Philosophy and Technology

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Philosophy and Technology

ABSTRACT: This paper deals the place of technology in contemporary culture, and the relationship between science and morality. A definition of technique as a social process has to emphasize the fact that technique means developing and enabling different fabricated material systems; it is also the action of environment transformation according to human necessities. The area of culture is not limited to classical values, conceived with traditional meanings, arts and human sciences, but also covers the values of the natural and technical sciences as well as the whole set of values implied by technique and technology. Far from being a marginal component of culture, technology interacts internally with philosophical fields such as epistemology, ontology, value theory, and ethics. It also partly overlaps partly with other fields. I suggest that science should not be considered as free of value and neutral from a moral viewpoint both because the scientist makes valuable judgments during scientific activity and because the applications of science have moral value and raise moral problems. There is thus a need for moral control that would deter the scientists from evildoing. The need for wisdom and a clear scientific attitude in our contemporary technical civilization is emphasized.

Technology and culture. Some of the philosophical problems the nowadays technique and technology are confronted with are related to the definition of concepts, the cultural value contained in them, and place they have in the European culture. In what it concerns the concepts of technique and technology, a consensus does not exist. The Romanian Encyclopedic Dictionary (1966) gives the following definitions, according to a wide-...

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..., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989

3. Edem GOBLOT, Traité de logique, A. Colin, Paris, 1941

4. P.P. NEGULESCU, Istoria filosofiei contemporane (The History of Contemporary Philosophy), Monitorul Oficial si Imprimeriile Statului, Bucuresti, 1941

5. Constantin NOICA, Incercare asupra filosofiei traditionale (Essay on Traditional Philosophy), Bucuresti, 1950

6. Liana POP, Nevoia de intelepciune in civilizatia stiintifico-tehnica contemporana (The Need of Wisdom in the Contemporary Scientific and Technical Civilization), Scientific Journal of the Polytechnic Institute of Cluj-Napoca, 32, 1989

7. Liana POP, The Place of Technology in the Contemporary Culture, Proceedings of International Symposium Constructions 2000, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 1993

8. Tudor VIANU, Studii de filosofia culturii (Studies of Philosophy of Culture), Editura Eminescu, Bucuresti, 1983

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