Bibliography of the Philosophy of Technology by Carl Mitcham; Robert MackeyReview by: Otto MayrIsis, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Jun., 1975), pp. 271-273Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/229433 .

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BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 66 * 2 * 232 (1975) 271

by Karl Stack of Mainz; Winau has given synopses of the lives of the physicians to Frederick William the Elector of Branden- burg; and Terhalle has considered the plan of Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann for a Collegium Medicum at Mainz. These essays break valuable new ground on a period which has received too little attention from medical historians. Compared with these studies the contributions to this volume on more recent subjects are perhaps less im- pressive, but even these are not without points of interest.

CHARLES WEBSTER

Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine University of Oxford

Oxford, OX] 3QL England

Patsy A. Gerstner. The Care and Exhibition of Medical History Museum Objects. (Health Sciences Information Series, Vol. I, No. 6.) ix + 47 pp., bibl. Cleveland: Cleveland Health Sciences Library, 1974. $1.75.

If the title of this handbook were not so ambitious, we would not be quite so disappointed. Patsy A. Gerstner has given us a general guide to matters to be consid- ered by the beginner who has been charged with the care, cataloguing, and exhibiting of medical objects, or with any one of these. The procedures given for cataloguing are well thought out and workable, although documentation does not receive the em- phasis it should. The section on exhibiting, including a description of the Valentine Mott exhibit created for the New York Academy of Medicine, provides the poten- tial exhibitor with an excellent example of what is to be considered in "building" an exhibit. The section on the care of museum objects is particularly weak. I would caution those who take to washing their objects, with the exception of glass, without con- sulting professionals.

A good beginning bibliography on a wide variety of instruments is provided. However, the inclusion of some respected general histories of medicine and of partic- ular specialties would have enhanced this bibliography by providing the cataloguer or exhibitor with some basic sources for better understanding the objects, the peo-

ple who devised and used them, and their place in time.

DORIs LECKIE

Division of Medical Sciences Museum of History and Technology

Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. 20560

* TECHNOLOGY

Edwin T. Layton, Jr. (Editor). Technology and Social Change in America. (Interpreta- tions of American History.) vii + 181 pp., selective bibl. New York: Harper and Row, 1973.

This is an anthology of recent historical articles nicely complementing Carroll W Pursell's Readings in Technology and Ameri- can Life (1969), a collection of primary sources. Most of Edwin T. Layton's selec- tions are given without their original an- notations. The brief bibliography is very well done, as are the editor's introductory comments. Absent are any articles on pro- fessional and vocational education, on in- dustrial research laboratories, and on tech- nology in the military. Nevertheless, a use- ful collection for students.

NATHAN REINGOLD

Joseph Henry Papers Smithsonian Institution

Washington, D.C. 20560

Carl Mitcham; Robert Mackey. Bibliog- raphy of the Philosophy of Technology. xvii + 205 pp. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1973. $7.95.

Technology and Culture, the quarterly journal of the Society for the History of Technology, has cultivated bibliography from its start. It was here, in serial form (1962-1965), that Eugene S. Ferguson's magisterial Bibliography of the History of Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1968) was first published, and it is here that every year one finds a comprehensive biblio- graphic survey of current literature in the same field. Consistent with such traditions,

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272 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 66 *

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Technology and Culture has now published a bibliography of the philosophy of technol- ogy, first as a special issue (No. 2, part II) of its fourteenth volume (1973), then independently in book form.

To this date, many are in doubt over the very existence of a philosophy of tech- nology. If the present bibliography does nothing else, it will prove that existence, even if it is more potential than actual. Although with over two hundred pages and almost five thousand entries the bibliog- raphy presents an appearance of substan- tiality, a closer look reveals quickly that its subject is no integrated discipline yet. Much of the literature assembled here is occa- sional and amateurish, written by authors shaky on either technology or philosophy or both, a literature more eagerly written than read. Competent philosophical works are in a minority, and even they all too often seem written in disregard of previous efforts. What one misses throughout is a definition of a research front and a con- structive dialogue between the laborers in this field.

To undertake the bibliography of a disci- pline in such a state is a heroic task; simply for taking the plunge, Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey deserve much praise. If the results show imperfections, this is no dis- credit to them; on the contrary, these imperfections are of particular interest as indicators of the current needs of the philosophy of technology.

What are the essential characteristics of a good bibliography in any discipline? We consult bibliographies not only on specific questions concerning the writings of certain authors or the literature on certain subjects. A good bibliography is needed most when we are unable to specify our needs, when we want guidance to an unfamiliar disci- pline, insight into its subjects and problems, current debates, future trends. To serve these functions, a bibliography should have three features: (1) it must be critical; that is, it must guide the reader to literature that is important and protect him from what is insignificant; (2) it must have a systematic organization that helps the reader to perceive the inner logic of the discipline and to gain access to its most important activities; (3) it must have in- dexes and cross references to balance out

the possible imperfections of the particular organization adopted.

The present bibliography is deliberately inclusive. Its comprehensiveness is its best feature. It cites literature from all the major modern languages. The German literature, for example-perhaps the most extensive one on the subject-is covered with amaz- ing completeness; there is also an extensive section on Soviet and East European mate- rials. On the other hand, the bibliography lists much that is insignificant, and it does so without warning. For example, entirely too much space is occupied by that vast and ever-growing literature devoted to, shall we say, "das Kulturproblem der Technik," a literature that, however well intentioned, tends to be emotional, rhetori- cal, wordy, and intellectually undisciplined.

Many entries are annotated; the annota- tions are sometimes excellent, but they are neutrally informative rather than critical. To separate out the more important works, the compilers have instead chosen the fol- lowing scheme: some chapters are split in- to "Primary Sources" and "Secondary Sources," categories which-contrary to what historians might expect-distinguish between "basic analyses" and "less philo- sophically valuable analyses." This scheme strikes me as unhappy: it not only makes the compilers extremely self-conscious, for it forces them to label a great many of their peers (and their betters) in an una- voidably offensive manner; it also has re- sulted in many arbitrary judgments. In Chapter II, for example, we find authors like Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Max Born, James Conant, Rene Dubos, Jacob Schmookler, and Arnold Toynbee relegated to the second category ("less phil- osophically valuable"), while Peter Drucker, S. C. Gilfillan, Marshall McLuhan, E. G. Mesthene, Herbert J. Muller, Hyman Rick- over, and many that are quite unknown have rated the first ("basic analyses"). The compilers themselves seem to have lacked confidence in the scheme, for they applied it only to two chapters out of five. There still is no better method to deal with the "less valuable" literature than silence.

A crucial choice in the production of a bibliography is that of its systematic struc- ture. It will affect the definition of the subject itself, set the accents, determine

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BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 66 * 2 * 232 (1975) 273

what is included or omitted. In short, it will have much influence on the ultimate usefulness of the effort.

Given the present state of the philosophy of technology, to obtain an effective struc- ture for its bibliography is to create a structure for the discipline itself. From this challenge the compilers drew back. Instead they simply divided their material, apparently after it had been collected, into five chapters according to traditional phil- osophical categories (1. Comprehensive Philosophical Works, 2. Ethical and Political Critiques, 3. Religious Critiques, 4. Meta- physical and Epistemological Studies, plus an appendix for historical materials); there is virtually no further substructure. This approach I find unfortunate. First, the categories chosen are diffuse. There is a hopeless amount of overlap: a reader seek- ing references on any topic will always have to go through the entire book. He would have been better served with only an alpha- betic arrangement and no systematic struc- ture at all. Second, I suspect that traditional philosophical categories such as ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology (to say nothing of such unhappy pairs as "Ethics and Politics," with "Religion" as a parallel category) simply do not reflect the nature of the subject.

It seems to me that the discourse in the philosophy of technology, whenever it comes to life, centers on relatively practical and specific issues, on problems like the definition of technology, the classification of machinery, the science-technology rela- tionship, the meaning of cybernetics, ma- chine intelligence, the notion of progress, technology assessment, futurology. Ques- tions like these have recently generated much interesting literature which unfortu- nately is widely scattered. By failing to recognize these issues our bibliography not only misses valuable material, it also fore- goes an important opportunity: it would have been far better to derive its structure from the problems that the philosophy of technology is actually struggling with than from traditional and academic categories that in this context seem exceedingly stale.

Whatever the defects and idiosyncrasies of the bibliography's structure, a great deal can be rescued by a good index. I cannot imagine any type of book for which an

index is more crucially important than bibliographies. If it has to be revealed here, then, that our present bibliography has none, I hasten to add that the publishers are conscious of this defect and are busy making it up. The missing index will be supplied in one of the later 1974 issues of Technology and Culture. Owners of the bibliography in book form may then re- quest offprint copies of the index from the University of Chicago Press.

In sum, to call the present Bibliography of the Philosophy of Technology a definitive work would be exaggerated. It is, however, an original, honest, and useful piece of pioneering. Its authors deserve our grati- tude and every encouragement to go on.

OTTO MAYR Museum of History and Technology

Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. 20560

* MIDDLE AGES

Kurt Vogel. Der Donauraum die Wiege Mathematischer Studien in Deutschland. Mit drei bisher unveroffentlichten Texten des 15. Jahrhunderts. (Neue Muinchner Bei- trage zur Geschichte der Medizin und Na- turwissenschaften. Naturwissenschaftshis- torische Reihe, Band 3.) 69 pp., index. Munich: Werner Fritsch Verlag, 1973. DM 28 (paper).

This booklet arose from a talk on the Karl-Sudhoff-Gedachtnissitzung of the German Society for History of Medicine, Natural Sciences, and Technology in Passau on September 13, 1970. The famous his- torian of mathematics Kurt Vogel gives a survey of the contribution of the Danube territory to the revival of mathematical and astronomical studies in Germany.

Until the fifteenth century there had been taught only what was necessary for everyday life, as is shown by the arithmetical books in the Bavarian monasteries of the fifteenth century. The fundamental rules for natural numbers and common fractions were taught on the line abacus. In Appen- dix I the author edits such a book in German: Tractatulus de modo numerandi ac

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