Abstract
For all but the true believers the advocacy of technology transfer from the industrialized West to the “less developed countries” (LDCs) is starting to lack conviction. It is not denied that relationships of technological dependence are to be preferred over older colonial relationships. Nor has the thought been completely abandoned that technology transfer can accelerate the rate of diffusion of industrial technology to the LDCs. But events such as confirmed reports of massive destruction of the world’s rain forests, believed to be crucial to the hydrologic cycle, by means of Western supplied equipment, or population problems exacerbated by “Green Revolution” measures, give pause to all but the technological pollyannas.
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Notes
E.F. Schumacher (1973) Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered, New York: Harper Torchbooks: (1977) A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Harper Colophon: with Peter N. Gillingham (1979) Good Work. Harper Colophon.
George McRobie (1981) Small Is Possible. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.
E.F. Schumacher (1973), note 1, pp. 50–58.
For an extended critique of intermediate technology in the context of an assessment of the alternative technology (AT) movement see Stanley R. Carpenter, “A Conversation Concerning Technology: The Appropriate Technology Movement.” in Philosophy and Technology, Vol. 4., Paul T. Durbin, Ed., Dordrecht: D. Reidel, pp. 87–105.
Robert B. Reich (1983) The American Frontier, New York: Penguin Books, pp. 117–18.
According to Kenneth Boulding, the superculture is epitomized by the international similarity of airports, throughways, skyscrapers, hybrid corn and artificial fertilizers, birth control, and universities. (1969) “The Emerging Superculture: The Interplay of Technology and Values,” in Kurt Baier & Nicholas Rescher, eds., Values and the Future. New York: The Free Press, pp. 336–50.
Jacques Ellul (1967) The Technological Society. Trans, by J. Wilkinson. New York: Vintage Books.
For a summary discussion of the German philosophy of technology movement with its close ties to German engineering, as well as annotated bibliography of other investigations of this movement see Friedrich Rapp (1981) Analytic Philosophy of Technology Trans. S. Carpenter & T. Langenbruch. Volume 63, Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky, Series eds., Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Dordrecht: D. Reidel., pp. 4–16.
Cf., esp. Paul T. Durbin (1977) “Are There Interesting Philosophical Issues in Technology as Distinct from Science?”, pp. 139–52, and Mario Bunge (1977) “The Philosophical Richness of Technology,” pp. 153–72; both in PSA 1976, Vol. 2. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association.
David Dickson (1974) The Politics of Alternative Technology. New York: Universe Books, esp. 174–204.
This is a central theme of both of Winner’s books: (1986) The Whale and the Reactor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, esp. pp. 3–18; and his earlier (1977) Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of Control as a Theme in Political Thought. Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press.
Dickson, note 10, p. 183.
Stanley R. Carpenter, “A Conversation Concerning Technology: The ‘Appropriate’ Technology Move,” to appear in Philosophy and Technology, Vol. 4., Paul T. Durbin, Ed., Dordrecht: D. Reidel (forthcoming).
Charles Taylor (1987) “Overcoming Epistemology,” in Kenneth Baynes et al. (eds), Philosophy: End or Transformation? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 464–88.
Cf. Stanley R. Carpenter (1983) “Alternative Technology and the Norm of Efficiency,” in Paul T. Durbin, (ed), Research in Philosophy & Technology. Vol. 6, pp. 65–76.
Dickson, note 10, pp. 185, 86.
Richard Rorty (1979) Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, and (1982) Consequences of Pragmatism: Essays 1972–1980. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Joseph Margolis (1986) Pragmatism without Foundations: Reconciling Realism and Relativism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Inc. It is a pleasure to note that this volume is the first in an envisaged trilogy. Soon to follow are “Science without Unity: Reconciling the Human and Natural Sciences” and “Texts without Referents: Reconciling Science and Narrative.”
Verena Schumacher in Forward to George McRobie (1981), note 2, p. xi.
Ibid., p. 6
The OTA origination law was PL 92–484, signed October 13, 1972.
An indicative sampling: “Life Sustaining Technologies and the Elderly” (7/87); “Technology Transfer to China” (7/87); “Wastes in Marine Environments” (5/87); “Technologies to Maintain Biological Diversity” (3/87); “Technologies for Detecting Heritable Mutations in Human Beings” (9/86); “Transportation of Hazardous Material” (7/86); “Intellectual Property Rights in an Age of Electronics and Information” (4/86); “Alternatives to Animal Use in Research, Testing, and Education” (2/86);“Electronic Surveillance and Civil Liberties” (10/85). Source: “OTA Report Briefs,” OTA, U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C.
A. Porter, F. Rossini, S. Carpenter, T. Roper (1980) A Guidebook for Technology Assessment and Impact Analysis. New York: North Holland.
Cf., Stanley R. Carpenter (1983) “Technoaxiology: Appropriate Norms for Technology Assessment,” in Paul T. Durbin and Friedrich Rapp, eds., Philosophy and Technology. Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky, Series eds., Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Volume 80. pp. 115–36.
Cf., Stanley R. Carpenter (1984) “Redrawing the Bottom Line: The Optional Character of Technical Design Norms,” Technology in Society. Vol. 6, pp. 329–40.
Robert Nisbet (1968) “The Impact of Technology on Ethical Decision-Making,” in Tradition and Revolt. New York: Random House, p. 189.
Robert Heilbroner (1975) The Making of Economic Society, 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, pp. 47–68.
Karl Polanyi (1944) The Great Transformation. New York: Rinehart. p. 71.
E.F. Schumacher (1973), note 1, pp. 39, 40.
Robert Nisbet (1968), note 26, p. 185. As a point of comparison, Jacques Ellul’s original La Technique ou I’enjeu du siecle, appeared in 1954, Paris: Armand Colin, and appeared in English in 1964 as The Technological Society. Trans, by J. Wilkinson, New York: Knopf.
Stanley R. Carpenter (1983), note 15, pp. 68, 69.
A summary of the dichotomous positions regarding “intentionality” in twentieth century Western philosophy is provided in APA Newsletter on the Teaching of Philosophy, vol. 2, #3 (1981, Spring), p. 2.
Charles Taylor (1985) Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 218.
Ibid., p. 231. Taylor cites as his exemplars of this position the nineteenth century “romantic” thought of Herder and Humboldt.
Ibid., p. 232.
David Dickson, note 10, p. 176.
Ibid., pp. 178, 80.
Joseph Margolis (1988) “Information, Artificial Intelligence and the Praxical,” paper presented at the International Philosophical Conference on Information Technology and Computers. Tarrytown, NY, September 1983, p. 1. (mimeo).
Ibid.
Joseph Margolis (1978) “Culture and Technology,” in Paul T. Durbin, ed., Research in Philosophy & Technology, Vol. 1. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, Inc., p. 32.
Ibid., pp. 34, 35.
Joseph Margolis (1986), note 18, p. 116.
Joseph Margolis (1983) “Pragmatism, Transcendental Arguments, and the Technological” in Paul T. Durbin and Friedrich Rapp, (eds), Philosophy and Technology. Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky, Series (eds), Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 80, pp. 302, 3.
Ibid., p. 299.
Cf. the enormously popular Robert N. Bellah et al. (1985), Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
Robert Reich, note 5, pp. 3–21.
Joseph Margolis (1978), note 41, p. 35.
George P. Grant (1986) Technology and Justice. South Bend, IN: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, p.32.
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Carpenter, S.R. (1989). What Technologies Transfer: The Contingent Nature of Cultural Responses . In: Byrne, E.F., Pitt, J.C. (eds) Technological Transformation. Philosophy and Technology, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2597-7_11
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