On his book Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason
Cover Interview of December 18, 2017
In a nutshell
Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason is a
philosophical reflection on the technified world in which we live. Ours is a
world of technical systems designed in accordance with technical disciplines
and operated by personnel trained in those disciplines. This is a unique form
of social organization that largely determines our way of life. Technosystem
builds a theory of both the threats of technocratic modernity and the potential
for democratic change.
Technosystem draws on the tradition of social
criticism represented by Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School. These
radical thinkers recognized the dystopian implications of the generalization of
instrumental rationality but they did not advance a convincing alternative to
the new forms of domination imposed by rational systems. That is the
contribution of the empirically informed approaches of Science, Technology, and
Society Studies (STS). Technosystem uses these approaches to reconcile
the new power of rationality with the agency of a public increasingly mobilized
to intervene in technical life. In STS this is called “co-production.” The application
of this concept in Technosystem recognizes emerging forms of resistance,
such as protests and hacking, as essential expressions of public life in the “rational
society.”
Combining the most salient insights from critical theory
with the empirical findings of STS, Technosystem advances the
philosophical debate over the nature and practice of reason in
modern society. The book offers lucid explanations of the theories of
leading figures in both traditions. Neither tradition is sufficient by itself
but together they offer deep insight into contemporary experience in
technologically advanced societies.
Spontaneous generation is one of those wrong theories that clutter the basements of the biological sciences and that now look so very obviously wrong that it is hard to see how anyone could have taken them seriously in the first place. Why wouldn’t it occur to anyone that flies might be laying eggs that were too small for us to see? How simple would the crucial experiment be? What I have tried to do in much of my work is to turn this ‘obvious wrongness’ on its head—why, exactly, does it seem so obviously wrong?—and see what the new picture that emerges from that inquiry says about science and our belief in its results.Daryn Lehoux, Interview of November 13, 2017
It’s commonplace to say that humor is subjective, since what’s funny to you might not be funny to me. But humor is also a loaded concept. If you – or your people – have no sense of humor, or the wrong one, that means you’re less rational, tolerant, understanding, or civilized. You don’t get it. Or, worse, you lack something human. Modern Chinese debates about humor were very much caught up with these fundamental questions of value.Christopher Rea, Interview of October 26, 2016
In a nutshell
Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason is a philosophical reflection on the technified world in which we live. Ours is a world of technical systems designed in accordance with technical disciplines and operated by personnel trained in those disciplines. This is a unique form of social organization that largely determines our way of life. Technosystem builds a theory of both the threats of technocratic modernity and the potential for democratic change.
Technosystem draws on the tradition of social criticism represented by Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School. These radical thinkers recognized the dystopian implications of the generalization of instrumental rationality but they did not advance a convincing alternative to the new forms of domination imposed by rational systems. That is the contribution of the empirically informed approaches of Science, Technology, and Society Studies (STS). Technosystem uses these approaches to reconcile the new power of rationality with the agency of a public increasingly mobilized to intervene in technical life. In STS this is called “co-production.” The application of this concept in Technosystem recognizes emerging forms of resistance, such as protests and hacking, as essential expressions of public life in the “rational society.”
Combining the most salient insights from critical theory with the empirical findings of STS, Technosystem advances the philosophical debate over the nature and practice of reason in modern society. The book offers lucid explanations of the theories of leading figures in both traditions. Neither tradition is sufficient by itself but together they offer deep insight into contemporary experience in technologically advanced societies.