Controlling technology : contemporary issues /
edited by Eric Katz, Andrew Light, and William Thompson.
- Second edition.
- 532 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Includes bibliographical references.
The Modern Predicament -- The Fate of the Earth / Why McDonald's French Fries Taste So Good / Defining Technology -- Technology: Practice and Culture / Defining Technique / The Knowing World of Things / The Device Paradigm / The Blessings of Technology -- Can Technology Replace Social Engineering? / The Role of Technology in Society / Technology and Culture in a Developing Country / The Autonomy of Technology and Its Philosophical Critics -- The Autonomy of Technique / Toward a Philosophy of Technology / Reverse Adaptation and Control / Artifacts, Neutrality, and the Ambiguity of "Use" / In Praise of Technology / The Autonomy of Technology / Demystifying Autonomous Technology Through the History of Technology -- Is Technology Autonomous? / Do Machines Make History? / Social Choice in Machine Design: The Case of Automatically Controlled Machine Tools, and a Challenge for Labor / Technological Momentum / The Ruination of the Tomato / Technology, Ethics, and Politics -- Presumed Neutrality of Technology / Technology and Politics in Totalitarian Regimes / The Political Impact of Technical Expertise / From Information to Communication: The French Experience with Videotex / Citizen Virtues in a Technological Order / Technological Ethics in a Different Voice / Appropriate Technology -- Authoritarian and Democratic Technics / Less Work for Mother? / Appropriate Technology and Inappropriate Politics / Computers, Information, and Virtual Reality -- Technorealism: An Overview / The Computerized Office: Productivity Puzzles / Virtual Reality: The Future of Cyberspace / Technologies of the Individual: Women and Subjectivity in the Age of Information / Information and Reality / Jonathan Schell -- Eric Schlosser -- Arnold Pacey -- Jacques Ellul -- David Baird -- Albert Borgmann -- Alvin M. Weinberg -- Emmanuel G. Mesthene -- Kwame Gyekye -- Jacques Ellul -- Hans Jonas -- Langdon Winner -- Russell Woodruff -- Samuel C. Florman -- Joseph C. Pitt -- Michael Goldhaber -- Robert Heilbroner -- David F. Noble -- Thomas P. Hughes -- Mark Kramer -- Norman Balabanian -- Paul R. Josephson -- Dorothy Nelkin -- Andrew Feenberg -- Langdon Winner -- Diane Michelfelder -- Lewis Mumford -- Ruth Schwartz Cowan -- Thomas Simon -- David Shenk -- Edward Tenner -- Gordon Graham -- Suzanne K. Damarin -- Albert Borgmann. Pt. 1. 1. 2. Pt. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Pt. 3. 7. 8. 9. Pt. 4. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. Pt. 5. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. Pt. 6. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. Pt. 7. 27. 28. 29. Pt. 8. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.
"Controlling Technology brings together widely conflicting views concerning the nature of modern technology as it relates to the quality of everyday life and to the larger problem of human survival on this planet. The thesis that technology has indeed become autonomous is contrasted with the position that, by its very nature, technology can only exist under human control. Thirty-four insightful essays are divided into eight parts, each with its own introduction summarizing the chapters and placing them in their appropriate contexts." "This excellent collection of essays will be of great value for students, professionals, and all those interested in technology, the human values it affects, and the social dimensions of its use, and will appeal to anyone who has every paused to consider the every-expanding role technology plays in modern society." "Included are works by renowned scholars Jacques Ellul, Lewis Mumford, Albert Borgmann, Langdon Winner, Thomas Hughes, Andrew Feenberg, Samuel Florman, Arnold Pacey, Hans Jonas, Dorothy Nelkin, and many others."--BOOK JACKET.