INTRODUCTION
For centuries there has been an ongoing discussion concerning the nature of values: are they objective, subjective, or both, and in which way? Are they the subject of intellectual knowledge or of emotive perception? Fortunately this is not my concern here: what I want to say about the impact of technology on values should be valid, even assuming different theories regarding their nature. I take for granted only that the expression, "value-change," has a referent in reality in the sense that the modification of values corresponds to features which can be analyzed in an objective way. By "objective" I mean open to independent verification by different people in diverse settings and times. Although the idea that values exist independently of human beings could be true--at least it is not logically contradictory--I am not supposing that to be the case. As far as this paper is concerned, the possibility of establishing some correlation between technology and values is understood as an empirical matter involving human behavior, including of course verbal utterances. It is very important for me to assume that the proper place to look for values or, if you wish, for the manifestation of values as known by the agent is human behavior.
Yet, this is not a purely empirical investigation of the way a pre-technological society modifies its values as contemporary technology becomes more prevalent. The focus of this paper is not only factual, but ethical. In other words, I will be making moral judgments on value-change, which is the same as saying that value-judgments will be made on value-changes. In particular there is one very important question: which type of technological decisions must we make if we take into account the implications of technology for values? Value-change is, in a sense, a sociological and psychological issue. But some philosophical considerations are of paramount importance, and the general approach followed here is one of second-order questions: what do we mean by "value-change"? How do we find that something or other is valued? What is the way to find out if a particular value-change has taken place? What do we mean by "technology"? And, above all, what are the criteria for making moral judgments about changes in values?
The reader may object that many of these second-order questions are by no means philosophical, but rather sociological. Though I must grant that some of these questions, taken separately, may be dealt with by particular sciences, nevertheless the clarification of the whole picture (i.e., the answer to these questions taken together as a whole) requires the intervention of philosophical perspectives and insights.
VALUE CONFLICTS
Values are related to behavior and, consequently, to culture and institutions. Verbal behavior openly expresses preferences, be they learned or otherwise, which correspond to value judgments and which should be the basis for action. It is obvious that conflicts between verbal and non-verbal behavior, as well as between separate verbal and non-verbal acts, are very frequent. This is one of the first difficulties: in order to give an adequate account of value-changes one must take into consideration all kinds of behavior. At least three types of conflict come into focus: between words and deeds, between words and words, and between deeds and deeds.
In addition, human beings do not act as lonely fully-conscious agents since their behavior cannot be explained simply by individual conscious motivations. As psychologists are well aware, very often an explanation of our acts has to refer to social and unconscious factors, perhaps more than to personal decisions. In fact, the agent very frequently is unable to explain his/her own behavior. The tension between publicly proclaimed values and acts privately performed in opposition to those values is present in most societies, perhaps in all. Since society operates through such institutions as the family, the school, the church, the state, etc., value-conflict is frequently some kind of opposition between institutions and individuals. For institutions embody values, while individuals act according to them. Agreement between institutional values and individual behavior is not guaranteed by the fact that institutions publicly proclaim their values and try to enforce them by all means at their disposal: discrepancies are always possible.
There is a fourth type of conflict: the values embodied by an institution may not correspond entirely with the values of other contemporary institutions which affect the life of the same individual. For example, the values of the home may not be those of the marketplace; the values of politicians and those of scientists may not coincide.
Sometimes the conflict is only latent, as between the values of the family and those of advertising agencies as reflected in commercial propaganda. But at other times there may be a head-on clash, as is the case when the school, supposedly devoted to preparing the child for a productive career as a professional, tries to instill in him/her a set of values which do not correspond to--in fact sometimes squarely oppose--the values of corporate business or of the government, in which the individual will later on find him or herself as a worker.
Value-conflict, on the other hand, is a necessary condition for moral improvement. Perfect agreement between institutional values and personal behavior would exclude not only hypocrisy but, at the same time, any possibility of change and improvement. In any society ruled by unjust laws value-conflict is highly desirable. Mankind has progressed morally in a slow and haphazard way; very often progress has taken place after a clear-cut conflict between mores and laws, on one hand, and a better moral insight on the other.
In his excellent book Technology and Society,1 David M. Freeman distinguishes two types of conflict from the viewpoint of the individuals and groups involved: overlapping and crosscutting conflicts:
(a) Overlapping conflicts are characterized by separation and difference on all important sets of values, so that adversaries on one issue become violent enemies on all. Individuals opposed on one issue do not have any attachment to common values and, consequently, do not have any common ground for compromise. Typical of this kind of conflict is condoning violence as a means to avoid the possibility of the adversary imposing his/her values. Moreover, the adversary is seen as less than human.
(b) The crosscutting type of conflict, on the contrary, presupposes coincidence on many value fronts. Since adversaries share many attachments there is room for dialogue and compromise. Freeman thinks that this kind of conflict is highly desirable.
A general principle may thus be established: in the assessment of technological innovations it is very important to take into account the type of conflict they may bring about. Freeman's position in general may be stated thus: avoid overlapping conflicts and, if they exist, do not introduce any technological innovation which would exacerbate them.
TECHNOLOGY
As recently as the 1976 Philosophy of Science Association Symposium2 there had been doubts as to the justification of assuming technology as a proper subject for philosophical investigation. Even today, most philosophers in the standard analytical and post-analytical tradition would reject any particular topic as a subject for philosophy, be it culture, technology or whatever, since they see the task of philosophy being to explore the conditions for knowledge and not the characteristics of any particular object known. Without entering into such discussion, we may profit from an historical fact: philosophers within several different schools have dealt with technology as a proper subject, and have developed what may be called a "Philosophy of Technology." At least three philosophical systems (called "non-standard" by some North American philosophers) have developed particular positions on this topic: Existentialism (mainly Heidegger), Thomism (e.g., van Melsen)3 and Marxism (especially Engels). In addition and more recently, well known and highly respected philosophers of science like Mario Bunge have written on this theme.
According to their viewpoint four approaches may be distinguished in the philosophical literature on technology.
(a) Engineering: here the emphasis is on the machine and other technological products. When Dessauer, for example, asserts that for every technological problem there is one and only one optimal solution which is found and not created,4 or when Butler in Erewhon5 seems to champion the idea of doing away with all machines, attention is focused on the most visible and immediate aspects of technology.
(b) Sociological: here technology is seen as a collective activity, as something that presupposes the organization of human labor in factories, usually geared to urban and mass consumption. The emphasis is on human organization with its laws and historical institutions: the factory, the city and the state.
(c) Anthropological: although closely related to the sociological viewpoint, this approach enables us to pose another set of problems: are human beings primarily tool-making or symbol-making animals? What is the relation between technology and culture?
(d) Epistemological: the least developed of all approaches, philosophically this should be the most important. Some of its typical problems are the following: what is the relation between science and technology? Is there some kind of "technological" knowledge? Is there such a thing as a technological theory?
What is technology? So many definitions have been given that it is hard to keep track of them. In some languages (e.g. Spanish) it is customary to make a distinction between techniques as the use of tools in general and the series of procedures whereby practical aims are achieved, and technology as a modern state of affairs brought about by the Scientific Revolution of the XVII Century and the Industrial Revolution in the XVIII Century.
I will try to organize some of the definitions according to the four approaches mentioned above.
(a) From an engineering perspective:
- Transformation of matter by application of energy under the guidance of information.6
- A set of means by which man puts the forces and laws of nature to use, with a view to improving his lot or modifying it.7
(b) From a sociological viewpoint:
- The result of combining knowledge and know-how with the organization of labor, usually in an artificial environment, with centralization of decisions.
(c) From an anthropological perspective:
- Everything that gives corporeal form to human will.
- Mechanism or means for achieving one's ends.8
(d) From an epistemological perspective:
- Providing the arts with intellectual rules.9
- A system which includes the following elements: applied science, technological theory, technological model, technological action, technological object, use of technological object and satisfaction of the desired function, with two possible entrances: pure science and "soft" technology.10
Some of these definitions are too broad; some of them, literally applied, would include any symbolic activity. For our purposes the best is the second under heading (d), although it must be explained since it includes the very word for whose definition we are searching. If by the noun "science" we mean modern and contemporary theoretical knowledge of nature and man, and by the adjective "technological" we mean the type of situation which takes place when all activities, both intellectual and practical, are oriented toward the solution of a problem of a practical nature, then our definition will be more precise and more useful.
It should be clear that many standard remarks on technology (that it is demeaning or, on the contrary, that it is life-enhancing, for example) become meaningless if technology is equated with the totality of human activities. Strangely, many writers on this topic want both to keep a very broad definition and to make supposedly meaningful observations.
TECHNOLOGY AND VALUES
From some of the preceding definitions we can draw some conclusions:
(a) Knowledge as such is good, at least in general; but not every application of knowledge is good as such.
(b) Contemporary technology would be impossible without modern science.
(c) Technology increases the number of possibilities at our disposal to an extent unheard of in centuries past. Accordingly, the consequences of our actions have increased to the point where one cannot even imagine all their possibilities and end results and such unpredictable consequences often take place in social matters. On the other hand, decisions must now be made with far more rapidity than ever before. This is one of the most important sources of the problems of our time: more speed in decisions with less knowledge of results and consequences.
Another important question arises: what is the relation between technology and man's daily life, not only today but throughout history? Two main lines of thought are to be found.
(a) Engels and, in general, the Marxist tradition: the invention of tools is all-important in human evolution; without material tools there is no human work and without work there is no evolution to successively more human degrees of existence. Mankind's most important activity is the production of means for survival; this includes tools and instruments as extensions of one's organs so that one can master natural forces. This is what sets a human apart from other animals after a long evolutionary process ruled by Lamarck's principle that necessity creates the organ.11
(b) Mumford, and to some extent Ortega y Gasset and the existentialists: tools may be exclusively human, but the social organization of work is common to humans and many species of animals. There is no historical evidence for an incessant and ever-expanding creation of instruments from the very beginning of humankind; on the contrary, many well-documented civilizations have flourished with very little technological bases. Symbolic activity (language, rites, dance, etc.) is far more important in organizing human life--to such an extent, indeed, that this type of organization is a necessary condition for the invention of machines later on. In other words, machine-like organization of work in social settings precedes the invention of machines. Mechanical labor was performed by huge numbers of people, organized like ant hills, many centuries before the Industrial Revolution.12
As far as our topic is concerned, it seems safe to propose the following hypotheses:
(a) If Engels is right, then value-change should be a function of technological processes and, ultimately, of economic changes. The difference between the values of one society and those of another should be traceable in the last analysis to a difference in the mode of production, which essentially includes its technological underpinning.
(b) If Mumford is right, on the contrary, value-change should be a far more complicated proposition, since it would depend on many factors.
Let us take the first position and formulate it in a very strict form, what we may call the "strict economic principle": When the economic cost of maintaining a value becomes too high, society necessarily drops it. Opposition to the "strict economic principle" may adopt very different degrees, according to the emphasis placed on other factors. The extreme position would be the denial of any clear-cut correlation, even a weak one, between value-change and any other aspect of society.
Most persons would agree, in fact, with a "weak economic principle" which may be formulated thus: When the economic cost of maintaining a value becomes too high, society tends to drop it. It is understood that this tendency works in conjunction with many other factors, which accounts for the fact that in some cases the change takes place and in others it does not; in some the change is fast-paced, in others slow.
Two remarks are in order here:
(a) Neither the "strict" nor the "weak economic principle" suffice to explain the adoption of new values; both refer only to the elimination of old ones.
(b) It should be clear that the difference between the two is not a mere matter of degree; in the former economic determinism rules out freedom, whereas in the latter there is ample room for freedom. The "weak economic principle" calls forth another, which we may call the "principle of personal valuation," to be formulated as follows: When society tends to drop a value, individual agents may react by considering change to be good or bad and by trying to influence society accordingly.
Which principle shall we accept, the "strict" or the "weak"? If we accept the former, many of the preceding and following considerations would become empty. One thing seems clear: the "strict economic principle" seems to lack sufficient confirmation. After all, starving people in India do not eat sacred cows.
There is no doubt that technological innovations modify social conditions and arrangements. The introduction of the typewriter, for example, changed secretarial work to such an extent that today's office is very different from that of the 19th century before 1850.13 A similar change is taking place today with the introduction of small computers. The introduction of the typewriter was not a mere change of equipment; women entered the labor market after 1850 in large numbers precisely because of that technological innovation. Analogously, we may expect that the introduction of microcomputers will bring about social changes as well.
How does this process take place? The mechanism whereby a technological innovation alters roles in society has been pointed out in detail by Freeman.14 He distinguishes four stages or levels:
(a) Specific actions: there is an alteration in the behavior within the role, without any adjustment in the overall structure of roles and organizations. The worker is required to use new techniques, but everything else remains the same--for the time being.
(b) Decision rules: requirements and specifications for roles change. New knowledge and abilities are needed to fulfill the expectations associated with a role within society. Without them the worker cannot find a job and the self-employed businessman cannot compete in the marketplace.
(c) Decision structure: at this level relationships between role-sets change; authority is reallocated. Concrete people gain or lose authority because the relations within the social structure have changed in a significant way. Tension and conflicts may follow; people find that new responsibilities have been thrown upon them, while others feel that they have been demoted.
(d) Goals and rationale: this is the most profound level of change; here the very purpose of the structure is questioned. Society reorganizes itself according to new goals and priorities; many jobs simply disappear while others, unheard-of before, come into being. Obviously, many people cannot stand this level of change; fortunately, this is the last stage in a series that usually takes some time.
Contemporary society is technological through and through, both in capitalist and socialist countries. In the former, technology operates as a commodity protected by patents and franchises which constitute legal forms of property. The whole production system, on a global scale, is based on the use and expansion of technology. Underdeveloped nations are technologically dependent upon developed ones; technology flows as a commodity from a small group of countries (around 20) to a large number of countries (more than 100). Many developing countries try to bridge this gap by promoting scientific research with public funds on the assumption that technology will follow from, or is the same as, applied science, and that socio-economic development would automatically result from the introduction of technological innovations.
Technology and development, consequently, are highly valued. So far we have mentioned the impact of technology on values. But technology and development may influence values only after values have influenced them. If no priority is assigned to development, and to technology as a means for it, society would remain rather stable. This would be small comfort to a nation plagued with misery, disease, illiteracy, etc. Thus the conflict and antagonism between technology (as a dynamic factor) and culture (as the stabilizing force in society) cannot be solved a priori in favor of culture. Although it may be persuasively argued that culture is a necessary condition to avoid alienation, by no means can it be considered a sufficient one.
In many developing countries today maximum priority is given to socio-economic development as the most important social goal and to technology as the instrument to achieve it. This includes planning as the way to reallocate resources with the purpose of reaching a stage where a highly sophisticated economic system would guarantee satisfaction of basic needs for the masses. For some people, consequently, socio-economic development, technology and planning become the ultimate values: anything that increases the GNP is good, anything that decreases it is bad. Of course, this simple equation between economic development as measured by the GNP and goodness may not appear in such stark terms in the consciousness of politicians and their constituencies; in fact--and, we may add, fortunately--complexity of valuations remain and influence decisions at all levels. There may be an additional reason: the economic development of a country is not necessarily reflected in its GNP.15
Is technology good or bad? The question has sense only if we mean by "technology" a particular aspect of human life, within space and time boundaries. (If, on the contrary, we mean by it all types of uses of tools and instruments, any symbolic activity or any deliberate action, then the question becomes meaningless or, at best, trivial. Without technology so broadly defined there would not be human life as we know it and, consequently, there would not be any question about its goodness or badness). But we suppose that the question is meaningful and that an adequate answer is very important for the orientation of human life.
A general consideration seems relevant here: if we value diversity of behavior, tolerance of opposing opinions and openness to innovation, then we should value also those elements that make possible the type of society where those characteristics are to be found. In contemporary society technology seems to be one of the historical elements that have helped to create that kind of social situation. However, the relation seems tenuous: an open society could exist without contemporary technology and the latter can be used--in fact, it is used very often--to impose uniformity of behavior and to suppress dissent. Thus the dilemma: while technology makes possible many dreams, it also is instrumental in transforming those dreams into nightmares.
CONTRADICTIONS AND PARADOXES
The disagreement as to the goodness or badness of technology may stem from the incontrovertible fact that technological society is full of contradictions. The way these contradictions are solved in particular places and times determines the general direction in which a society moves in terms of a more or less rational and just situation. Let us mention some of these contradictions.
(a) Between science and technology: whereas science is a public possession, whose main value is truth and whose aim is the increase of knowledge, technology functions as a commodity, privately owned through a system of patents and franchises whose main value is efficiency and whose aim is profit. The ethical codes of the scientific researcher and of the technologist in a factory are, therefore, frequently in conflict, although there is a strong resemblance between the work of the former and of the latter.
(b) Between two concepts of human nature, both present in contemporary society: on the one hand, man as an individual consumer driven by an infinite desire to possess and, on the other hand, human beings as free agents who are able to develop uniquely human attributes. Utilitarianism and personalism, therefore, operate at the same time within the same society--but in opposite directions. Personalism implies the maximization of human possibilities, which can take place only in a democratic structure where people participate in the process of making decisions concerning matters that affect them. The individualistic consumer of utilities, however, motivated by an infinite urge to possess and consume, keeps alive the economy by buying goods and services even when there is no clear need for them. Whereas increased consumption seems to be a necessary condition for an increased GNP, a more democratic society in the sense already defined is not a necessary condition for an ever-increasing GNP and, in fact, may be deemed an obstacle by those who would prefer fewer personal liberties and larger expenditures per capita.
(c) Between two types of rationality: that of the private decision-maker, who tries to appropriate for himself maximum benefits while imposing on others as many costs as possible; and the rationality of society as a whole, according to which costs and benefits should be shared by all, with minimum destruction of the environment.
(d) Between technology and culture: whereas the former tends to homogenize all human beings on the principle that maximum diffusion also means maximum profits, the latter essentially seeks to differentiate individual human beings by providing the means for identification with a distinctive group.
In addition to these contradictions, some paradoxes arise in modern industrial societies.
(a) Technological development seems justified insofar as it responds to human needs; yet it has engulfed mankind in a quagmire of unwelcome complications.
(b) Any technological change should be valued according to the real advantages it brings about, but in fact advertising very often is able to promote changes merely on the basis of novelty. Since understanding takes time, the increase in the novelty rate means a decrease in the ability to grasp how things work. It also means a reduction of the possibility of developing a stable relationship between different groups of human beings on the basis of the use and knowledge of common technological products and processes.
(c) Urban life was developed as an answer to human needs; yet it often becomes an inhuman place.
ATTITUDES TOWARD TECHNOLOGY
Partly as a consequence of these contradictions and paradoxes, contemporary attitudes toward technology are not uniform. To go back to the original question of whether technology is good or bad, answers range from those who pronounce it neutral to those who passionately advocate its overthrow.
"Technology is neutral" is, at best, a very misleading expression. If by it we mean that there is a collection of possibilities available to individual persons which in themselves are neither good nor bad, then the sentence is simply false on most counts, since there is no such thing as a freely available technology just waiting to be used by individuals. Patents and franchises, as well as the rules of the market, effectively excludes that. If a country wants to profit from technological wealth it must pay dearly either in terms of industrial rights, trademarks and so on, or in terms of strong boycotts, legal suits and even economic blockades if it does not play by the rules of the game.
If, on the other hand, we take into account that technology is used because individual men or collective institutions make decisions on these matters, then there is no such thing as a neutral choice, since at least its consequences will be either beneficial or destructive.
In sum: technology could be labeled "neutral" only when considered very abstractly, but then we would not be talking about anything existent in the real world.
"Technology is good, but . . ." seems to be the most common attitude, and probably the most logical: without technology we cannot live, and yet in many ways rather we live with it. We need medicines, communications and so on; we do not need pollution, overcrowding, stress and other consequences of some technological innovations. It is clear that we cannot just say that technology is an unqualified good and then complain about conditions in industrial societies.
What should be done, then, about unwanted consequences? Here positions differ. Victor Perkiss has systematized them as follows:16
(a) Romantic conservatism: there must be some kind of control of technology, together with a conscious decision to accept only those aspects which do not disturb the status quo. But since this status is defined in economic terms, and usually includes many aspects which constitute the vested interests of those who propose the above mentioned control and selection, a new conflict arises: who will decide the type of control to be imposed, the criteria to be used, and the selection of technologies whereby some are accepted and some are rejected?
(b) Moderate conservatism: this position deplores the results of technological change but, at the same time, can do nothing because of a commitment to an open market society: to impose controls would amount to interfering with the laws of the market economy, with the "invisible hand" that guides individual consumers toward a greater good for humankind as a whole.
(c) Liberalism: since technological change is seen as a natural outgrowth of intellectual freedom it is widely accepted. Anti-social side effects are then mitigated by ad hoc measures.
(d) Socialism: we find an ambivalence here because of the contradiction between expectations and reality. Technological change was supposed to bring about the socialization of production, which in turn would lead to socialization of ownership. But, somehow along the way, oppressive bureaucracy has evolved as a side effect, giving rise to new elites linked to new technologies, whose political power is guaranteed by a one-party system.
(e) Romantic revolutionaries reject the compromises made by different states, including the socialist ones. At the same time, this group lacks political power and its tenets remain purely rhetorical proclamations relevant to some kind of simpler, pre-technological communities. Small scale experiments have sometimes succeeded for short times. Only those groups with strong ties, usually of a religious kind, have succeeded in freezing technological stages by deliberately choosing to remain in one and to exclude innovation.
Interestingly enough, there has been no dearth of authors who oppose technology in the most violent terms. Some of them attack the whole fabric of modern industrial society; others concentrate their attacks on particular aspects. Even if prima facie their criticisms seem exaggerated, some of their warnings have come true. This is why we cannot dismiss them lightly, for some of the descriptions made by them as factual situations may be taken as hypothetical scenarios which could become realities given certain conditions.
(a) The worst-case scenario would be a mixture of the following elements:
- the irrational thrust of the most primitive passions;
- the calculated greed and power lust of modern industrial man, with all the resources of planification at his disposal;
- the extraordinary, some might say "godlike," powers granted by contemporary technology.
We would then face the ultimate monster, geared to the satisfaction of greed and lust, moved by blind passions and endowed with all the powers of technology. It would be a nightmare, different from previous ones in being precisely a technological nightmare; a collection of marvels at the service of monsters for the oppression of peoples. Nazism comes to mind; Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World are but different versions of this same horrible possibility.
(b) Some authors have flatly condemned technology on different grounds:
(1) Samuel Butler:17 machines will evolve according to the laws of Darwinian evolution and eventually will enslave mankind.
(2) Friedrich Georg Junger:18 technology is based on dead time, functionalism and a mechanical mind. It creates bureaucracy and reduces everything to mechanisms, thereby killing true life which is characterized by spontaneity and diversity.
(3) Leo Tolstoy:19 although talking about science, technology is included as part of an effort he considers misguided. Only religion can decide what is important, including, of course, practical matters.
It would be foolish to dismiss these worries as altogether unfounded. Technological societies may become mechanistic; human beings may become slaves to machines; decisions concerning technological matters should transcend purely technological considerations.
(c) We have mentioned a modern, horrifying monster born out of the conjunction of three elements. There is another which is far less horrible but more pervasive: technological change as the ultimate value. We began by posing the problem of the impact of technology on values. Now we come to the most interesting aspect of that problem: the fact that change itself has become the ultimate value. From value-change we have come to change as value. The consequences of this travesty should be clear by now: if change itself is the determining value there is no possibility of understanding and of culture. Understanding takes time and aims at achieving permanent truths; culture needs time to develop the unifying ties that bind together different persons in common purposes and institutions. Change as a value in itself, without reference to what is changed, must be rejected if we want to live a fully human life.
CONCLUSION
The struggle for a more just society, not only within one's own country but internationally as well, should be the guiding principle in making decisions that transcend the merely individual spheres of life. Decisions on technological matters constitute a part of the whole of decisions concerning means to achieve specified goals. From this it follows:
(a) Any technological innovation aimed at the personal profit of a minority at the expense of exploiting the many, based therefore on a policy of internalizing benefits while externalizing costs, would inevitably lead to overlapping conflicts.
(b) Technological innovations should tend to decrease those contradictions and paradoxes mentioned above. If, on the contrary, the introduction of technological innovations sharpens those contradictions and paradoxes, the end result very likely will be a disaster in the mathematical disaster-theory sense, namely, a sudden change that brings about the radical transformation of previous conditions.
University of Costa Rica
San Jose, Costa Rica
1. David M. Freeman Technology and Society (Chicago: Rand McNally College Publishing Co., 1974), pp. 85-88.
2. Frederick Suppe and Peter D. Asquith, eds. Philosophy of Science Association, 1976 (East Lansing, MI: PSA, 1977), II 139-201.
3. Andrew G. van Melsen Science and Technology (Duquesne Studies, Philosophical Series, 13; Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press, 1961).
4. Friedrich Dessauer, Philosophie der Technik (Bonn: Cohnen, 1926/7).
5. Samuel Butler, Erewhon, or Over the Range (London, 1872; New York: Lancer, l968).
6. Francisco F. Papa Blanco, Tecnolgíy Desarrollo (Costa Rica, Editorial Tecnologica de Costa Rica, 1979), p. 32.
7. Nathan Rotenstreich "Technology and Politics," in Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey, eds., Philosophy and Technology, Readings in the Philosophical Problems of Technology (New York: The Free Press, 1972), p. 151.
8. Sir Robert Watson-Watt, "Technology in the Modern World" in Carl F. Stover, ed., The Technological Order, Proceedings of the Encyclopedia Britannica Conference (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963), p. 3.
9. Scott Buchanan "Technology as a System of Exploitation," ibidem, p. 157.
10. Hugo Padilla "Los objetos tecnológicos; su base gnoseológica," in La filosofía y la ciencia en nuestros días (Mexico: Editorial Grijalbo, 1976), pp. 157-170.
11. Friedrich Engels, The Role of Labor in the Transformation of the Ape into Man; El papel del trabajo en la transformación del mono en hombre, in K. Marx-F. Engels, Obras Escogidas (Moscú: Editorial Progreso, n.d.), pp. 371-382.
12. Lewis Mumford "Technics and the Nature of Man," in Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey, Philosophy and Technology, Readings in the Philosophical Problems of Technology, pp. 77-85.
13. Vincent E. Giuliano "The Mechanization of Office Work," Scientific American (Sep., 1982), pp. 125-134.
14. David M. Freeman, op. cit., p. 58.
15. Francisco F. Papa Blanco, op. cit., p. 19.
16. Victor C. Ferkiss, Technological Man: The Myth and the Reality (New York: George Braziller, 1969), pp. 57-70.
17. Erewhon, especially the three chapters under the heading "The Book of the Machines."
18. Friedrich Georg Jünger, The Failure of Technology (Chicago: Regnery, 1949).
19. Leo Tolstoy "The Superstitions of Science," The Arena, 20 (1898), in John G. Burke, ed., The New Technology and Human Values (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1966), pp. 24-30.