Some philosophical thoughts on the nature of technology

Abstract

Much of the effort put into discovering or defining the nature of technology has been along “party lines,” for example, either favoring technology or not. Although there is a clear divergence in the stand that various authors take with respect to this topic, I believe they share a common assumption, namely, that there is such a thing as “the essence” or “nature” of technology. My claim in this paper is that the broad use to which we put the term “technology” is better understood on the model of “family resemblance,” a model put forward by Ludwig Wittgenstein, than it is on models that utilize the notion of “essence” or “nature.” Not only does the family resemblance model serve us better in understanding the wide variety of uses of the term, but it also helps to ameliorate the antipathy between the parties that their discussions often invoke.