The Evaluation of Technical Progress

Review of: Johan Hendrik Jacob van der Pot, Steward or Sorcerer’s Apprentice? The Evaluation of Technical Progress: A Systematic Overview of Theories and Opinions. Delft: Eburon, 1994 (2 Volumes, 1436p.; hardcover; FL. 195).

Imagine that you, being interested in issues concerning present and past technology, would like to know something about the ‘alienation from nature in work and consumption’; or, that you want to start a study of the ‘significance of Christianity for technical progress’; or, that you need a quick survey of the subject of ‘counter-utopias in science fiction’. In all such cases, you might well consult the index of these two large volumes and study the chapters to which it refers you. What can you expect to find there?

Van der Pot, a retired professor of history at the University of Leiden, offers a well-structured reference book on a huge number of past and present theories and opinions about technical progress. In ordering these theories and opinions he has not followed an historical approach. Instead, he has divided (and repeatedly subdivided) them according to a systematic classification, which makes distinctions primarily between the attitudes towards as well as and the effects, the meanings and the control of technical progress. Thus classified, we find views of philosophers, theologians, historians, social scientists, fiction authors and poets, among others. These views are presented mainly by way of substantial and extensive quotation. My rough estimate is that about two-thirds of the text consists of quotations. All excerpts from German, Dutch and French works have been carefully translated into English. A curious exception is the Latin quotations, which are sometimes merely paraphrased and sometimes even left untranslated (for example, passages from F. Bacon, p118, and from Hugh of St. Victor, p1189). The book includes an extended bibliography of more than one hundred pages and an adequate index covering 45 pages. A slight inconvenience is that the items in the index refer to (parts of) the chapters and not to page numbers. Given the size of the book, its price is reasonable.

Since ‘technology’ is a rather indefinite and wide-ranging subject, the author has applied certain implicit and explicit selection criteria, of course. ‘Technical progress’ became a major issue only in the 19th and 20th centuries, and hence there is an explicit emphasis on authors from that period. Within that group German writers are represented quite strongly. It was certainly not accidental that the original edition (of which the present book is a slightly revised, but not updated, translation) was first published in German in 1985. Given the year of publication of the German original, the issues and approaches that were proposed only after 1983 or that were not yet very prominent before 1983 are not included. Thus we will not find discussions of subjects that are obviously relevant from our present-day perspective, such as the issue of gender and technology, the work of Michel Foucault on knowledge, power and technology, the approach of empirical technology studies and the recent theories of chaos and self- organization.

In skimming through these volumes one comes across remarkable and sometimes instructive historical facts. We learn, for instance, that not just Max Himmelheber (in 1971) and Eugen Diesel (in 1926) but Aristotle held the view that fundamentally new technical inventions were not to be expected any longer, since ‘everything which served to sustain life and its pleasures had been discovered’ (p30; pp484-486). Or, consider the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, once popular among many military and political leaders during the Cold War. Reading Van der Pot’s excursus on ‘the military use of technical inventions’ teaches us that this doctrine has been repeatedly advocated in the course of history. Thus, as far back as the first century A.D., Hero of Alexandria wrote:

Even in the profoundest peace, a man must realize that he will be more secure if he busies himself with the construction of artillery. Then, in the consciousness of strength, not only will peace of mind be preserved, but those with evil intentions, seeing such preoccupation with this machinery, will not dare to proceed to the attack (p106).

Similar deterrence arguments were proposed in 1635 by George Hakewill, with respect to gunpowder (p107), and in 1784 by Benjamin Franklin, with respect to balloons (p110). The military career of these technical inventions suggests that the advice that ‘preparing for war is the best way for keeping peace’ is rather questionable.

In spite of such historical niceties (and I am sure that every reader will find some to suit his or her taste), Van der Pot’s book is basically ahistorical. Or, what amounts to the same, it is a ‘history’ of ideas. How these ideas are practically realized and how they historically relate to each other, is largely left unexplained. Thus the question of how significant the doctrine of deterrence was in the life and times of Hero, Hakewill and Franklin remains unanswered. The same applies to the question of the possible historical relationships between the three formulations of this doctrine.

Moreover, Van der Pot clearly goes beyond the mere recording of theories and opinions. Over and above the choices implied in the selection and conceptual ordering of his source material, he repeatedly adds his own assessments of the particular views discussed. Thus, he endorses the ‘devastating criticisms’ which Oswald Spengler’s theories about the decline of both Western culture and Western technology received (pp480-482). Similarly, in the chapter on the ‘bio-technological self-management of human evolution’ he joins the ‘critics of the plans for an alteration of the genetic structure’, especially of human beings (p625). On the positive side, he repeatedly expresses agreements with the biocentric eco-ethical views of the German-American philosopher Hans Jonas (e.g., pp622-624; 1104-1106). Furthermore, he clearly favours claims about the existence of certain limits-to- industrial-growth and about the consequences of exceeding these limits (pp856-894). In line with this, the book is prefaced by a supportive foreword, written by Alexander King, the former president of the Club of Rome. Finally, in concluding his long discussion of the call for a different attitude towards nature as a response to the environmental crisis, Van der Pot claims:

The Cartesian separation of subject and object is admittedly one of the conditions without which the destruction of nature could not have occurred. We should, however, identify as the real (moral and remediable) cause the consumer-oriented life-style of the rich countries (p1101).

I think that the limits-to-growth issue, if it is pursued with the required sophistication and applied to concrete cases, is certainly not outdated but still politically significant. Consider, for example, the recent debate on ‘the future of aviation’ organized by the Dutch government. The focus of this debate is on the ‘usefulness and necessity’ of either a substantial expansion of Schiphol airport or the building of a completely new major airport. These huge infrastructural projects are justified by referring to a estimated increase in air traffic. It can be plausibly argued, however, that within about 20 years oil will be getting significantly scarcer and hence much more expensive. [1] Yet, in making the predictions about the increase of air traffic, the future availability and prices of oil are not at all taken into account. [2] Consequently, by the time we will have completed the envisaged large-scale and environmentally questionable technological projects, the predictions that made these projects seem useful and necessary may well be completely outdated. In this case, taking to heart Van der Pot’s extensive and keen account of the limits-to-growth debate may induce us as yet to include the ‘availability and prices of oil’ as an important issue in the debate on the future of aviation.

Generally speaking, however, the book will be valuable as a resource for those who are interested in developing theoretical and normative conceptions and arguments concerning technology and the wider issues to which it is related. For example, in Book I Van der Pot discusses at some length the question why the ever-accelerating development of technology, from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, did take place in Western Europe but not, for instance, in ancient Greece or in China. Moreover, following such authors as M. Weber, M. Scheler, F. Gogarten and R. Hooykaas, he answers this question by taking into account the significant influence of Christianity. Apart from social, economic and geographical factors, three other conditions are identified as necessary conditions for the coming of an industrial revolution. These are the de-sacralization of nature, the emergence of a hopeful attitude towards the future and the rise of the appreciation of practically oriented work (pp59-60).

Someone interested in the methodological issues of historical explanation or in the substantive issues of the proposed explanation of technical progress will find a lot of instructive material in the relevant chapters.

Another long and informative chapter offers an elaborate discussion of anthropocentric, biocentric and theocentric philosophies of nature and their ethical implications (pp1033-1101). Again, a large number of views and arguments are presented in a conceptually differentiated manner. Following up on his explanation of the formative role of Christianity with respect to the rise of modern technology, Van der Pot addresses the claim that Christianity’s anthropocentric ethic is to blame for the technological violation of nature and the environmental crisis. As an alternative, he presents various authors who advocate a more biocentric view of nature and a corresponding ethic. His account includes a thoughtful and practically relevant discussion of the question which entities can be subjects of moral consideration: only human beings, or also animals, organic nature, and even inorganic nature (pp1055-1063)? Given the continuing debate on whether or not nature possesses intrinsic value and autonomous rights, this chapter will be quite useful as an introductory account of a number of significant issues in environmental philosophy and environmental ethics.

As the subtitle indicates, the focus of the book is on matters of evaluation. This raises the question of what precisely is to be evaluated? Viewed from our present-day perspective, this obvious question is not dealt with in an adequate way. Voluminous as it is, the book hardly contains substantial empirical descriptions and theoretical analyses of particular technologies and their socio-historical development. The often far-reaching claims refer to an abstract notion of ‘technology’, but they are not substantiated on the basis of detailed case studies. Instead, in many of the theories and opinions presented, it is more or less tacitly assumed that everybody is sufficiently familiar with technology, its progress and its being out of control. However, as recent technology studies have shown convincingly, in our changing and heterogeneous world the idea of the frictionless progress of a monolithic and autonomous technology proves to be far too simple to be true.

At some points, Van der Pot seems to be aware of this problem. Thus, he writes in a note to his first chapter:

One might expect a book on “the evaluation of technical progress” to begin with a definition of the word “technology”. There is, however, no definition which would be appropriate for all times and all forms and aspects of technology (p1186).

On the other hand, he also claims that there can be no doubt that the question of what the real meaning, the ultimate objective, of our pursuit of technical progress is - or should be - has central importance for our age (p477).

Now, I think that general evaluations of technology rightly assume that the structure and development of particular technologies display certain broader patterns. The existence of such patterns need not be incompatible with the fact that technology is a multifaceted phenomenon that cannot be uniquely defined. However, Van der Pot and many of the authors he presents go a step further by assuming that these patterns somehow can be summarised so as to reveal the ‘real meaning’ and ‘ultimate objective’ of technology, which will then provide the foundation for its unambiguous evaluation. That step, in my opinion, is questionable.

Notes

1. See A.W. Grupping, ‘De laatste druppel olie komt in zicht’, Energie- en Milieuspectrum, 1994, nr. 10, pp. 24-27.

2. See N.E. van de Poll, ‘Vliegen zal binnen 20 jaar aanzienlijk duurder worden’, NRC Handelsblad, July 31, 1997.

author’s address: h.radder@esau.th.vu.nl