the
extent that our cultures are capable of incorporating technics without
having to negate themselves or having to retreat to marginality.
280 RAUL FORNET-BETANCOURT

At the same time, the program of making technics a part of culture

is a program that necessarily situates technics in an ecological
perspective. The radical revision of the relationship between culture and
technics necessarily goes through a reconsideration of the relationship
between nature and technics.
Finally, we want to call attention to an idea of Ortega's that has
special value in helping us think about technics in Latin America. This
is his definition of technics that starts with the concept of human
necessity and the consequent essential connection between technical
making and human desire for well being. We must remember that,
according to Ortega, the union between technics and well-being is of
such an intimate nature that technics changes according to the idea of
well-being. Observing technics from the perspective that sees it as in
the service of the human need for well-being, we understand that in
Latin America the task of making technics a part of culture is no longer
just an academic problem, but has concrete implications for the way of
life of the majority of human beings on our continent.
If culture has to do with the mode and manner in which human beings
cultivate their lives, if it has to do with the question of how we exist in
a vital space, then it necessarily has to do with socio-political questions
of justice. And since it is manifest that in Latin America the answer to
this question is clearly that injustices prevail, that "we are not well,"
that we are in a "general discomfort," then Ortega's idea of well-being
as the end of technical making may serve gradually to unmask the true
interests in our countries that obstruct increases in well-being and
happiness for the majority of the people. That is, Ortega's insight
encourages us to examine critically those conditions and goals within the
framework of which technics is made possible in our countries. At the
same time, Ortega's idea may be an interesting indication that technics,
no matter how complicated and sophisticated, is not a metaphysical
horror, but a human capacity and that, as such, it does not escape
human responsibility.
- Translated by Waldemar L6pez and Carl Mitcham
Catholic University of Eichstatt (Germany)
NOTES
1. Cf. Giinther Ropohl, Die unvollkommene Technik (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985),
pp.58ff.
2. Consider, e.g., on the one hand, Friedrich Dessauer's interpretation of technics
as essentially the human continuation of divine creativity (Dessauer, Philosophie der
Technik [Bonn: Cohen, 1927] and Streit um die Technik [Frankfurt: Knecht, 1956]) and,
on the other hand, Robert Dvorak's vision of technics as a diabolical reality with fatal
consequences for humanity (Dvorak:, Technik. Machi und Tod [Hamburg: Claassen &
Goverts, 1948]).
 TWO PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES 281
3. All quotations from "Meditaci6n de la tecnica" are cited from the Obras completas
(Madrid: Revista de Occidente), vol. 5.
[4. This is an attempt to translate Ortega's distinction between "la tecnica" (with the
"lao sometimes italicized) and "las tecnicas." - Translators]
5. All quotations from "Die Frage nach der Technik" are cited from Vortrlige und
Aujslitze (Pfullingen: Neske, 1954).
[6. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888) was the first president of the Republic
of Argentina (1868-1874). His CivilizaciOn y barbarie: La vida de Juan Facundo
Quiroga (1845), in the form of a biography of Facundo, the tyrannical gaucho lieutenant
of the Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, both criticized the dictatorship and
initiated a tradition of gaucho literature. It has been one of the most important books
written in Spanish America. Sarmiento, as president, also saw the U.S. as a model for
Latin American development. Jose Julian Marti y Perez (1853-1895) was a Cuban poet,
essayist, and revolutionary leader. Having lived in Cuba, Spain, Guatemala, Mexico,
France, and New York City, he united liberal ideas with free verse and considered
himself a citizen of the Americas - as indicated in such essays as "Nuestra America"
(1881), "Emerson" (1882), "Whitman" (1887), and "Bollvar" (1893). - Translators]
7. For a global vision with representative references on the central importance of
this topic in our literature, from 1492-1984, see Fernando Ainsa Amigues, Identidad
cultural de lberoamerica en su narrativa (Madrid: Gredos, 1986).
 Margarita M. Peiia Borrero

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY EDUCATION

IN THE LATIN AMERICAN CONTEXT

The following is a brief review of science, technology, and society

(STS) education as it has developed especially in the United States in
recent years, with comments from a Latin American perspective - using
Colombia as an example and a point of reference while venturing some
generalizations. I do not intend to present defmite conclusions, but only
to propose a few points for further consideration.

EDUCATION IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY:

DEFINITION AND EVOLUTION
Science, technology, and society studies are expanding rapidly in
universities and schools throughout the United States and Europe. The
idea for such studies emerged in the university setting as a result of the
ecological movement and criticism of technology during the 1960s and
1970s. Recently it has been extended to primary and secondary
education, after having won support in national documents on
educational policy.
As Waks (1988) says, the original stimulus for science, technology
and society studies can be found in the works of thinkers such as
Jacques Ellul, E. F. Schumacher, Ivan Illich, and others. The ideas of
these thinkers, developed initially on the margins of academia, then
influenced various philosophers, social scientists, and engineers who
dedicated themselves to the study of technology in its social context.
The tone of these first discussions was markedly anti-technology, and the
purpose of many early courses in STS was to educate students about
the "true" social impact of technological progress.
This movement rapidly transcended its initial biases, however, and has
been maintained in many universities in the form of interdisciplinary
courses whose central thesis can be defined as the attempt to view
science and technology as social processes. Science and technology are
seen as the product of such social processes as politics, interest groups,
economic forces, etc. The anti-technology radicalism which
characterized the movement during its early years has given way to a
vision of technology as a product of concrete interests and of actions by
individuals or groups of individuals in determinate historical

283
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 283-288.
01993 KJuwer Academic PubUshers.
284 MARGARITA M. PENA BORRERO

circumstances, stressing the importance of democratic control and

responding to pressing social issues. As summarized by Wales (1989,
p. 201), "STS education aims to promote scientific and technological
literacy in order to empower citizen participation in democratic decision-
making and action processes for resolving the pressing, technologically-
dominated problems of our late industrial society. "
Recent efforts have moved STS education into the school curriculum
at the primary and secondary levels. In this movement STS methods are
commonly seen as ways to promote what is called scientific and
technological literacy. Such developments have responded, on the one
hand, to a growing perception of deficiencies in science education in the
United States and, on the other, to the interests of some educators in
promoting citizen participation on issues and problems directly related
to technology.
Studies in STS have not been pursued as independent subjects in the
school curriculum. The principal strategy consists of infusing units of
STS education into the curriculum of other subjects (principally the
sciences and social studies). The contents of these units are defined by
problems of immediate interest to the students and their communities.
The objective of such units is not exclusively to inform students or make
them capable of using a set of techniques. The fundamental purpose is
to make them conscious of the way technological changes affect the life
of societies and how these changes can be controlled and directed
through conscientious citizen participation in the context of a democracy.
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY RELATIONS
FROM A LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE
Critical reflection on modern technology and its social impact is close
to the heart of Latin American thought. The deception caused by the
model of economic development centered around growth has created
some skepticism with regard to technology as a factor and indicator of
progress. This attitude has also generated great hope for the idea of so-
called "appropriate technology." Contemporary industrialized countries
are not examples to be followed. Although aspects of their development
may be desirable, their general pattern of development is not
ecologically viable. Recent studies suggest that if the "underdeveloped"
nations reach the consumption levels implicit in the model of
development of the highly industrialized countries, the pressure on the
natural environment will reach catastrophic proportions (Dagnino, 1986).
This ecological argument was preceded in Latin America by anti-
dependency criticism of traditional technological development patterns
as a factor in economic subordination and the alienation of culture.
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY EDUCATION 285

Although in the beginning dependency was attributed to the absence of

industry or capital goods, or the kind of innovation which makes
indigenous technology possible, today we know that this argument is not
valid. Recent studies in different Latin American countries (see, for
example, Katz, 1987) indicate that in the heart of Latin American
industry there exists a core of technological innovation that is growing,
thanks to which some Latin American economies have reached a level
of sophistication enabling them to compete with imports.
However, a pattern of technological development based solely on
increased innovation is unable to achieve the desired autonomy or
technological self-determination. During the decade of the 1970s other
authors (e.g., Herrera, 1972; and Sagasti, 1981) attributed technological
dependency to the absence of local scientific activity effectively
connected to the productive system. Transformation of the productive
systems in the industrialized countries, that is, the diverse "industrial
revolutions" which have occurred during the last decades as a result of
the development of new scientific technologies such as microelectronics,
biotechnology, designed materials, etc. demonstrate that the level of
scientific development in a country is one of the factors that influences
the nature of its participation in the international economic system.
In maintaining the new international division of labor which has
resulted from the global transformation of the productive system, the
technological gap between industrialized countries and the Third World
tends to increase, and the traditional comparative advantages of the latter
diminishes as well. The situation requires Latin American countries to
implement a clear plan in regard to what is termed the politics of science
and technology - that is, directions to be pursued in scientific research
and technological development, and the creation of means to implement
policy decisions.
Such plans demand, in tum, a better definition of what is meant by
"appropriate technology." Not necessarily appropriate are solutions
characterized by decentralization or small scale and intensive handwork.
Appropriate technological solutions are those which respond effectively
to social (not individual) necessities, and mayor may not include high-
tech developments such as those being pursued in the industrialized
countries. Decisions about what technologies to adopt or develop are
not strictly technical but rather political, and the capacity of a country
to make such decisions depends partly on its potential to assimilate
critically the processes of technological development which take place
beyond its borders.
It has recently been established, for instance, that there exists in
Colombia, as in other Latin American countries, an awareness of the
need to develop a national capacity in science and technology. This is
286 MARGARITA M. PENA BORRERO

necessary in order to break: the crcle of technological dependence that

has affected the country since Its integration into the international
market, and which will include effects that reactivate production,
generate employment, and strengthen the internal market. There also
exists an awareness in some scientific and intellectual circles (and even
at a governmental level) of the need to pursue new paths of
technological development that do not repeat errors committed by the
industrialized nations, and a need to be more in harmony with the needs,
expectations, and cultural inheritance of the people, as well as the
demands of environmental preservation.
Whether such good intentions can materialize or not depends in part
on the formulation of national strategies of technological development
and on the capacity - political as well as technological - of each
country to implement them. It also depends on an individual conception
of what is meant by development, a notion that was largely imprinted on
us externally, and that we must now redefine in our own terms, without
being afraid of confronting the demands of social transformation that a
genuine concept of development seems to imply.
What is reflected in such plans, ambiguous as they may appear, is a
new perception of the problem of technology. If before there was an
attempt to overcome the old ways and play "catch up" with the
technological advances of the "developed" world, there is now an
attempt to find solutions to urgent national problems - selecting
between the most convenient technologies, decoding them and/or if
necessary generating individual answers based on traditional repertoires
of technology. In other words, the challenge is not to slavishly
reproduce the technological model of the industrialized countries.
Rather, it consists of putting in motion a critical process for the selection
and generation of technologies at the local level, based on a clear vision
of where we want to go.
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY EDUCATION:
POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO TRANSFORMATION
From an educational point of view, the generation of a solid local
base in science and technology could be interpreted by some as a
problem of human resources. From this perspective what is needed is
to elevate the quality of scientific and technological education at all
levels and to form a critical group of scientists and technologists to
support it. These are, no doubt, immediate necessities which must be
attended to by the educational system. But to limit the contribution of
education to increasing such human resources means to reduce education
to a variable whose only purpose is that of providing the human capital
 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY EDUCATION 287

necessary to meet the goals of economic development.

An alternative vision conceives education as an agent of cultural
transformation. If we see the culture in a given country as a repertoire
of ideas, practices, and expressions which grow and are reborn
constantly in concrete historical and societal contexts, we can think of
education as a way not only to reproduce cultural values and pass them
on from generation to generation, but also as a way to generate new
values. Whether these new values challenge the dominant culture or not
- in this case the dominant model of scientific and technological
development - depends to a large degree on the political purpose of the
protagonists. From a critical perspective, education should contribute
to the challenging of traditional forms of production, as well as the
diffusion and utilization of scientific and technological knowledge.
Education in STS as a concept applicable to the Latin American
reality makes sense if
- we question the inherited forms of study and manipulation of reality,
reflected in the organization of the disciplines in our centers of higher
education and in the institutional organization of basic and applied
research;
- we question the inherited forms of social distribution of knowledge
between "those who think" and "those who act," reflected in a dual
education system which differentiates between general and vocational
education;
- we effectively combat the fragmentation of basic knowledge at the
primary and secondary levels that is reflected in a curricular design
centered on isolated subjects; and
- we promote an authentic democratization of scientific and
technological knowledge so that these concepts are not only
popularized through a massive informational campaign, but are also
integrated into the productive activity of the community in a selective,
free, and creative way.
So defined, an education which integrates STS goes further than the
evaluation of the social impact of technological development and of the
promotion of mechanisms of social action directed toward minimizing
negative effects. It presupposes radically different forms of the
investigation of reality as well as the revamping of education and its
curricular structure. It also demands the transformation of cultural
values associated with the forms of social organization for the
production, distribution, and utilization of scientific and technological
knowledge currently existing in society.
Autonomy in science and technical material is without doubt central
288 MARGARITA M. PENA BORRERO

in our project of development. We will achieve very little, however, if

innovative forms of scientific and technological development
implemented in our countries do not, as one of their principal purposes,
permit a generalized approach to the cultural principles and ways of
understanding that are the base of such development (Mockus, 1987).
Not only does this constitute a fundamental right for each and every
member of society, the democratization of scientific and technological
knowledge is necessary in order that a majority of the population can
participate in technological development as a national project.
- Translated by Ana Mitcham and Carl Mitcham
National Ministry of Education (Bogota, Colombia)

REFERENCES
Dagnino, Renato (1986). "Nuevas tecnologfas de desarrollo: Un dilema de los pafses
latinoamericanos," Economfa Cowmbiana, Supplement 11, pp. 13-28.
Herrera, Amilcar (1972). ·Social determinants of science policy in Latin America:
Explicit science policy and implicit science policy,· Journal of Devewpment Studies,
vol. 9, pp. 19-37.
Katz, Jorge, ed. (1987). Technowgy Generation in Larin American Manufacturing
Industries. New York: St Martin's Press.
Mockus, Antanas (1987). "Capacidad en ciencia y tecnologfa y formaci6n basica," in
Presidencia de la Republica, MEN, Colciencias, Foro Nacional sobre Polftica de
Ciencia y Tecno/ogfa; Memorias (Bogota: COLCIENCIAS), pp. 527-536.
Sagasti, Francisco (1981). Ciencia, tecn%gfa y desarrollo latinoamericano. Mexico:
Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica.
Waks, Leonard (1988). "Science, Technology and Society Education and Citizen
Participation." Working Paper, Center for Philosophy and Public Policy, College
Park, Maryland.
Waks, Leonard (1989). "Critical Theory and Curriculum Practice in STS Education,"
Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 8, pp. 201-207.
 JANE ROBINETT

THE MORAL VISION OF TECHNOLOGY

IN CONTEMPORARY LATIN AMERICAN FICTION

INTRODUCTION: PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE

The relationship between philosophy and literature has always been

both interesting and frustrating. Philosophers and writers of fiction
often explore the same ideas - ideas dealing with ethics, aesthetics,
logic, and metaphysics, with morals and values and how we make
choices, with the nature and meaning of human experience, and with the
laws which underlie knowledge and reality. But they do not approach
these questions in the same way. Philosophy deals explicitly with ideas,
and abstracts and examines them in a detailed, systematic manner.
Literature deals implicitly with ideas by embodying them in the feelings
and actions of characters, and the situations in which they find
themselves. Although structured, as any art form is, literature does not
set ideas out in the rigorous, systematic lines which philosophy does.
For a novelist to do so would be counterproductive. Novelists often
make rather dreary philosophers, just as philosophers often make rather
dreary novelists. Nevertheless, literature and philosophy present us with
complementary viewpoints on ideas which concern us all deeply. To say
that philosophy and literature represent theory and practice may be
simplistic, but it begins to explain the relationship between the two.
The theoretical propositions of the philosophy of technology, like
other theoretical propositions, need to be examined in light of the
realities of human society and experience. If they are valid, we will be
able to find them at work in the world around us. One way to examine
the practical value of theory is to turn to the rich world of contemporary
fiction. The primary subject of literature has always been the human
experience in all its variety - an experience which, especially in the
twentieth century, is shaped extensively by our technologies. Since this
is true, we should expect to find in literature some discussion of issues
raised in the philosophy of technology.
However, when we read fiction to examine philosophical issues, we
must do so with the understanding that those issues are not going to be
delineated with the same sharpness that we find in philosophical
discussions. Novelists are concerned with the lives and experiences of
the characters who populate their work. Their primary commitment is
not to the philosophic or the scientific or even to the factual, but to the

289
Carl Mitcham (ed.), PhiWsophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 289-295.
°1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
290 JANE ROBINETT

whole range of human experience.

Fiction can thus serve as counterpoint for the theoretical work of the
philosopher. It embodies both theoretical philosophical questions and
the dimension of moral values, since the characters in a novel, like their
non-fictional counterparts, reveal their attitudes toward technologies in
the way in which they put such technologies to use and are delighted by
or suffer from them.
TOWARD A MORAL VISION OF TECHNOLOGY
Most often we think of technology as a means of technical progress
or economic development and our vision of it is expressed only in
technical or economic terms. We are not accustomed to thinking of it
as something which possesses moral qualities. To speak of a moral
vision of technology is to consider technology not simply in terms of its
economic or technical character, but to view it in relation to the human
or the social values it promotes or inhibits.
A moral vision of technology is thus concerned with its relation to
both human beings and to nature. It assumes that technology is not
neutral, that is, that technological objects and systems carry in their
conception, design, and realization certain biases, biases which have
moral implications. This is easy to see in the case of weaponry, but
more difficult to appreciate and understand in the case of what appear
to be beneficial technologies such as hydroelectric projects, technologies
for agricultural improvement, educational technologies, and technologies
of mass communication. Beneficial technologies, once in place, form
a framework for our lives which we quickly learn to take for granted.
Lulled by lives made easier, we forget that there are alternatives, and
thus moral decisions to be made.
Technology has reshaped our lives whether we are rich or poor, urban
or rural, without regard to gender, race, or nationality. On the whole,
we have simply assumed that this reshaping has been for the better, and
have not questioned it. We can no longer afford to make such facile
assumptions. Industrial, agricultural, political, and military technologies
all need to be examined, and for this reason it is important that we
develop a moral vision by which to measure them. It is here where
novelists serve us well by turning their intelligence and imagination to
develop a view of technology which is seldom publicly articulated - but
which, because of its character, is fundamentally important.
To speak of technology in terms of good or bad, just or unjust, right
or wrong, in relation to human beings and the natural environment is to
possess a moral vision. Such a vision cannot be found in technical
reports or governmental bulletins or university textbooks, but in the
 mE MORAL VISION OF TECHNOLOGY 291

literature of the imagination. In the contemporary fiction of Latin

America we can fmd such a vision.
Realities in Latin American fiction are often characterized as falling
into two categories: political and magical. In each of these the presence
of technology, in the form of artifacts, techniques, and systems,
occasions an examination of complex questions of moral value. Both the
traditional values which are being threatened by the direct and indirect
effects of technology and those new values which are replacing or
displacing older ones are called into question.
Technology fmds its place in both of these realities, but when it
appears in fiction it frequently seems closely linked to magic. This
paper will limit itself to a closer look at the relation between technology
and magic in two well-known Latin American novels: Gabriel Garda
Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Isabel Allende's
The House of the Spirits (1982). Though technology is not the dominant
theme in these novels, it runs through them as a force to be reckoned
with, a force which comes constantly into conflict with human life and
the natural world. Technology is not, as is often the case in North
America, seen as some simple positive force. Nor does it always
provide the central framework for the lives of the characters. It mayor
may not be present, but it is not to be depended upon - the electricity
mayor may not work, running water is not to be taken for granted, the
ubiquitous telephone is not always there, and heat, cold, rain, and wind
are more often to be endured than escaped.
FROM ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOUWDE
TO mE HOUSE OF mE SPIRlIS
Marquez's novel begins with the introduction of technology in the
form of a pair of magnetized metal ingots into Macondo, a village lost
in the swamps and jungles. It arrives via a tribe of gypsies led by the
learned Melquiades. At that time, the narrator tells us, "the world was
so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them
it was necessary to point" (p. 11). The tension between
technology/science and magic is made immediately and continues to be
strong even though the town becomes increasingly familiar with this new
form of "magic."
Melquiades sees the science and technology he brings from the outside
world into Macondo as a kind of pure knowledge, a way of increasing
understanding of the world. This echoes the moral vision of the
scientific community, which sees technologies as neutral if not
essentially good. It is a view that is, like Melquiades himself at this
point, naive and simplistic. Jose Arcadio Buendia, the patriarch of the
292 JANE ROBINETI

family, wants to tum each new technological artifact into a tool (or
weapon) for gaining wealth, fame, or power. He is consistently
unsuccessful at this, as Melqufades warns him he will be. Attempts to
put technology to work on a practical level, for personal gain, in the
Eden of Macondo's early days, are doomed to fail.
Throughout the one hundred years of Macondo' s history the gypsies
periodically return bringing new discoveries, inventions, and diversions.
At first these are regarded as miraculous and magical by the
townspeople. Later they come to be seen as scientific, then as mere
amusement, and finally (the original tribe of Melqufades having died and
been replaced by a kind of inferior tribe), as perverted and undesirable.
At this point, the townspeople ban the gypsies and their technology from
Macondo. By the end of the novel, the town has sunk so far back into
its original primitive state that once again the magnetized ingots are
regarded as new and magical.
Technology, in Garcfa Mc1rquez's novel, is something foreign,
something that arrives from the outside world, brought by gypsies.
(Yankees and Europeans?) Not only is it seen as foreign in origin, but
also as embodying foreign assumptions about social conduct. As a
consequence, it is not to be trusted. The townspeople have a constant
suspicion that they are all somehow the victims of gypsy tricks. When
one of the seventeen sons of Colonel Aureliano Buendfa (all likewise
named Aureliano) brings the railroad to Macondo, and shortly afterward
electric lights, phonographs, telephones, and the cinema, the people
oscillate between excitement and disappointment, no longer able to
distinguish between reality and illusion. When the motion pictures
arrive, people nearly cause a riot in the cinema when they discover that
the actor whose troubles they suffered over, and whose death they had
witnessed the previous week, appears the following week, alive and well
in a new movie.
The idea of technology as the property and concern of foreigners is
common to both One Hundred Years of Solitude and The House of the
Spirits, as well as to other Latin American fiction. In itself, this idea
might seem to justify the ambiguity expressed about its value. But this
explanation alone is too facile. Technology is not just foreign in the
sense that it was created elsewhere, imported and imposed on the local
people. It is foreign to and at odds with the natural magic inherent in
nature itself, in the world of swamp and jungle. This magic, rooted in
the natural world, responds to the love between human beings and the
love human beings feel for the natural world of which they are a part.
In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the response of the natural world to
the love between man and woman is reflected in the astonishing
fecundity of the animals which belong to Aureliano Segundo and Petra
 THE MORAL VISION OF TECHNOLOGY 293
Cotes, his life-long mistress. In The House of the Spirits, we see how
the flowers in Clara's house respond when she dies and there is no one
to water or talk to them. They die as much for lack of conversation as
for lack of water.
In the realm of magical realities, the identification between technology
and magic is not as naive as it might appear. The primary reason lies
in the nature of magic itself. Magic is not something belonging to
primitive superstition or backwoods ignorance. Rather, it is founded on
a sophisticated understanding of human nature and its creativity. It has
to do with people's understanding of their proper place in the natural
world as one species among many, and with spiritual relationships based
on a profound kind of love and respect for the multiplicity of lives
contained in the world. There is no glorification of the primitive as
morally superior in itself. There is, in fact, a stress on the kind of
education which leads toward technological sophistication. But there is
also a deep concern for the price which is paid for this.
Magic is threatened when foreigners, technical specialists, arrive or
are summoned to the scene. The point is illustrated by the scene in One
Hundred Years of Solitude when Mr. Herbert arrives in town (by train,
of course) and discovers the bananas that he will later help convert into
a huge international business. Mr. Herbert gets out his instruments and
meticulously examines, dissects, and weighs the tiger-striped banana.
He calculates its breadth with a pair of gunsmith's calipers, then with a
second collection of instruments, measures the temperature, the level of
humidity in the atmosphere, and the intensity of the light. Although all
this attention lavished on a banana seems faintly ridiculous to everyone,
including the reader, the arrival of a fully developed technological
system in the form of the banana business will have disastrous
consequences.
The high-tech barbarian horde that with Mr. Herbert invades
Macondo changes the pattern of the rains, accelerates the crop cycle,
and moves the river from the place where it had always been and puts
it on the other side of town. A year later the only thing known about
this invasion is that the foreigners are planting banana trees. The
"banana plague" continues and, as might be expected, comes to a bad
end. There is a strike over working conditions. The workers ask for
better medical care and sanitary facilities. But the strike leads to martial
law and the massacre and secret disposal of three thousand four hundred
and eight people. The exploitation of nature includes the exploitation of
local workers, themselves simply a resource for the technological
system.
But the magic of the natural world has the last word over the
impressive technology of the gringos. The rains begin, and Mr. Brown
294 JANE ROBINETT

declares banana operations suspended until the rain is over. Four years
eleven months and two days later when the rain ends every banana tree
has been wiped out as has the whole colony of foreigners and nearly
everything which could be properly regarded as technology. But
Macondo will never recover.
The invasion of agricultural technology in the form of the banana
company is referred to in terms of a natural disaster. The narrator
refers to it as a "plague" and a "hurricane," and one of the characters
later declares that the rains were brought on by the engineers. More
tellingly, it turns into a real disaster for the town and its people. The
foreigners, bringers of science, technology, and disaster, are themselves
hardly affected. They simply go back to where they came from, leaving
the ruined land behind, in a perfect image of technological
irresponsibility.
The House 0/ the Spirits also sets up a tension between technology
and magic, although it coincides only to some extent with that found in
One Hundred Years o/Solitude. Instead, Allende draws a more complex
picture by laying out a parallel between the relationship of charity to
justice and that of technology to magic. Justice and magic are absolutes,
truths written with capital letters. As such, both have a kind of mythical
qUality. Opposed to these are the more practical or possible worlds of
charity and technology, which are what one does or has or uses when
justice and magic are impossible - which is most of the time. But
charity (and frequently, technology) is clearly a sop, totally inadequate
to solve the moral and practical problems of injustice and poverty.
Furthermore, technology is presented as a male domain, while charity
is something practiced by women and priests.
The relationship between charity and justice is illuminated for us by
the women in the novel. Initially, the narrative has little to do with
men. Charity, says Trueba, is only "good for building the character of
young ladies" (p. 137). Continuing a tradition which began with her
suffragette mother, Clara takes her daughter Blanca with her on visits
to the slums with food, clothing, and comfort for the poor. With her
usual keen insight (she is not called Clara for nothing), she remarks to
her daughter, "This is to assuage our conscience, darling . . . but it
doesn't help the poor. They don't need charity; they need justice" (p.
136).
But real justice is unobtainable, even farther out of reach than real
magic. Lacking justice, one must make do somehow with charity, that
lesser thing, which like the soup kitchens set up to feed the starving
children after the coup d'etat, is never enough, since for every child
who eats a plate of lentils there are five looking on, starving. Charity,
like technology, eases the conscience and puts a good face on bad
 THE MORAL VISION OF TECHNOLOGY 295
situations. But it changes nothing.
The same is true of technology. Trueba brings progress to his estate
at Tres Marias, builds brick houses for his peasants, sets up a school,
modernizes the dairy and, like the agricultural engineers who change the
rhythm of the banana harvest to suit the needs of a rapacious capitalism,
he "force[s] the cows to produce enough milk to meet his needs" (p.
59). But the lives of the peasants are not substantively different. They
remain subservient to the patron, almost entirely dependent on his good
will for their daily necessities, and indeed, for their very existence.
CONCLUSION: A MORAL CRITIQUE
In both novels, but especially in the work of Allende, the view of
technology includes a sharp, although not completely negative, moral
criticism. By itself, technology is unreliable and insufficient to better
the human condition and bring about a better world. It is, like charity,
simply a rather futile gesture in the face of overwhelming need, made
to assuage both the individual and collective social conscience. By itself
technology tends to alienate people, driving them farther from any small
remaining sources of the magic which might help them - just as charity
clouds the possibility for justice because it salves the consciences of
people and makes them think they are really doing something when little
is actually done other than cosmetic, superficial good.
Technology also tends to prevent any real examination of the problem
and so prevents any real solutions by giving the impression that
"something" is "being done" about the problem. As long as technology
remains foreign, neither developed nor adapted in the broadest sense to
the life of each region, there is no possibility of using it to improve and
maintain the lives of all living beings. But if a love and respect for life
in all its forms is combined with thoughtfully developed technology,
then extraordinary things, things almost magical, can happen.
San Diego State University - Imperial Valley Campus

REFERENCES
Isabel Allende. La casa de /os esp{ritus. Barcelona: Plaza y Janes, 1982. Trans.
Magda Bogin, as: The House of the Spirits. New York: Bantam, 1986. Quotations
in the text are from this English translation.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Cien aflos de soledad. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana,
1967. Trans. Gregory Rabassa, as: One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York:
Bard Avon, 1971. Quotations in the text are from this English translation.
 JUDITH SUTZ

THE SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES:
A LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE

ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK I:
THE RELEVANCE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES
Information technologies (ITs) are among the most important
scientific-technological developments of the past forty years. Beside
their technical importance, they are also ubiquitous in influence. This
social influence is both vertical - i.e., throughout various levels of the
economy and society - and horizontal - on living conditions in all
countries and societies.
With regard to living conditions, the particular aspect that best
exemplifies horizontal pervasiveness is the trend toward the "de-
materialization" of production. Labor and raw materials are no longer
the most significant costs of an increasing number of goods and services.
These have been replaced by information. As a result there is a
decrease in the strategic value of raw materials and the "comparative
advantage" of cheap labor. Continuous training and updating takes on
unprecedented direct economic significance due to the highly volatile and
changeable character of information. The existence of institutions
engaged in generating and circulating information becomes crucial. The
relevance of national innovating capacities tends to be comparable to that
of the labor force or the accumulation of wealth.
Highly industrialized societies are having some difficulty in adapting
to the demands imposed by ITs on their economic and social life, despite
the fact that the technologies were devised and develop in these
societies. Naturally everything is much more difficult for peripheral
societies. The most direct impact of ITs on the underdeveloped world
could be considered the erosion of its positions in the international
division of labor because it is less and less attractive as a place for direct
foreign investment. But the problem is actually far more serious and
can be phrased in the following questions: What is the self-
transformation capacity of underdeveloped societies when confronting the
challenge of ITs? What is their capacity to modify educational systems,
forms of production and organization, social institutions, in order to
make the most of information, which has become the new vital raw
material? Last but not least, what is their awareness of the strategic

297
Carl Mitcham (ed.), Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries, 297-308.
01993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
298 JUDITH SUTZ

need to carry out such transformations, and how do they envisage their
realization?
ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK II:
LATIN AMERICA IN THE 19908
In the Latin-American case the current social context hardly supports
a positive answer to such questions. The World Bank described the
1980s as the "lost decade," an expression that has become well-known
in Latin America. The causes for such a bitter judgment are
overwhelming. Virtually all economic indicators, as well as those used
to assess living conditions, dropped back to the levels of the 1970s, and
in some cases even further.
The return to democracy in five Latin-American countries -
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay - was no doubt
encouraging. But the decline in living conditions for the great majority
and, even worse, the forced adoption of strategies that do not promote
the primary goal of improving them, pose a major problem for
democratic stability in the region.
Moreover, a strong neoliberal economic ideology now prevails
throughout Latin America. This means, first off, a systematic effort at
privatization, both in the economic and the social fields. As far as the
social implications of ITs are concerned, two privatizations deserve
special attention: those of the telecommunications system and the
educational system. The former is direct and consists in transferring the
right to render a service and to decide on its future evolution to a
private agent. The latter is indirect and involves pushing people to seek
private educational solutions by reducing the public budget devoted to
education.
A second consequence of neoliberalism is state retrenchment not only
as owner or agent for the redistribution of resources, but also as policy
maker. Since market indicators are considered the main factor in the
determination of priorities, the points of view of various sectors are
ignored. Thus overwhelmed by the impact of neoliberal macroeconomic
policy, industrial policies disappear, technological policies are aborted,
and any scenario addressing the need for innovation policies cannot be
articulated. At the same time, organized social movements have
noticeably weakened, a phenomenon due in part to the political,
economic, and ideological collapse of East-European regimes. Lacking
a clear view of the future, and decimated by years of repression, Latin-
American social movements have few answers for the urgent problems
of the region and its people.
 SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES 299

It is not clear, however, that the expansion of neoliberalism and the

weakening of social movements is exclusive to Latin America or, more
generally, to the peripheral countries. Recent reflections by Riccardo
Petrella, Director of the European Program for Forecasting and
Assessment of Science and Technology (FAST), point to the presence
of a similar phenomenon in Europe. In fact, referring to what he
considers prevalent ideas in Europe, Petrella says that
- What prevails is a mercantile economy of a fundamentalist type; no
one questions the predominance of the private economy and market.
- The only thing that counts is competition - no longer seen as a
means but as an end in itself, giving rise to a vulgar social neo-
Darwinism.
- The common good has become opaque, with only individualism and
tribalism surviving.
- Under such conditions the purpose of the state is simply to service
business enterprise. 1
Despite the apparent universality of the neoliberal creed, marked
differences persist. Caricaturing somewhat, the essence of these
differences lies in the fact that in Latin America the creed is applied to
the letter, while in the developed world this is not the case. It is not
only Japan and the "Four Tigers" of Southeast Asia that demonstrate the
active participation of the state in the orientation of different strategic
options. 2 The very neoliberal government in Baden-Wurtember~
systematically applies industrial, technological, and innovation policies,
and what is done there on a small scale is done also by the European
Economic Community or, rather, by OECD, for the most developed
countries group.
The deepest difference, however, is not what is done or not done but
the reasons determining these attitudes. The "deviations" from the creed
clearly perceptible in the First World originate in a recognition that the
depth of productive transformations, mostly resulting from the explosion
of ITs, demand harmonizing efforts from society as a whole, so as to
make the most of their potentialities and, to some extent, to minimize
risks. In Latin America, at the same time, insensitivity in the
application of the model is partly due to the fact that phenomena such
as the transformation of the technical system and its consequences have
not even been recognized as problems.
300 JUDITH SUTZ

ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK ill:

THE EVOLUTION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES
AND THEIR POTENTIAL IMPACTS
The evolution of information technologies makes possible a
phenomenon called the "customizing" of production. This consists in
the construction of economically feasible technical solutions tailored to
the needs of individual end users. That is, it is becoming technically
feasible to mass produce without standardizing. The introduction of ITs
into the whole sequence from design to production to consumption, and
vice versa, creates this new possibility, the social consequences of which
can hardly be exaggerated.
First, there is the potential for a convergence of some of the features
of craft production with customized or tailor-made design production. 4
Second, the exploitation of this new possibility demands an enormous
expansion of innovating capabilities, in both society and particular
enterprises. There emerges the possibility that the person who innovates
is not only the person who designs but also the person who demands a
design. This creates the idea of user as innovator as a most influential
social fact. S
The process of innovation almost by definition has no limits apart
from creative imagination. Now the expansion of this no-limit
phenomenon poses crucial challenges to both education and re-education.
The possible practice of permanent innovation has deep cultural and
political implications. No isolated institution will be able to carry out
the process on its own. This leads to the idea of some national system
of innovation to focus the cooperative aspects, the interconnection of
all participating agents, in the materialization of different innovations.
Thus within the very neo-Darwinian framework referred to by Petrella
there emerges a new collaborative tendency which, although certainly
not inspired by an ideal of solidarity, at least recognizes the limits
imposed upon efficiency by excessive individualism.
Third, there are the particular social consequences of technological
evolution for the countries of Latin American. Perhaps a good way to
illustrate this is to think back thirty, twenty, or even ten years and
imagine some sanitation, agricultural, industrial, educational, or urban
problem in the region. In most cases the technological solutions for
such problems had already been "prefabricated." The problem
specificity might cause at most a slight variation in the design of the
solution.
The present search for flexibility in the answers to more
individualized and precise demands could be put to good use in
underdeveloped countries. The proper exploitation of ITs could give
 SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES 301

rise to major positive social impacts, especially in the form of an

increased selection of endogenous technological capabilities compatible
with a greater technological modernity. The design of technological
solutions tailor-made to existing problems has always been an alternative
to the utilization of predetermined solutions. But this was hardly if ever
explicitly recognized as such, especially in the underdeveloped world.
At present, the flexibility with which ITs endow design and
manufacture, as well as current discourse praising tailor-made goods,
which is a consequence of this flexibility, increases awareness of
alternatives and broadens possibilities for the application in
underdeveloped or developing situations of a model which is being
increasingly practiced in developed countries.
A PESSIMISTIC BUT PROBABLE SCENARIO
Is there a real possibility that the new technological opportunities
offered by ITs will be properly used in our countries? What kinds of
problems could make the best use of the special potentials of ITs
understood in the broadest senser
Mention should be made of two broad kinds of problem - those for
which rigid technology has not so far offered reasonable solutions, and
those getting highly inadequate solutions for whatever reasons.
The first type of problem exists mainly among medium and low-
income economic and population sectors: small and medium-sized
enterprises requiring partial automation, digital telephone exchanges for
towns with less than one thousand inhabitants, small medical electronic
devices allowing the extensive application of modem treatments, simple
but efficient systems for data collection and transfer for rural areas, etc.
The second can be linked to large-scale projects, many of them being in
the public sphere up to now, such as country-wide data communication
packages, the construction of automatic systems for exchanging electric
power, and more generally, all the great technical systems that are
strongly based upon computerized elements and which until now have
been produced and installed on a tum-key basis.
With regard to the "small-scale" problems, a major difficulty is that
those who deal with them have no support whatsoever, so they know
nothing about the abilities of ITs to provide solutions. Is any small or
medium-sized enterprise in Latin America in a position to learn by itself
that it is possible to tailor a simple data collection system likely to
increase productivity by, for instance, rationalizing energy expenses?
Is there a team of physicians linked to the lower-income population
sector in a position to design and eventually foster the production of
computerized electronic equipment that is not highly sophisticated but
302 JUDITH SUTZ

nevertheless performs some vital functions? Is there a small rural

municipality that knows it can have access to new small-scale
communications systems that are both efficient and inexpensive? There
are solutions, but those in need either do not know of their existence or
lack sufficient strength to acquire them.
The recognition of this situation (which is also common in developed
societies), is at the root of the broad working guidelines defined by new
innovation policies, particularly as far as the attention to technological
demand is concerned. 7 In Latin America during the 1990s, where most
policies stress the fact that the only valid indicators are those coming
from the market, it will not be at all easy for these positive IT impacts
to materialize.
A similar argument applies to "large-scale" problems linked to major
enterprises, generally in the public sphere. Since more often than not
the solutions to such problems were sought from large international
firms, in many cases because of pressures exercised by these same
firms, why should we expect a technological reversal based on the
smallest, most efficient tailor-made components once privatization,
which is likely to mean "foreignization, has taken place?
H

A pessimistic scenario, i.e., one in which the potentialities of ITs do

not materialize, is in fact highly likely. But the scenario deserves its
adjective not only for all that which will not be done. Unfortunately it
is also likely that the effective application of ITs will have a negative
social impact.
Where there exist highly heterogeneous social situations, the use of
ITs directed to the most restricted and wealthy population sectors can do
nothing but increase the gap between rich and poor. The consequences
of this are potentially catastrophic because they may, within the
framework of increasingly open economies, make it impossible for many
people to develop even minimally competitive economic activities. This
in turn will push increasing numbers of people toward a subsistence
economy, with the serious consequences of social impoverishment. At
the same time, failure to make use of the opportunities offered by ITs
with regards to the strengthening of the local capabilities of design and
technological construction will inevitably contribute to maintaining and,
possibly, deepening the present status of technical dependence.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO CONSTRUCT A DIFFERENT SCENARIO?
Technological opportunities versus social political checks. Is it
possible in Latin America to loosen the latter so as to be able to make
the most of the former? We would like to approach this topic from
three perspectives: technical, sociocultural, and political.
 SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES 303

Technical perspective. The technical perspective causes us to wonder

whether the technological capacities to make use of ITs exist in Latin
America. It seems obvious that with regard to the Third World as a
whole it is extremely difficult to give an affirmative answer. For the
Latin-American region, however, this may not as much the case. In
virtually all the countries of the South technological capacities do exist,
and with the addition of the new potentialities of ITs, these could give
rise to a truly qualitative leap in the search for efficient technical
solutions to problems that remain unresolved.
Just to give one example, consider the case of Uruguay. In Uruguay
electronic pacemakers have been designed and manufactured that cost
three times less than imported ones. Thanks to this development, the
whole population now has access to this device. Modular telex stations
have also been designed and manufactured in Uruguay, beginning with
124 lines that were expanded according to the evolution of demand. A
data commutation package, URUPAC, has been designed and
manufactured locally. An automation system for the scouring and baling
of wool has been designed and manufactured, and has been recognized
by the French fIrm that at present owns the facilities as one of the most
efficient systems known. Complex information systems for both public
and private use, such as the computer network of the Federated Agrarian
Cooperatives, have been designed and installed.
Insistence on local design and manufacture capacity - which is
certainly not the same as any pretension to autarchy - is justifIed
because allover the world tailor-made design has a strong local
component. This point leads in turn to recognition of the central role
of local training and education. For too long a time, training in ITs in
Latin America, particularly in the fIeld of computers, was determined
by the need to train users. It is crucial to reverse that trend in order
to strengthen the training of innovators.8
Let us emphasize that what can be said for Uruguay is also applicable
to Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Venezuela, and Mexico. Indeed, the whole
region is sure to achieve this, though on a lesser scale. Let us not
forget that globally considered, Latin America is the most industrialized
region in the periphery. Therefore, from a technical perspective, it is
possible to construct a positive scenario for the use of ITs.
Sociocultural perspective. From a sociocultural perspective, there
are two aspects that will no doubt influence the viability of this positive
scenario. The fIrst is associated with what could be termed the
"technological image" (and even self-image) of the region, that is, the
self-awareness of one's own technological capacities, and the belief that
self-defIned technical solutions are possible. Such a technological
image is virtually nonexistent in Latin America today. People do not
304 JUDITHSUTZ

that there are relevant local capacities to do things. They believe that
technology, and particularly IT, is an exclusive product of development.
Thus they do not find answers or, rather, they do not even formulate the
questions.
The second is related once again to education, though from a different
angle. The basic question is, What do Latin American engineers want?
Do they want to seek original solutions to indigenous problems? Or do
they only want to identify with that which is more modem, more
sophisticated, more powerful - disregarding its real usefulness - in
order to feel that they "live" in the developed world? The answer has
a decisive social relevance, because the influence of engineers in the
adoption and application of all kinds of solutions, particularly in the case
of ITs, is well known. Concern for the social loyalties of those who
possess the technical knowledge thus becomes a priority to which the
educational system may provide some answer. Science, technology,
society, and development are issues to be studied and debated at the
university level so that on reaching the stage of potential practice the
decisions made by engineers are based upon socially constructed
loyalties. 9
Political perspective. Finally, from a political perspective a difficult
question arises. Is it possible within the macropolicies framework to
open opportunities to ITs from meso- or micro-levels, so that their social
impact is as positive as it should be? This question is part of a more
general problem that can be phrased as follows: Will the strong
presence of macroorientations totally opposed to the implementation of
sectoral policies allow the construction of spaces for innovation policies
at the meso and micro levels? An affirmative answer would almost be
equivalent to stating that Latin America has not missed the opportunity
offered by ITs to move toward a self-constructed modernity.
Foundations for an answer of this kind are not easy to identify, but we
would like to comment on an experience that shows movement in this
direction is possible.
In Uruguay, within the framework of some recent research into the
electronics complex,IO the almost total lack of information in certain
productive sectors about the existence of a national technological
capability in professional electronics was identified as a problem. The
result of this lack of knowledge was that the above-mentioned sectors
either did not tum to electronics at all or that they imported solutions
that were in general expensive and did not meet their needs. Since the
research had generated abundant information about the professional
electronics industry, a decision was made to publish a directory of
enterprises working in this area and to organize a workshop to be
attended by everyone interested. And there, within the framework of
 SOCIAL IMPUCATIONS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES 305

that workshop, a peculiar phenomenon took ~lace that triggered a

participation mechanism nobody had anticipated. 1
Electronics entrepreneurs, for the first time, were given an overall
vision of their own sector. It was no longer each of them and two or
three colleagues or rivals, but there were over forty enterprises
represented, with a considerable turnover and a diversified production.
The feeling of belonging to a group appeared for the first time, and with
it a question. Should we not get together to find out who we are, what
we do, and what we could do, not as individuals but as a sector? In the
governmental sphere, a sector whose existence had been ignored
emerged as such, showing significant levels of technological dynamism
and a high problem resolving capacity. The truth is that less than a
month after the workshop, the Ministry of Industry and Energy - a
meso level par excellence - invited both the enterprises included in the
electronics directory - a micro level - and the research team to a
series of meetings. These meetings gave rise to more frequent contacts
among the enterprises, which resulted in the identification of a series of
common problems.
It thus becomes obvious that the lack of information existing in the
country about what is done is a major problem. So is the evident
mistrust toward that which is national, which is increased when this
involves complex technological production. So is the state policy, which
is more often than not unpredictable. The result is that enterprises need
equipment and instruments that could sometimes be shared but cannot
be purchased individually, and they need information to which they have
no access. The idea of creating a collective body capable of organizing
and centralizing some of these aspects in order subsequently to socialize
them started to take shape. The idea was to purchase equipment whose
use was to be shared, to facilitate access to information, to formulate
common positions vis-a-vis the different aspects of negotiation with the
state, common undertakings in exports, etc. A few months later, this
idea materialized with the incorporation of the Grupo de Inter~
Econ6mico de la Industria Electr6nica Profesional Uruguaya, a collective
entrepreneurial body, which is already taking its first steps, especially
in negotiations associated with MERCOSUR, the subregional integration
process with Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.
Minimal as it may seem, this example shows a certain encouraging
attitude at the meso level and a certain capacity for the constitution of
actors at the micro level. The existence of this situation linked to work
with state-of-the-art technologies was not evident a priori. Fostering
initiatives of this kind, in each country, according to its circumstances,
may constitute a concrete affirmative answer to our fundamental
question, above, about a different, non-pessimistic scenario for the
306 JUDITH SUTZ

future. 12

WHAT KIND OF FOREIGN SUPPORT

WOULD THIS ALTERNATIVE REQUIRE?
The basic idea is that classic theories of technology transfer are not
much help any more. The issue in question is support for the creation
of capacities, as well as the creation of the awareness that said capacities
are useful to construct suitable solutions to problems, which are really
those identified by people as such.
According to the pessimistic hypothesis, that doubts the possibility for
forward movement at the level of macropolicies, the idea would be the
promotion of a meso-Ievel-to-meso-Ievel transfer, from development to
the periphery, in addition to starting work together. What we need is
a transfer promoting innovation policies and industrial extensionist
policies; support for research into the technological reality and the
massive dissemination of results; encouragement in the teaching of
science, technology, society, and development; support for IT producer
associations; the fostering of joint projects for IT development; the
stimulation of prospective studies that help orient the choices made in
relation to ITs.
What organizations could participate from one side or the other in
these particular forms of transfer? The local level plays a major role
here. The government and the local institutions may have valuable
experience that is worth sharing. In addition, research organizations,
out of an overall concern both for development in general and for the
direction of technical change and its social impact in particular, could
see their perspectives greatly enriched by the strengthening of joint
working links, which are at present far too feeble. The main aim of
technology transfer, namely, meeting certain needs, would thus find a
different field of application. In the midst of a general indifference if
not contempt for concern about the social consequences of IT and of
technical modernization, the transfer of this certainly would be of great
help.

CONCLUSION
The true opportunity of ITs for underdeveloped countries lies in the
possibility of designing and constructing in the countries themselves
technical solutions to endogenously defined problems. The positive
social impacts of ITs is dependent on the materialization of this
possibility, which is not an easy task. Deceiving ourselves in this
regard will serve no purpose.
 SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES 307

Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican writer, was obviously not thinking about
technology when he stated, at the beginning of this decade: "Latin
America is on its own. The Continent has not been invited to the feast
of the future." But his reflection also applies to the case of technology.
Those from within the countries who think that the problem of
modernization comes down to importing solutions, and those from
without who regard the region as a great market, leave no room at that
table for Latin America.
I think Carlos Fuentes was right. Latin America - and not only
Latin America - has not been invited to the feast of the future.
Naturally, it remains to be seen what this future is. The construction of
the forces enabling us to share that table, and enjoy a feast to be defined
by us all, is an enormous and urgent challenge. Let us hope that
cooperation and mutual support will give us the strength to take up that
challenge - and to invite ourselves even if we have not been invited.
Uruguay Center for Information Studies (Montevideo)

NOTES
1. "Puissance technologique et fragilite sociale, " round table discussion with Riccardo
Petrella, Futuribles (July-August 1991), pp. 39-44. See especially p. 42.
2. W. Hillebrand, "The Newly Industrializing Economies as Models for Establishing
a Highly Competitive Industrial Base - What Lessons to Learn?" in The New
Industrializing Economies of Asia (New York: Springer, 1990).
3. H. Schmitz, "Industrial Districts: Model and Reality in Baden-Wurtemberg," in
F. Pyke and W. Sengenberger, ed., Industrial Districts and Local Economic
Regeneration (Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies, forthcoming).
4. "In the long run, the convergence of market forces, consumer preferences and
technological opportunities suggest the possibility of 'totally flexible' production systems,
in which the craft era tradition of custom-tailoring of products to the needs and tastes
of individual consumers will be combined with the power, precision, and economy of
modern production technology." The MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity,
Made in America: Regaining the Productive Edge (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989),
p. 131.
5. The relevance of the user as innovator was demonstrated in a recent book: Eric
von Hippel, The Sources of Innovation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).
The relationship user-producer as a source of socially useful innovations has also been
analyzed by Ben-Alee Lundvall, "Innovation as an Interactive Process: From User-
Producer Interaction to the National System of Innovation," in Dosi, et al., eds.,
Technical Change and Economic Theory (London: Pinter Publishers, 1988), pp. 349-
369.
6. ITs in their broadest sense will be taken to include all technologies within the
electronics complex that runs from industrial and agricultural automation through
telecommunications to medical electronics, etc. This broad defmition is justified insofar
as all the technologies in question are fundamentally based on the generation, transfer,
processing, and retrieval of information.
308 JUDITH SUTZ

7. A very interesting case of recognition of these problems and the action taken to
solve them is analyzed in M. Dodgson, "Research and Technology Policy in Australia:
Legitimacy in Intervention," Science and Public Policy, vol. 16, no. 3 (June 1989), pp.
159-166.
8. On this subject, see J. Sutz, "La formaci6n de recursos humanos en informatica:
Una aproximaci6n a la situaci6n latinoamericana," in Transferencia de tecnolog{a
informatica en la administraciOn pUblica (Caracas: Planeta, 1988).
9. In the Science Faculty of the Central University of Venezuela, there is an
experience, which has lasted six years, of teaching "Computers and Society" to students
in computer science courses, that has had the extensive support of the students. A
similar experience is taking place in Uruguay with a "Technology and Society" course
in the Faculty of Engineering.
10. The research project is called "Uruguay: Problems and Prospects of the Industrial
Electronics System in a Small Country" and is carried out at the Centro de
Informaciones y Estudios del Uruguay with the support of the Volkswagen Foundation.
The hardware and software industries, the public policies for the sector and the training
of human resources were studied within the framework of this project.
11. Later, the research project produced another enterprise directory, this time of
computer enterprises, whose diffusion also took place at a workshop.
12. Another recent initiative pointing in the same direction, and growing in the region,
is related to the link between the university and the productive sectors.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
LUIS A. CAMACHO NARANJO (Costa Rica) is professor in the school of
philosophy at the Universidad de Costa Rica, president of the Asociaci6n
Costarricense de Filosoffa, and a founding member of the Asociaci6n
Costarricense de Historia y Filosofia de la Ciencia. He received his Ph.D.
from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Recent
publications include Conocimiento y poder (1983), Introduccion a la logica
(1983) and Logica simbOlica (1987).

ENRIQUE DUSSEL (Mexico), born in Argentina, with doctorates in philosophy

(Universidad Central de Madrid), history (Sorbonne), and theology (Honoris
causa, Freiburg, Switzerland), is professor at the Universidad Aut6noma de
Mexico (UNAM). His numerous books, which have been published in Spanish,
English, French, Portuguese, and German, include A History of the Church in
Latin America (1982), Filosofta de la produccion (1984), Philosophy of
Liberation (1985), Ethics and Community (1987), El Marx definitivo, 1863-
1882 (1990), and 1492: El ellcubrimiellto del otro (1992).
JOSE GAOS (Mexico), was born in Gij6n, Spain, in 1901, and exiled by the
Civil War to Mexico, where he died in 1969. His major work De lafilosofta
(1962) is an exhaustive phenomenological study of verbal expressions in
philosophic thought. He is also the translator of Martin Heidegger's El ser y
el tiempo (1951).

RAUL FORNET-BETANCOURT (Federal Republic of Germany), a native of

Cuba, is currently editor of Concordia, and director of the Latin American
Studies Institute in Aachen, Germany. He is author of Kommentiene
Bibliographie zur Philosophie in Lateillamerika (1984), Problemas actuales de
lafilosofta en hispanoamerica (1985), and editor of Ethik in Deutschland und
Lateinamerika Heute (1987).
MARfA LUISA GARCIA-MERIT A (Spain) is a younger member at the
University of Valencia of the inter-institutional Instituto de Investigaciones sobre
Ciencia y Tecnologia (INVESCIT).
JUAN DAVID GARCiA BACCA (Venezuela), was born in Pamplona, Spain,
in 1901. Exiled from Spain following the Civil War, he taught in Ecuador,
Mexico, and for many years at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Upon
retirement he returned to Ecuador where he died in 1992. Among his over
thirty books are translations of Plato and other classic philosophers, textbooks
on logic and systematic philosophy, historical anthologies, and numerous
contributions to the philosophy of technology. For philosophy of technology,
see especially: Curso sistematico defilosofta actual (1969), Teorfa y metateorfa
de la ciencia (2 vols., 1977 and 1984), Elogio de la tecnica (1987), and De
magia a tecnica (1989).

MARCOS GARCiA DE LA HUERTA I. (Chile) received his Ph.D. in

philosophy from the Universite de Paris and has done postdoctoral research at
309
310 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

the Universitiit Miinchen. Currently he is professor in Estudios Humanfsticos

of the Facultad de Ciencias Ffsicas y Matematicas at the Universitiit de Chile
in Santiago. His books include La tecnica y el estado moderno (1978) and
Crftica de la razon tecnocratica (1985).

ERNESTO MAYZ VALLENILLA (Venezuela), having studied in Venezuela

and Germany, taught at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, and served as
founding rector of the Universidad Sim6n Bolivar (1969-1979), is currently
director of the philosophy unit of the Instituto Intemacional de Estudios
Avanzados (IDEA), Caracas, Venezuela. With special reference to the
philosophy of technology, he is the author of Del hombre y su aliena cion
(1966), Esbozo de una cr(tica de la razon tecnica (1974), and Fundamentos de
la meta-tecnica (1990).

MANUEL MEDINA (Spain) is professor at the Universidad de Barcelona and

vice president of the Instituto de Investigaciones sobre Ciencia y Tecnologfa
(lNVESCIT). His publications include De la techne a la tecnolog(a (1985) and,
with others, New Worlds, New Technologies, New Issues (1992).

CARL MITCHAM (United States) is Director of the Science, Technology, and

Society Program at Pennsylvania State University. His publications include
Philosophy and Technology: Readings in the Philosophical Problems of
Technology (1972, 1983), iQue es lafilosofia de la tecnolog(a? (1989), and
Thinking Through Technology: The Path between Engineering and Philosophy
(forthcoming) .
LEOPOLDO MOLINA P. (Venezuela) received his doctorate from the
Universidad Central de Venezuela and teaches at the Universidad de los Andeas.

HUGO PADILLA (Mexico) is professor at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma

de Mexico (UNAM). His publications include Tratamiento proposicional del
algebra de clases (1964), the translation of Gottlob Frege's Conceptografla
(1972), and (with Arturo Azuela and Jaime Labastida) Educaci6n por la ciencia:
El metodo cient(fico y la tecnolog(a, 2d ed. (1980).

MARGARITA M. PENA BORRERO (Colombia) is a historian and holds a

doctorate in Education. She is currently working with the Ministry of
Education in Colombia. She is the author of a textbook for teaching history as
well as diverse articles in the area of education.

RAM6N QUERALT6 MORENO (Spain) received his Ph.D. in philosophy

from the Universidad de Sevilla where he is currently professor. His books
include Naturaleza y finalidad en Arist6teles (1983) and La cienciajrente a las
expectativas del hombre contemporaneo (1983).

MIGUEL ANGEL QUINTANILLA (Spain) is professor at the Universidad de

Salamanca, and editor of Arbor, a journal of the Consejo Superior de
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 311

Investigaciones Cientificas. He has also served as a senator in the Spanish

Cortes, where he was president of the Comisi6n Parlamentaria de Ciencia y
Tecnolog{a, and as editor of Diccionario de fiLosofia contemporanea (3d edition,
1985). His book, TecnoLogfa: Un enfoque filosofico (1989), was awarded the
Premio Fundesco de Ensayo for 1988.

EDGAR ROY RAMiREZ BRICENO (Costa Rica), following graduate work at

the Catholic University of America, is associate professor of philosophy,
Universidad de Costa Rica and the Instituto Tecnol6gico de Costa Rica. He
is a founding member of the International Development Ethics Association,
and the author of Ciencia, responsabiJidad y vaLores (1980) and La
responsabiJidad etica en ciencia y tecnoLogfa (1987), among other works.
JANE ROBINETT (United States) received her doctorate in North American
literature from the University of Notre Dame, and teaches at the San Diego
State University-Imperial Valley campus. She taught for five years in
Barcelona, Spain, and has been a Fulbright Lecturer at the Universidad de
Costa Rica.

EDUARDO SABROVSKY J. (Chile), an engineer and philosopher, has served

as editor of the computer magazine Quinta Generacion (1989-1990) and as an
independent consultant with the Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios
Transnacionales (ILET). His publications include Hegemonfa y racionalidad
polftica (1989) and TecnoLogfa y modernidad en Latinoamerica (1992).
JOSE SANMARTIN (Spain), after studies in Spain and Germany, is currently
professor at the Universidad de Valencia. He is the founding president of the
Instituto de Investigaciones sobre Ciencia y Tecnologia (INVESCIT).
Publications include Los nuevos redentores: Reflexiones sobre La ingenierfa
genetica, La sociobiologfa y el mundo feliz que nos prometen (1987) and
TecnoLogfa y futuro humano (1990).
JUDITH SUTZ (Uruguay), an electrical engineer with an advanced degree in
the social sciences from the Universite de Paris, is with the Centro de
Informaciones y Estudios del Uruguay, Montevideo.

CARLOS VERDUGO S. (Chile) received his doctorate from Washington

University in St. Louis, Missouri, and has done research on the philosophy of
Karl Popper at the London School of Economics. Currently, he is professor at
the Instituto de Estudios Humanisticos of the Universidad de ValparaISo.

LEOPOLDO ZEA (Mexico) studied at the Universidad Aut6noma de Mexico

where he is now professor. Two books available in English are The Latin-
American Mind (1963) and Latin America and the World (1969).
 NAME INDEX

This index is for all proper personal names except those which occur in
the preface, bibliographies, or as authors and translators of articles. An
n after a number indicates occurrence in the notes.
Abbagnano, Nicola xxxvn Bogen, J .E. 150
Abrecht, Paul xxxvn Bohman, James F. 266n
Acevedo, Jorge xxxivn Bohr, Niels 74
Adorno, Theodor 41 Bolivar, Simon 281n
Agassi, Joseph 130n Born, Hedwig 97n
Ainsa Amigues, Fernando 281n Born, Max 89, 97n
Allende, Isabel 291,294-295 Borremans, Valentina 98n
Allende, Salvador xxi Braun, E. 185
Althusser, Louis 31, 38n Brenes Mesen, Roberto 71
Aman, Kenneth xxxivn Brody, B. 67n
Amy, OJ. 267n Broncano, F. 174, 193n
Anaxagoras 160 Brown, Harold 267n
Anaximander 159 Buber, Martin 266n
Anaximenes 159 Bunge, Mario xx, 62-63, 67n, 87n,
Anders, Gunther 72 129, 130n, 174, 176, 193n
Angel, Jerome 37n Butler, Matilda 266n
Anglin, Gary J. 266n
Aquinas, Thomas 247n Callahan, Raymond E. 267n
Archimedes 32, 125 Camacho Naranjo, Luis A. xx, xxiii,
Arendt, Hannah 12 xxv, xxxiii, 131n
Aristotle 4-5, 9-10, 153, 156-158, Campanella, Thomas 18
161-162, 166, 235, 237, 243-244, Campbell, J.A. 181
247n, 253 Carnot, Nicolas Leonard Sadi
Ashby, W. Ross 194n 245
Asquith, Peter O. 87n Carpenter, Stanley R. 208n
Athanasiou, Tom 58n Carpio, Adolfo P. xxxivn
Axelos, Kostas 16, 37n Cascardi, Anthony J. 267n
Casey, Timothy xxxivn
Bacon, Francis 6-7,18,31,34,125, Castoriadis, Cornelius 96, 98n
163 Caturelli, Alberto xxxvn
Bartning, Otto 209n Caufield, Catherine 67n
Baumgartner, Hans Michael xxxvn Charles V of Germany 136, 138
Behrens, William W. 37n Church, Alonzo 43
Bell, C. 59n Columbus, Christopher 135, 136
Benhabib, Seyla 267n Comte, Auguste 6
Bergman, Frithjof 267n Cooper, C. 37n
Berk, A.A. 181 Corominas, Joaquim xxvii
Black, Max 87n Coronado, Guillermo 74, 76
Blanco, Papa 84 Crocker, David xxxvn, 98n
Blanshard, Brand 67n Cuena, J. 193n
Block, Ernst 36 Cutcliffe, Stephen H. xxvii, xxxvin
Boden, Margaret 193n Oagnino, Renato 284

313
314 INDEX

Dahlstrom, Daniel O. 67n Fikes, R.E. 181

Darwin, Charles 299-300 Fiore, Quentin 37n
Dascal, M. 78n Flores, Fernando xxi, xxxivn, 52, 59n
Dengo, Maria Eugenia 78n Flores Hernandez, Luis xxii
Dearden, R.F. 267n Forester, John 267n
Descartes, Rene 6,31,34,41,45, Fornet-Betancourt, Raul xxxi, xxxiv
48-49,58n Franco, Francisco xx, xxvii
Dessauer, Friedrich xix, 280n Francis I of France 136, 138-139
Dewey, John 18, 266n Freire, Paolo 263, 266n-267n
Dickinson, David 194n Freud, Sigmund 241
Didier, Julia xxxvn Friedman, Milton 33
Diels, Hermann 258n Fuentes, Carlos 307
Dilthey, Wilhelm 74, 229
Dionysius II of Syracuse 166n Gadamer, Hans-Georg 266n-267n
Dodgson, M. 308n Galbraith, John Kenneth 11
Domar, Evsey D. 21, 37n Galilei, Galileo 6-7, 72, 114, 169,
Dosi, Giovanni 307n 172n, 232-233, 242
Doyle, J. 181 Gamow, George 239, 247n
Dreyfus, Hubert L. xxi, 47, 49-54, Gaos, Jose xxv-xxvi, xxxi, xxxiii,
58n,59n xxxvn,119n
Dreyfus, Stuart 58n Garagorri, Paulino xxxivn
Drucker, Peter 59n GarCIa, J.J. 78n
Dulles, John Foster 140, 141n Garda Bacca, Juan David xx,
Durbin, Paul T. xxxvin, 87n xxix-xxx, xxxiv, xxxvin, 131n, 243,
Durkheim, Emile 6 247n
Dussel, Enrique xxiv, xxxiii GarcIa de la Huerta, Marcos xxi-xxii,
Dvorak, Robert 280n xxxiii, 37n
Dworkin, Gerald 33 GarcIa Marquez, Gabriel 291-292
Dworkin, Martin S. 266n Garda-Merita, Marfa Luisa xxviii,
Drucker, Peter 51 xxxiii
Garda Noriega, B. 180
Edwards, Paul xxv Gardner, Howard 266n
Einstein, Albert 97n, 233, 245 Gauss, Karl Friedrich 233, 240, 245
Elejabarrieta, F. 148 Giere, Ronald N. 87n
Ellul, Jacques xxix, xxxivn, 21, 37n, Giraux, Henry 266n
148,283 Goel, N.S. 194n
Emerson, Ralph Waldo 281n Goldman, Steven L. xxvii, xxxv in ,
Engelhardt, H. Tristram Jr. 266n 208n
Engels, Friedrich 11 Gonzalez Seara, L. 149
Euclid 240, 243 Gordius, King of Phrygia 137
Eyzaguirre, Jaime 27 Gracia, J.J. 74
Gramsci, Antonio 31
Facundo Quiroga, Juan 281n Gray, Dorian 241
Farias, Victor xxxivn Greenberg, Mark xxxivn
Faustino Sarmiento, Domingo 281n Greene, Maxine 266n
Feibleman, James K. 209n Groen, J.J. 149
Fermi, Enrico 245 Groethuysen, Bernhard xxxvn
Fernandez, Antonio 267n Grosseteste, Robert 125
Ferrater Mora, Jose xxv, xxxvn, 89, Gusdorf, Georges 74
97n Gutierrez, Miguel S. 72
Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas von 244
Feyerabend, Paul K. 87n Haar, M. 60n
 INDEX 315

Habennas, Jiirgen 267n Kohak, Erazim V. 267n

Hafele, W. 209n Kranz, Walther 258n
Halsey, A.H. 266n Krell, David F. 38n, 266n
Hanson, Norwood Russell 87n Krings, Hennann xxxvn
Hayek, Friedrich von 33, 108 Kropotkin, Peter xxix
Habennas, Jiirgen xxii, xxix, 37n, Khrushchev, Nikita 141n
39, 41-42, 47, 53-54, 57n-58n, 60n Kuhn, Thomas S. 87n
Hegel, G.W.F. 4, 18-19, 34, 37n,
41,236,242,244-245,247n Ladriere, Jean 97, 98n
Heidegger, Martin xx-xxii, xxv, Lagrange, Joseph Louis 245
xxix, xxxi, xxxivn-xxxvn, 3, 16, Lalande, Andre xxxvn
34-35, 37n-38n, 41, 47-50, 52, Laplace, Pierre Simon de 245
54-56, 57n-6On, 76, 111, 129, Larson, Ronald W. 208n
260,262-263, 266n, 271, 274-279 Lascaris Comneno, Constantino xxiii,
Heisenberg, Werner 245 71-73, 78n
Hempel, Carl G. 198, 208n Layton, Edwin T. Jr. 87n
Herrera, Amilcar 285 Lehmann, David 267n
Hiley, David R. 266n Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von 233,
Hillebrand, W. 307n 245
Hippel, Eric von 307n Leonard, Stephen T. 267n
Hippias 9 Leontieff, Wassily 87n
Hinkelammert, Franz 35, 38n Leroi-Gourhan, Andre 4, 37n
Hippocrates 165n Levy, J.M. 147
Hirst, P.R. 267n Linton, Ralph 74
Hobbes, Thomas 5, 140 Lipsey, Richard G. 67n
Hobsbawm, EJ. 37n Liston, Daniel P. 266n
Hottois, Gilbert xxvii, 147 Lobachevski, Nikolai Ivanovich 240
Husserl, Edmund xxix, 42, 253, 255, Lopez Cerezo, Jose Antonio xxvii
258n Loveland, D.W. 180
Huxley, Aldous 16, 136 Lugo, Elena xxxivn
Lujan L6pez, Jose Luis xxvii
Ibanez, T. 147 Lukacs, Gyorgy 41
Illich, Ivan 98n, 263, 266n, 283 Lundvall, Ben-Ake 307n
Lyotard, Jean Fran~ois 37n
James, William 18
Jelsma, Jasp 209n Maattessich, R. 185
Jesus Christ 243, 246 Mackey, Robert 209n
Jewkes, John 87n McCarthy, John 181
John Paul II xxiii McCarthy, Thomas 267n
Jonas, Hans 6 McDennott, D. 181
MacDonald, S. 185
Kant, Immanuel xix, 41, 45, 168,264 McLuhan, Marshall 4-5, 16, 37n
Kapp, Ernst xix, 5 Machiavelli, Niccolb 6, 32
Karabel, Jerome 266n Maitra, S.C. 194n
Karpinski, Rose Marie 74 Malthus, Thomas Robert 21
Kantorovich, Leonid Vitalievich Marcel, Gabriel 266n
108 Marconi, Guglielmo 72
Katz, Jorge 285 Mariategui, Jose Carlos 27
Keen, Peter 53, 59n Markovic, Mihailo 90
Kekule von Stradonitz, August 198 Marsh, Peter 268n
Klein, Julie Thompson 268n Marti, Jose 278
Kockelmans, Joseph J. 267n-268n MartI y Perez, Jose Julian 281n
316 INDEX

Martinez, Aquilina xxiv Paisley, William J. 266n

Marx, Karl xxi-xxii, xxiv, 21-22, 31, Papa Blanco, Francisco 87n
33,35,41,244-245 Parmenides 236, 254
Mayz Vallenilla, Ernesto xx, Pans, Carlos xxix
xxix-xxx, xxxiii, xxxvin Parsons, Talcott 42
Meadows, Dennis L. 37n Pascal, Blaise 238
Meadows, Donella H. 21,26, 37n Pasteur, Louis 220
Medina, Manuel xxvii-xxviii, xxxiv, Paul, Ellen F. 266n
xxxvin Paul, Jeffrey 266n
Merton, Robert K. 37n Paz, Octavio 30, 38n
Mesen, Brenes 78n Pena Borrero, Margarita xxxi,
Miller, Fred D. Jr. 266n xxxiii-xxxivn
Mira Quesada, Francisco 95, 98n, Peters, R.S. 267n
267n Pericles 160
Misgeld, Dieter 267n Petrella, Riccardo 299-300, 307n
Mitchall, Sollace 266n Piaget, Jean 74
Mitcham, Carl xxvii, xxxivn, 67n, Pius XII xxii
147, 209n Pinochet, Augusto xxi-xxiii
Mitscherling, Jeff 267n Plato 4,9-11,61, 98n, 125, 153,
Mockus, Antanas 288 156,159-161,163,165n-l66n,
Moles, Abraham 16, 37n 233,244,256,258n
Molina, Leopoldo xxx, xxxiii Plutarch 74
Molina, Tirso de 247n Poblet, Mompin 193n
Montroll, E.W. 194n Popper, Karl xxii, xxviii, 18, 37n,
Morande, Pedro 27-30, 38n 67n, 197
More, Thomas 18 Porter, Alan L. 208n
Morera, Rosibel A. 72 Posner, Michael 266n
Morkovsky, Christine xxiv Prometheus 165n
Moya, Andres xxvii Protagoras 9-10, 160-161, 165n
Mumford, Lewis xxix, xxxvn, 3-4, 56n Psacharopoulos, G. 266n
Munduate, L. 148 Psacharopoulos, M. Woodhall 266n
Murillo, Roberto 74, 86, 87n Puig, Josep xxvii
Pyke, F. 307n
Nagel, Ernest 63, 67n, 129, BIn Pythagoras 233
Neely, Alan xxiv
Nelson, Benjamin xxxvn Queralto, Ramon xxviii, xxxiii, 172n
Newcomen, Thomas 183 Quintanilla, Miguel xxviii, 93, 98n,
Newell, Allen 44, 57n, 179 176-177,193, 193n-194n, 209n
Newton, Isaac 124, 233, 240, 245
Nielsen, Kai 97, 98n Rabossi, E. 78n
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm 33 Ramirez Briceno, Edgar Roy xxiii,
Nilsson, N. 178, 181, 193n xxxiii,76
Randers, J0rgen 37n
Oppenheimer, Robert 233,245 Raphael, B. 179, 193n
Ortega y Gasset, Jose xx-xxi, xxv, Rawls, John 33
xxvii, xxix, xxxi, xxxivn, 23, 37n, Reuleaux, Franz xix, 3, 5
74, 76, 111, 119n, 200, 202, Richardson, William J. 267n
208n-209n, 271-274, 276-280, Ricoeur, Paul 267n-268n
281n Riemann, Georg Friedrich 233, 240,
245
Padilla, Hugo xxiv-xxv, xxxiii, 76, Ritterbush, P. 209n
BIn Robey, J. 267n
 INDEX 317
Robinett, Jane xxxi, xxxiv Starr, C. 209n
Robinson, J.A. 180 Steinbeck, John 74
Rojo, M. 149-150 Steiner, Peter O. 67n
Roper, A.T. 208n Stillerman, Richard 87n
Ropohl, Gunther 280n Suppe, Frederick 87n
Roqueplo, Philippe 146 Sutz, Judith xxxi, xxxiii, 308n
Rosas, Juan Manuel de 281n
Rosen, Michael 266n Taminaux, J. 60n
Rosenthal, S.B. 267n Tartaglia, Niccolo 6-7
Rossini, Frederick A. 208n Taylor, Charles 266n
Rousseau, Claudia 60n Tedeschi, Pablo 130n
Rudner, Richard 63, 67n Thales 159
Russell, Bertrand 16, 24, 37n Thurow, Lester 203, 209n
Ryle, Gilbert 47, 58n Tiller, Jeffrey S. 208n
Tobar-Arbulu, Jose F. 147
Sabrovsky, Eduardo xxii, xxxiii Tuininga, E.J. 209n
Sagasti, Francisco 285 Turing, Alan 43, 57n
Saint-Simon, Henri de 11, 33 Tyack, David 267n
Saint Theresa 236
SanmartIn, Jose xxvii-xxix, xxxiii, Ursua, Nicanor xxvii
xxxv in , 147
Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino 278, Valdes, Marion J. 268n
281n Vandenberg, Donald 266n-267n
Sauvy, Alfred 26, 37n Varela, Francisco J. 57n
Sawers, David 87n Vasconcelos, Jose 27
Saxe Fernandez, Eduardo 72 Vazquez Campos, M. 186
Schachterle, Lance xxxivn Vera L., Jose Miguel xxii
Scheler, Max xxix Verdugo, Carlos xxii, xxxiii
Schelsky, Helmut 37n Veren, Jules 136
Schmitz, H. 307n Viccarioli, Giulianna 74
Schumacher, E.F. 94, 98n, 283 Viccarioli, Lino 72, 74
Schusterman, Richard 266n Vico, Giambattista 6-7
Searle, John 44-46, 57n, 59n Vilanova, Santiago xxvii
Segal, Jerome 85, 87n, 96, 98n Villanueva, E. 78n
Sengenberger, W. 307n Vincenzi, Moises 71, 78n
Shinn, Roger xxxvn Virgil 74
Shoham, Yoav 194n Volterra, Vito 186, 194n
Shrock, Sharon A. 266n
Shue, Henry 92, 98n Waks, Leonard 283-284
Siegel, Harvey 267n Warnke, Georgia 266n
Silva G., Sergio xxii , xxxivn Watt, James 83, 183
Simon, Herbert A. 44, 57n, 174, 179 Weber, Max xxxvn, 23, 37n, 41, 46,
Singer, Fred 138, 141n 50-51, 55-56, 57n
Slaa, Paul 209n Weinberg, Gregorio 266n
Smith, Adam 6 Weiner, Norbert 194n
Socrates 61, 96, 165n Whitehead, A.N. 91, 96, 98n
Soler, Francisco xxxivn Whitman, Walt 281n
Solis, Javier 77 Wild, Christoph xxxvn
Solow, Robert 78, 87n Winner, Langdon 3, 146,206,
Spaey, Jacques 87n 208n-209n
Spring, Joel 267n Winograd, Terry xxxivn, 59n
Stanley, Manfred 266n-267n Wisdom, J .0. 124, 1130n
318 INDEX

Wise, George 76, 78, 78n, 87n

Wisser, Richard 34-35, 38n

Xenophanes 165n

Young, Robert E. 268n

Zea, Leopolda xxiv-xxvi, xxxi,

xxxiii, xxxvin, 141n, 266n-267n
Zeichner, Kenneth M. 266n
Zulay Soto, Ana 72
 PHILOSOPHY AND TECHNOLOGY
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