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A Contextualising, Socio-technical Definition of Technology: Learning from Ancient Greece and Foucault
Abstract
The task of defining technology has had an unhappy history. It seems that agreement about what technology is—and even if a definition should be sought at all—has not been reached. This article argues that a definition is possible and should be sought. The etymology of the word technology suggests that it has long had a socio-technical meaning and, furthermore, Foucault's definition of four types of technologies suggests a framework in which a socio-technical definition of technology can be usefully detailed. In this case the definition helps to provide a broad and deeply contextual understanding of what technology is (in its tangible and intangible forms), the processes which it influences and the processes which influence it.
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Notes and References
David Mayocchi, Sound System: The Social Shaping and Construction of the Phonogram Industry. MSc dissertation, Griffith University, 1995, p. 2.
Weibe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes & Trevor Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987, p. 3.
Mayocchi., op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 4.
Thomas P. Hughes, ‘The seamless web: technology, science, etcetera, etcetera’, Social Studies of Science, 16, (1986), pp. 281–292; Thomas P. Hughes, ‘The evolution of large technological systems’, in W.E. Bijker, T.P. Hughes & T. Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987, pp. 51–82; Thomas P. Hughes, ‘From deterministic dynamos to seamless-web systems’, in H.E. Sladovich (ed.) Engineering as a Social Enterprise, National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 1991, pp. 7–25.
John Law & Michel Callon, ‘The death of an aircraft: a network analysis of technical change’, in W. Bijker & J. Law (eds), Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Socitechnical Change, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992, pp. 21–52.
Peter M. Allen, ‘Coherence, chaos and evolution in the social context’, Futures, 26, 6, 1994, pp. 583–597.
See, for example, Max Weber, The Rational and Social Foundations of Music, D. Martindale, J. Riedel & G. Neuwirth, (trans. and eds), Southern Illinios University Press, 1, 1958 [1921].
Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, J. Wilkinson (trans. and ed.), Vintage Books, New York, 1964, p. 4.
J. Schmookler, Invention and Economic Growth, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1966, p. 2.
Michel Foucault, ‘Technologies of the self, in L.H. Martin, H. Gutman & P.H. Hutton (eds), Technologies of the Self : A Seminar with Michel Foucault, Tavistock Publications, London, 1988, pp. 16–49.
Ibid., p. 18.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
P. Bourdieu, ‘Outline of a sociological theory of art perception’, International Social Science Journal, 20, 4, 1968, pp. 589–612.
Foucault, op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 36.
Marcel Mauss, ‘Techniques of the body’, Economy and Society, 2, 1, 1973, pp. 70–88.
Foucault, op. cit., Ref. 10.
Simon Frith, ‘Art versus technology: the strange case of popular music’, Media, Culture and Society, 8, 3, 1986, pp. 263–279.
Theodore W. Adorno, Philosophy of Modern Music, A.G Mitchell & W.V. Blomster (trans. and ed.), Seabury Press, New York, 1973, pp. 197–201.
Foucault, op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 18.
Craig Anderton, Guitar Gadgets, Amsco Publications, New York, 1983, p. 117.
Ibid.