Notes

 on  “Relations  that  constitute  technology  and  media  that  make  a  difference:  
toward  a  social  pragmatic  theory  of  technicization?”    by  Werner  Rammert  
 
1.  What  is  Technology?  It  encompasses  instrumental  practices,  an  ensemble  of  
material  and  nonmaterial  technofacts,  and  aligned  with  the  institutional  needs  it  
serves.  Since  Aristotle,  technologies  are  constituted  by  stuff  or  material,  form  or  
shape,  end  or  use  for  which  it  is  determined  and  finally,  the  actions  of  tool  using  
human  (Heidegger  62).  
How  to  construct  a  theory  of  technology  that  avoids  the  fallacies  of  essentialism,  
constructivism,  objectivism  and  subjectivism?  Materialists  create  a  separate  
ontological  sphere.  Form  is  coupled  to  function  leaving  no  space  for  flexibility.  
The  anthropocentrism  of  man  the  toolmaker  does  not  admit  material  agency  for  
multiple  functions/uses  or  users.    
In  the  history  of  thinking  about  technology,  “technology  has  always  been  defined  
by  differences  in  relation  to  something,  at  first  to  nature  and  life,  then  to  culture  
and  now  to  society.”  These  analytical  devices  are  ‘unsuited  to  catch  the  character  
of  contemporary  technologies  and  the  emergence  of  ‘techno-­‐structures’  that  is  
society.  (Boehme  92,  Rammert  97)  
What  is  a  relational  approach  to  technology?  Rather  than  simple  fixed  order  or  
visible  instrumentalist  relations,  Rammert  advances  a  process  view  of  
technologies  continuously  reconstructed  in  concrete  complexity.  
Technology  is  shaped  by  our  various  conceptual  models;  by  the  specifics  of  
projects  and  creators;  and  by  the  practices  of  users,  consumers.  Finally,  the  stuff  
out  of  which  technologies  are  made  has  a  mediating  function  in  relation  to  
different  practices  rather  than  essentialist.  Rammert  calls  for  a  ‘media  turn’  in  
the  theory  of  technology,  substituting  the  form-­‐media  relation  for  the  means-­‐end  
relation.  
 
2.  Technological  Difference;  From  Substance  to  Function.  The  nature/technology  
difference  has  persisted  since  Aristotle,  hinging  on  the  self-­‐organising  capacity  of  
nature  as  opposed  to  the  artificial  human  construction  of  technology.  Our  
understanding  of  nature  now  is  experimental  and  instrumentalist,  heavily  
constructed.  The  life/technology  difference  is  also  increasingly  contaminated  by  
technological  intervention  in  biology/organics,  like  patented  lab  mice.  
Materiality  is  no  longer  sufficiently  distinguishable.  
Likewise  the  difference  between  culture  and  technology  has  had  many  forms  of  
criticism.  Rammert  points  to  Wittgenstein  who  demonstrated  that  the  most  
rigorous  symbolic  science  rested  on  language  games  while  ethno  
methodologists/sociologists  demonstrate  rules  underpinning  the  most  trivial  of  
conversations.  “The  materiality  of  signs  and  the  formality  of  rules  enrich  the  
concept  of  classical  technology  that  focused  on  material  tools,  machines  and  
mechanisms.”  
Critics  of  technological  rationalism  like  Winner  unwittingly  endorse  the  
society/technology  difference.  Even  politicised  views  of  technology  tend  to  
simplify  their  relations  in  contrast  to  multiple  lines  of  negotiation  of  the  social.  
The  analytic  differences  of  technique/praxis,  work/interaction  and  
system/lifeworld  (?Ihde?  Habermas  87)  reproduce  this  division.  Society  cannot  
be  grasped  without  its  technical  mediation  (Latour  94).  “The  technologies  of  
production  constitute  the  range  of  economic  and  political  opportunities  of  
societies”.  [R]    
“The  technical  media  of  communication  constitute  the  spatial  expansion  of  
communities  and  the  temporal  intensity  of  social  life”  [R]  No  political  or  social  or  
economic  decision  is  unmediated  by  technology,  similarly  all  these  practices  are  
inscribed  into  the  technology.  Society  is  in  the  machine.  
So  technology  cannot  be  extracted  from  the  realms  above,  of  nature,  life,  culture  
and  society.  If  the  ontological  spheres  are  not  clear-­‐cut,  can  a  relational  
definition  be  found?  Does  technology  perform  a  function  across  all  differences?  
Here  is  a  review  of  philosophies  of  the  relational  form,  process  and  performance  
of  technology.  
 
3.  Technisization  and  technical  practice:  Relations  that  constitute  technology.  
Cassirer  (30)  proposed  that  both  language  and  technology  grasp  reality  by  
constructing  it.  Husserl  (36)  described  a  pathological  technisization  as  
increasing  efficiency  at  the  price  of  loss  of  meaning,  abstracting  rules  from  
experience.  
At  this  point,  technicization  is  a  schematic  relation  between  cause  and  effect,  
independent  of  the  communication  of  meaning.  This  exists  regardless  of  
mechanical  or  human  components  (think  of  a  soldier).  “The  difference  between  
technicized  and  non-­‐technicized  relations  is  a  gradual,  not  a  substantial,  one.”  Its  
techniques  include  simplification,  specialization,  abstraction,  repetition,  
encapsulating  and  ‘black  boxing’.    
The  subjectivist  idea  that  a  self  can  use  a  thing  as  an  instrument  to  affect  change  
in  the  outer  world  is  a  Cartesian  bias.  “Technics  is  a  symbiosis  of  artefact  and  
user  within  a  human  action”  (Ihde  90)  Humans  and  the  world  have  a  symbiotic  
and  mediated  relation,  not  an  instrumental  and  divided  one.  
This  lead  to  the  opposite  fallacy  of  technological  determinism,  the  objectivist  
view.  Ihde’s  ‘alterity  relations’  (90)  with  different  intensities  and  grades  of  
agency  can  be  seen  as  distributed  between  humans  and  non-­‐humans.  Currently  
agency  is  not  reserved  to  human  subjects  but  they  are  the  only  ones  who  reflect  
on  it.  Humans  cannot  reflect  on  the  relations  from  outside  with  a  satellite  view  
but  must  have  a  navigational  view,  inside.  
A  third  fallacy  concerns  hermeneutic  relations,  whereby  a  functionalist  couples  
form  and  function  and  an  intentionalist  goes  for  the  goal.  However,  artefacts  in  
use  cannot  be  reduced  to  the  function  or  one  of  many  intents  from  concept  to  
production/consumption.  
Dewey’s  pragmatism  or  philosophy  of  praxis  denies  function  and  intention  and  
rejects  the  rigid  subject-­‐object  divide.  Technology  has  no  existence  or  function  
outside  of  its  use.  The  use-­‐relations  create  object  as  tool  and  manipulating  
gesture  as  technological  practice.  (Flusser  91)  
A  technological  object  differs  from  a  non-­‐technical  in  the  prestructural  
interrelation  between  objects  and  operations.  This  IS  technology,  which  
Rammert  calls  ‘interobjectivity’.  The  interrelationship  is  revealed  in  the  technical  
practise  and  its  use-­‐relations,  not  the  properties  of  the  things  or  the  intentions  of  
the  humans.  
Pickering  (95)  metaphorically  describes  this  process  as  ‘the  mangle  of  praxis’,  in  
which  the  effects  of  technicization  are  equally  evident  in  the  human  yet  
embodied  human  relations  that  are  essential  for  the  production  of  the  most  
rigorous  technical  operation  in  a  ‘dance  of  agency’.  New  technologies  are  
engaged  in  evaluative  relations,  either  in  competition  or  compatibility  with  other  
existing  or  emerging.  There  is  neither  a  pristine  birth,  an  evolutionary  process  
nor  a  triumph  of  efficiencies.  Schumpeter  describes  a  relation  of  ‘creative  
destruction’  (42).  There  is  no  neutral  universal  procedure.  
Foucault  and  Derrida’s  concept  of  archive  transferred  into  technology  by  Groys  
(92,97).  By  definition  innovation  breaks  established  rules  of  evaluation  but  
mechanisms  to  elevate,  and  authenticate  new  practises  exist  in  the  archive  or  
collection.  ‘Profane’  technologies  are  elevated  at  science  fairs  and  expos,  and  
recognised  in  publications.  Legitimate  technologies  are  continually  created  
through  archival  practices  of  institutionalization,  publication,  collection,  and  
codification.  
In  Sum,  technology  viewed  from  a  relational  not  substantive  perspective,  a  
process  not  ensemble  of  artefacts.  The  impossibility  of  disembedded  technology  
was  interwoven  with  a  gradual  view  instead  of  divisions.  The  subject-­‐object  
divide  was  tackled  by  Ihde’s  interpretation  of  Heidegger  and  a  mediated  
symbiotic  relationship.  Dewey’s  pragmatism  rejected  functional  and  intentional  
views  for  process.  Finally  the  archive  concept  demonstrates  a  relational  
evaluative  approach  to  technology  over  a  substantial  one.  Rammert  identifies  3  
types  of  relations  constituting  technologies;  causal,  hermeneutic  and  evaluative  
relations.  Causal  relations  are  agents  and  objects  mangled  in  tightly  couple  ways.  
Hermeneutic  relations  (of  comprehension)  emerge  with  use,  not  intent.  
Evaluative  relations  connect  technical  practices  with  each  other  and  regulate.  
 
4.  The  Difference  of  Media:  The  stuff  technology  is  made  of.  Although  technology  
is  a  certain  form  of  practise,  stuff  is  required  to  be  formed.  This  stuff  must  
combine  ease  of  shaping  with  durability  and  repeatability  to  function  as  
mediator  in  the  technical  process.  Media  is  not  restricted  to  communications  
media.  The  stuff  must  have  the  right  qualities  for  its  function.  To  be  a  medium  
depends  on  the  context  of  use.  Relating  to  Popper’s’  three  worlds  (72)  Rammert  
proposes  three  types  of  stuff;  human  bodies  (action,  perception,  social  world),  
physical  things  (interobjective  or  natural  world)  and  symbolic  signs  
(intersubjective  or  cultural  world).  
Technology  emerges  if  all  conditions,  use-­‐relations  (hermeneutics),  causal  or  
interobjective  relations,  and  evaluative  relations,  are  found.  Human  bodies,  
physical  matter  and  symbolic  signs  are  all  required.  Rammert  allows  all  threes  
individually  to  be  technicized  as  habituation,  mechanization  and  
algorithmization  –  the  abstraction  of  symbolic  rules  of  process.  This  is  the  most  
precise  and  least  compatible  with  physical.  (However,  he  earlier  describes  the  
tight  coupling  of  complex  systems  in  the  practise  of  technology,  so  the  separation  
into  mediums  is  initially  confusing.)  
 
5.  Features  and  Preferences  of  a  social  pragmatic  concept  of  Technology.  
Technology  is  a  form  that  makes  a  difference  not  something  essentially  divided  
from  life,  nature,  culture  or  society.  It  is  a  gradual  concept,  a  more  or  less  tightly  
linked,  mediated  experience.  Technology  is  constituted  by  three  relations,  use-­‐
relations,  causal  or  interobjectivity  relations  and  evaluative  relations,  or  
archives.  Beyond  the  schematization  of  form  and  the  defining  relations,  there  are  
differences  in  media,  human,  physical  and  symbolic.  “This  media-­‐form  relation  
opens  more  analytical  opportunities.  We  can  combine  the  classic  machine  of  
transformation  and  the  cybernetic  system  of  communication  and  ask  where  and  
how  agency  is  distributed  in  our  technologically  mediated  social  life”.