The term "technological determinism" is thought to have been coined by American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen. Taken on its own, determinism is the doctrine that events occur therefore of a direct, prior cause. Consequently, at the broadest possible level, scientific determinism is the conceptual framework in which interpersonal, ethnical and historical phenomena are generally the outcome of technological causes, in particular technological advancement.
As numerous philosophical views, there is no single, universal classification. As Bimber sets it, "Until we're able to agree in what precisely we imply by this concept, we are unlikely to resolve the question of whether technical determinism is a good lens through which to interpret history. "
The various positions in this particular school of thought have been vaguely recognized into two versions characterising the depth of the role technology has in determining modern culture. Proponents of the "hard" view keep every social activity is exclusively and directly powered by technology, which is itself an unbiased drive. The assumption is that technology goes through perpetual advancement relating for some given reasoning and specific stages of technology development bring about specific communal change. This change is impartial of society's wishes and choices. This theory is neat and tidy, but it is also not extensively accepted because of its lack of flexibility and generality.
The "soft" version accommodates this exception. It argues that technology continues to be the fundamental drive for effecting social change by creating conditions favourable for several social activity to occur. However, this "disposition" or "tendency" could be rejected with the collective mindful will of population. Hence it distinguishes itself from the "hard" version for the reason that it permits the opportunity of human treatment.
Bimber should go against the grain out of this standard style of classification and recognizes three common interpretations of scientific determinism. First is the "normative profile", which argues that efficiency and production have become the primary leads to which technology is advanced and which world functions, excluding it from the individuals domain and its own associated elements.
The second interpretation is the "nomological account". Supposing that the medical laws are discoverable in a sequential order, technology, being the recombination of existing artefacts and the manifestation existing medical knowledge is also subject to this trajectory. For instance, it is improbable that automobiles would be built with no engine unit having been recently invented. More importantly is the extrapolation of this mechanistic train of thought to the assertion that one technological trends necessitate a specific form of communal organisation and subsequent technological development in a way that an inevitable journey ensues. With this view, only a thin explanation of technology as artefacts is admissible. Comprehensive meanings, such as technical procedures bring the individual dimension back to the picture.
The third interpretation attracts attention to the fact that the consequences of technical development are sometimes impossible to predict even among individuals key in the development. On this account, one could argue that scientific development is at least partly autonomous since it has results that are impartial of human being control. Here the thought of technology as an autonomous agent of change is helped bring into play because for technology to be given credit for having brought about cultural change, technology itself must first be indie of social causes. Otherwise you conclude with a theory where world affects itself through indirect means (technology)
Bimber advocates Cohen's criteria for judging the three interpretations, specifically that it should be both technical and deterministic. On this basis, Bimber argues that only the nomological interpretation stands up to both testing. The normative profile is not technological because the main agent of change is cultural norms rather than technology. It is not deterministic because this preoccupation with efficiency and efficiency is itself a product of a differing culture and time, rather than entirely external to men's locus of control. Bimber remarks that the unintended repercussions interpretation also fails since it portions to indeterminism. Here I disagree. The uncertainty principle pose a fundamental limit on the accuracy of measurements, making accurate predictions impossible. However the concept of causality is still an incontrovertible axiom, and the universe may still yet be deterministic. Regardless, Bimber highlights that the theory does not feature the nature of unpredictability for an inherent quality of technology (it may be the fallibility of the human being intellect that does not predict the consequences), and thus it fails on that basis.
This criteria will not admit the difference between "hard" and "soft determinism because the "soft" version also fails on both accounts. Thus, if we were to declare Cohen's criteria, we'd be in a very tenuous position. Intuitively, technology will not exist in vacuum pressure and social pushes simply consider too much on the development and adoption of technology to be dismissed so simply.
Why then should we allow his description of technological determinism? Bimber suggests that it is attractive "on grounds of semantic clearness and integrity" and consequently "this standard of clarity is surely more useful than one in which the theory of change is hidden by less precise language". Just like a peanut is neither a pea nor a nut, this line of argument could be construed as pedantic and splitting hairs. At least, it is unhelpful for furthering the talk. Thus for the purposes of breaking this impasse, I propose that we momentarily give up this hardline approach to avoid throwing out the infant with the bathroom water. Alternatively, we will need the pragmatic approach and examine the more mainstream "very soft" determinism submit by Heilbroner. I am not debating whether this is actually technological determinism, I am just supposing that it's, and examining how good it is really as a tool for elucidating twentieth century record.
Heilbroner's view can be summarised into two important tenets. Firstly, technology develops in a determinate collection of steps. Subsequently, that this progression of technology results a social "evolution". Heilbroner makes his case for the first proposition with three bits of evidence. First of all, the "simultaneity of invention". In most cases, independent gatherings have made similar discoveries within a short period of time of each other. This is the case for the technology of calculus and the telephone. The existing knowledge and prevailing technological expertise supplies the basis and foreshadow of what is to come. Hence the breakthrough about to be produced is merely the inescapable next rational step; something that must definitely be evident or at least imaginable to greater than a single specific. This brings us to the second and third point which is the "absence of scientific leaps" and the "predictability of technology". Heilbroner makes the point that technology advances at its frontiers (direction) in small incremental steps (magnitude) that seems to make progress show up predictable.
Heilbroner restricts his conversation of the second proposition to the influence of technology on the political and economic aspects of society. He suggests that a certain technology such as manufacturing plant automation imposes a particular characteristic constraint on the cosmetic and organisation of the interpersonal structure. He proposes a normative discussion where economics is the intermediary which links technology and culture. He explains that with the rule of monetary maximisation presupposed, changes in technology are brought to bear on the economical system, and so the result on interpersonal order can be quantified and analysed. But he rightly concedes that the amount to which technology influences contemporary society sociologically are more difficult to see.
How useful then is such a theory of technical determinism? Firstly, technology has so this means and purpose only when thought with regards to humans. Hence scientific determinism is particularly useful in the twentieth century because of technology's increasing effect. It ties two important strands ever sold together and positively brings regularity and order in history in a straightforward and general manner. That certain civilisations undergo times of technical stagnancy and even regression does not undermine technological determinism though such societies may be less available to systematic evaluation than when it is guided by an financial imperative. In fact as Edgerton suggests, it seems that too little invention in technologically-backward societies point for the restrictions technology imposes, and therefore it could be understood as being more decided.
Secondly, technological determinism pays to because it is in some sense more long lasting than social institutions. This is similar to the practise for historians to infer the lives the ancients led predicated on the tools they used and the set ups they built. Cultures and cultural conventions are temporal and evolve with the times. But technology offers a record with which to place matters in context, because it appears to travel in a set journey, especially in hindsight. So while technical determinism might not be useful when viewing the twentieth century from the twenty-first, it certainly might in the thirtieth.
This view is elaborated by Misa who declares that the longer enough time framework, and the broader and even more aggregate the topic in question, the greater technological determinism looks plausible. Those that perform studies in the micro-level will find a number of societal forces and agents at the job obscuring the value of the role of technology. To demonstrate this argument, contemporary society can consciously reject a technology credited to cultural choices. But while this affects the pace of adoption, you'll be able to make a case that this is in fact merely delaying the inescapable. The actual assumption would be that the cultural context changes but technological benefits are definite. As long as mankind comprises rational beings, public progression will eventually favour the adoption of the beneficial technology. This is applicable for example in the study of genetically-modified foods.
Lastly and perhaps less importantly, technical determinism is useful insofar as it is easy. Therefore, despite evident difficulties in the theory, the idea is widespread in popular imagination and political rhetoric. It is useful to feel that the internet gave rise to an information trend, or that the contraceptive pill gave go up to a intimate revolution, particularly for the people who if such abstractions did not can be found, would be ignorant of the issues whatsoever.
Nevertheless, several problems persist. Perdue uses several agricultural instances to show that technology itself will not take into account the variances in historical outcomes. In fact, applying sociable factors in single-factor models are also not satisfactory. In theory, we would like a theory where social and complex factors aren't only separately considered, but the mutual interaction, reciprocity, reviews, and equilibrium of the developing relationship emphasised. This well summed up by Winston Churchill, "We form our properties; thereafter they shape us. " But such a theory is difficult if not downright impossible to formulate. In Heilbroner's words, "A recognition that the technical composition is inextricably entwined in the activities of any contemporary society does not reveal the connection between changes in that composition and changes in the socioeconomic order".
Misa's exposition on the difficulty of building a "middle-level" tackle offers us a solution. He shows that macro studies avoid integration with the micro-level because its classification as an independent force rejects the effects of micro-forces. In micro-studies the large number of agents engaged swarms the apparent importance of technology; sometimes it is simply omitted from the narrative. This parallel to entropy that offers us a means out. Entropy pays to as a macroscopic empirical principle, but so far as we know it does not result immediately from the underlying physical laws and regulations such as quantum dynamics. Therefore, as a technological model, technological determinism is merely a model, a simplified, reduced representation of the vagaries of an complex underlying actuality. As a incomplete theory analogous to relativity or quantum mechanics, technology determinism makes up about many of the observed sociable change in the twentieth century, in particular when taking into consideration the major topics of industrialisation, urbanisation and the development of wealth. To provide technological determinism any less credit, or even to expect it to be the sole basis of most individual activity without exception would be overly presumptuous.
