Thinking about the History of Technology

Question 1

What is technology defined as?

Answer 1

Things that people have created so they can manipulate or exploit the natural environment in which they are living to useful ends

Question 2

What are the components of the Ancient Greek meaning of Technology?

Answer 2

Techne, meaning art or study; and Logos, meaning speech.

Question 3

Did Giovanni Tortelli and Polydore Vergil add any new inventions to the lists of technologies?

Answer 3

Yes

Question 4

What was the traditional historiography of inventions before the 19th century ?

Answer 4

Simple lists of inventions and their inventors.– “Who, what, and when”

Question 5

Vesalius, Copernicus, and the Start of the Scientific Revolution date to approximately when?

Answer 5

Mid 1500’s (1543 on timeline)

Question 6

The acceptance of heliocentric world theory by the Catholic Church, Linnaeus, and the beginning of the industrial revolution date to when?

Answer 6

Late 1700’s (1759)

Question 7

When does the “second” industrial revolution begin?” What were its characteristics?

Answer 7

After 1859; characterized by electricity

Question 8

Radio, Flight, antibiotics, nuclear technology, and space travel is the characteristic of which age?

Answer 8

Modern age

Question 9

How did Technology slip from meaning the Study of Rhetoric to its modern definition?

Answer 9

The art of rhetoric -> The rhetoric of practical arts (science) -> the practical arts themselves

Question 10

What major book did Lewis Mumford write?

Answer 10

Technics and Civilization (1934)

Question 11

What division Lewis Mumford attempt to rectify?

Answer 11

Most historians were only concerned with political events. Mumford proposed technology was a legitimate subject of history

Question 12

What did Lewis Mumford explore in his book?

Answer 12

Within western culture, technology and society influenced each other in a multifaceted and reciprocal relationship.

Question 13

What did Marx argue about technology? Did Mumford agree?

Answer 13

Marx argued technology (means of production) automatically determined the character of social institutions (superstructure). Mumford disagreed, showing a more multifaceted direction of influence

Question 14

How did the historiography of Technology develop with and after Mumford?

Answer 14

In sum, more than just single inventions or inventors:
Why some technologies win over others; The development of technological systems; alliances between different sectors and technologies; Addressing technology’s historical and environmental impacts

Question 15

What ways does technology impact society or environment

Answer 15

Intended effects, waste, human error

Question 16

What is the Anthropological Argument for Technology?

Answer 16

Technology is an intrinsic characteristic of Humanity:

Only humans are able to combine objects into more complex ones and apply outside forces to their shaping.

Question 17

What is the Economic Argument for Technology?

Answer 17

Increased productivity from technology accounts for substantial economic growth; much more than market factors.

Question 18

Progress Argument

Answer 18

Longer lives are derived from economic and technological prosperity

Question 19

What is the discrepancy that arises when correlating adjusted economic prosperity to longevity?

Answer 19

Life expectancy still grows over time, meaning other technologies (vaccines, healthcare), have influence.

Question 20

What were Marshall Mcluhan’s “questions” interrogating technology?

Answer 20

Extension, Replacement, Retrieval, Reversal

Question 21

What is Extension?

Answer 21

New technology expands on the features of older technologies as extensions of the human body, interacting with the natural world

Question 22

What is Replacement?

Answer 22

New Technology renders old technologies or parts of old technologies obsolete

Question 23

What is Retrieval?

Answer 23

New technology incorporates features and designs of existing technologies

Question 24

What is Reversal?

Answer 24

New technology may have unintended effects which reverse the original gains

Question 25

What is an example of Retrieval?

Answer 25

Train cars which are modelled off of horse carriages

Question 26

What was Heidegger’s definition of technology

Answer 26

Requisitioning process by which the entire natural world is treated as a standing reserve to fulfil human wants.

Question 27

What were Heidegger’s warnings for humans

Answer 27

1) That we may become resources to be used up
2) That we become elements of technological systems

Question 28

What was Langdon Winnder’s argument about technology’s political role?

Answer 28

Technology can be political because its properties determine winners and losers.

Question 29

What was Bernward Jeorges’ argument about technology’s political role?

Answer 29

The design of technology is less important that its appropriation by certain groups and the context of its use.

Question 30

What mechanisms create increasing return for increased use?

Answer 30

1) increased resources are devoted to improve a widely used technology
2) Economies of scale benefit widely used technologies; or the amount of users affects the functioning of a technology

Question 31

What is the Easterlin Paradox?

Answer 31

Countries with differing prosperity are not necessarily happier than each other; However, people at different levels of prosperity in those countries have very different levels of happiness

Question 32

What were Bruno Latour’s 3 levels/inputs to explain the historical evolution of technology?

Answer 32

Nature, Society, Discourse

Question 33

What is nature as defined by Bruno Latour?

Answer 33

The natural world. Technology is a natural fact and follows its laws.

Question 34

What is society as defined by Bruno Latour?

Answer 34

Institutions, personal networks, hierarchies which benefit or detract from the adoption of particular technologies

Question 35

What is Discourse as defined by Bruno Latour?

Answer 35

Arguments, stories, theories, myths, to make sense of what is real. These can justify, detract from, or develop particular technologies at the expense of others

Question 36

What is a Network, applying Bruno Latour’s 3 levels?

Answer 36

Any combination of the effects of the 3 level/inputs to produce a particular output. Natural facts interact with society, as both do with discourse.

Question 37

What was Winner’s argued political impact of the Long Island Parkway’s low overpasses?

Answer 37

As stand-alone technologies, they are fine so long as cars are the only users. However, low overpasses excluded buses, predominantly used by poor and minority groups.

Question 38

In the context of Langdon Winner, what does it mean if a technology is defined as intractable?

Answer 38

By its very nature, it may require only an authoritarian management. To avoid the technology entirely may be beneficial

Question 39

What was Jeorges’ retort to the impact of the low overpasses?

Answer 39

They might exclude buses containing the poor and minorities, but if car ownership became more general, those groups would not be excluded

Question 40

Is there a natural trajectory for technology?

Answer 40

Not necessarily. Several factors– society, and discourses, or even luck, may influence the success of some technologies over others

Question 41

How do we define history in the course

Answer 41

1) A subject matter (“what men have done”
2) A process (finding out what happened: “researches”)
3) A narrative (telling what was found: “to put on record”)

Question 42

Who was Herodotus?

Answer 42

The first historian?

Question 43

Why did Herodotus write his Histories?

Answer 43

Written at the time of war in Ancient Greece, to record the deeds of greeks and barbarians and put them to record.

Question 44

What was what we know as technology called in Ancient Greece? What was the significance of the term?

Answer 44

Mechanics. It meant intelligence, craftiness, or problem solving.

Question 45

The founding of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1861 heralded what nominal shift?

Answer 45

Applied the term technology to a school. The subjects of earlier schools had been named “polytechnics” or “practical sciences”