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An Alternative to Instrumentalism: Technology as a Form of Transcendence

By Paul Grabow.

Published by The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society

Students in technology disciplines often naturally adopt an instrumentalist view of technology. However, Instrumentalism can easily inflate the importance of the one “controlling” the technology, it fails to acknowledge the momentum of technology, and it does not facilitate a moral understanding or evaluation of technology. Substantivism, Determinism, and Critical Theory are alternate viewpoints, but they too have major drawbacks. This paper proposes an alternative view of technology based on the concept of transcendence, which facilitates a threefold moral evaluation of technology based on means, motive, and ends.

The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, Volume 4, Issue 3, pp.197-202. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 532.269KB).

Paul Grabow

Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA