New Elements of Technology

We live in a world which is increasingly modelled by technique; a technique no longer limited to the mere transformation of our world but which has taken on a design and production role. We cannot help but notice how the artificialisation of reality is picking up speed, forcing us to reconsider the old categories and oppositions which formed the basis of Western science: dichotomies such as nature and artifice, man and technique, true and false, for example. We are faced with a paradox which becomes more and more pressing. Technique influences us and yet we remain largely unaware of it. Beyond conception, technique blinds us, like the timber thrust by Odysseus into the eye of the Cyclops Polyphemus, spreading uncontrolledly and, unbeknownst to us, making up our world--and our selves. Yet if we fail to conceive technique, then it is because we do not know how to. We have not learnt to apply logos, or thought, or, more generally, science with regard to technique. Western convention traditionally separates technique from logos, confining it to the application of a science which goes beyond the realms of technique. Technique is part of another science, unworthy of thought and inconceived. The Greeks called this science metis, of which the polymetis Odysseus, master of metis, is the figurehead. As such, the issue with Western science is not, as Heidegger famously put it, that "science does not think" (Winter semester course 1951-1952) but that it does not conceive what constitutes our being and our world--what constitutes science itself--that is to say, technique. This book picks up the recurrent question of the foundation of knowledge, a science named "techno-logy", a science of technique allowing us to conceive its foundations, forms and issues. Its title harks back to Jacob Bigelow's Elements of Technology (1829), a collection of lectures given at Harvard. Bigelow supports an articulation between science and technique in which science focuses on technical applications and in which techniques ('useful arts') feed on scientific advances. As Rumford Professor at Harvard, dedicated to the application of science to the useful arts and technique, Bigelow was in many ways at the origin of institutions such as MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) which uses the term technology and is inspired by his educational recommendations. An institute such as MIT is based around the paradigm of a technique which, in the form of technology, is a neutral, mechanical and transparent application of science and thus masked by that dominant science. This paradigm, which always dictates our science, is defined clearly by Bigelow: "Under this title, it is attempted to include such an account as the limits of the volume permit, of the principles, processes and nomenclatures of the more conspicuous arts, particularly those which involve applications of science, and which may be considered useful, by promoting the benefit of society, together of the emolument of those who pursue them" (Bigelow, 1829, p. V). It is precisely this paradigm which we intend to question in this book by sketching the outlines of a technology and of a science of technique. We can thus develop a scientific knowledge of technique without limiting the latter to a mere application of science. What motivated us to undertake this research? First, working in a French engineering school, INSA (national applied sciences institute) Lyon, we are faced with this applied representation of technique which conditions the very training of engineers. Yet we are sure that the instauration of a technology can contribute to redesigning this type of education, placing at its core a true science of technique encompassing design, creativity, innovation and also the critical exercise of a conception of technique. In addition, we see engineering schools as the ideal laboratory to construct the elements of a technology, thanks to the unrivalled relationships and the interdisciplinary links that they create every day between the human and social sciences and science for engineers. Two hundred years after Bigelow's book which discussed the issues of nascent industrialisation, it is time to rethink the concept of technology and to position ourselves in the artificialised world we live in. We have therefore invited several French researchers from different disciplines to contribute to this project. Whilst this book, written in English, aims to echo that of Bigelow, it is also the beginning of a dialogue with our English-speaking academic.