Research in Philosophy and Technology, Vol. 9: Ethics and Technology by Carl Mitcham;Frederick FerréReview by: Guy V. BeckwithTechnology and Culture, Vol. 32, No. 4, Special Issue: Patents and Invention (Oct., 1991), pp.1137-1140Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for the History of TechnologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3106184 .

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TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 1137

Between these two discussions, Hickman describes: Dewey's anti- foundationalist, contextual (but not relativist) theory of inquiry and his characterization of technology as productive inquiry; the relation- ship between aesthetics and technology, given Dewey's critique of the distinction between the fine and practical arts as accidental, not essential; Dewey's analysis of philosophies of technology, primarily in the Classical period and in the period 1600-1900; Dewey's rejection of a hierarchical relationship between theory, practice, and produc- tion in favor of the mutual interpenetration of the three, with the corollary that science is a particular kind of productive technology, rather than technology being applied science; and Dewey's rejection of technological determinism in favor of the view that technology is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for social change--concrete human decisions are needed for that.

Hickman's study provides compact access to Dewey's dispersed discussions of technology, in the process restoring Dewey's visibility as a philosopher of technology at least as worthy of our attention as Mumford and Ellul. Whether Dewey's philosophy of technology is a viable one is now exposed to wider criticism. In particular, whether the concrete contexts of inquiry that provoke technological action can also be the ground of objective judgments of right/wrong, good/bad, courses of technological action remains in dispute. If they cannot, then it is hard to see how Dewey's philosophy of technology can avoid being merely instrumentalist and "radically relativist," as Hickman says that it does.

STEVEN L. GOLDMAN DR. GOLDMAN is Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at

Lehigh University, where he is a member of the history and philosophy departments. His recent research has focused on engineering education and practice and the role of engineering in innovation. He is currently at work on a monograph on the philosophy of engineering.

Research in Philosophy and Technology, vol. 9: Ethics and Technology. Edited by Carl Mitcham and Frederick Ferr6. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI, 1989. Pp. xviii + 306; references. $58.50.

Few problems today are as important as the relationship between our expanding technological powers and the ethical predispositions and imperatives that might regulate and civilize those powers. Thus publication of the most recent volume in the Research in Philosophy and Technology series is welcome, given its focus on ethics and technology. This theme has taken on special urgency because of the proliferation of technologies fraught with moral ambiguities, an increase in public awareness of ethical problems, and the insistent prodding of techno- logical and environmental disasters.

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1138 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE

To the task of exploring this vital territory the editors bring an impressive record of erudition and an ambitious set of goals. In his inaugural statement as general editor, Frederick Ferr6 stresses that the philosophy of technology must be broadly conceived in terms of subject and method; this requires an editorial policy "respectful of a healthy pluralism," yet capable of fostering authentic advances in the philosophic enterprise (pp. x-xi). Guest editor Carl Mitcham cites the need to gather in one volume articles representative of the full spectrum of situations in which ethics and technology are involved, again not for mere diversity's sake, but as part of an "expanding interdisciplinary effort" oriented toward "interrelationships and pos- sibilities of synthesis" (pp. xvii-xviii).

The text itself is divided into two main sections. The first includes fifteen articles, alphabetically organized by author. Following Mitcham's initial principle, these cover a wide variety of topics: robotics, nuclear weaponry, space exploration, "convivial" technology, biotechnics, and so on. They also embody a range of philosophical approaches, from the evolutionary epistemology (and optimism) of Paul Levinson to the austere dialectics of Jacques Ellul. I was particularly impressed by Anthony Weston's "Ivan Illich and the Radical Critique of Tools." In clear and precise prose, Weston analyzes the strengths and weaknesses in Illich's position, making good use-rare in this section--of allusions to the history of technol- ogy. In another probing essay, Ellul employs his theory of technique to dismiss traditional strategies in ethical thought as holdovers from the pretechnical past. He then argues for creation of a new existential "ethics of nonpower," similar in inspiration to Schumacher's celebra- tion of the human scale and Illich's conviviality, yet capable of challenging the obsession with manipulation and control endemic to a "technicist" civilization. Hwa Yol Jung's contribution is also interest- ing: written from a Heideggerian perspective, it traces the concept of technological rationality to its Cartesian roots, and mounts a powerful deconstructive critique. These, and several of the other articles, merit careful study.

Unfortunately, to reach the better selections readers must sift through a number that are, in terms of nuanced language and power of argument, rather pedestrian. Perhaps these essays were originally written with less demanding occasions in mind and included here to represent particular subject areas or disciplinary angles of attack. Alphabetical organization, although it sidesteps some problems, pre- vents the editors from sheltering progressively weaker selections behind "lead" items, with the result that we occasionally move from the sublime to the mediocre with the turn of a page.

Whereas the "Main Articles" section is uneven, the "Review and Bibliography" section is consistently good. It includes five substantive reviews, highlighted by Paul Durbin's commentary on Interdisciplinary

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TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 1139

Analysis and Research (Chubin, Porter, et al.) and Jim Grote's response to George Parkin Grant's English-speaking Justice. Two literature reviews follow, devoted to communications technology and environ- mental ethics. Mitcham calls the latter of these "an analysis of recent literature . . . that is itself a contribution to that literature" (p. xviii), an evaluation that could justly be applied to both. The concluding entry is a well-crafted article by Stephen Cutcliffe on the emergence of science, technology, and society as an academic field.

The last three selections are not only of high quality; they also, in conjunction with Durbin's review, effect a shift from works grounded in specific disciplines to studies of broad, explicitly interdisciplinary literatures and fields. This transition, along with the use of an organizing theme, gives the book as a whole a more satisfying intellectual architecture than one usually finds in an annual collection. In effect, section 2 intensifies the motif, announced in the introduc- tion and echoed in section 1, of philosophy opening itself up to the contributions of other disciplines and to integrative methodologies. It is at this strategic point that references to various fields and subfields, including the history of technology, increase dramatically. The overall result is to give the reader a sense of progress toward the editors' twin goals of inclusiveness and synthesis. If this volume is any indication, the philosophy of technology is moving beyond disciplinary chauvin- ism and the endless multiplication of perspectives, tendencies that paralyze a good deal of modern thought.

Despite a certain unevenness, then, Ethics and Technology has much to offer in the way of theoretical scope and value. It is unfortunate, therefore, that it fails at a more basic level. The text itself is peppered with typographical errors, garbled sentences, word substi- tutions, grammatical flaws, repeated lines, and the like. The sheer number of these lapses-I count roughly 220 in 306 pages, with some clustered eight and ten to a page-is distracting, to say the least. Some of the errors are of the unintentionally humorous sort: philosophers "medicating" disputes, whistle-blowers "fied" by their employers, and workers sensing (in a Kafkaesque moment) "the press of enroaching technicism" (p. 166). Others are more serious in that they alter and even reverse the meanings of key sentences (see pp. 74, 104, 195). Mitcham's enigmatic acknowledgment probably refers to early efforts to cope with these problems: he praises Ferre and the editorial staff for "work and dedication and patience above and beyond what should have been required" (p. xviii). But clearly something more was required. The text should never have been allowed to go to press in this condition. Nonetheless, I hope readers will have the "dedication and patience" to work through these difficulties. Ethical dialogue depends on extraordinary care in the use of language, and undoubtedly many of the contributors labored long and hard to achieve it. Although something of their precision

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1140 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE

and cogency was lost in the publication process, what survives is of genuine philosophical interest.

GuY V. BECKWITH

DR. BECKWITH is associate professor of history at Auburn University. He is the author of articles in Science, Technology, and Human Values, Issues in Integrative Studies, South Atlantic Quarterly, and other journals, and is currently working on a book about the role of technology in contemporary utopian communities.

Lifeworld and Technology. Edited by Timothy Casey and Lester Embree. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1990. Pp. xii+ 313; notes, index. $37.95.

Husserl's term "life world," as far as it can be understood by nonphenomenologists (including myself), seems to refer to the ev- eryday world as encountered and lived by us. The phenomenological project involves describing the variety of objects and horizons that we encounter in our "life world." The task of description encompasses moral, political, aesthetic, religious, linguistic, and historical dimen- sions, thus making phenomenology the grandest of intellectual projects. In that technology is increasingly a part of our life world, the phenomenological analysis of technology in principle could make an important contribution to our understanding of technology. The promise of the approach has already been indicated by Husserl's student, Martin Heidegger, whose classic essay on the nature of technology remains one of the most insightful pieces in the philoso- phy of technology. The interdisciplinary character of the phenome- nological approach resonates nicely with calls by historians such as Thomas Hughes and others to investigate the seamless web of technology and society.

With the stage set for a revitalized philosophy of technology via phenomenology, I had high hopes for this edited collection of seventeen papers presented at a 1987 conference held by the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology at Duquesne University. Unfortunately, the collection is a disappointment. The topics are fragmented, the essays are often poorly argued, the coherence of the volume is nonexistent, and the editors do not even do us the service of providing an introduction to any of the essays, never mind to phenomenology as a whole.

Technology is a slippery term, and certainly we need to widen our conception of technology beyond that of merely artifacts and pro- cesses, but without any attempt to address definitional issues the reader is left feeling that this collection is a hodgepodge of different sorts of topics, which for convenience are being labeled as technology. For instance, there is a very informative essay by Robert Proctor on the origins of the kind of science practiced in Nazi Germany. The

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