Abstract

In this article, we analyse a concept forged by the encounter between an eighteenth century philosophical monism, Materialism, and the modern intertwining of science and technology, subsumed under the notion of “technoscience”. In particular, we show how Materialism has been enrolled as the main philosophical foundation of technoscience, since this found in the materialist monad a “natural” substantiation of a certain conception of science and innovation. We first briefly introduce both terms of the dyad separately before discussing how they relate to one another in the contemporary discourse about scientific progress, while taking a small detour via the writings of the science fiction author Iain M. Banks.