Science as technology

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (3):423-442 (1993)
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Abstract

It is usually believed that science goes with things like theoria, ‘knowing that’, ontology and representing, and that techne, know-how, technology and intervening are only instrumental to science or its beneficial but nonetheless accidental side effect. In this context to be instrumental means also to be eliminable, or at least transparent, something that leaves no trace. Following the historical development of experimentation, from simple observation to modern microscopic experiments. I try to show how that view loses its ground. To produce an artefact, scientific or other, is to be engaged in a complex dynamics, both ontological and epistemological in which at least two component processes, that of bringing forth and that of bringing into, are intertwined. The old dictum: ‘Science discovers, technology invents’, should be replaced by: science discovers because it invents. As a consequence scientific theory becomes an instrument of design.

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References found in this work

Representing and Intervening.Ian Hacking - 1983 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 35 (4):381-390.
The phenomenon of life: toward a philosophical biology.Hans Jonas - 1966 - Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press.
Representing and Intervening.Ian Hacking - 1987 - Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 92 (2):279-279.
Basic writings: from Being and time (1927) to The task of thinking (1964).Martin Heidegger - 1977 - New York: Harper Perennial Modern Thought. Edited by David Farrell Krell.

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