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This essay argues for the unity of the history and the philosophy of technology. At first sight, there appears to be no underlying unity to these two domains, only divisive breaks and unbridgeable gaps — one may give a meaningful account of the one or of the other, but not of both within the same broad framework. Furthermore, while many philosophers concede that technology has existed for as long as humankind has existed as a tool-using and tool-making species, others deny that the philosophy of technology exists, never mind a philosophy of technology which claims to make sense, on the one hand, of primitive technology in the dim and distant past such as bows and arrows, and of up-to-the-minute state-of-the-art technology based on contemporary science such as nanotechnology or biotechnology, on the other. One must also bear in mind that the history of Western philosophy itself has undergone so many revolutionary changes since ancient Greek philosophy, that it may be too far-fetched to argue that technology itself, primitive and contemporary, could be rendered intelligible within a common philosophical framework.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230227279_2

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