The Metaphysics of Technology

David Skrbina

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415716628
• eBook ISBN: 9781134757428
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Philosophical Metaphysics
• Index: Technology & Engineering

What is technology? Why does it have such power in our lives? Why does it seemingly progress of its own accord, and without regard to social or environmental well-being? The quest for the essence of technology is an old one, with roots in the pre-Socratic philosophy of ancient Greece. It was then that certain thinkers first joined the ideas of technê and logos into a single worldview. The Greeks saw it as a kind of world-force, present in both the works of men and in nature itself. It was the very creative power of the cosmos. In the 20th century, German thinkers like Dessauer, Juenger, and Heidegger sought the metaphysical basis of technology, with varying success. French theologian Jacques Ellul argued persuasively that technology was an autonomous force of nature that determined all aspects of human existence, but he neglected the metaphysical underpinnings. Recent writers in the philosophy of technology have generally eschewed metaphysics altogether, preferring to concentrate on constructivist models or pragmatic analyses. In the present work, Skrbina returns to a classic metaphysical approach, seeking not so much an essence of technology but rather a deep and penetrating analysis of the entire technological phenomenon. Drawing on the Greeks, he argues for a teleological metaphysics in which increasing order in the universe is itself defined as a technological process. On this reading, all of reality constitutes a technical sphere, a "pantechnikon, " of universal scope. This work — the first-ever book-length treatment of the topic — breaks new ground by providing an in-depth and critical study of the metaphysics of technology, as well as drawing out the practical consequences. Technology poses significant risks to humanity and the planet, risks that can be mitigated through a detailed philosophical analysis.

Part I
Metaphysis

1
Situating Technology

In spite of all the men of good will, all the optimists, all the doers of history, the civilizations of the world are being ringed about with a band of steel.

—Jacques Ellul¹

[T]he essence of technology is nothing technological.

—Martin Heidegger²

Technology is mindful creation. It is the realization and reification of thought. Every act of creation is a technological act. Ontologically and linguistically, technology is technê-logos; there is a technê of all things, and there is a logos of all things. Therefore reality itself, in the broadest sense, is something technological. Thus understood, the metaphysics of technology has profound consequences for all spheres of human thought and action.

In his 1954 essay “The Question Concerning Technology,” Heidegger famously said this: “The essence of technology is nothing technological (das Wesen der Technik nichts Technisches ist).” Like any good paradox, this statement is both true and false: false because the essence of something must be intrinsic to the thing itself, and thus must, in the end, be something “technological”; and true because this essence is significantly beyond what we ordinarily think of as technology and in this sense is truly “nothing” technological.

In a similar vein, a proper metaphysical analysis of technology cannot be analytical. In one sense, of course, what follows is assuredly analytical; I will certainly be resolving and ‘undoing’ or ‘loosening up’ (ana-lúein) the various components of the technological phenomenon and striving to uncover its metaphysical roots. On the other, to think analytically today is to think technologically—and thus fails to escape to a sufficient altitude for surveying the landscape. To think about technology technologically is to miss its essential nature. And yet this is precisely how we commonly approach the subject today. I submit that all current thinking about technology occurs from within a technological mindset and thus necessarily arrives at certain predetermined results. We are too close to the phenomenon to adequately grasp its nature.

But the reply comes: How else shall we think about it? Conventional analysis is, allegedly, our best tool for thinking carefully and deeply about something—about anything. Apart from mysticism or irrationalism, we seem to have no good alternative. Furthermore, for many spheres of human life, this approach has proven successful—or at least efficacious. Why not stick with what works?

When we come to technology itself, however, a problem arises. There is a cognitive and epistemological conflict of interest. Thinking analytically— technologically—about technology is self-serving and intrinsically biased. It will drive us to forgone conclusions: that technology is a set of tools at our disposal, constructed by mankind, for the betterment of mankind; that it is largely a benign force in the world; that it is morally neutral, in that it may be put to good or bad use depending on the intentions of the user; that it is a humanizing power, a bringer of prosperity and cultural advancement; and perhaps most importantly, that it is devoid of metaphysics. Such are the common views held by philosophers and laymen alike. I find them to be substantively and profoundly mistaken.

We are faced with a dilemma. We are compelled today to think about technology technologically, but this does not and cannot lead us to the truth about the phenomenon. To think clearly about technology, to see into its depths, we must attempt to transcend the very process of thinking that a technological society imposes upon us as the only acceptable means. We are in a bind: We need to think in a language that is both acceptable for a technological society and yet transcends that very language. This seems to be what Heidegger meant when, at the conclusion of his essay, he said,

Essential reflection upon technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in a realm that is, on the one hand, akin to the essence of technology and, on the other, fundamentally different from it. (1977: 35)

For Heidegger, this involved the creation of a significantly new terminology and the substantial redefinition of many common words and ideas—with mixed success. Later I will attempt to untangle, to ‘analyze,’ the main points of his argument in order to find that which is of value and where he has gone astray.

In principle, Heidegger’s approach is correct. Proper thinking about technology must be truly metaphysical, in the classic sense. We need not abandon analysis, but it must be incorporated and subordinated within a broader, visionary, even speculative framework. Technology is a profound and penetrating force in the world, and therefore we must think about it profoundly and penetratingly. We need to marshal all our creative and visionary powers and focus them on this maker of reality in order to see into its depths. In fact, our future depends on it.

To distinguish the classical metaphysical approach from the modern one of formal ontology, I will borrow a bit of Kantian terminology. In contrast to the present, formal, analytical metaphysics, I propose something rather different: synthetic metaphysics. Where the analytic approach is concerned with definitions and formalisms, synthetic metaphysics seeks to illuminate the essential nature of a thing. Analysis deals with abstract concepts, synthesis with the real world. Where analysis strives to dissect and atomize, synthesis seeks to integrate and capture wholes. This is not just a rehash of the old debate over reductionism versus holism, but rather a move to—or better, a return to—creative, organic, and visionary approaches to metaphysical issues.

Because the synthetic approach is grounded in the real world, it is, unlike analysis, deeply normative. Synthetic metaphysics is concerned with how things affect people and nature and how it aids or hinders their quality of existence. It is ethically as well as descriptively oriented. It passes judgments. It proscribes courses of action. It makes value decisions and defends that which is worthy of defense.

In sum, the synthetic approach that I advocate takes a phenomenon—in this case, technology—and addresses (a) what it is, (b) what it does, and (c) how we ought to respond. This attempts to capture the whole phenomenon and its relationship with the world. It avoids foregone conclusions about objectivity, neutrality, and verifiability—all built into the structure of conventional analysis.

I attempt here to examine, in a philosophically rigorous and careful manner, the nature of technology. But I do so with a minimum of terminological construction and without falling prey to the conventional mode of technological thinking about technology that drives one toward certain predetermined outcomes. In short, I seek a nonanalytic analysis of the metaphysics of technology. This is a necessary, but certainly not sufficient, condition for success.

Can There Be a Metaphysics of Technology?

Some will argue that accomplishing this goal is an impossible task. First, analytical thinking is our best and only option, they will say, and any attempt to move away from this—particularly with regard to technology itself— can only lead to obfuscation and pointless speculation. To this I have two replies. If we consider the outstanding thinkers and philosophers of the past, we immediately realize that many of the greatest minds were also the greatest metaphysical speculators. Among the Greeks we have the likes of Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Parmenides, Plato, and the Stoics; and even Aristotle, as analytic a thinker as he was, was in his own way a metaphysical visionary. In later centuries we have Plotinus, Bruno, Campanella, Spinoza, and Leibniz. And again: Hegel, Schopenhauer, Peirce, Nietzsche, Bergson, and Whitehead—bold speculators all. We owe many of our greatest theories and most profound insights to the metaphysical innovators of the past. We neglect that approach at our own hazard.

On the other hand, consider the state of thinking about technology by conventional analytical thinkers. As I noted in the introduction, the field is presently dominated not by philosophers but by others: political scientists, historians, sociologists, economists, and journalists. Philosophical book-length analyses of technology are scarce—fewer than two dozen titles in the past 20 years. These rarely, if ever, address metaphysical issues. When they do, it is most often as commentary on past thinkers—particularly Heidegger. The subdiscipline ‘philosophy of technology’ is barely recognized by academia, and few universities offer courses in it.³ Classical metaphysics generally has been largely abandoned, or it has been relegated to the slightly disparaging category of ‘history of philosophy.’ And contemporary metaphysics is now, as I said, formal ontology—entirely abstract, entirely technological.

Apart from the occasional comment on Heidegger, metaphysics is typically shunned by professional philosophers of technology. This occurs both because of the general bias against metaphysics and because the study of technology is, they believe, inherently nonmetaphysical. Usually this stance is unspoken, and betrayed only through neglect of the subject. Occasionally it is explicit. In one recent anthology, Fellows (1995: 1) remarks that “the essays collected here do not constitute a philosophy of technology” in the sense of illuminating “the features of the phenomenon of technology itself” (quoting Don Ihde)—in other words, they openly ignore the metaphysics. “The contributors [to the volume] do not concern themselves with the essentialist enterprise of defining technology.” Rather, technology is taken in a naïvely realist sense; it is as it appears. Verbeek (2001: 122), for another, claims that the “new generation” of technology philosophers “no longer thinks in terms of Technology [with a capital ‘T’] per se, and finds it problematic to try to understand phenomena in terms of essences.” Rather than focus on underlying patterns and characteristics, this “new generation” prefers to concentrate on “concrete technologies and the roles they play in their specific contexts.” And not only the newcomers, but the old guard as well: Ihde (2010: 119), for example, declares that “there is no essence of technology”; he opts instead for a “deeper phenomenological analysis.”

And then consider the following remarks from another recent commentator. He believes that the whole topic is “misguided.” Contemporary philosophers of technology are unconcerned with metaphysics, he says, “because they no longer find the reasons compelling for understanding technology.” They prefer to examine “actual technologies, actual devices/machines/systems.” They find metaphysical approaches “vague, unhelpful, sweeping, sloppy, undifferentiated, and unconvincing.” Such thinkers have “moved beyond Heidegger” and his fuzzy generalizations. Ellul’s thesis of technological autonomy—which I examine at length later on—is likewise considered “no longer a viable, credible approach. It is too overarching, too remote, too undifferentiated.” On the whole, “the movement away from metaphysical issues is the virtue of contemporary philosophy of technology. It is the result of deliberate choice and reasoned argument.”⁴ Here we have one reading of the conventional view, in very explicit terms. Speculative metaphysics of technology—and by inference, metaphysics generally—is passé, unhelpful, and largely pointless. We no longer seek fundamental principles but rather only detailed analyses of specific applications. The real world is too complex and too diverse to be encompassed by any one set of metaphysical concepts. Metaphysics, in short, is a waste of time.

What can we say about the conventional view? Useful, perhaps, in its own way. Very pragmatic, very analytic, and very narrow. Technology will likely be viewed either as a “social construct,” driven by and contextually dependent upon the cultural setting, or in instrumental terms, possibly intrinsically neutral. In either case, technology is unlikely to be a danger or even a threat. After all, most individual technologies can only pose limited and restricted risks—risks that can be easily assessed and mitigated. Only the most powerful of weapon systems or the most nefarious of terrorist devices presents a real danger—and this fact says nothing about technology at large, on the orthodox view. A focus on particular, actual technologies necessarily precludes metaphysics; only a Heidegger dares to suggest that there is a metaphysics of, say, a hammer. And he is now outmoded.

One can also turn the picture around. This very deemphasis on metaphysics suggests that technological thinking has dominated our approach to technology. Technology ‘prefers’ that we focus on specifics, on details, on structure and function. This is indeed how it advances. Technology in the physical world is about machines, devices, invention, amusement, communication, information, profit—and power. Philosophy is almost meaningless in this context; metaphysics is wholly so. Technology bids us to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. There is nothing ‘behind’ technology, nothing there to see.

But we must ask: Is this so? Is it not true that all phenomena possess an inner or intrinsic nature, subject to some kind of guiding principles? I believe it to be self-evident that there are such principles of nature, principles that account for the order and complexity of the cosmos. Without them, there would be chaos—and consequently no philosophers around to speculate about their absence. And if such principles exist, by what criterion do we deny their metaphysical status?

What, after all, is metaphysics? Here we have a question fraught with difficulty. We can readily agree with Loux’s (2006: 2) admission: “It is not easy to say what metaphysics is.” Is it a body of principles? Essences? Higher realities? Or is it abstract concepts and definitions, as contemporary philosophy would have it? There seems to be little consensus on the matter.

Even the word itself has an obscure origin. Long designated as the title of Aristotle’s work of the same name, he himself never used the term. Nicholas of Damascus, circa 25 BC, was evidently the first to coin the phrase metà tà physicá in reference to Aristotle.⁵ In his own usage, Aristotle preferred “first philosophy” (prôtê philosophía; e.g., 1026a30). Its subject matter is “being qua being” (ontos hê on; e.g., 1003a23), that is, being in itself. On other occasions, he referred to it as the study of “original” or “first causes” (arches aitíon; prôtên aitían; e.g., 983a24–25). As such, he means the original cause or source of cosmic order. In all cases, he intends to examine eternal and universal principles that account for motion and change in the physical world—change occurring within physis or nature, and the principles existing meta-physis, beyond nature.

In a more modern sense, some have defined metaphysics as “the nature of ultimate reality”—though this is not a particularly helpful definition. Others equate it with ontology, which is perhaps more to the point. At a minimum, and rather obviously, it would seem to refer to something other than ‘the physical.’ If by physical we mean ‘composed of matter or energy,’ then many things would conceivably count as metaphysical: mind, consciousness, emotions, ideas, princip...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I Metaphysis
• PART II Praxis
• Epilogue
• References
• Index