Tcchnologv In So&y, Vol. 1, pp.

67-74 (1979) 0160-791X/l9/010067-08$02J3O~

Pergamon Press. Printed in the U.S.A. Copyright@ 1979 Pergamcm Press

The Five Buds of Technophilosophy

Mario Bunge

Technophilosophy, as I will call the philosophy of technology, was probably founded

by Aristotle. He seems to have been the first to investigate not only the differences
between tech&, or practical knowledge, on the one hand, and episthe, or theoret-
ical knowledge , on the other-which differences had been drawn by his teacher,
Plato. Aristotle remarked also the profound ontological differences between the
artificial and the natural.
However, that is as far as technophilosophy went for more than two millenia.
True, some of the moderns-particularly Bacon and Descartes-were interested in
technology, but not from a philosophical point of view; they may be said to have
founded the sociology of technology, for they wrote about the impact of pure and
applied science on society. Even the organizers of the EncycZop&&efailed to realize
the conceptual richness of technology and the philosophical problems it raised.
In sum, until a few years ago, most of what the philosophers had to say about
technology was concerned not so much with technological research and
development, in particular invention, design, and planning, as with the final products
of the technological process and their impact on society. Worse, a sizeable portion of
that literature consists of romantic wailings about the alleged evils of technology as
such. (Characteristically, such writers as Berdyaev, Ellul, Heidegger, Marcuse, and
Habermas fail to distinguish technology from its applications, and endow it with an
autonomous existence and, moreover, with power over man.)
That situation started to change a decade or so ago. Some of the first products of a
more profound, sober and competent philosophical approach to technology were
collected by Melvin Kranzberg (1966) in Technology ad Culture. Others were
gathered later on by Friedrich Rapp (1974). Mitcham and Mackey (1972)
anthologized both the \traditional and the newer production in the field, and
published a comprehensive bibliography (1973), listing hundres of items. Spiegel-
Rosing and Price (1977) took a cross-disciplinary view. The University of Delaware
and Lehigh University each publish a newsletter dealing with the subject, and an
increasing number of philosophical congresses devote special sections to it. What is

Mario Bunge is Professor of Philosophy and bead of the Foundztions and Philosophy of
Science Unit at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He has been a full professor of
theoretical pbystis and of philosophy in his native Argentina and in the United States, and
has be& visiting positions elsewhere. He has published 15 books and more than 200
articles. His best known works are Causality (1959), Foundations of Physics (1%7),
Scientific Research (1% 7) and the Treatise on Basic Philosophy (in press).

67
68 Mario Bunge

more important, some good philosophers have started to notice technology and to
investigate some of the philosophical problems it raises.
Notwithstanding this flurry of activity, technophilosophy is still immature and
uncertain of its very object, and does not exploit the entire scope of its own
possibilities. That it is an underdeveloped branch of scholarship is suggested by the
fact that so far no major philosopher has made it his central concern or written an
important monograph on it. (I do not count the tiresome tirades on the way
technology ‘ ‘dehumanizes’ ’ man or robs him of his “authenticity”; that is not
philosophy, but bad literature.) That technophilosophy is still uncertain about its
very object is indicated by the vagaries of the term “technology,” which, to some,
means all techniques; to others, all applied sciences (including medicine and city
planning); and to still others again, something else. And that technophilosophy is not
yet exploiting all of its possibilities is indicated by the fact that it is mostly concerned
with ethical and praxiological problems, while neglecting the challenging problems
of the nature of artifacts-the differences between technological and scientific
knowledge, the kind and role of technological valuations, and the peculiarities of
technologically-oriented action.
This article, of a programmatic nature, will attempt to outline what I take to be the
main research areas of technophilosophy. I will try to show that technophilosophy
has five possible main chapters-still to be written. These I will call technoepistem-
ology, technometaphysics, technoaxiology, technoethics, and technopraxiology.
Since these branches of technophilosophy are, at best, budding, I shall argue both for
their possibility and their value by mentioning in each case a collection of problems,
on the assumption that new disciplines emerge from investigating systematically new
and interesting problems. In every case, I shall use the widest concept of technology,
i.e., the one that embraces the various physiotechnologies (all the branches of
engineering), biotechnologies (the applied life sciences), and sociotechnologies (juris-
prudence, management, city planning, etc.). And I shall borrow from some of my
previous publications (Bunge, 1963; 1967; 1976; 1977).

Technoepistemology
I shall call technoepistemology, or technognosiology, the philosophical study of tech-
nical knowledge. Let the following questions characterize vaguely this budding
discipline:

-How can technological knowledge be characterized to distinguish it from both

ordinary knowledge and from scientific knowledge? (Caution: Do not mistake
know-how or tacit technical knowledge, for explicit technological knowledge.)
-What are the epistemological presuppositions of technological R & D? In par-
ticular, do technologists have to assume, if only tacitly, that the external world is
knowable and that the best knowledge comes in the form of mathematical
models?
-1s there a technological method parallel to the scientific method and, if so, what are
its rules and what is the efficiency of the latter?
-Some philosophers have claimed that, unlike science, technology has no laws and
 The Five Buds of Technophilosophy 69

theories of its own. True or false? And, if true, what distinguishes technological
law statements and theories from scientific ones?
-What are the peculiarities of the rules of advanced technology vis-a-vis mathemat-
ical and scientific rules?
-The measurements and computations performed in technology are usually
approximate-even more so than in pure science. How does approximattion
affect deduction?
-What are the grounds for technological predictions and to what extent are they
self-fulfilling?
-How can one formalize in general terms the effect of the knowledge of a tech-
nological forecast on a course of action (i.e., the so-called Morgenstem effect)?
-Unlike pure scientists, management experts and engineers often claim that they
employ the subjective (or Bayesian) concept of probability (namely as a quanti-
tation of the degree of belief). Is this true, or do they mistake subjective
estimates of objective probabilities for subjective probabilities?
-What are the epistemological characteristics of the indicators employed in
technology, in particular in the biotechnologies and the sociotechnologies?
(Examples of such indicators: health and the quality of life.)

Technome taphysics
I shall call technomelaphysics, or the ontology of technology, the philosophical study
of the nature of artificial systems, from simple machines to complex man-artifact
systems, such as factories and armies. Here are some problems in this area:

-What are the metaphysical (ontological) presuppositions of technology? In

particular, do technologists have to assume, if only tacitly, that the external
world is real and lawful, and that assembly processes result sometimes in systems
possessing emergent properties?
-What are the peculiarities of all artifacts in contradistinction to natural objects?
-Should the products of artificial selection, such as wheat and chickens, count as
artifacts?
-Do artifacts and man-machine complexes possess laws of their own, different from
those studied by pure science?
-Can one say of artifacts that they “embody ideas’ ‘-and, if so, does this imply
that there can be disembodied ideas?
-What distinguishes self-controlled artifacts from natural self-controlled systems,
such as enzymatic reactors?
-1s it possible to design or program a computer capable of inventing or avoiding
conceptual problems? And of doing good or evil of its own accord?
-What are the ontological hypotheses-particularly concerning mind-which
underlie artificial intelligence research?
-What are the ontological presuppositions of the various educational schools,
particularly the hypotheses concerning spontaneity and environmental influence?
-How do the individualist, the holist, and the systemist ontologies affect social
policies and legislation?
70 Mario Bunge

Technoaxiology
Axiology, or value theory, is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of
values, their origin (biological, social, or other), and their impact on human action.
Hence I shall call technoaxiology the philosophical study of the valuations performed
by technologists in the course of their professional activities. A few open problems of
technoaxiology follow:

-Whereas natural science is presumably value-free, social science and technology

are arguably value-laden. In what manner and why?
-What kind of values does the technologist handle: cognitive, moral, economic,
social, or political-or all of these?
-What technological value indicators (or estimators) are the most reliable:
benefitlcost ratios, satisfaction of social needs, or what?
-The values occurring in decision theory and its applications (e.g., to management
and engineering) are subjective. Would it be possible and desirable to replace
them with objective values? Or with objective-subjective pairs of values?
-How could one define the concept of objective value-i.e., what set of axioms
might characterize it unambiguously?
-Would it be possible to formulate decision rules based upon value theoretic axioms
or theorems relating the values of the goals and side effects to those of the
means?
-Technologists are reputedly insensitive to social needs and concerned solely with
achieving technical excellence. Is this one-sidedness unavoidable or could it be
corrected-e.g., by adopting a global technological approach, rather than a
piecemeal one?
-Technologists make, or ought to make, decisions on the strength of both laws
(natural or social) and value judgments. Would it be possible and desirable to
generalize this procedure to approach moral, legal, and political issues?
-What is the precise role of value judgments in the drawing up of urban develop-
ment plans, educational projects, health care systems, or plans for the develop-
ment of a nation?
-Assuming that every member of a community can assign his or her value to
every initiative or action in a social scope, is it possible to form an aggregate
value for the community as a whole and thus be able to speak of the value it
assigns to the idea or action-without fantasizing about collective minds?

Technoethics
I call technoethics the branch of ethics that investigates the moral issues encountered
by technologists and by the public at large in connection with the social impact of
large-scale technological projects, such as massive birth control, the introduction of
“miracle grains,” the building of dams, or nuclear energy plants, and the like. Here
are some outstanding problems of technoethics crying for an exact and systematic
investigation:
 The Five Buds of Technophilosopby 71

-How can one characterize a good artifact or a good technological service, and how
an evil or indifferent one?
-Is every piece of technological knowledge and every bit of technical know-how
worth having, or should some of them be shunned for being evil and worthless?
-What, if any, are the limits to our rights to subdue nature, who or what sets them,
and how should they be observed?
-Is the technblogist morally irresponsible or does he have to answer for his projects
and actions?
-Several professional societies have adopted codes of professional conduct, but few
of them go beyond prescribing intellectual and pecuniary honesty. Should these
codes be supplemented with clauses concerning the moral and social responsibility
of technologists?
-1s it possible and desirable to institute a moral control of technology by drawing
up and enforcing moral or social codes? Or does technology have an irresistible
momentum? Does technology need completely free rein to prosper?
-Is it morally acceptable to transfer technologies to developing nations without
first assessing the impact on employment, distribution of wealth, and other social
aspects?
-Is it morally acceptable to design large-scale technological projects without asking
for the participation of social scientists and even representatives of the
communities likely to be affected by such developments?
-Granting that technology can be misapplied-e.g., for the production of junk food
or of redundant armament-can every miscarriage of technology be corrected with
more technology alone or is something else needed?
-1s there anything morally wrong with total technocracy, or government by experts
alone-not just in public works and finances, but in every aspect of social life?

Technopraxiology
Praxiology, or action theory, is concerned with studying human action in general, be
it private or social, rational or not, good or evil. I shall call technupraxiology the
philosophical study of human action guided by technology. Its object or referent is
the same as that of human engineering, operations research, management science,
military strategy, decision theory, and other disciplines-namely rational human
action. But the approach and the goal of technopraxiology are different, for the
former is maximally general and the latter cognitive rather than practical. Here is a
list of open problems in technopraxiology:

-How could the concept of rational action be exactified? (Caqtion: Either the goal
or the means of an action may not be rational.)
-How might the concept of technology-guided action be characterized?
-How could one measure the degree of success or efficacy of an action? And under
what circumstances can it be equated to the probability of its outcome, or else to
the product of the latter by the value of the outcome?
72 Mario Bunge

-How might one formalize in general terms the degree of efficiency of a means to
a given end?
-What is the formal structure of a plan of action?
-In what manner do empirical knowledge, theories, and valuations intertwine in the
drawing up of a technological project?
-What is the most rational manner of performing technology assessments: by
seizing on intrinsic characteristics (e.g., stability), by the benefits (individual or
social) that the project may yield, or in what other manner?
-How can one characterize the system composed by the policy-makers, the
planners, the decision-makers, the people in charge of implementing the plan, the
material resources, and the thing planned (i.e., what kind of system is it and how
can it be modeled?)?
-Every plan is bound to exhibit inadequacies in the course of its implementation. Is
there a general way of generating flexible plans, i.e., plans making room for
corrections performed along the way, or does one have to play it by ear? (In other
words, can the unexpected be planned? Think of computer programs.)
-Planning from above may be technically faultless, but socially unrealistic or even
noxious. Planning from below may be socially desirable but technically
incompetent. Is there any way of combining technocracy with democracy?

Possible Use of Technophilosophy

Technophilosophy can be conceived as the union of the five budding disciplines we
have just scoutednamely, technoepistemology, technometaphysics, technoaxiology,
technoethics, and technopraxiology. Technophilosophy is, let me repeat, an under-
developed branch of philosophy that has suffered from an excess of romantic mistrust
of technology, as well as from a number of misunderstandings-such as the equation
of technology with science (which dates back to Bacon) and the confusion of
technology with its products, particularly the bad ones.
That technophilosophy, when pursued in a more sober, exact and systematic vein,
should prove a valuable addition to philosophy, hence to the humanities, seems clear.
Indeed philosophy is the discipline that cannot overlook anything pervasive. But can
technophilosophy be of any use to technology? I claim it can. First, an
example-then some generalities-might be in order here.
Consider any large-scale technological project, such as the transfer of a given
technology to a developing country. We have discovered that such a project calls for
more than the participation of experts in the technology in question. It must also
involve the participation of social scientists-in particular, anthropologists,
sociologists, and economists-as well as of politicians and civil servants, if disastrous
social disruptions are to be averted. (Remember the Green Revolution?) A
technophilosopher could be instrumental in clarifying a number of ideas, in digging
up dubious presuppositions, in evaluating means and goals, and in alerting to
possible undesirable side effects. After all, the philosopher is the all-purpose critic
and he thrives on critizing.
And now a general plea is made for closer contact between technologists and
philosophers in the interest of both. Since technological R & D has epistemological,
 The Five Buds of Technophilosopby 73

ontological and axiological presuppositions, every technologist is (albeit unwittingly,

most of the time) a technoepistemologist, technometaphysician, and technoax-
iologist. To be sure, he would be better off upon becoming aware of this fact, for he
would then be able to subject such presuppositions to critical scrutiny, as a result of
which, some would be rejected, others mended, and still others added. And such
philosophical refinement could not help but benefit the design and the plan. (Besides,
the technologist would have a great time and might be able to enrich
technophilosophy in the process.)
The same holds, mutatis mutundis, for technoethics and technopraxiology: every
technologist engages de facto in them-particularly when he deliberately cheats or
cuts corners. But he would do it more competently-for better or worse-if he were
to proceed consciously and with the explicit help of philosophy. Among other things,
he would be better prepared to face peer and public criticism. In particular, he would
be better equipped to defend good projects from ignorant criticism-and to decline
participation in morally objectionable developments.
In sum, the systematic cultivation of technophilosophy should be useful to
technology and to society at large-particularly if undertaken by technologists
themselves rather than by humanists or writers who are ignorant of the technological
process.

Conclusion
Technophilosophy is a budding field with prodigious possibilities. Its systematic
cultivation requires an acquaintance with both the technological process-from
background knowledge to invention to design to decision to implementation-and
contemporary philosophy. Otherwise we shall continue to be flooded with high-
sounding, but hollow, anathemas of obscurantist philosophers, and amateur
ramblings of technologists.
A systematic cultivation of technophilosophy should prove valuable, not only to
philosophy, but also to technology itself, since the technologist cannot help having
philosophical ideas in the course of his professional work. Just as Monsieur Jordain
was unaware that he spoke prose, so the technologist may not realize that he is a part-
time technophilosopher, for he devotes some of his time to thinking of the difference
between the artificial and the natural, or between technological knowledge and
scientific knowledge, or between technical feasibility and moral desirability, or
between subjective value and objective value, and so on and so forth. The moment he
realizes this he may decide to take philosophy, or some of it, more seriously, and
perhaps even to advance it. This would be a bonanza for philosophy, which is always
in need of the cooperation of those who know something about the object of their
musings.

References
Mario Bunge, “Tecnologia, ciencia y fibsofia,” Anales de L Universidad de Chile 126 (1963), p. 64.
Mario Bunge, Scientz$ic Reseurcb, Vol. 2, ch. 11 (Berlin, Heidelberg, and New York: Springer-Verlag, 1967).
Mario Bunge, “Towards a Technoethics,” The Mot& 60 (1976), p, 96.
74 Mario Bunge

Mario Bunge, “The Philosophical Richness of Technology, ” in F. Suppe and P. D. Asquith, eds., Roceedings of
the 1976 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, vol. 2 (East Lansing, Michigan:
Philosophy of Science Association, 1977), p. 153.
Melvin Kranzberg, Technology and Culture 7 (1966).
Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey, eds., Philosophy and Technology: Readings in the Phiiosophic Problems of
Technology (New York: Free Press, 1972).
Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey, Bibliography oftbe Philosophy of Technology (Chicago and London: University
of Chicago Press, 1973).
Friedrich Rapp, Contributions to a Philosophy of Technology (Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel, 1974).
Ina Spiegel-Rosing and Derek de Solla Price, eds., Science, Technology and Society: A Cross-LIisciplinary Per-
spective (London and Beverly Hills: Sage, 1977).