Philosophy of Technology: Chapter 15 (Mario Bunge)

"Philosophical Inputs and Outputs of Technology" (1979)

Background notes on Bunge:

• former physicist and disciple of Karl Popper (commitment to general systems theory)
• vocal participant in "Science Wars:
• opponent of Romanticism and anti-technological attitudes on philosophy
• severe critic of social constructivist and hermeneutical approaches to technology
• critical of pragmatism 

Reading Response: 
Through a metaphor on philosophical "inputs" and "outputs" (because technology is both a consumer [input] and producer [output] of philosophical ideas, Bunge states that technology is a major part of contemporary culture. As such, he believes, philosophers must pay more attention to it than ever before, attempting to define what technology includes in order to understand it. According to Bunge, technology is a field of research that "aims at the control or transformation of reality whether natural or social." In other words, pure science makes changes to achieve knowledge, while technology uses knowledge in order to provoke change.

Bunge identifies 4 branches of technology: material (physical, chemical, biochemical, and biological), social (psychological, psychosociological, sociological, economic, warfare, and futurology), conceptual (computer sciences), and general (theories). Among these branches, he states that most technological ideas are found in policy- and decision-making, and in research, allowing it to have a creative component. By comparing scientific and technological research, he finds that, while both are goal-oriented, they have different goals (scientific research seeks truth for truths sake, while technological research seeks useful truth). However, he criticizes idealistic philosophers and pragmatists for neglecting the conceptual side of technology when they focus only on its coarse, practical or material outputs.

Bunge identifies several neighbors with technology, such as industrial civilization and modern culture,  pseudoscience and pseudotechnology, mathematics, arts, and humanities. Having placed technology within these other fields, he moves on to explain what technology shares with pure science: epistemological assumptions from realism and metaphysics of science.

Epistemological assumptions:

1. there is an external world
2. the external world can be known, if only partially
   
3. every piece of knowledge can be improved upon if we care to

In this framework, he compares classical and modern technologists. (Classical = realist, but naive in that he believe what he sees to be accurate representations. Modern = realist, but critical in that he realizes that our theories are symbolic and over-simplified representations, and tempered by pragmatist attitude.)

Metaphysics of Technology:

1. the world is composed of things
2. things get together in systems (and some are isolated)
3. all things fit into objective stable laws
4. nothing comes out of nothing and nothing goes over into nothingness
5. determination is often multiple and problematic rather than simple or linear

With the use of technology, he points of the following theories:

1. man can deliberately alter natural processes
2. man can create or wipe out entire natural kinds
3. because man can control these things intellectually through the use of technology, there is a need for a philosophy of technology distinct from that of other sciences

Because technology consumes and produces its own philosophical ideas, it is imperative, in Bunge's view, to consider ethics, especially the dubious morals found in technology--uses for good and unforseen uses for evil. He lists previous maxims (guided or misguided) of the technological process, and then calls for a new ethical code of technology, one that does not condone the "dark side" of technology. Such a code should, in his view, consist of an individual (personal responsibility) and a social (policy makers) ethical code. He states that such a two-tiered code would not tolerate double ethical standards.