Philosophical Perspectives on Technology

Catalog description

The primary objective of this course is to analyze the role(s) of technology in society by first attempting to define it. Is technology merely an instrument in the service of social/political ideology, or does it have a substantial life of its own - an implicit logic of development immune from social values, i.e., technological determinism? If technology is seen to be immune from the social/political sphere of normative action and has evolved to its highest level in industrial society then, is history over; has humanity come to the final resting place in a culture of utter banality, or what one author calls, "the age of consummate meaninglessness"?