Critical Theory of Technology

While critical social theorists have included discussion of technology as part of their frameworks of analysis, historically, one must look to the philosophical tradition for exhaustive thought pertaining to technology. Feenberg, trained as an academic philosopher, seeks to bridge this divide between social theory and philosophy. In giving credence to both the philosophical perspectives of Heidegger and Husserl and the critical sociological approaches of Marcuse and others at the Frankfurt School, Feenberg offers a perspective on technology unparalleled within contemporary discourse. This blending of social theory and philosophy is very much in line with the tradition of German intellectual thought and indicative of the impact Marcuse had as mentor during Feenberg’s graduate studies at the University of California, San Diego.

In Critical Theory of Technology, Feenberg works to expand Marx’s critical thought by applying it particularly to technology and technological systems. In contrast to Marx and the critical social theorists of the Frankfurt School, Feenberg does not view the rise of complex technological systems as inherently contradictory to the aims of the socialist. Feenberg, in his critical theory of technology, rejects what he sees as the historical understanding that “it is impossible to create a fundamentally different form of industrial civilization through a different instrumentalization of the existing technological base.” In creating a “politics of technological transformation,” Feenberg suggests that the prevailing technological systems, the systems of technology that presently oppress the individual through the exertion of technological rationality, need not be destroyed but, rather, altered to better suit the ...

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...values “technical codes,” but his view contrasts with that of Heidegger and the like, in that he believes these values are not inherent to the technologies themselves, but instead reflect a particular historical system of values—the values of the elite. Because critical theory of technology views the presence of values within technology as not being inherent, fixed, and unchanging, technology and technological systems can be adopted to reflect a better, truer, freer modern industrial society. In proposing a model in which technology represents a constantly evolving entity that can be reconstructed to serve human needs and goals, Feenberg seeks to avoid the undeveloped optimism of the instrumental perspective and the unyielding determinism of the substantive view. As such, a critical theory of technology, suggests a much less determined model. For Feenberg, society