On Marx's Philosophy Of Technology

In the era of technologic and economic globalization, a new type of construction is carried out in full swing in modernizing China, with the background of industrial development in modern society. On the one hand, the economic and social development and historical progress are greatly promoted by technology-based productivity; on the other hand, people are also facing a lot of grim problem of existence-the deterioration of the natural environment, the loss of the Spiritual Home and the declination of morality, and so on. Along with the development of technology and society, the problem of freedom and liberation has become the central issue of philosophical reflection. As for the development of the times and the reflection of modernization, the appearance of Marx's philosophy of technology is greatly needed. In order to response to the call of the times, based on the domestic and oversea researches, the author chooses to study this important issue, and attempt to explore the logical framework, the basic contents and main features of Marx's philosophy of technology.From the perspective of the development of Marx's philosophy, there is a conversion problem about researching perspectives which is the logical framework, changing from the alienation theory of labor to historical materialism, and then to the political economy. Different from the contemporary philosophy of technology, Marx's philosophy of technology can neither be attributed to "engineering philosophy of technology" nor to "humanities philosophy of technology". It also can not be attributed to "instrumental theory" or "substantive theory". It embodies several features, such as the integration of technological humanism with historical materialism, the dialectics between the historical progressiveness and possibility of alienation of technology, the combination between philosophy of science and technology and critique of capitalism.In the Schools of Western Marxism, Marx's Technical philosophical writings had been read and interpreted from two different perspectives:the humanism and scientism, and thus, various technology views formed. Among these technology views, the focuses of schools of the humanism, are reading and interpreting the early alienation theory of labor and the thought of humanism from Marx's critique of capitalism, and expanding the content of Marxist critique of technical rationality with the concept of Weber's instrumental rationality. Schools of scientism had focused on reading and interpreting the late Marxist scientific historical materialism, and clarification of the basic concepts, principle, ideas and methods of Marx's historical theory, based on criticizing humanism's speculative, non-realistic and ideological interpretation. They mainly discussed the driving force from productivity and technology to the development of social history, structure connections and function relations between various aspects of economic foundation and productivity and technology, respectively in the framework of the structuralism and analytic philosophy.Although there are certain biases in their modes of interpretation and their philosophy of technology, it shows that Marx's philosophy of technology has been deepened and developed in contemporary social and historical conditions, and reflects the reasonable aspects and the developing track of Marx's philosophy of technology.Based on analyzing and assessing opinions from Western Marxism philosophy of technology, and absorbing their reasonable contents, combining characteristics of modern industrial society and the themes of new type modernizing China, the author of this dissertation has investigated the implication of the Marxist philosophy of technology for development of modern industrial society, ecological construction, the criticism of modernity, especially one for the coordination of relationship between man and nature, between man and man, which further shows reasonable factors and its characteristic of era in the Marxist philosophy of technology.From what have been investigated fully above, the dissertation finally comes to the conclusion and finds out reasonable cores and the most fundamental points of the view of Marx's philosophy of technology.First, science, technology and labor are the most important aspects of human nature. Science and technology. as the most active factors, typically embody human's labor productivities. With the advent of industrial society and the development of experimental natural science, science and technology become the first productivity. Therefore, technology and productivity are the foundations and driving force of promoting economic growth and social development throughout history.Second, technological rationality, as a kind of instrumental rationality, often integrated with other forms of instrumental rationality, such as rational economic, rational law, rational administration, and has great expansion and penetration. Thus, science and technology, on the one hand, is the enormous force of promoting social and economic development and historical progress. On the other hand, it may also be an alien force, which will control and enslave nature and man, causing other kinds of social alienation.Finally, both highly developing technology and productivity and establishment of "universal communication" relationship among people are still the premise of development in the future society. Eliminating technological alienation rely on not only the transformation and improvement of technology by itself, but also (particularly) reform and construction of systems which try to sublate alienation of technology and explore human-based development of technology as possible. During the development in the contemporary industrial society and the socialist modernization of China, we have necessary to seek the right way of mutual restraint, coordination between instrumental rationality and value rationality. On the bases of the development of industrial productivity and technology, the social, economic, political, and cultural institutions should be reformed and adjusted, and all areas of society should be harmoniously balanced and scientifically developed.