Multidimensional Technology Risk From The Perspective Of Philosophical Inquiry

As the saying goes,"human beings live in the world". How does a man live in the world? How does he make contact with all things on earth? This is an important question in a life and one of the most essential philosophical questions as well. In this dissertation, human being is an Archimedean point in this enquiry. It can be found from the general conditions and relations of human being that man must acquire various resources from nature and form diverse social relations in his production and living process which can be only realized through technical activities. Therefore, technology is not simply a tool and is not purely human activities either. It is human way of being in essence. Meanwhile, during the process of gaining resources and dealing with various relations, people will suffer from numerous threats, harm or loss which is called risk. Risk manifests human state of being. Technical risk is one risk caused by technology directly or indirectly which shows itself in such three aspects as man himself, natural ecology and society.Nowadays technical risk has become one of the most obvious phenomena in human society. However, there is a vast contrast between the urgency and severity of existence crisis brought about by technical risk and human lack of systematically philosophical reflection, and some fundamental problems have not yet been clarified and interpreted necessarily in theory that mainly include the cardinal distinction between the definition of technology and the essence of technology, the history of technical risk and its conceptual evolution historically, the regulations of technical risk contained in technology as a resource transformer, the analysis of historical materialism into technical risk, technical risk and social multi-construction, social predicament led to by technical risk and its possible way out and so on. Because these problems are general, fundamental and closely interrelated, it is of necessity to investigate them from the philosophical respect thoroughly and completely. In this way, these problems have constituted the basic problem domains in this dissertation and the main dimensions in this study, too.Firstly, as a way of being from the nature of technology, technology has the attributes and characteristics of naturalness and anti-naturalness, humanization and anti-humanization, socialization and anti-socialization which are the essential origins of technical risk and make up three basic types of technical risk. Various possible risks are already implied in the nature of technology. Secondly, this dissertation makes an investigation of the characteristic of technical system in different times from the history of technology, and relative technical risk and its conceptual evolution. Since there is a difference in the dominant technology of the technical system during different periods of technical history, and evident distinction is also manifested in the attributes of technology itself and its effect on human beings, nature and society deeply and broadly, through this study for this difference can be known the nature and characteristics of technical risk in different periods of technical history, and the idea of technical risk in distinct epochs.Thirdly, the principle of entropy increase came into being in the field of thermodynamics at first. If this principle is spread into the field of technical activities, it can be found out that "the first kind of technical perpetual motion machine" is impossible which may produce products without consumption of resources and that "the second kind of technical perpetual motion machine" is also impossible without bringing the entropy increase in a broad sense in technical activities. As a resource transformer, technology will necessarily result in the entropy increase in a broad sense in its operation, that is, effective resources and the rise in trash, pollution and confusion. This principle helps people to grasp the essence of technical risk correctly, and to understand the truth of risk of industry technology and high technology scientifically as well.Fourthly, as for historical materialism, the things in a society are always covered and bound up by various social relations and the really decisive factor is not the natural attribute of the things but the social attribute. Only by way of putting technique into certain social relations and disclosing the social relations, especially the social relations of production among human beings concealed by technology can we explain how technology has become alienated, namely the alienation into power technology and capital technology which have been important origins of such technical risks as oppression, exploitation and warfare.Fifthly, risk is an important order parameter in a social system having an innate dialectical relation with historical development and civilized evolution. Science and technology and their risk have begun to be a pivot and impetus in social operation and evolution since modern times.largely influenced and dominated the constructions of social organization and institutional changes, technical risk is inlaid into the modernized process, run in social institution and structure in every way and become social component and developing power. To comprehend risk society accurately, we should master the social running logic and mechanism of modern technology and its risk.What’s more, this dissertation makes three diagnoses for human existing state in present technical epoch and risk society from three aspects:technical existence and risky death are really inextricable circumstances for the contemporary people; technical fetishism and (technical) risk syndrome have become the spiritual state in our time; one-dimension economic increase and unlimited urban development are making man stuck in a dangerous difficult position. Obviously, numerous stern crises show that modern technical risks have run through, constrained and affected nearly all social process from economic life, political life to mental life.How does man get out of this predicament in the face of various unprecedented crises caused by technology and its risks? Evidently, pure economism, positivism and utilitarianism are all hard to touch the bottom of the crisis of existence. The philosophical enquiry into the nature, history, characteristics and properties of technical risk reveals that man must surmount the obsolete way of thinking, clarify and eradicate kinds of sham ideologies about technology and its risks from the very beginning if man wants to get out of risk society and owns real "ability of self-determination" to realize the radical transformation from the way of existence to the way of production until the way of life. On this basis, the dissertation puts forward the philosophical idea of symbiosis and the technical concept of symbiosis which make sense in that man can achieve the harmony of heaven, humans and technology within the symbiotic system composed of technology, humans, nature and society.