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Winner, Langdon. 1993. "Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology." Science, Technology, & Human Values (Sage Publications, Inc.) 18 (3): 362-378.

Empty? Full? Something in Between?

In this article, Langdon Winner champions the need to look more closely at technical artifacts, the varieties of technical knowledge, and social actors. He views these research focus areas as black boxes much as Bruno Latour describes the concept in actor-network theory (ANT). He notes how constructivism also helps us consider these as well as the “interpretive flexibility of technical artifacts” (p. 366). Winner describes this sort of constructivist research as a narrow understanding of society in terms of ‘environment’ or ‘context’ that influences technology choices made. As helpful as this approach is, Winner argues that the narrowness of this perspective disregards important questions.

For Winner, the constructivist approach is a backward looking perspective with focus on technological origin and adoption. While constructivists note how context influences technology choice, it’s proponents often leave out social consequences that result once a technical choice is made. Constructivism tends to adhere to Latour’s concept of networks. By considering only those identified as actors who directly influence a given technology, groups considered ‘irrelevant’ are simply left out. ANT in particular notes dynamics of immediate needs, interests, problems, and solutions. While perhaps partially fulfilling some or all of those societal concerns, Winner notes the same technology often erodes community such as modern communications that can encourage human isolation.
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By concentrating current and past interaction of technology and society, Winner points out, constructivism is essentially ignoring judgement (political, moral) of social use of artifacts. Temporally, he says, this is looking only at the present and the past with no thought toward potential futures. For Winner, this is a partial view that leaves empty the ‘black box’ constructivists claim to be opening up for examination. Couldn’t one argue instead that such an approach is not looking at an empty box, but perhaps conducting a partial inspection of the contents?

Marcuse, Herbert. 2009. "The New Forms of Control." In Readings in the Philosophy of Technology, edited by David M. Kaplan, 34-42. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
 
Review by Michael Beach

This article was shared in the aggregate referenced book, but is really the first chapter of a book written by Harbert Marcuse titled One-Dimensional Man. In the Marcuse reading The New Forms of Control, he argues, among other things, that use of mass media is one technological mechanism intended to align inner-dimension personal needs with outer-dimension societal (repressive) needs. The higher the personal level of indoctrination, the more the standards of priority align. Marcuse uses this idea of a societal need to indoctrinate as an implication of the two-dimensional person. ‘Society’ uses technology such as mass media to bring individual needs toward a goal of mimesis. When that societal goal is reached, the individual is now really one-dimensional. There is no longer any difference between personal or societal needs as expressed through technology adoption.

Marcuse wrote this in 1964. Mass media then was quite different from today. Television and radio broadcast channels, as well as newspapers and magazines, were essentially the communication technologies of the day. Marcuse focuses primarily on broadcast media, rightfully for the time in that these were the primary information and entertainment sources of most people, at least in many western cultures. Since then media have fractionalized considerably. One can make the argument that narrowcast two-way media is having the opposite effect as Marcuse depicts. As people have ever more choices, and increasing control over the sources they rely on for information, the number of ‘societies’ available through technical means has grown. Membership in any one society or culture has decreased. Many people even find themselves in multiple cultures simultaneously. Mistrust grows by way of technology in those cultures (societies) to which one chooses not to belong. Maybe this still makes each person one-dimensional as Marcuse implies. Does it also mean each ever-more-specialized society now adjusts its needs to match individuals in order to have enough ‘membership’ in order to exist? Is it the society that becomes more one-dimensional?

The attachment is of the specific reference above, but is the entire work. This article only reviews chapter 1. 

​Like many, December is my favorite time of the year. The holidays are at the core of why, but it may be as much about breaking the normal patterns of life as well. Thanks to COVID most of my days tend to blend together. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve all give each of us a change from the norm. 

Toward the end of summer I participated in a virtual missionary reunion. One of the elders who arrived in the mission at the same time I did, and who served for several months in one of the same cities I did, lives not that far from here. He reached out and we have been in contact again. My best memory of Elder Hoffman happened while we were both serving in the city of Algeciras, Spain. It was Christmas time. For the day before and the day of, we were not supposed to be out tracting (knocking on doors in a neighborhood to see if anyone was interested in our message). Elder Hoffman’s parents sent him some extra money and told him to do something good with it. There were four of us in the city (two companionships). He decided to use the money to purchase some nice fruit baskets. The four of us waited until after nightfall on Christmas Eve. We made up a list of families we knew would really benefit from the gift. Then we had fun stealthily putting the basket on each door step, knocking on the door, then running away laughing to some place where we could see them, but they couldn’t see us. I remember the look of surprise and joy as each door answerer picked up the present, then looked around to try to spy who might have done such a thing.

Algeciras was a very small unit. It was much like the branch where I grew up in Berwick, PA. They met in a rented apartment modified for meetings. The numbers were few. To give you an idea, when I first arrived, my senior companion was from Madrid and was serving as the Branch President. He was a young (20-ish-year-old) missionary like me. Can you imagine? When he transferred to another city a member brother was called to replace him as the branch leader. This brother had only been a member of the church about nine months at the time he was called to the position. It was up to us young missionaries to help the branch leadership with advice. We didn’t really know anything about how to carry out that sort of calling, but we could each share a bit of what we had seen of local leaders as we grew up in the church.

I’ve always appreciated the Christmas I spent in Spain. The next year I was actually supposed to transfer home in early January at the end of my missionary service. Instead of that, our group all got to go home about a week before Christmas. I’ve since had other holiday seasons away. One year while serving in the US Navy I spent Christmas day in 90°F weather in the Philippines. On that Christmas day I went SCUBA diving on Grande Island with several other sailors I knew including several SEALs. It was a bit surreal.

I hope we each can find ourselves closer to the Savior as we remember and celebrate His birth. As miraculous as His birth was, it is important of course because of his mission to atone for the sins of all of us, and bring about the resurrection as well. I am thankful for my testimony of the truth of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful that He lives and leads the church through a prophet of God.

Heidegger, Martin. 2009. "The Question Concerning Technology." In Readings in the Philosophy          of Technology, edited by David M. Kaplan, 9-24. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto,                      Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
 
Review by Michael Beach

In this seminal article on the topic of the philosophy of technology, Martin Heidegger seeks to define the essence of technology. He approaches this subject through a series of interconnected vocabulary. The essence, he says, is enframing which he defines as a destining or revealing. Other words in the circular argument include calling-forth, ordering, unconcealment, and setting-upon. In one sense, nature is a resource, a standing-reserve. Heidegger speaks further of a danger to ‘man’. If one is not careful, he says, humankind becomes a force of ordering up nature’s standing-reserve. If, then, man is only in the role of ordering up reserves in order to unconceal (reveal) technology, then man also becomes a standing-reserve in the destining of nature as technology. This risk Heidegger defines as danger, but notes that in that very danger man can find the saving power of recognizing the true essence of technology. To Heidegger, the highest dignity of man is in keeping watch over unconcealment of all nature and technology coming to presence.

Martin Heidegger is a foundational author in this branch of philosophy. All subsequent practitioners are forced to address his ideas. Historically, his works were published in the early 20th century. Heideggarians are forced to also consider his role in the Nazi regime of Hitler’s Germany. His arguments help to see technology beyond the simple ideas of technology-as-applied-science, or as human attempts to alter the natural world. For Heidegger, there is a difference between technology that sets nature in order such as subsistence farming, and technology that sets-upon nature such as coal mining. The former simply uses nature more or less as it is to benefit man. The latter increases nature, or changes natural processes. In the coal example, the sun changes energy into coal. Man then extracts the coal, distributes it, and then removes the heat to create other kinds of energy such as electricity. That energy is further distributed, and is again converted into heat, or mechanical energy for yet other uses, and so on.

One weakness of Heidegger’s argument is its circularity. Often he uses words to define other words in a chain which eventually is used to help define the words he used to start the definition chain. Some of this struggle comes from his use of Greek words that he explains in his original text written in German, then later translated into English for the version this review is concerned with. 

The posted pdf version of this article is from a source different from the opening reference.