Technology and Contemporary Life pp 87-105 | Cite as
A Conversation concerning Technology: The “Appropriate” Technology Movement
Chapter
Abstract
In this paper I propose to discuss the topic of technology from a praxical perspective. The aim is to accomplish two objectives: first, to assess the residual effects of the social movement of the Seventies called “appropriate technology”1; and secondly, in the course of this assessment, to defend a mode of philosophical discourse concerning technology that is anti-foundational and historicist.2
Keywords
Market Economy Technological Practice Alternative Technology Philosophical Discourse Social Criterion
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Note
- Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986 ), p. 80.Google Scholar
- W. V. O. Quine, Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, in his From a Logical Point of View ( Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953 ), pp. 20–46.Google Scholar
- Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ( 2nd ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970 ).Google Scholar
- Harvey Brooks,’A Critique of the Concept of Appropriate Technology’, in F. Long and A. Oleson, eds., Appropriate Technology and Social Values: A Critical Appraisal ( Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1980 ), pp. 53–78.Google Scholar
- Lovins,’A Neo-Capitalist Manifesto: Free Enterprise Can Finance Our Energy Future’, Politicks & Other Human Interests, 1 (April 11, 1978 ): 15–18.Google Scholar
- Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security ( Andover, MA: Brick House Publishing Company, 1982 ).Google Scholar
- Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977), pp. 226–236. Google Scholar
- Thorstein Veblen,’Why Is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science?’ in The Place of Science in Modern Civilization and Other Essays (New York: Huebsch, 1919), p. 73.Google Scholar
- Robert Heilbroner, The Making of Economic Society (5 th ed.; Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975), esp. pp. 23–46.Google Scholar
- Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation ( New York: Rinehart, 1944 ), p. 71.Google Scholar
- Robert Nisbet,’The Impact of Technology on Ethical Decision-Making’, in his Tradition and Revolt ( New York: Random House, 1968 ), p. 186.Google Scholar
- Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process ( Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971 ).Google Scholar
- Albert Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984 ), pp. 40–48.Google Scholar
Copyright information
© D. Reidel Publishing Company 1988