Technology And The Character Of Contemporary Life Chapter 1 Summary

Technology is constantly improving. In the last century, humanity has witnessed technology improve at an exponential rate and society change with the technology. Alfred Borgmann is concerned with explaining whether or not the rapid growth of technology has been good for society. His book, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life is an insightful work that explores and critiques modern human interaction with science and technology. One of his main concerns was critiquing technology’s effect on society through a moral lens. This is a complicated task because our rhetoric on technology is dominated by science instead of morals, so it does not seek to define right and wrong. Science is also the basis from which technology has come from

The main points I will make are that apodeictic explanations are explaining the truth based on a paradigm of scientific laws and that deictic discourse is dominated by morally unambiguous methods of finding answers, along with his cause of concern for the decline of deictic discourse.

Chapters 4-7 of Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life are concerned with scientific theory, explanation, the scope of scientific explanation, and applying science to technology. Chapter 5 is where we are introduced to Alfred Borgmann’s term apodeictic discourse. Borgmann begins by explaining how grape juice becomes wine. Yeast is introduced to sugars in the must and converts them into alcohol. Another “how?” is introduced by asking how yeast converts sugars into alcohol. He explains this with a formula for fermentation and applies it to yeast in a must. Borgmann’s reasoning for his wine example is to show

In ancient times, when most people who studied the earliest forms of science agreed in the same spiritual and moral concepts, science had a clear moral direction and clearly stated goals for improving society. Over time, science has separated itself from religion and morals associated with unambiguous thinking. As a result, scientific explanation instead only serves the purpose of explaining the world, but stays out of matters like explaining what the world needs, or what is good in the world. Science cannot even explain why we need to explain things scientifically. The lack of deictic discourse in science does not mean society is devoid of it. The main disciplines of deictic discourse are art, philosophy, religion, and politics. Borgmann’s problem is that none of these disciplines are the first to be called upon in times of crisis. The field called upon first is science. It is true that politics is an arena of deictic discourse, according to Borgmann, but he also posits that technology may be undermining the influence of politics. The lack of deictic discourse in scientific explanation is then cause for concern because there is no clear direction suggested by science for political action. Borgmann refers to the gap of explanation between apodeictic explanations and deictic explanations as a lacuna with nothing to truly bring them together. His main cause for concern