“ Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it”
- Heidegger 1949:279
The discussion in the class can be broadly divided into three phases of discussion: Philosophy, Epistemology and Serendipity. The idea was to look at the philosophy of technology, to examine the attitudes to technology in both policies and critiques.
PHILOSOPHY
The class started with the definition ‘Philosophy’. One of the reliable sources (The Analysis of Mind by Russell, Bertrand) defined Philosophy as:
1. Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.
2. Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.
3. A system of thought based on or involving such inquiry: the philosophy of Hume.
4. The critical analysis of fundamental assumptions or beliefs.
5. The disciplines presented in university curriculums of science and the liberal arts, except medicine, law, and theology.
6. The discipline comprising logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology.
7. A set of ideas or beliefs relating to a particular field or activity; an underlying theory.
8. A system of values by which one lives: has an unusual philosophy of life.
For the purposes of the class, we were working primarily with definitions 7 and 8.
After having provoked the students to view the relationship between society and technology from a philosophical point of view, the next question that was posed to students was:
- What is an instrument? Is it an evil itself? An instrument, according to the definition is
1. A means by which something is done; an agency.
2. One used by another to accomplish a purpose; a dupe.
3. An implement used to facilitate work.
4. A device for recording, measuring, or controlling, especially such a device functioning as part of a control system.
5. Music A device for playing or producing music: a keyboard instrument.
6. A legal document, such as a deed, will, mortgage, or insurance policy.
(Source: Pellucidar by Burroughs, Edgar Rice)
But the concept of an instrument being an evil thing came in from the society in which it was being used, from the way it was introduced to the people in the society or ‘Who is seeing makes a difference to what is being seen.’
EPISTEMOLOGY
Epistemology, meaning "knowledge, science", and λόγος (logos), meaning "study of") is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge.[1] It addresses the questions:
- What is knowledge?
- How is knowledge acquired?
- How do we know what we know?
Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to connected notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims.
The idea of introducing the question of epistemology was to make the connect between science and technology where is born the notion of context within the dominant model of knowledge. This model keeps the knower and the object of knowledge separate – in philosophical language - ‘S -knows- P’. (For better understanding of the S & P model refer to the following:
S knows that P if and only if:
- P;
- S believes that P;
- if P were false, S would not believe that P;
- if P is true, S will believe that P )
i.e., if S is the scientist, and P the object of knowledge, should the scientist be biased in order to come up with an invention for any particular society? Does the context lead to the bias? Is Bias inherent? If yes, then what about fields like mathematics? Does that mean that not all scientists are biased?
The model of knowledge that says “S knows that p” is one that is premised on neutrality, one that is not driven by context, one where bias is equal to context. Where the knower merely arrives at the truth of the object. Are there other models possible? Does the concept of neutrality as put out in the dominant form really work? These were some of the questions that animated the discussion.
But at the end of this discussion, it was concluded that
Bias ≠ Context.
And it was also said that ‘concept and fascination is what drives a scientist’.
To further understand the equation better, it was essential for everyone to understand what ‘being biased’ means. Bias was defined by one of the students as ‘an inclination to give a partial perspective at an expense of an equally whole alternative’. And contexts lead to constraints and assumptions.
One of the best examples cited in the support of ‘Biased nature of the findings of certain researches that is accepted world over’ was the ideal body weight of humans which was prepared based on case studies of Caucasian males, but that is accepted as a universal parameter.
Which led to the following arguments:
- Are all scientists neutral but yet biased?
- Does that mean that neutrality does not really exist?
- Why can’t the scientists be neutral?
- Are the mathematicians and the physicists the only group of scientists who are unbiased?
- Does revealing convert nature into resource?
- Have we become a part of machine technology today? Is there something called the politics of technology?
- What about the ethics of technology?
SERENDIPITY
The students were first introduced to the term ‘ Serendipity’ which was defined as: the property of making fortunate discoveries while looking for something unrelated, or the occurrence of such a discovery during such a search. And the students were asked to list various serendepitious inventions in every field such as Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Mathematics etc.
The class came to an end with a question which said:
‘If all these discoveries stated were mere accidents, then, what were the respective scientists working on until then?’
