From Technological Autonomy to Technological Bluff: Jacques Ellul and Our Technological Condition

Human Affairs ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Craig Hanks ◽  
Emily Kay Hanks
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Technological Condition ◽  
Herbert Marcuse ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Technological Society ◽  
Hans Jonas ◽  
Jacques Ellul ◽  
Lewis Mumford

AbstractThe work of Jacques Ellul is useful in understanding and evaluating the implications of rapidly changing technologies for human values and democracy. Ellul developed three powerful theses about technology: technological autonomy, technological determinism, and technological bluff. In this essay, the authors explicate these views of technology, and place the work of Ellul in dialogue with the ides of other important theorists of technology (including Max Weber, Herbert Marcuse, Lewis Mumford, Langdon Winner, and Hans Jonas). Ellul’s too-often overlooked theses about technology are relevant to our present technological society

scholarly journals Myth and technology: Finding philosophy’s role in technological change

Human Affairs ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 526-534
Author(s):  
Kieran Brayford
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Real World ◽  
Herbert Marcuse ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Hans Jonas ◽  
Distorted Image ◽  
Real World Setting ◽  
John Gray ◽  
Luciano Floridi

AbstractIn this paper, I argue that philosophy’s potential to influence technological change is impeded by the presence of two common and influential myths surrounding technology—the myth of progress and the myth of technological determinism. Such myths, I suggest, hinder philosophy’s influence by presenting a distorted image of technology—respectively, as an unqualified good, and as an entity with its own autonomous logic. Steven Pinker and Martin Heidegger are selected as influential advocates for progress and technological determinism respectively, and their work is explored in turn. The work of John Gray and of Herbert Marcuse is then employed to demythologise technology by articulating an alternative image of technology that is not just more accurate, but also more conducive to philosophical influence. Finally, the work of Hans Jonas and Luciano Floridi is used to ground the conclusion that, should philosophy wish to influence technological change, an effective method of doing so could be the articulation of ethical maxims and the supervision of their translation into a real world setting.

Creative Reconstruction of the Technological Society

2021 ◽  
pp. 254-276
Author(s):  
David Skrbina ◽  
Renee Kordie
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Technological Society ◽  
Human Control ◽  
Transformative Action ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Global Population

Contemporary society is on a clearly unsustainable path, and faces multiple disaster scenarios in the coming decades unless transformative action is taken in the very near future. Among the prime root causes of our present dilemma is modern technology. It has allowed the emergence of modern-day miracles of our technological society, but it has also brought an exploding global population and widespread assaults on the natural environment. In fact, all major social problems are ultimately technological problems. Furthermore, technology is expanding exponentially on several fronts, and threatens to exceed human control. The thesis of ‘technological determinism’ has a long history, but only in recent years has its effects become manifest. Under such conditions, one promising long-term solution is a slow but steady retraction of modern technology. Such a ‘creative reconstruction’ of society will allow us to maintain that which is truly valuable in life, while putting humanity and the planet on a path to real sustainability.

Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society

1971 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Mitcham ◽  
Robert Mackey ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Technological Society ◽  
Jacques Ellul

Heidegger's Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse

2003 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 700
Author(s):  
Charles J. Helm ◽  
Richard Wolin
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Herbert Marcuse ◽  
Hans Jonas

Heidegger's Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse

2002 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 167
Author(s):  
Stanley Hoffmann ◽  
Richard Wolin
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Herbert Marcuse ◽  
Hans Jonas

The Rise of the Electrophorus

2011 ◽  
pp. 401-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katina Michael ◽  
M.G. Michael
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Sociotechnical Systems ◽  
Technological Society ◽  
Jacques Ellul ◽  
Automatic Teller Machines ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Human Nervous System

When Jacques Ellul (1964, p. 432) predicted the use of “electronic banks” in his book, The Technological Society, he was not referring to the computerization of financial institutions or the use of Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs). Rather it was in the context of the possibility of the dawn of a new entity- the coupling of man and machine. Ellul was predicting that one day knowledge would be accumulated in electronic banks and “transmitted directly to the human nervous system by means of coded electronic messages… [w]hat is needed will pass directly from the machine to the brain without going through consciousness…” As unbelievable as this man-machine complex may have sounded at the time, forty years on visionaries are still predicting that such scenarios will be possible by the turn of the twentysecond century. A large proportion of these visionaries are cyberneticists. Cybernetics is the study of nervous system controls in the brain as a basis for developing communications and controls in sociotechnical systems.

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