Politics Of Technology

Langdon Winner (1944-) is a contemporary American famous political scientist and technical philosopher, he researches technical problems from the political perspective and makes an important contribution to the development of philosophy of technology. This paper is elaborated Winner's idea through looking the relationships between technology and politics as the theme, and looking the technical predicament and resolutions as the main line. First of all, analyzes the background of Winner's idea of technology political philosophy; Secondly, discusses Winner's main idea of technology political philosophy. Winner looks back upon the relationships between technology and politics, questions technocracy, thinks that humans are currently facing the risk of technical rule. Facing the predicament of technology, people hope to get rid of it through the technology reformations and revolution. But the failure of the movement of appropriate technology and the confused prospects of the information technology revolution show that the predicament still exists. Winner criticizes the traditional approach of technological predicament resolved and thinks that the state of nature revisited is too vague, risk assessment has adventure, value discussion is too empty. For this reason, he puts forward the thoughts of democratic control of technology; Finally, reviews progressive significance and limitations of Winner's idea of technology political philosophy.This paper is composed of three parts, i.e. the introduction, the text and the conclusion.Chapter One introduction:I elaborate the necessity and significance of researching Winner's idea of technology political philosophy, Comb domestic and foreign scholars about research achievements of Winner's idea of technology political philosophy, indicate the innovations and the difficulties of this paper, put forward the train of thoughts and methods.Chapter Two and Chapter Nine are text of the paperChapter Two:The background of Winner's idea of technology political philosophy. Winner's idea of technology political philosophy has its theoretical background and practical background, critical thoughts of Western humanism philosopher of technology and the philosophy of technology to the experience are its theoretical background, Winner own personal technology practices and experiences are its practical background.Chapter Three:Winner Looks back upon the relationships between technology and politics. This chapter defines the concepts of technology and politics, and looks back upon the relationships between technology and politics. Winner reviews the close relationships between technology and politics, thinks a process experienced between them from that statecraft is one of the practical arts in the ancient Greek period to that modern technology becomes a regime.Chapter Four:Technocracy. Technocracy Claims ruled by science or technology elites, Bacon,Saint-simon,Veblen,Price and Galbraith and such as scholars play very important roles to the production and development Of this thought. Technocracy is a kind of good idea about technology control in response to the era of people's life, but it is defective in general. Reality shows that technical experts don't form a consistent and cohesive elite groups, also don't try their best to get control advantage of the government's behavior in any contemporary regime. More importance is that this theory rejects the public participation in democratic decision-making of technology.Chapter Five:Human beings are facing the danger of technical rule. Winner thinks that not technology experts but technology governs in the modern technological society. Frankenstein's problem indicates that human's dominance is a serious challenge, technologies as forms of life show that technologies are not neutral tools but loaded with value. Technologies not only load with value, but also load with the political value. From the whole relations between technology and human, human beings are facing the danger of technical rule.Chapter Six:The failure of the movement of appropriate technology. The movement of appropriate technology is a technological reform movement in order to get rid of the predicament of technology in the 20th 60s-70s. Winner thinks that the movement produced has its roots of politics and intellect. The movement is a failure because appropriate technology itself has been unable to solve problems, although the movement of appropriate technology fails it leaves us a precious heritage of thoughts.Chapter Seven:The confused prospects of the information technology revolution. Winner discusses information technology from the political perspective mainly, he thinks that information is ideology in the information age, information technology is not like that the optimists think that it brings equality and democracy to the society, but it brings many of political problems, this requires us keep the necessary reflections to the development of the information technology.Chapter Eight:Solving ways and outlets of the technical predicament. According to the predicament of technology, the problem can't be really solved by the traditional methods. Winner thinks that the state of nature revisited is too vague, risk assessment has adventure, value discussion is too empty. He puts forward the thought of democratic control of technology on the basis of criticizing the traditional methods.Chapter Nine:Evaluating Winner's idea of technology political philosophy. On one hand, Winner's idea of technology political philosophy deepens technology autonomy thoughts, riches STS theory and guides the reality of our country's development; On the other hand, Winner's idea of technology political philosophy exists limitations, Main show that the study of technology autonomy lacks of dialectical analysis and research of democratic control of technology still need to deepen.Conclusion:Summarizing the paper.