41. See Elgin, pp. 283–86. Similar proposals have been made by Gillingham, pp. 191–203; and by William Irwin Thompson in Darkness and Scattered Light (Garden City, N.Y., 1978), pp. 53–103.
42. See Louis Wirth, “Urbanism as a Way of Life,” in On Cities and Social Life, ed. Albert J. Reiss, Jr. (Chicago, 1964), p. 71.
43. See David P. Billington, Structures and the Urban Environment (Princeton, N.J., 1978), especially pp. 149–53. See also Kent C. Bloomer and Charles W. Moore, Body, Memory, and Architecture (New Haven, 1977), and in it Robert J. Yudell’s essay “Body Movement,” pp. 57–76.
44. See Billington, p. 149.
45. See Bloomer and Moore, pp. 105–30. These memorable places include buildings as well as towns or cities.
46. Note George Sheehan’s remark that “the city must primarily be a playground.” In Running and Being (New York, 1978), p. 91. On the distinction between culture as scenery and as enactment, see Ina-Maria Greverus, “Denkmalraume oder Lebensraume?” in Auf der Suche nach Heimat (Munich, 1979), pp. 182–98. There are large social or communal gaps, of course, between the family, centered around a focal practice, and the larger communities that celebrate their focal concerns in the cities. And there is a still larger gap between these communities of focal concern and the nation. My concern is not to outline all the social structures that are likely or desirable in a setting of reformed technology but to point up the openings for and the centers of such structures. For suggestions on such structures, see Elgin, pp. 282–95; and William Irwin Thompson, pp. 79–103.
47. See Thurow, pp. 199–200.
48. See Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb (Garden City, N.Y., 1969), pp. 22–34.
CHAPTER 26
1. See Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), pp. 229–31; see also Chapter 11 above.
2. Edward G. Ballard does believe that the balance of means and ends has been fatally and radically upset. “Feeding the poor,” he says, “generally improving the lot of men, is to be justified by the contribution these humanitarian activities make to the advance of technology.” Man and Technology (Pittsburgh, 1978), p. 203.
3. See Colin Fletcher, The Complete Walker (New York, 1971), p. 7.
Index
Achievement and enjoyment, unity of, in focal practices, 202–3
Achinstein, Peter, 255n.7
Advertisement: has superseded art, 55; as an expression of our aspirations, 173, 282n.12; as the presentation of the foreground of technology, 51–55; and the promise of technology, 38
Affluence, technological: distinguished from wealth of engagement, 223–24; leaves no margin for the reform of technology, 230–32. See also GNP and affluence; Standard of living
Agassi, Joseph, 30
Alpert, Joel J., 254n.6a (Ch. 4)
Ambiguity: positive, of commodities, 54, 92; of the means-ends distinction, 63–64, 220–21; of the challenge of the wilderness, 185; of the promise of technology and democratic theory, 92; resolved by the context, 54, 202; as an obstacle to philosophical theory, 6–7. See also Social science, ambiguity of data in
Ambivalence. See Ambiguity; Technology: ambivalence about
Amerine, M. A., 254n.1
Anonymity, 44
Anselm of Canterbury, 175
Anthropocentrism, 192–93
Architecture, 64–68, 243–44. See also Cathedral; Temple
Arendt, Hannah, 13, 58–59, 272nn.2 and 7, 275n.8
Aristotle, 13, 19, 25, 29, 274n.5, 288n.47, 289n.19
Art: as deictic explanation, 26; as a focal event, 198; and focal things, 159–60. See also Cathedral; Music; Poetry; Temple
Assent, active, 180, 181
Automation, 116, 123–24
Availability as the presence of a commodity, 41
Bacon, Francis, 35–36
Baier, Kurt, 80
Ballard, Edward G., 292n.2
Bane, Mary Jo, 276n.43
Banham, Reyner, 65–66
Baran, Paul A., 83–84
Barber, Benjamin R., 267n.34
Bear, Ruedi, 287n.26
Bell, Daniel, 151–53, 274n.4, 288n.17
Berger, Myron, 277n.56
Berglind, Hans, 274n.55
Bernstein, Richard J., 99, 263n.3
Berry, Wendell, 284n.9, 287n.26
Billington, David P., 66–68, 243–44
Black Elk, 285n.33
Bloomer, Kent C., 244, 262n.40, 286n.2, 292n.43
Boorstin, Daniel J., 52, 88–89, 117, 119, 258n.1, 264n.1, 283n.2, 289n.30
Boredom in technology, 140–41, 224
Brain, electronic stimulation of, 55–56
Brakel, J. van, 280n.30
Braverman, Harry, 84, 120, 272n.7
Bronfenbrenner, Urie, 276n.47
Bugbee, Henry G., Jr., 187–88
Bunge, Mario, 30, 256n.1, 268n.54
Bureaucracy as technological machinery, 107–8, 272n.15
Campanella, Tommaso, 36
Cantril, Albert H., 270n.13
Capon, Robert Farrar, 201–2, 214, 215, 289n.26, 292n.48
Carlyle, Thomas, 59–60
Cathedral, medieval, as a focal thing, 67, 159–60, 179–80, 199
Chaisson, Eric, 285n.41
Chandler, Alfred C., Jr., 265n.15, 274n.49, 283n.7
Charity, 126–29, 225–26
Chemistry, 18, 21
Cherns, Albert B., 273n.42
City: as a focal thing, 244; and the reform of technology, 242–44
Clarke, W. Norris, 251–52n.3 (Ch. 2), 264n.4
Class division: and liberal democracy, 87–88; problem for Marxists, 82–83; forestalled in technology, 112–13; and the degradation of work, 120
Clayre, Alasdair, 272n.2
Clements, Colleen D., 284n.22
Cobb, Jonathan, 106–7
Cohen, Barry, 281n.42
Cohen, Howard, 255n.2
Coleman, Richard P., 266n.19, 271n.14
Collective affirmation, 233–34; 290–91n.17
Collins, Randall, 273n.29
Commodity: defined, 42–43; as a shallow and opaque surface, 53–54, 191–92; defensive, 125, 133, 139; demeaned in technology, 247; and machinery as the crucial features of the device paradigm, 4; final, 125, 139–43; distinguished from Marx’s commodity, 259n.5; ontological status of, 53, 264n.12; productive, 139; versus a (focal) thing, 80–81; ultimate attenuation of, 55–56. See also Device; Device paradigm; Machinery
Complexity as a criterion of value, 186–87, 213–17
Computer games, 215–16
Conditions in scientific explanation, 20; complementarity of, and of laws, 68–69; relevance of, 71. See also Problem stating
Conservatives and public morality, 93–94, 229–30
Consumption: defined, 139, 260n.6; as the goal of technology, 125
Corporations and the direction of technology, 82
Coulanges, Fustel de, 285n.1
Cowan, Ruth Schwartz, 138, 276n.43
Crick, F. H. C., 69
Culture as scenery and as enactment, 244
Dallegret, Francois, 65–66
Davis, Louis E., 273n.42
Decision: personal occasions of, 103–4; public forums of, 109
Deictic discourse: rule of approximation in, 188; has an attitude of enthusiasm, sympathy, and tolerance, 176–78; contestable, 177, 181–82; and democracy, 177; and explanation, 179–82; has the force of testimony and appeal, 178–79; as poetical and political, 188; public, 232, 240 (see also Political discourse); and values, 186–87; and the wilderness, 186. See also Explanation, deictic
Delgado, José M. R., 256n.8
Democracy: formal and substantive, 113; Western, criticized by Marxists, 82–85; opportunities in, 90, 91–92, 96–97; participatory, 98, 113, 158 (see also Political engagement); equated with technology, 88–89, 257–58n.13. See also Liberal democratic theory
Demos, John, 276n.43
Descartes, René, 35–36
Determinism, 102
&nb
sp; Device: care and maintenance of, 47–48, 161; examples of 3–4, 27–28, 41–42, 43, 49, 50, 53, 117–18, 142. See also Commodity; Machinery
Device paradigm, 40–48; dividing life horizontally and vertically, 136; division into machinery and commodity, 4; summary of features of, 76–77; global application of, 146–48; ontological dimension of, 53, 77, 104; organization as an instance of, 117, 272n.15; pervasiveness of its rule, 208; purpose of, as a critical tool, 76. See also Explanation: paradigmatic or paradeictic
Devine, Donald J., 270n.9 (Ch. 16)
Dissatisfaction with technology, 130–35, 142–43
Divinity in focal things and practices, 176–77, 196–98, 203–4. See also Religion
Domhoff, G. William, 83
Dorfman, Robert, 262n.17
Dreyfus, Hubert L., 286n.18
Durbin, Paul T., 30, 253n.24
Dworkin, Gerald, 92
Dworkin, Ronald, 87, 94–95
Earth as a device, 146–47
Easterlin, Richard A., 270n.10 (Ch. 15), 275n.26
Eck, Jeremiah, 197
Economics as a tool for the reform of technology, 230–32, 234–42
Economy: two-sector economy, consisting of a local and labor-intensive and a centralized and automated economy, 237–40, 241–42; Galbraith’s version of the two-sector economy, 237–38; Mumford’s version, 238–39; how to promote the local, labor-intensive economy, 241; need for the centralized economy, 239, 241
Education, 119–20, 248. See also Expertise
Einstein, Albert, 25–26, 29
Elgin, Duane, 225–26, 232, 242, 269n.4, 278n.6, 281n.34, 289nn.27 and 31, 290n.12, 292nn.36 and 46
Eliade, Mircea, 284–85n.29
Ellul, Jacques, 9–10, 11, 252n.11, 253n.7, 271n.27, 290n.11
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 57–58
Emotivism, 282n.9
Engagement: as commerce with a (focal) thing, 41; as a generic term for focal practices, 214–17, 288n.18; political, 107–9, 113; whether possible in technology, 215–17, 288n.12; mediated by technology, 221, 288n.12, 289n.23; and the wilderness, 191–92; in work, 236–37, 239
Engels, Friedrich, 276n.36
Enjoyment and achievement, unity of, in focal practices, 202–3
Enlightenment: as a liberation movement, 89; and the promise of technology, 35–36
Enthusiasm, 176–77, 178
Entrepreneurs, 116, 118
Environmental crisis, 145, 146–48, 165–66
Eppler, Erhard, 290n.6
Equality: criteria of, 110–11, 271n.14; diachronic, of affluence, 112–13, 134, 271n.25; in democratic theory and practice, 89–90; and wealth of engagement, 245. See also Inequality
Etzioni, Amitai, 253n.1 (Ch. 4)
Ewen, Stuart, 52, 82–83
Excellence: traditional, 126, 130–31; in focal practices, 224–26, 245. See also Virtue
Expertise: contraction of, in technology, 118, 123; lack of scientific, 16; lack of technological, 47–48, 260n.33; and the reform of technology, 248
Explanation:
—deictic: explained, 71–72, 180–82; complementary to scientific and paradigmatic explanation, 179–81; and problem stating, 17; how affected by scientific progress, 25–26, 29; as world articulation, 25–26. See also Deictic discourse
—paradigmatic or paradeictic, 68–78; paradigm as a clear case and as a pattern, 4; criteria for, 74; filling the gap between deictic and scientific explanation, 26; in everyday life, 73; inconclusiveness of, 74–76; invisibility of the paradigm, 35, 74–75; in social science, 74–76. See also Device paradigm
—scientific or apodeictic, 17–22; “apodeictic” explained, 20; conditions in, 20, 69, 71; deductive-nomological, 20, 23; relation of, to deictic explanation, 71–72, 179–80; example of, 17–18; exemplary today, 16; and historical explanation, 22–23, 24; and the possibility and actuality of the world, 27, 68–69; relevance in, 23, 69; scope of, 22–24; structure of, 19–21; as subsumption under laws, 22
Eyre, S. R., 278n.8
Family: and focal practices, 226; in a pretechnological setting, 41–42; fate of, in technology, 136–39
Ferguson, Eugene S., 37, 119, 266n.20, 283n.8
Ferkiss, Victor C., 253n.25
Ferree, Myra Marx, 277n.53
Feyerabend, Paul K., 29, 255n.13 (Ch. 6), 256n.5
Fireplace as a focal thing, 41–42, 196–97
Fisher, M. F. K., 286n.13
Fishing as a focal practice, 201, 215–16
Fletcher, Colin, 201, 292n.3
Florman, Samuel C., 252n.7, 278n.4
Focal things and practices, 196–210
—practice: not defined by rules, 209; not definable as a subjective experience, 202; as guardian of focal things and events, 209–10; literature of, 201, 287n.26; need of, to counter technology, 200, 206–7, 208
—thing: defined as deep, 191–92 (see also functional equivalence); versus commodity, 80–81; of a technological kind, 72–73, 159, 216–17, 218; simplicity of, 199–200
—things and practices: meaning of “focal” explained, 196–97; divinity in, 176–77, 196–98, 203–4 (see also Religion); examples of, 4–5, 200–206, 215–216, 221–22; failure of, 215; kinship among, 186, 219; as metatechnological, 215, 247–48; plurality of, 211–13 (see also Pluralism; Social union); pretechnological, 41–42, 72, 159–60; at ease with the natural sciences, 219; heightened by technology, 189–90, 199–200, 208
Focus, 41–42, 196–97
Foreign aid. See Third World
Form, William H., 115
Freedom: consciousness of, in technology, 104–7; and determinism, 40; in liberal democratic theory, 89; and substantive concerns, 102–3. See also Technology: liberation through
Friedman, Georges, 272n.1
Friedman, Michael, 255n.13 (Ch. 5)
Fuller, R. Buckminster, 65, 146–47, 256n.8
Functional equivalence: between things and commodities, 55–56, 191–92; among devices, 43, 202
Functionalism, 64–66, 158–59
Funkhouser, G. Ray, 253n.1 (Ch. 4)
Galbraith, John Kenneth, 10, 11, 52, 83, 116, 234–35, 237–38, 239, 270n.3, 276n.49, 290n.7, 291n.28
Gale, George, 285n.41
Gallantry, 126–29, 225, 274n.6
Gallwey, Timothy, 287n.26
Gardening as a focal practice, 201, 205
Gendron, Bernard, 272n.11
Giedion, Siegfried, 117, 258n.3, 272n.9
Gies, Joseph, 272n.5
Gilbreth, Frank B., 117
Gilkey, Langdon, 257n.13 (Ch. 8)
Gillingham, Peter N., 292nn.36 and 41
Ginzberg, Eli, 119–20, 123
GNP and affluence, 132, 133, 235, 291n.24
Gooding, Judson, 49–50
Government: as an open or a closed system, 108–9; as the servant of technology, 107–8
Grazia, Sebastian de, 128, 272n.3, 275n.7
Greverus, Ina-Maria, 292n.46
Gross, Albert C., 281n.42
Gunnell, John G., 263n.9
Gutman, Herbert G., 272n.3
Habermas, Jürgen, 98–101, 107, 108, 170, 264n.1, 265n.21, 267n.24, 268n.57, 282n.19, 290n.11
Hacker, Andrew, 271n.11, 276n.45
Hadley, Arthur T., 109
Happiness: as rank happiness, 133; and the progress of technology, 130–35. See also Dissatisfaction
Heating plant as an example of a device, 41–42, 147, 192
Hechinger, Grace, 277n.51
Heckscher, August, 264n.1, 274n.4
Heidegger, Martin: on the origin of technology, 39–40; on focal things, 197–200; on the pervasiveness of ambiguity, 251n.2 (Ch. 1); on the interpenetration of means and ends, 259n.7, 261n.7
Heilbroner, Robert L., 264n.1, 265n.22, 271n.26, 278nn.1 and 10
Hempel, Carl G., 22–23, 254n.11
Hendee, John C., 283n.1
Herrigel, Eugen, 160
Hessen, Boris, 257n.12 (Ch. 7)
Hirsch, Fred, 131–35, 139, 145, 146, 271n.25, 273n.22, 276
n.41, 281n.47, 283n.22, 290n.17, 291n.24
Hofstadter, Douglas R., 288n.17
Holmstrom, Nancy, 272n.11
Holton, Gerald, 256n.4
Household, dissolution of, in technology, 136–39, 276n.45
Housewife, fate of, in technology, 137–39
Howe, Irving, 142
Huizinga, J., 283n.3
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 86, 213
Huntington, Samuel P., 270–71n.10
Huxley, Aldous, 108
Idhe, Don, 263–64n.11
Illich, Ivan, 125, 145, 167–68, 278n.7
Income as a criterion of social rank, 110–11
Industrial Revolution: in America, 184; first effects of, 36; and the steam engine, 57; and the transformation of work, 116–18, 120–21
Industry. See Economy
Inequality, 111–13
Instrument distinguished from the device, 4–5, 221, 223, 288n.12, 289n.23
Instrumentalism. See Scientific instrumentalism; Technology: sense of
Insurance industry as an example of a device, 117–18
Intelligibility and the lawfulness of reality, 19, 21, 68–69, 70
Is-ought dichotomy, 71, 181
Jefferson, Thomas, 130
Jencks, Charles, 262n.40
Jencks, Christopher, 266n.19
Johnson, Warren, 145, 165, 168, 278n.1, 290n.10, 291n.18
Jonas, Hans, 29–31, 257n.15, 285n.45
Jones, Howard Mumford, 275n.24
Joslyn, M. A., 254n.3
Jouvenel, Bertrand de, 129, 266n.20
Justice: formal, 91; and goodness, 95–97; substantive, 90; in technology, 91–94, 110–13; and the reform of technology, 244–46
Kant, Immanuel, 19, 110, 198, 251n.3 (Ch. 1)
Kaplan, Morton, 259n.7
Kerr, Walter, 264n.1, 274n.4
Kidder, Tracy, 216–17
Kiesling, Stephen, 287n.26
Kline, Stephen, 53–54
Kosa, John, 254n.6 (Ch. 4)
Kranzberg, Melvin, 272n.5
Krieger, Martin H., 261n.24
Kristol, Irving, 229, 267n.23, 290n.4
Kuhn, Thomas S., 25, 73, 256n.2, 257n.1
Labor defined, 114–17. See also Work
Labor-leisure division as a reflection of the machinery-commodity division, 47–48, 55, 114
Lakatos, Imre, 256n.2
LaPorte, Todd R., 253n.3 (Ch. 4) 269n.5, 270n.5
Lasch, Christopher, 276n.44
Laslett, Peter, 259n.19, 271n.18, 276n.43
Latham, Aaron, 288n.10
Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry Page 47