Handling technical Power: Philosophy of Technology 3515109196, 9783515109192

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bernhard irrgang

Handling technical Power Philosophy of Technology Philosophie Franz Steiner Verlag

Bernhard Irrgang Handling technical Power

Bernhard Irrgang

Handling technical Power Philosophy of Technology

Franz Steiner Verlag

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über abrufbar. Dieses Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist unzulässig und strafbar. © Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2014 Druck: Bosch Druck, Landshut Gedruckt auf säurefreiem, alterungsbeständigem Papier. Printed in Germany. ISBN 978-3-515-10919-2 (Print) ISBN 978-3-515-10927-7 (E-Book)

To Albert Borgmann Marc Coeckelbergh Andrew Feenberg Larry Hickmann Don Ihde Carl Mitcham Robert Scharff Friends in discussing Philosophy of Science and Technology

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Foreword .......................................................................................................... 9 Introduction: Hermeneutic philosophy of technics and technology .............. 11 Part I: Developing Technical Potential: Theoretical Technology ................. 18 1. Technical Praxis and Technical Power: Technical Artifacts and Structures between Construction, Use, Maintenance and Disposal .......... 21 2. Technology as Knowledge of Process and Dealing between art and science ................................................................................................ 64 3. Technoscience, laboratory sciences, technoresearch – Genesis of modern technology .................................................................................... 93 Part II: Use of technical potentials: Political technology ........................... 114 4. Possession and Use: Technics as the basis of social formation, economic and political power ................................................................. 122 5. Paths of technical development, Technology transfer and Transcultural modernization ................................................................... 137 6. Technologisation of everyday life, Consumer orientation, Re-use of technology, joy of use and trust in technics ............................................ 177 7. Conclusion: Hermeneutics of technics, culture of reflection on technology and visions of technology ..................................................... 213 8. Literature .................................................................................................. 218

FOREWORD Hermeneutics is still valid to many as a purely humanistic methodology and phenomenology is still known for its strong critic of positivism. At first glance, both the methodologies do not seem to be adequate to substantiate the Philosophy of technics. In the meanwhile, works on a hermeneutic philosophy of science have become quite acceptable. Especially, the approaches on the philosophy of technoscience – the thesis of a technical basis of modern nature – as experimental sciences have offered support to a hermeneutic philosophy of technics. Almost all these approaches find their place in the US. But Heidegger is still recognised as a philosopher of technics also in Germany. Indeed, in the beginning of the 21st century, Heidegger influences more clearly, in the background of the Aristotelean conception of technics, the discussions on the theme of technics not only as a critic of technics after the so called “turn”, but also before his “Being and Time”. The turn on the philosophy of technics of the early Heidegger in “Being and Time” (I noticed it with the help of my friend Nestor Corona) can be fruitfully linked to the approach of “tacit knowledge” (Michael Polanyi) and “expanding hermeneutics” (Don Ihde). The philosophy of technics by, for instance Albert Borgmann, Hubert Dreyfus and Carl Mitcham (to name only a few), Hans Lenk, Hans Poser and Walther Zimmerli in Europe as well as the historical approaches on technology by my colleague in Dresden Thomas Hänseroth have also inspired my hermeneutic philosophy of technics. This work is a translation of my german book “Grundriss der Technikphilosophie. Hermeneutisch-phänomenologische Perspektiven” (Würzburg 2009), corrected and improved by the author. I offer special thanks to my assistant Michael Funk and my Ph. D students for the exciting academic discussion, and especially to Mr. Somasekharan Gokul, the translator of this book. Dresden, early summer 2014

Bernhard Irrgang

INTRODUCTION: HERMENEUTIC PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNICS AND TECHNOLOGY The philosophy of technics is a recent discipline, which is only around 130 years old. Still in the 19th century, thinkers like Hegel, Buckhardt and Dilthey did not attach any historical significance to technique. The manual and technical skills and their practical accomplishment of technical activities were seen as objects of lesser grade. They belong to the daily world. This has changed basically with the reassessment of the themes of Lebenswelt and Alltaeglichkeit by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger respectively. Moreover, technics has become a dominant factor in the daily life of mankind, something which was not the case in previous times. Philosophical reflection on technique and its mouldings as well as different conceptions of the understanding of technology would not allow to reduce the analysis of the development of technique merely to the determination of productivity. It must preferably take into account several factors of development and should methodologically inquire into its significance, meaning and value. What is attempted here is a convergence of perspectives, in which the development of technics can be interpreted. A respective understanding of technics and technology has to be derived and the arguments which are for and against a particular interpretation have to be discussed for this purpose. The words technics and technology are used in multiple forms. The concept of technics originates from the Greek word “technikos”, manual and artificial, which means the knowledge of processing, transferred individually or by guild, and its products. At first identical with the concept of art in the sense of handicraft, technique describes the measures and processes, with the help of which, man manufactures things through the appropriation of natural laws and natural resources and make them available for production. In this respect, technics includes an approach, which integrates the knowledge of natural sciences. The concept of anticipation (prior understanding, tradition, pre-structuredness of paths of development), contains a new dimension in the framework of hermeneutics of understanding. The hermeneutic situation of understanding depends on a pre-structure of understanding of a world-design, which contains anticipation. In the daily conception, anticipation means an expectation of the future behaviour. A particular vision of future manifests itself in such an anticipation. From the perspective of hermeneutics of technics, technics can be understood with recourse to technical traditions and manifestations of technical actions in history. Simultaneously on the other hand it can be understood only with the help of an anticipation of the technical development in future. Hermeneutics of daily life observes along with Martin Heidegger, an essential element of technics in the skills of handling or operation and the knowledge, which serves as its basis.

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Introduction

One can find in Aristotle an early form of the thesis of handling of technics. He writes: since we partly produce the material in different sectors of our manual labour, partly to process it for further use, we treat everything, whatever there is, as means for our ends- for in a certain sense we are also in fact an (nature’s) object. The term “object” is ambiguous, it refers to the scripture on philosophy, “now there are two trades every time, which determine the material and the knowledge about what the material contains, that is to say, the trades, which (out of which the material can be produced) are applied and on the other side, the ones, which have a leading function during the process of manufacture […]. We distinguish the manufacturing manual labour, which includes the knowledge of the material. That is how a navigator conceives the rudder of a ship and states, how it can be designed. But the other one (the ship manufacturer) knows and states from which wood it can be made and which processes can be adopted for its manufacture. The end-use should have only the knowledge of the object, which the concerned has to accomplish each time” (Aristotles 1979, 37f). My own definition ties in with Aristotle’s. Technology means 1) knowledge of skills of construction and manufacture of technical artefacts. 2) Knowledge about the structure, function and efficiency of technical artefacts. 3) Knowledge of skills of use, handling, disposal and application of technical artefacts (Irrgang 2008a). The point of departure for a hermeneutic concept of technical knowledge and understanding is implicit or tacit knowledge (Irrgang 2001a). An understanding of the technical action based on this develops, which builds upon a conception of the use of tools and respectively also of the handling of natural processes, in the instrumental understanding as the implicit knowledge of handling. What is of pre-eminent significance is not the analysis of tools, instead that of success, which can be achieved with the help of a technical resource. What is explored is the way of realisation of an intended effect. The interpretation of implicit technical knowledge goes in the process beyond Martin Heidegger’s existential analysis of technical handling of the material world (Corona, Irrgang 1999). The point of departure of the philosophy of technics is the concept of an implicit knowledge of handling on the basis of a process of understanding of the possibilities of application of natural processes or of tools. This implicit knowledge of handling should be reconstructed in the sense of a mutually interwoven knowledge and skills, determined by the material structure which is dealt with and the habituality of the person handling. Only thereafter becomes the explicit knowledge, mathematicisation and a scientific basis crucial for technics. Technics and its user meet in a particular referential connection, for example, a stone which can be used as a hand-axe and a nuclear plant which generates electricity. The programme of philosophy of technics suggested here interprets the technical artefacts in the context of their social application with reference to its cultural significance, and hence more or less institutionalised forms of technical handling. Research until now limited itself mostly either to the renewal of construction laws of the technical artefacts or to the formation of social projects. A methodologically

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verified mediation of both the approaches after taking into account the socio-cultural aspects seems to be badly essential as a point of departure for the philosophy of technics. Technical knowledge is not theoretical knowledge in the traditional philosophical sense, instead it is the knowledge of handling or know-how, which can be reflexively worked upon. A hermeneutic approach is apt for exactly this kind of knowledge. The processes of interpretation set horizons of explanations as a prerequisite. Ex: Models, basic settings, guidelines as well as basic anthropological and cultural assumptions in the framework of analysis of technical handling. A hermeneutic analysis of technical handling begins normally not with an individual, instead with social “systems” (forms of praxis), which use the artifacts. Social systems use artifacts for a certain purpose, i.e. with a certain intention. An interpretation-theory of technical handling is assumed to be an art of framing questions regarding technics, which develops its context of use in its cultural significance and in its future potential. The phenomenology and hermeneutics of technical handling as a theory of methodology of the philosophy of technics analyses assumptions and preconditions of interpretations, which serve as the basis of the way of use and development of technical praxis. The analysis of technics means in such a process a form of description of not only the technicised daily world and the know-how, which serves as its basis, but also the reflection and metareflection on technics. Traditionally, the interaction between man and technics is treated as explained in the concepts of labour and production. But the high-tech society has changed the traditional concepts of labour and production. An analysis of technical handling intervenes here and demonstrates that the daily world right from the beginning has been interspersed with the economisation of technical handling. Technical handling through its processing of nature and artifacts shows a non-specific tendency for symbiosis with natural sciences to the extent they exist. The intended effects, aims and purposes and the non-intended effects are the determining starting points for such a theory of application-contexts of technics, which is shaped communicatively and instrumentally. Traditionally, technical action orients itself initially towards archetypes, models, designs and concepts of technical and non-technical kinds. Its cultural embedment lies in that. One of the essential tasks of such a theory of interpretation of dealing with technics (hermeneutics of technics) is the interpretation of models and images, which guide its handling. Structures, which constitute the technicised life-world and the metaphors, which guide it in its social (for example, in the model of car-free inner city) and ecological dimensions (for example, in the image of our blue planet) constitute, develop and make the technical praxis possible. Also, the social dimension of technical action cannot be understood without the communicative action. Technical megasystems, especially for the supply of energy, have transformed the daily life in the industrial socities in a drastic manner. The information technology systems and our systems for food production have also had the same impact. Even if there are no convincing theories to account for the interspersing relation between technical artifacts and the ways of their social application and also between social groups and individuals, a glance at the history of technical praxis and its

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Introduction

cultural embeddedness in its formulation can perhaps help in this regard. The determining aspect in the description of technical application is not the contrast of the instrumental and the communicative, instead the mutual engagement of communicative and instrumental behaviour in order to achieve a particular goal. It turns out in the process, that the hermeneutics of technics overcomes as a rather integrating concept the classical dichotomies in the interpretation of technics. The hammer in the tool box has no purpose and may be interpreted as value neutral (although most of the technical tools have their own particular purpose, which is more, the more specialised they are and still have only less application possibilities). The hammer, which is used by a carpenter to construct a roof truss exists in a particular social use-context. The apparently value neutral equipment has now a purpose, which can be assesed. It exists in a different use-context and acquires a different significance if it is used as an instrument for committing murder. It is not an instrument as such, which explains a purpose or an aim as implied by the traditional theories of technics, instead rather definite applications, which qualifies more as an artifact. These can be related to different levels of communicative interaction forms, which make in a specific form the living together of humans possible. However, technical artifacts are completely value neutral as technical equipments, since they are created for particular applications and are used accordingly. The technical artifact achieves its significance in the technical praxis. This applies for invention as well as application. A hermeneutic interpretation of the technical praxis links Edmund Husserl’s theory of life-world as world of obvious evidences, on which every theorisation is based, with Heidegger’s concept of mundaneness or every-day-life (Alltaeglichkeit). Technical praxis in this sense is not at all self-evident, instead it is enforced by contingency. Technical daily activities help to come to terms with contingencies, achieve use satisfaction and organisation of the survival and is characterised by technical knowledge of handling, tradition, occasionally by inventions and innovations as well as by success and failure. Technical activities in the daily world, technicisation of daily world, technicisation of science and the technologisation of technics, science and daily world all lead to different types of technical uses and to an emergence of these types in a non-linear “logic of development” (paths of technical development). The mutual effects of technical uses on the daily world, handicraft and trade, later industry and automatised production, technical sciences and technology, technical empirical research as well as society, culture, politics and nature all lead to a complexity, which cannot be comprehended completely by a theory. Different restraints are necessary on this ground (Irrgang 2002a). Conflicts of interpretation, which can as much as possible be interpretatively, argumentatively and discursively explained, do not originate least on this ground. Hermeneutics of technical-instrumental action links a humanistic understanding of cultural embeddedness, natural scientific-technical explanation of use-contexts, empirical and social scientific model formation and methodically reflects the technical philosophical reflections on the significance and purpose of technical images (and their evaluation) in their specific social ways of use. Hermeneutics is indeed

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traditionally a methodology of humanities. But it has to be made fruitful for a science of action of instrumental-experimental and technical reasoning. The reflection on the methodology of technical sciences is one of the prerequisites of a philosophy of interpretation of technical action. We must learn to interpret technics productively. The moralising of technics or at least certain technics leads us aloof and would fail us in the task of evaluation of technics and the appraisal of its impacts. Technics has become a dominant cultural factor in our civilisation. Man may regret the fact that at least in industrial nations he cannot escape the domination of our lives by technology. Hence we need a philosophical response to the challenge of contemporary technics. The very first prerequisite for that is an adequate understanding of technics, technology and technoscience. This does not mean that we must learn to understand thoroughly the ways of its functioning. This is the task of engineers and technical sciences. Instead, the philosophy and the new hermeneutics of technics aim to highlight the significance of technics in its use and bring to light the sense and nonsense of it. The right guidance about its right handling and if need be, also its disposal should be placed next to the hermeneutics explaining the significant ways of functioning and principles of effects of technics. The discourse in the circle of experts can only have the preparative, or rather structuring character. The power of public opinion must be used in the best possible way for the interpretation of technics. The understanding of the daily language as the metalanguage is the first approach towards a hermeneutics of technics. To understand a technical artifact means to know under which circumstances it can be used (and what consequences it can have). To understand a technology is to know under which conditions its process achieves its aims (and what consequences it can have). Hermeneutics of technics works on a clear interpretative speech on technics and its use. The hermeneutics of technical praxis is not itself a technical praxis but rather its linguistic penetration, reflection and elucidation under an operative-theoretical consideration. It means further that the motivation, situation, the design, the structure of the object and the consequences of operation of technics and technology respectively are explained here. The technical construction is not at all a self-objective (other than the playfulexperimental handling of technical artifacts in Hellenism and other forms). The playful dealing with technics also has mostly its own objective, vaguely a religious, artistic or an entertainment-oriented one. Hermeneutics of technics is hence preferably the analysis of goal or meaning. But it should not also do away with the analysis of its consequences. Hermeneutics of technics is moreover a methodologically verified and reflected introduction of an academic language of the hermeneutics of technics, which is obviously built on the foundation of an everyday language of technics and society. Its main tasks consists of re-construction of genesis, ways of functioning and the impacts of technics and technology respectively in working out its aims and also accordingly the meaning of ways of application of technics or technology and its argumentative evaluation with respect to its acceptability. Hermeneutics of technics is a search for an adequate language on technics. It must include explicit and implicit knowledge. It deals with the modelling of technics, the technical praxis and

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Introduction

the competences that are its basis as well as the leading paradigms. The introduction of a terminology can be explained from the perspective of its factual and potential use as well as from that of its ways of functioning. With regard to the cultures of innovation, it is a matter of interplay of changes in use and design between the manufacturer and the user with a view to the formulation and development of paradigms. The question: what is the purpose of this technical artefact or this technical process is a prominent one in the methodological introduction of technical-hermeneutic formulation of questions and problems. It is about the conditions of possibilities of uses of technics, its success and failure. These conditions are the embedding factors. The analysis of these is central to the hermeneutics of technics. This task is the most pressing one. We have been experiencing the digitilisation of the technologicised daily world for a few decades. The experience of the upheavals that accompany it leads to loss of tradition and change in values. Philosophy acquires new significance of life in the face of the lack of orientation in the technicised daily world. It is a matter of public philosophising outside the academic walls. Philosophy has to recognise the inevitability of technicising of the daily world and will lead to other forms of organisation of philosophy. Philosophy should take into account modern technologisation and should not develop a philosophy of technics in the sense of a discipline (Zimmerli 1997b, 9). In all, technics and science should be understood as culture. The hybrid of technics and science developed in the second modernisation has brought about a second dialectics of enlightenment (Zimmerli 1997b, 13). The most important characteristic of this second modernisation is the microelectronic revolution and its complete penetration of our world. It is clear here, that the development of technics cannot be described solely as a logic of development of technics in itself, instead it should be seen in the social and cultural context. Technics is more than the entirety of technical artefacts. System concepts in technics can be described by the Heideggerian expression “Gestell” (framework). “Gestell” is the direct translation of the system-technics. Technics as system applies to every technics, not just to modern technics. The earlier technics can certainly be understood as an accident in the sense of an accidental success of technical operations. This technics exists also among the higher animal species. Higher technics can certainly be viewed as regulated technics. It is a technics, in which the sources of disturbances are sealed off in the sense of cybernetics. Safeguarding means to guarantee the preservation of functions. To that extent system-technics is safe. In the epochs it is a matter of accidental development of resources, energy sources and material. In the second phase of the development of technics, experiments are discovered and they become the central point of a new understanding of technics. There is a structural analogy between experimental knowledge gaining and technical invention. The central concept today is the expansion of stock rather than its protection. This leads to the hybridisation of man in the sense of man-machine interface and new forms of insecurity. The cultural pessimistic interpretation amounts to the statement: the modern technics has outstripped its subject (Poser 2008, 112– 129). The decisive problem in the hyper modern technics for me certainly is the structuring of the knowledge of operation under the changed conditions of a new

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man-machine interaction. The user preferences should in any case be taken into account. The idea, that science can all solve all problems started to fail in the beginning of the 20th century. The quantum theory, Goedel’s theory and Kuhn’s theory were major milestones in this account. It became clearer, that there is a lack of exact understanding of scientific aspects. Science and technology had to be understood better on account of this. A new sociology of expertise was developed. One of the models in this connection was the linguistic competence. Apart from that commonsense or daily understanding was also taken into account. It deals with the claim, that the normal crowd is more intelligent and wise when it comes to mundane problems than the experts in many technical fields. It is hence necessary to analysis the expertise and define different types of experts, for example to distinguish technical experts from meta expertise. The unhealthy monopoly on scientific and technical judgment had also to be done away with. It is so to say not a problem of the methodology, instead that of the consensus of experts. In this respect, the critic of science and technology is linked to the critic of scientism and points to its dissociation from mundane analysis (Collins, Evans 2007, 13–40). Intelligence is a bodily affair, which requires altogether the social embedment of corporeality (Collins, Evans 2007, 78f). Different levels of trusts and criteria of separation between the individual levels have to be distinguished from each other (Collins, Evans 2007, 114).

PART I: DEVELOPING TECHNICAL POTENTIAL: THEORETICAL TECHNOLOGY The ahistorical nature of several popular technology societies was put an end to by the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) with the publication of its journal “Technology and Culture” from 1959 to 1980. Kranzberg, Rae, Condit and Hughes can be considered as the most important authors in the first phase of this movement. Melvin Kranzberg belonged to the early group, which published articles before 1964. Lynn White, William Fielding Ogborn, Cyril Stanley Smith, John B. Rae, Peter Drucker, Louis Mumford and Rupert Hall became later members of the “history of science society”. They turned against a pure internalistic style of scientific and technological description. The social milieu of technology was also used in its description. Mistakes, coincidences and multifactorally constituted components belonged to the social milieu. The dominant function of the society was still not seen in the early period, but its dynamic social context was anyway considered. The existence of a corpus of specialised internalistic histories of technology could not be denied. But there existed no standardising concepts, which could unify different technologies with an individual singular of the universe of discourses. Technological necessities mesh together with the lack of consideration of social decisions in the processes of technological development (Staudenmaier 1985, 3–7). The contextual history of technology contains also works by Jacob Schmookler und William Fielding Ogborn, which made the non-historical analyses acceptable. The methodological problems especially were part of them. Basic methodological problems and the methodological style in the journal “Technology and Culture” were contextually internalistic, externalistic, non-linear, non-historical and historiographical reflections. Dornberger’s study on V-2 rockets and V-2 Team did not go beyond the hypotheses. The historical process, which Lyon White describes in his article on the nature of invention could appear only in particular situations, in which the historians had declared pure critic as their goal. It was about developing hypotheses. Those approximately ten articles, which are considered externalistic in the first seven years, dealt with themes, which were not characteristic of historical research. Externalistic studies increased in the second and third periods. SHOT began as an internalistic trend of studies, but limited itself to historical investigations in a cognitive world view. Cognitive anthropology insists, that all individual activities can be encountered in one cultural milieu. They can be seen in a cognitive universe, which is multifactoral and complex. It is to a certain extent a culturally learned universe. The significance of acquired prejudices was singled out here as the origin for fresh research. It dealt with textual and sociological analyses (Staudenmaier 1985, 9–25).

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Lynn White turned to the technological order and the process of invention, development and innovation. He described the technologically supporting network, the technical tradition, the system and the technical supplementary network. The process of technological change and the process of development were based on the negative-feedback metaphor. Research and development were mutually interlocking and were based on the three steps of invention, development and innovation. The idea of technical tradition was central here. The historiographical status of system-approach and the contextual approach of the history of movement of technology were mutually interlocking (Staudenmaier 1985, 35–80). Detailed discussions on the interaction between science and technology followed in the scientific societies (SHOT) of 70s and 80s. Technology was considered here as an applied science. A language of science and technology was formed and developed. The relation between science and technology was thereby investigated and the following model was developed: (1) Scientific activity is motivated by curiosity and its technology is motivated by the solving of problems. (2) The desired artifact is a theoretical model in sciences, whereas what stays in the foreground in technics is the desired effect of the artifact. Edwin Layton and Cyril S. Smith were among the authors in the heydays of the discussion. (3) Science brings about technological creativity and leads to rationalisation of the existing technological practices. These trends developed case studies on Rankine and Redtenbacher, Lavoisier and Maxwell. Robert P. Multhauf, A. Rupert Hall and Lynwood Bryant also belonged to the authors. (4) Technology associates with science the development of instruments, posing scientific questions and creating new conceptual models for the later science. (5) Scientific and technological activities develop in human societies and influence scientific and technological interaction. Arnold Thackeray is one of the authors of this model. (6) Technology as applied science. Mario Bunge represents this model. (7) Technology as non-applied science was represented by Joseph Agassi and Cyril Smith (Staudenmaier 1985, 83–99). Scientific verification through controlled varying experiments was represented by Hendrik Skolimowski, who singled out four characteristics of technological knowledge. It deals as much with scientific concepts as with the demands of technological designs. This became clear in the project Whirlwind of MIT. Milton wrote on the prison of Newcomen. Lynwood Bryant's study of the later thermodynamics and its effects on the construction of machines follow this direction. Problematic data led to an engineer’s theory of machines. Idealisations of machines, rays, steammachines or similar tasks were developed. Edward Constant followed this direction. What remained thereby the basis was a certain experience in engineering, which rested on technological capabilities and competences. The tension between competence and theory was identified and recognised by the representatives of two types of education along engineering lines, of the “shop culture” and that of the “school culture” (Calvert). Lynn White’s contributions in “Technology and Culture” dealt with technology transfer and the verification of specific types of transfer. It was about developing the vehicle for technology transfer and supplementary networks of technology. Transfer and culture were mutually dependent. Hacker, Hughes, Jensen and

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Part I

Rosegger were among the authors of this shade. The debate on technological determinism was central to it. Technological progress in a deterministic sense was viewed advantageous and it fixed particular sequences, which were considered necessary. The relation of society to technological change consists certainly always in a way of adaptation. A deterministic history of technology was seen therewith in relation to the increasing triumph of the West. That is how an autonomous technology-hypothesis emerged. The instant of the movement counted as an explicit model for the history of technics. The leading concepts for this period of “Technology and Culture” were provided by Kenneth Bailes, Daniel J. Kevles, David Hounshall and Hughes. The concept of body in motion was also discovered in a non-technical sense. Bell’s amateur approach to technics and Gray’s professional style complemented each other. The theory of a political style of technological progress evolved in this way. Its protagonist was Loenes C. Hunter. The persisting nature of regimelike policy of promotion of technological development and the significance of financial interests for this process of designing, the persisting nature of cultural values and how values shape construction, all these became the object of cultural studies of technology transfer (Staudenmaier 1985, 121–158).

1. TECHNICAL PRAXIS AND TECHNICAL POWER: TECHNICAL ARTIFACTS AND STRUCTURES BETWEEN CONSTRUCTION, USE, MAINTENANCE AND DISPOSAL Heidegger’s philosophy of technics after the turn of 1949 is well-known. After his departure from the European central idea of subjectivity and rationalism, he brand marked, on the basis of his principle of reason, “the rush of cybernetics” and demanded a new sober thinking after the “end of philosophy”, which goes beyond rationality and irrationality. The technical age is of a non-secretive rationality, which is characterised by efficient computation (Heidegger 1971, 168). The essence of modern technics, for Heidegger, consists in transition into its own self-validity. It does not serve man anymore, instead it rules him and the nature. The idea of causality in the western metaphysics is to be blamed for that, which stretches from the Aristotelean four-nature-theory to Descartes’ concept of “causa efficiens” (reason, which causes) and to the concept of mechanism in the 17th and 18th centuries (Heidegger 1962, 8). The idea of causality has in its miscalculation brought philosophy to its end (Heidegger 1976). Less well-known is his philosophy of technics in the early period. Heidegger develops a philosophy of technics in the sections 14 to 18 of Being and Time, which addresses the issue in a totally different manner from the hitherto known philosophy of technics. In his analysis of the human Dasein as one of “being in the world”, he comes across the phenomena of “Mundaneness” (Alltaeglichkeit) or of the mundane of being in the world (Heidegger 1972, 66). In the analysis of “taking care”, he develops the concept of knowledge which examines. “Taking care” by using and handling has its own knowledge. The human “Dasein” in the world is always in a use-form. Heidegger reached the pre-phenomenological ground in this manner. The structure of things can be elucidated by putting oneself in the act of “taking care”. The things were called Pragmata by the Greeks. For Heidegger praxis meant handling or association in a caring manner. For the Greeks Pragmata meant plain things. Heidegger’s inaugurates a way to understand the use of things in the sense of praxis. The structure of value-afflictedness can also be determined in the use of things (Heidegger 1972, 68). Heidegger interprets Pragmata and things as equipment. Automobiles are things, which can be used for travel. In his analysis of Being-as-equipment Heidegger comes to the conclusion that the equipment is essentially “in order to”, which refers to something else. The handling which is most cut out for the equipment calls Heidegger readiness-to-hand of the material (Heidegger 1972, 69). The ready-to-hand marks a being, which calls for handling. While dealing with the anxious world, the being can meet the not ready-to-hand. The not-ready-to-hand is that, which the Dasein cannot obtain, what remains left as unfinished. The availability

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of the ready-to-hand is characterised by conspicuousness, intrusiveness and recalcitrance. The world consists thereby not only of the ready-to-hand. Taking care rests on the familiarity with the world (Heidegger 1972, 76). The existential constitution of the Dasein as affectivity is the most well-known and mundane, that is to say the mood, the state of being tempered. Without defining it further Heidegger begins the analysis of human corporality as the state of being tempered (Heidegger 1972, 135). Heidegger apostrophizes thereby this being (Dasein) as human corporality and enigmatic. The affectivity develops the dasein in its thrownness mostly in the manner of an evasive estrangement (Heidegger 1972, 136). Heidegger’s philosophy of technics in Being and Time owes predominantly to his engagement with Aristotle (Corona, Irrgang 1999). Heidegger begins his early phenomenological statements with a self-reflection of the hermeneutic situation (Heidegger 2002, 5). The where-upon of care is the where-by of handling. The emotion involved in taking care shows multiple ways of execution and of drawing upon the where-by of handling: to handle, to prepare, to manufacture, to ensure through, to put in use, to use for, to own for, to preserve for and to miss. The where-by of the execution of handling, which corresponds to these ways, stays each time in a particular relation of familiarity. It is a matter of ensuring and increasing the familiarity with the object to be handled. The factual life moves always in a particular existing, re-contructed or newly acquired state of configuration (Heidegger 2002, 14–17). For Heidegger it is about the original phenomenological hermeneutics of facticity (Heidegger 2002, 29). Heidegger likes to offer a concrete interpretation of the Aristotelean philosophy, oriented by a radical phenomenological anthropology (Heidegger 2002, 37f.). The field of the object, which provides the original meaning of being, is that of the one manufactured and existing in local use. What characterises the beings as being in ready keeping and as possession is its manufacturedness (Heidegger 2002, 41f). Husserl’s theory of the intentionality of consciousness does not take into account the dimension of instrumental handling of the reality of things. The instrumental and creative-playful handling of the object is always mutually interspersed. What has to be accounted for is the perspectivity of intentionality, which does not nearly follow from Husserl’s analysis. Like what Hans Georg Gadamer asserts, Heidegger worked out an understanding of Aristotle in 1922, which, because of the phenomenological talent of the young professor, introduced a true revolution. For he turns his attention to the performed act of handling of things in order to ensure familiarity. Phronesis is seen therewith not as a dianoetic virtue, but as a hexis, i.e a competence. Heidegger brings out the significance of phronesis, of practical knowledge, which is inclusive of the Kantian idea of judgement. For Heidegger, it is all about substantiating in detail, why one should go back again to Aristotle, if one wants to really understand the Christian history of the west in its productive possibilities and make our own situation in the present more transparent (Heidegger 2002, 80f). One must thereby observe, that Aristotle was for Heidegger a disguising traditional figure, which does not let occidental thought come to itself and have a free reign (Heidegger 2002, 83f). Heidegger is convinced that Aristotle was a phenom-

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enologist, who himself had a vision of things (Heidegger 2002, 86). The Greek concept of technics is based on a broad understanding of technics, to which a phenomenological interpretation of technics can be related (even if it has not factually happened). It attributes to technics the significance of application of certain ways of treating and dealing, especially in the use of (technique of playing piano, of driving a car) instruments and machines and for example, breeding and areas of medicine, which include technical treatment. Engineers are especially annoyed, on account of a self-misunderstanding, over such a use of language, which does not allow for clarity (Rapp 1990, 16.). Metatechnology is considered to be a kind of philosophising, which goes beyond the theoretical approaches of classical engineering and technological sciences and analyses besides the social, especially the cultural embeddedness of technological development. The classical understanding of technics in the engineering sciences does not recognise unspecific technological use as technological use and hence ignores the phenomenon of technology in the daily life and also the massive use of technology for non-technological purposes, something which has become a problem in the industrial nations after the technologisation of daily life. Technicisation of the daily world leads to the development of another structural type of technological use, which has nothing to with production itself, but rather with the use of products. The latter dimension was traditionally ignored in the sciences of technics as well as the philosophy of technics. Innovations as replacements of technological routine are possible during production as well as use of technologically manufactured products. A comprehensive concept of technology must include three moments: Skills related to knowledge, acting on the basis of knowing skills and the artefacts as results of the action, which shape as technical means as well as technically manufactured products the techno-structure of our world. One of the earliest representatives of phenomenologically and hermeneutically oriented philosophy of technics was Don Ihde. While in a euro-american perspective, technics is associated with science, in America what stays in foreground is the cultural background of technologicised science and thus technologies are understood as cultural instruments. Ihde likes to bring together both the traditions and thereby understand ecosystems as techno-systems or as technologically shaped ecosystems. Hence, he turns against the technological determinism which understands technics as applied natural science and further establishes a determinism of technological development (Ihde 1990, 5). The thesis of a self-logic of technics ignores the context of technics. The hermeneutical approach emphasizes the cultural milieu of technical development. This philosophy of technics inquires into the relation between man and technics. It deals with the examination of technical culture and the question of the point of view of historic-philosophical investigation. In the supply of food stuff, one notices that technics is an immediate satisfaction of needs. The wish for a return to an innocent childhood will not take us further. What is recommended is a demythologised history of technics in the sense of a cultural life-form. Hence, there are for example, burial rites which imply particular technical skills. But technics is inevitable also in the preparation of dishes (Ihde 1990, 16–20). The

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body-apriori of the user is exactly as constitutive as the phenomenological materiality of technological objects for the phenomenological approach to technics (Ihde 1990, 24). Technics is a particular kind of praxis and thinking, where the emphasis is on the tactile use. The cultural hermeneutics of technics is the hermeneutics of a praxis. The practical context, in which a hammer and a nail exist, implies an embodied relation. Technical handling implies a world. For Heidegger it means to see a world as resource (Ihde 1990, 32). Husserl’s concept of praxis exists in a large cultural context. Merleau-Ponty’s “Phenomenology of Perception” in 1945, differentiates microperception from macroperception and takes Husserl’s analysis further. Microperception is always a kinaesthetic perception (Ihde 1990, 39). The natural and the technically mediated views have to be differentiated from each other. The perception of time changes the life-world and the clock changes the social time. The perception of time through a clock is a hermeneutic perception, an interpretation mediated by an instrument. Hence, the change in the experience of space through a ship journey (Ihde 1990, 65). Land maps and sea maps can also be understood as hermeneutic perception. Phenomenology of technology has as its point of departure a variety of possibilities of uses of technical artefacts (Ihde 1990, 69). It describes especially the reflexive transformation of perception through technics (Ihde 1990, 72). Technics has a mediating and mediatilising function for the perceivers and it changes along with that the bodily relations, in which desires and needs manifest themselves (Ihde 1990, 75). The mediatialising presence of others on telephone and their bodily presence are different from each other. What is implicit there is an instrumentation of perception. There emerges a technological-mediatialised world which needs a hermeneutics (Ihde 1990, 79). Writing is for example, a technologically embedded form of language. But it represents an embodied perception (Ihde 1990, 81). Hermeneutics of technics is interested in the transition from bodily to hermeneutic relations. We can experience heat or cold and also at the same time know the temperature with the help of a thermometer. The hermeneutic dimension becomes clearer during the process of translation of Celsius-reading in Fahrenheit (Ihde 1990, 85). According to Ihde, reading a thermometer is analogous to reading a text. Don Ihde sets the “perceptual turn” of phenomenology against the “linguistic turn”. Perception in Phenomenology is the perception of form. Phenomenolgy generated a new understanding of science. Historically seen, technics was developed prior to science. The significance of the navigation practice for the development of European sciences cannot be underestimated. The polynasian navigation is in contrast not at all based on science. Bodily relations with machines are hermeneutic relations against a particular background, which is today characterised by technological totalisation. People in industrial nations develop more hermeneutic relations to machines than to fellow humans. The instrumental possibilities of technical media, to be precise, technical artefacts have to be explained to the bottom. It is about the development of the ‘new’ in an instrumentally mediatised environment. It requires a hermeneutics of deitically mediated handling of instruments, tools and machines. In a technical handling the relation to the tool takes a particular place (Ihde

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1979, 33–37). Computer as a technical resource and instrument transforms experiences and changes the relations to the machine. The experiences with machines can become self-experiences through machines. Technical means imply possibilities of making experiences not only in interaction with humans. Computer increases our calculational, deductive and analytical experiences. But the computer is blind to social contexts (Ihde 1979, 57–60). Don Ihde recommends a historical access to the philosophy of technics. The history of philosophy brings the origins of philosophy closer to sciences. Modern science emphasises the close connection between philosophy and sciences. The experiment is not only rational knowledge, but also a technical practice (Ihde 1993, 6). Philosophy enters a different cultural context with technologisation. In the 19th century philosophy was separated from science. The phenomenology of Husserl was still a phenomenology of science (Ihde 1993, 17). There emrged a prejudice that philosophy and science belong to theory. Positivism ignores the share of technics in science and promoted a second prejudice that modern technology distinguishes itself from other technics. The third prejudice consisted of the view that the modern technology would follow from the sciences. Europe’s path was that of science. The classical Greeks were not well versed in technics. The Hellenistic and Roman periods were technically more innovated. But there were inventions also in the middle ages. There evolved a closer relation to technics in the renaissance, a fascination through technics and through nature. At present we experience the combination of science and technics which is Techno-science (Ihde 1993, 23–26). A manual worker takes a hammer in a relational context, in which it belongs to a specific field of tasks. This leads to the direction of attention. The flow of practice has to be differentiated from its interruption. It happens during destruction or bad functioning. Don Ihde speaks of a use-knowledge. It doesn’t imply any explicit attention to the technical medium (Ihde 1993, 40–43). Human cultures are not pre-technical. A different kind of embeddedness of technics in cultures and in practices of life-world has to be considered there (Ihde 1993, 49). Technics is capable of changing the environment. But at the same time, it is also culturally embedded. To that extent technics is older than science and philosophy (Ihde 1993, 65). Modern science was always technically embedded. Today technology is closer to science and is different from older forms of technics. Ihdes conception of hermeneutic and phenomenology of technics needs an action-theoretical emphasis, which lays the ground for the thesis of implicit knowledge in technical handling. Technical handling has a cultural background. But several cultural practices have also technical implications, particularly a technical background since it cannot be carried out without specific technical capabilities. Certain forms of technical uses obtain this way such a specific cultural meaning, that seen from the perspective of the cultural process of overall development, they can be experienced as alienation. Ordinary and high levels of the professional use of technics mesh together. Philosophy of technics as philosophy of technical usage doesn’t lead to the knowledge of the essence of technics in the sense of real-ontology. A phenomenology, turned pragmatic is the instruction for reenactment and it can lead to the theory

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of understanding of technical usage. It provides no theory of technical construction, but rather an instruction on learning to understand technical construction in its structuredness from the point of view of the process of contruction. This leads to a reflected way of reenactment of technical actions of specific and unspecific kinds and also to reflected engagement with pre-designs of the projected completion of action. Here is the reality in technical action always indirectly thematised and prerequisited. The world-reference of technical actions is as a result phenomenologically only indirectly thematised. In modern technics the structure of technical media is the black-box and not just the scheme of action. The black-box structure moves way from the bodyscheme of artisanry towards the structure-scheme of technical media, because of which the hermeneutic of technical media since the industrial revolution has to strive harder to understand the technical media than to understand the body-scheme of technical actions. Here one can differentiate a layman’s understanding and knowledge of know-how of technical media in the context of technical actions from a professional one, although the line of separation between the two is thin and is determined by the context. The knowledge of use of computers in a layman’s sense doesn’t mean the ability to write computer programmes. The programming of computers is part of an experienced tradition and is hence dependent on a particular know-how. The programmer must build on this tradition in order to be able to write new programmes. This means, although there exists a valid difference between a layman’s and professional use of artefacts and technical media, the professional programmer must learn to understand his technical medium in a certain user-context to be able to technically operate it. He is anyway to a greater extent in a different situation from that of the layman to be able to use the mathematical-methodical resources in its form of technical use. The difference between the layman’s and professional use of technics is eliminated anyway to the extent, how the technical means and products become non-transparent in their structure and not in their use. Technical operation and technical knowledge can be understood through the merging together of and the mutual reference between phenomenology (technical operation as expansion of body-pattern) of technics) and hermeneutics of technics (handling of technical instrument understandingly in the background of technical tradition). The use, handling and utilisation of a technical object produces an implicit and later explicit knowledge, which serves as the basis for directions for use that can be handed down. The describable use of technical object and the tradition or instruction to be developed hermeneutically allow us to develop the interpretation-construct “technical operation” and provides the methodological framework for the historical interpretation of technics. This is not a concept of progress, since technical operation also can fail. Hence, the factors of development cannot always be understood in the sense of increase of complexity. It can also result in the reduction of complexity. In the European tradition of technics, the tendency to rationalise consists in the attempt to make technical operations predictable. The pressure of economic exploitation with regard to technical products increased the demands of efficiency on further culturally coded technical forms. The preferred approach in the interpretation

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of technical operations was mathematisation and rationalisation of technical operations. The mathematical rationalisation of the operation of technics, for ex. there is a specific hermeneutics in mechanics, exists alongside the neglect of physical execution as criteria for technics and implicit knowledge. The pragmatic concept of abductions (Dewey 1989, Dewey 1995, Peirce 1991 and Riemer 1988) presents itself as an alternative. It deals with technically induced generalisations, which can become a commonly shared result. As a result, a different model is suggested for judging the rationality of technical operation. The concept of knowledge of technical operations (technical competences) and that of its institutionalisation is less formalistic in a rule-mechanism handed down, at least in a workshop and the routinisation, eg. in technical thumbrules. Here, the formulation of rules signifies a first form of theoritisation as an abstraction from the body-pattern. The “text” of the hermeneutic of technics is the structure of technical operations, which is characterised specially by implicit knowledge. Here, the main goal of a phenomenology of technics must be to overcome the restrictedness of phenomenological research to science and to be able to see technics as operation. A hermeneutic modelling of technical operation doesn’t have to develop the rationality of technical operation. In order to make technical operations comprehensible in its complexity, it will have to link the interpretation of its structure with the question of legitimacy of these technical operations. Each operation must come to terms with the question about its rightfulness, not only when its consequences are disadvantageous, but also up to a special extent. A hermeneutic modelling of technical actions should improve the reflection on the possibilities of shaping the conditions of framework for the development of technical operation. It deals with modelling, which allows a discursive understanding of the technical operation and its evaluation. Such model building should help to judge the acceptability of certain forms of technical operation (praxis). I suggest that we conceptualise technical operation newly from the perspective of implicit knowledge of handling, in order to understand technics with the underpinnings of its life-world and also in the dynamics of its development. The concepts of technical life-world and mundaneness shed light upon each other, in order to emphasise the drastic contingency of the ordinary life-world characterised by technics. This routine dimension of technical operation constitutes a tradition, in which innovations and findings portray the special cases of a technical-cultural tradition, which is essentially determined by the custom. Hans Blumenberg sees in the concept of life-world by Edmund Husserl a reversal of the category of nature and a delayed philosophy of nature. The concept is an expression of Husserl’s self-persuasion that a world is still accessible, although our point of departure is the experience that we live in more than one world with the naturalness of our daily reality being no longer valid to our experience (Blumenberg 1981, 3). Hence, the concept of daily world as the organisation of survival, as tradition and discovery and as success and failure is indispensable for the characterisation of technical action. Albert Borgmann considers philosophy of technics as a metatheory which is quite similar to my concept of hermeneutics of technics. The epistemological view sees in the technics a method of observation of the world. The instrumental view of

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technics doesn’t attach to it in full sense the corresponding significance. Instrumentalism doesn’t constitute its own characterstic theory of technics. Borgmann describes the aspect of handling of technical action as knowledge, process and product as well as production and consumption. Technology is for him a scientifically supported technical handling (Borgmann 1984, 10–16). The character of technology becomes clearer in the example of fermentation. The processes of fermentation are not visible, but technical processing of the invisible was possible even centuries before, although there didn’t exist any scientific explanation for these processes. Obviously, it is possible to scientifically explain the formation of alcohol and the production of a particular wine and such knowledge does factually exist. The scientific explanation refers in this case to the laws of nature. The formation of colours and flavours of wine is certainly technically possible without the exact knowledge of nature. The success criteria of science and technics are different. Science aims to represent the most possibly exact knowledge of the most possibly small structures. The instrumental approach of technics cannot in contrast sharply differentiate between the ordinary and the scientific view. Scientific knowledge is a necessary condition of modern technology. It is certainly not adequate for the founding of technology. Additionally, there are discontinuities and changes of paradigms in science, which don’t surface to the same extent in technics and technology. Technology is today’s common way of going about the world. Bacon and Descartes formulated the promise of technics. It is a programme of domination over nature, freedom from strains (Campanella), an improvement of life-conditions and of greater satisfaction. Technics implies freedom and wealth besides the control over nature and culture (Borgmann 1984, 38–41). According to Borgmann, technics, in contrast to science, refers rather to surfaces. Technics doesn’t deal with the micro-structure of things. One can successfully use an automobile without knowing its individual parts. On the contrary, many ideas of technical kind about handling the surfaces are also traditionally shaped. It leads certainly in an increasing manner to the absorption of traditional culture through technology. The differences between means and aims as well as that of production and consumption have to be newly thought over on ground of this insight into the character of technical treatment of surfaces (Borgmann 1984, 66). The technological emancipation has brought along negative benefits. The liberation from hunger, disease, illiteracy and unpleasantness of all kinds cannot be overlooked. Other evils came about too. An example is the increasing deaths due to cancer. Technology hasn’t enriched our life in a positive sense. The consumption of goods doesn’t provide any answer to the question of a good life. One sees it in the technologised leisure and free time (Borgmann 1984, 127). The technologisation of household went on under the slogan of liberation and enrichment. But industrialised foodstuff and household instruments have brought about negative benefits as well. The family became more and more a place of consumption. Technology has undermined the authority of parents and has led to problems of rearing (Borgmann 1984, 137). Unwanted side-effects of technology, which propagated

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protection against natural wrongs amounted to freedom from taboos and destruction of tradition. The technical utopia of a freedom from strain and labour led finally to the glorification of labour and automatisation. The modern “condition humana” is characterised by labour, work and technical action. Technology has erased the differences between the “public” and the “private”. Freedom sets the criteria of the satisfaction of need and hence elimination of poverty is an essential part of technical utopia. Technical utopia demands surely adaptation and functionaries. Technics cannot anyway be determined through its character of means alone. Then non-use would mean insignificance. This wouldn’t be in tune with the relicness of technical artefacts. The non-used technical artefacts have also consequences. What is important for technic altogether is not its non-use, rather the question of benefits of uses of technical means. Technical use is oft indirect and also relic-like technic implies its handling- this is so when it exists only in ignorance of itself. Technical inventions like the application of technics in the handling-paradigm have along with it its moments of testing also. There are principle boundaries of simulations for such a conception. This trial-run can never be completely reckoned in advance, even if certain possibilities can be excluded in the beginning by means of calculation as practically irrelevant. Technical operation doesn’t represent any blind treatment of nature or artefacts. It is not driven by accidents, instead led by a plan-oriented, heuristically induced process of searching and finding. There exist parallels between the development of science and technology without denying the differences between the two. Experimental natural science is also a testing science and not least because it is based on technics. Moreover, there is something in theory, which doesn’t function in its technical application (or only after a long trial). But there is no absolute assurance during the trial. Testing, trying out and questioning about its immediate implications - there is no way other than testing the technical means in their application to get to the bottom of a technical operation. Technical experience cannot restrict itself merely to the role of an observer. It needs always dietic, displaying and indicating (symbolic) operations: producing, presenting, testing out and imitating are the central elements of technical operation. Mistakes and possibilities of innovation are mutually dependant. This means plan-oriented and rational testing and not just trying at any price. The independent emergence of technics is a specifically recent phenomenon. The collective use of technics brings along with it completely new chances and dangers in recent times. Which structure has the recent technics and how is it interlinked with scientific and economic development? Technics is per se ambivalent as an anthropological feature, which belongs essentially to individual and social life of man. It has two complementary aspects, which mutually complement each other. 1) It is driven by ideas. As a praxis driven by ideas, it exists in the service of mankind. 2) It is natural and as an evolutionary process it tends to be independent. The scientific and technical revolutions of modern times led to a progressive fusion of science, technics and economy. Technical progress comes this way into an independent existence as against technics as praxis driven by ideas. Technics is still

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mostly since the industrial revolution in the 18th century at the latest, an indirect servant of social development. Technics serves now the economic development, which dominates the society. What is to be explained is, what guiding possibilities exist to install technics in the service of a desirable social development. What we need for this is knowledge of organisation, which provides us information on technologies that could lead to common good and those which would not (Falkenburg 2004, 45f). The technical utopias of the second half of 20th century form less optimistic pictures than Bacon. They take into account the evident self-dynamic of technical inventions today and their utilisation and then paint in dark, how these relations could reverse themselves. The society is dominated by economic development. Technics puts itself at the service of economic interests and the consequences of uncontrolled technics threaten globally to go off course (Falkenburg 2004, 55). The quasi-nature bound and reason-oriented interpretations are complementary, that is to say, they remain in contradiction and complement each other. What comes into its own with technical progress is not technics, rather the consequences of collective use of technics- the impact of technics on man’s collective existence, environment and our own nature. The goal is hence to understand possibly most exactly the ambivalences of collective use of technics. Technics, the use of which we are unconscious and from the control of which we are to a great extent discharged, is so to say naturalised technics, more exactly routinised and familiar technics. When one takes into account the accomplishments of human reason in the production and use of technics, we arrive at an idealistic understanding of technics (Falkenburg, 2004, 62–67). Technical idea and its realisation distance themselves from each other in technics, which fails and the consequences of which we no more understand well (Falkenburg 2004, 72). Technics comes into its own, when its use doesn’t realise the ideas, which served as the basis of its design (Falkenburg 2004, 93). In so far as climate-warming is accepted as a fact caused by the collective use of technics, there exists also a tendency to see it as an unchangeable natural incident. Homo faber is also homo oeconomicus. Technics aims at efficient, economical and instrumental – in other words economic – treatment of human work force and other short resources (Falkenburg 2004, 100). The ambivalences of technical progress have to do with the shadow aspects of increase of efficiency, which we attribute to the industrial nature of production and economic utilisation. Only the technics, which lasts, which is eco-friendly in the long-term and which has no social side-effects, serves the society (Falkenburg 2004, 143f). The debate on durability centres around specially the question, to what extent can the technically produced resources substitute the natural resources (Falkenburg 2004, 150). I have already described in detail elsewhere the concepts of instrumental understanding (Irrgang 1998, 75–120) and technical operation (Corona, Irrgang, 1999, 166–212). Hence, I restrict myself to the essential here. The question about the transcendental-philosophical conditions of technical-instrumental reason and thus the anthropological conditions of possibilities of technical causes and designing can be determined in the analysis of intertwinedness of technical understanding, technical

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knowledge and technical-instrumental treatment. Martin Heidegger’s analysis of understanding, which bases itself essentially upon the use of instrumental things, analyses ways of seeing and experiencing something or someone. The central point of approach of philosophy of technics is that the use of things each time forms an understanding of the thing. Understanding a thing, a state of matter or a situation becomes complete in it use. We understand ourselves and the objects here by using the objects we encounter. The analysis of Dasein aims at the determination of sense and the intention of a situation, i.e. greater contexts of operation. It arrives at the meaning, in the sense of a content of use and experience, through which a situation makes itself comprehensible. The concept of instrumental understanding is part of a more comprehensible concept of understanding, which is here only vaguely mentioned and should be explained philosophically in a separate study. Understanding requires not only the observational-distanced attitude, but also the process of bringing forth an answer to the “How-Possible” questions in knowledge and skill, where the operational aspect of knowledge and the knowledge-aspect of operations should be emphasised. Understanding is not directed towards universal laws, instead towards individual cases, their generalisation and the regularities which arise out of it. A typology of cognitive-reflexive concept of understanding covers a minimum of three components. 1) Instrumental knowledge: Know-how, knowledge of handling, proven experience of being capable of handling, How-possible-explanations. 2) Meaning comprehension: Understanding of symbols and operations, Whatfor-explanations. 3) Theoretic-scientific understanding: Why-understanding, Why-explanations, Explanations. The contrast of explanation and understanding is thus seen irrelevant at least for technical operation and knowledge in a phenomenological-hermeneutic way of seeing. The intertwinedness of all three levels of understanding is constitutive for philosophy of technics as a metatheory of technical and engineering sciences. Instrumental understanding is certainly the point of departure. The technical handling of individual and concrete technical problems takes place in the background of an (implicit) knowledge of technical rules along with the support of technical means or/and technical knowledge. This knowledge of rules is dependent on frameworks, specifically, paradigms, which mostly are not made explicitly. But, they can be understood, thematised and criticised in the framework of a reflected knowledge of operation. John Dewey belongs with his version of pragmatic philosophy among the predecessors of conception of technical knowledge as implicit knowledge. Experience is for him primarily an issue of operation. It has also to be considered, in which dimension social and biological organisation goes into making the human experience. Experiences found traditions. The old spectator-theory of knowledge has to be overcome (Dewey 1989, 160). Processes of active manipulation and a range of relevant properties of things serve as the basis for changes. The hypothesis, which holds stand, is true, when truth is defined as usability (Dewey 1989, 200f). We have a feeling for the right and the wrong. Experience is a stock of practical wisdom. Michael Polanyi suggests in

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his work “Implicit Knowledge” in 1966 to consider the phenomenon of implicit knowledge from the point of fact, that we know more than we are able to say (Polanyi 1985, 14). The external appearance of things is not practically recognised, but rather conveyed in practical exercises. One grasps a theory really, only when he learns to apply it. Implicit knowledge makes possible the integration of individual features into a coherent entity, which requires our attention. Clarity of too large a scale can here destroy overall-knowledge (Polanyi 1985, 25). Implicit knowledge exists by referring back to the earlier experience, but is meaningful as a preknowledge of things still undiscovered and requires still no conceptualisation (Polanyi 1985, 29). The technical knowledge of operation as human-bodily form of implicit knowledge results from an understanding way of operation and an instrumental understanding, a knowledge about how something can be achieved. Technics develops the external world, the others and those who deal with it. It reconstructs instrumental engagement, the world related to that and the experience of being. The personal conditionedness of implicit knowledge takes expression here. The structure of the object is discovered here, which goes into making implicit knowledge. It deals with the knowledge of operation of a knowledge, how operations with or without the use of instruments can be successful. It is all about in the first place avoiding accidents. It requires precise mastery of an object without any reflection. It deals here in the operational knowledge with not any pure knowledge of instrument and pure visual knowledge. It is rather knowledge in the sense of “sensus communis” which means, a sense that includes all senses. In order to understand this precisely we need a clear distinction between knowledge of technical operation, empirical science and hermeneutico-reflexive philosophy of technics. Knowledge of operation is a mixture of knowledge of operating the particular and a knowledge of set of conditions in the sense of “if-then”. This knowledge is implicitly of causal type, but then refers to particular application-contexts. It presents itself in the handling of natural things and artefacts in a manner of use. The handling of certain artefacts in a using manner gives technics a goal in the sense of a model. Secondly, it conveys an operational knowledge of means, special instruments and kinds of methods as prerequisite for producing certain artefacts. A certain generalisation in the sense of thumb rules takes place here. It manifests itself well in the everyday expression, when one talks of rules of thumb in the success evaluation of the application of certain technical processes. It refers to the coming together of exact parameters and everyday operational knowledge. With regard to the real application of technics, often a rough estimate is made instead of the exact geometric measurements. For the further explication of what is meant by instrumental understanding, we take up the thesis by Eugene S. Ferguson, that technical knowledge is identical with implicit operational knowledge. What is crucial for solving a technical problem are plan-sketches. Before something is converted into technical, it exists as a thought, a clear idea or a feeling of possibility. Experiences made while dealing with the artefacts and later converted by artisans form the basis of the design. The engineer designs technical artefacts with the help of sketches. It deals with a pictorial

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knowledge, which can be conceived and sketched by the “inner eye” of a technician. Technical innovation begins with the idea of a completed machine, the completed construction work or the completed instrument (Ferguson 1993, 16–20). The sketches convey pictorial, non-linguistic information. Sketches make it further possible to make parts of machines in different workshops. Designs rely on intuitive thinking, thinking in models and visual or tactile images. The low standing of visual thinking cannot be denied despite the enhancement of creativity in the broader direction of Brainstorming. The knowledge gained of non-linguistic and non-visual kind through sensory and muscular movements is also important for technical design. The silent knowledge and the skillfulness of workers also go into making the design. The strength of technics lies in the rootedness of its foundations. Hundreds of generations of conscious and careful artisans created this foundation, preserved the technical knowledge gained from their forefathers, to be able to improve, spread and then pass it on to their successors. Here lie the roots of technical conservatism. In the face of innovation, the continuity of the tradition of passing on of technical knowledge is easily overlooked (Ferguson 1993, 65). The sketch books of engineers in the Renaissance make this continuity clear in all innovations. Technical culture is in the first place the cultural signature of the use and consumption of technical resources and technically produced products. But the manufacture of products and the construction of technical resources take place in a culturally embedded context, although the pragmatics of technical production stays stronger in the foreground. The case of success during the structuralisation of technical development can lead to a certain synchronisation of three areas, namely construction, production and use especially consumption, although certain delays appear in individual areas, particularly in the first and the other two. Philosophy of technics views technical praxis as essential structural elements of the overall structure of a culture in the sense of phases like the agrarian, skilled and the industrial. Technical praxis and technical culture are congruent as abstract concepts. A trilogy of philosophy of technology is founded in this respect. The preliminaries of a general technology should be worked out here. The Dreyfus brothers describe the technical capability and the acquisition of these capabilities in five stages (Dreyfus/Dreyfus 1987, 41). The completion of process from the level 1 to level 5 portrays a progress of analytical behaviour of a distanced subject, who reduces his ambience to identifiable elements and follows rules up to a compassionate ability, which rests upon the concrete experiences earlier and an unconscious identification of similarities between the new overall situations and the ones earlier. It should not be denied here, that children and grownups go through also a stage of rule-following in an earlier stage of acquisition of capabilities (Dreyfus/Dreyfus 1987, 61). Competent operation is rational, skilfulness characterises the process and experts act intuitively. An expert follows no rules, but he identifies thousands of individual cases. If one asks an expert about rules, one is forcing him to go back to the level of a beginner (Dreyfus/Dreyfus 1987, 151). Hubert Dreyfus has recently, in the framework of a concept of bodily learning, introduced a sixth and seventh level of competence (Dreyfus 2001). A new approach to upbringing appears as possible. It deals with training for carrying

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out certain activities. We need contextualised information here, in order to organise the given material. The competent one can also deal with uncertainty. Contextualised information is the basis for organising these activities or more exactly put, for preparing the necessary material for that. Embodied emotional human is the new ideal of knowledge. Experts learn from several masters. The analysis of constitutional of technical handling leads back to the knowledge of handling, i.e. implicit knowledge as its original element, which exists also in any complicated technical construction. Any technical construction uses elements, which cannot be constructed again, but can be experienced only in its comprehension of handling. We don’t need technical instruction, i.e. a hermeneutic, neither for the construction nor for the application in simple forms of technical handling of technical media. This is indispensible in an increasing complexity of technical handling. The hermeneutic of technical construction is different from that of application of technical media. The character of the design of technical construction depends upon the technical resource itself, while the character of the handling is determined by the goal, with which the technical resources have to be attained. The potential handling goes into the construction of technical resources. The knowledge of operation shows here the basic ineluctable egological element of any technical praxis, which cannot be completely made a science and hence objectified. Technics remains an art in the area of technology itself. The science of construction views the technical resource, be it an instrument or a machine, in its inherent laws and independence, certainly as created for a particular application-context. The significance of a technical resource for an operation is put in brackets in an isolated or reified view of instrument or technics. The structure of technical handling comprises the production and application of technical resources. Here, we can use own body and also other parts of nature as technical resources. The constitution and the construction of technical resources can thus be differentiated from each other. Knowledge of operation is simultaneously a constitutive condition of enabling for technical operation and an empirically re-constructable cognitive competence (which can be psychologically described and which in specific cases portrays a psychic or anthropological phenomenon) and its convergence. It is simultaneously a point of departure for creative design-competence and the ability for model building. In so far as it is a product of reflection, it is as a whole a construct of interpretation. It can be empirically described and modelled in its individual aspects. Knowledge of operation is not an empirical phenomenon, but a product of reflection, more exactly put, an alternative concept for instrumental reason. A hermeneutic concept of knowledge of operation circulates between a phenomenological description of knowledge of handling of the technical media and an interpretation, which develops an understanding, of why, specifically the interpretation of purpose of construction in view of certain modalities of operation and use-potentials. A conception of technics, interpreted in an operational-theoretical sense, must take into account also the “logic” of failures of technical operations. Technical operation has a structure of operation (intentionality) and a structure of course, which aims a set of effects and shows the expression of body-attachment. Especially, mistaken conceptions of structure of effects and one’s own intentionality lead to forms

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of failures of technical operations. What decides on the failure of technical operation is not the course-structures of technical operations alone, but also the discrepancies between intentionality and the structure of effect of the operation. When one considers the epistemological questions during the reconstruction of technical operation from a philosophical point of view, the course-model of technical operations, i.e. the model of implied reality which is worked upon, is decisive. It was always attempted in this case to model the course-model of technical operations in analogy to a natural process, especially in order to develop the functional analogies, which can later be implemented in machines. This is the action of scientific paradigm of the philosophy of technics. But the epistemological treatment throws up questions of hermeneutical kind. A course-model points from the point of view of implicit knowledge and body-apriori to the fact, that the course of technical operation is not a natural process, instead a set of effects based on a technically transformed natural process, i. e. a cultural action. The roots of failure of technical operations lie in the false dealing with complexity by an agent. Usually, the reality-model of a player is incomplete and false (Dörner 1989, 65). While dealing with uncertainity, falseness and incomplete information, one must first of all have clarity over the attempted goal as a guideline for one’s own judgement and operation. Dangerous reductive hypotheses, which follow less number of parameters and convey a unified picture of the world, have to be avoided during the model-building of technical operation (Dörner 1989, 134). Contextual dependencies on measures are rather the rules as an exception. There are no rules for managing such a situation (Dörner 1989, 139–144). The crucial source of mistakes is the false estimation of exponential growth processes (Dörner 1989, 179). We fail at many small mistakes, which keep adding (Dörner 1989, 279). But the central source of mistakes is the guarding of competence of the player, which leads to reductionisms, blind spots and irrational decisions. Training for the competence of the decision-makers is hence the central demand as a precaution against the logic of failure, which is supported by operative intelligence and planning aids by expert systems, but cannot be substituted (Dörner 1989, 298). The theoretical conception of implicit knowledge and instrumental understanding sets language, reflection etc as a pre-requisite. Understanding is first of all independent of language. But it can in the form of language, find a reflexive reach. The difference in the perspectives of the participant and the observer has the condition that, it deals during the operation with competence, or rather ability, as well as a capacity of consciousness and not an objective category of the natural world. It must be classed in the sense of self-attribution or distant attribution. The double role of operator and observer is irrevocably constitutive for the operation. There exists thus a complicated, but an inseparable relation between operation as a subjectively pre-designed course of experience and behaviour, which can be grasped by the fellow humans as the embodiment of operation (Schütz/Luckmann 1979, 17f). Analysis of elements of operation on the basis of explicit knowledge of operation (Irrgang 2001a):

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1) Analysis of situation, which investigates the structures of relevance and key factors of the corresponding operation. 2) Motivation-analysis can start as analysis of interests and needs of the operator respectively in the sense of causal analysis and secondly as realisation of a customary obligation in the sense of In-order-to-motivation and also as a technical task. 3) Design of operation has to be analysed in its type of individual steps, in order to be able to carry out a differentiated estimation of the results on this detailed basis. The analysis of goal plays a special role in the interprettation of design of operation. Alternative options of operations have to be worked out. 4) Analysis of means and an analysis of purposes, which can be achieved through these means, have to be related. This depends upon the kinds of uses of corresponding means (aspect of application, aspect of dealing). 5) Analysis of results, which remains in close connection with the design of operation. Technics is not only an artefact or the use of instruments. The concept of technical means has to be expanded overall. Technical means can also be natural processes, which can be used under certain conditions of framework for realisation of survival. Technical operation aims the realisation of goals by means of focused use of natural processes. These have the function of a catalyser and refer to a transformation of natural processes through its arranged inclusion in a new horizon. Technical operation is an operation in specific horizons, which has to be used in the sense of a process of mediation through the treatment of natural resources and it’s processing into technical means. What is important for technical operation is the situation, the technical milieu in the sense of Jacques Ellul. This is characterised by the concrete situation as well as the attitude to realise everything, which is technically possible. The operation is embedded in a situational context, primarily in the everyday world. There is definitely an everyday world, which doesn’t carry the imprint of the results of technical operations. In order to understand the rationality of technical operation (technical praxis) in its logic of development (realised in the paths of development), I would set out not from the idea of progress, also not from a subject of genre such as humanity, but from a construction of the interpretation of technical operation (technical praxis). It should be modelled first of all in a hermeneutic way. The rationality of technical operation has to be worked out in its diverse aspects against the optimistic or pessimistic philosophy of history and the reduction to instrumental rationality. A more or less contingent development of technical rationality doesn’t exclude rationality of technical operation in its branches and projects. The structuration of technical operation in its modelling should reveal, how different rationalities of the handling of technical media go into technical operation. The history of technics is reconstructed as the intermeshing of different types of technical operations in its association with economic operation in the background of social-cultural structural conditions.

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The hermeneutic of technics strives to understand technical operation in its civilisational-cultural context of tradition. Here it refers to the ritual context of hunting, construction of burial sites, later the construction of houses and urban sites. It deals here especially with the interpretaion of technical operation in a mundane and professional context. The intermeshing of both perspectives of interpretation has to be emphasised here. The context of technical, instrumental tradition and the civilisational context are also of great significance here for the interpretation of technical operation. Tradition means first of all the knowledge of passing-on, which has been handed down orally. Often it happened in order to bring certain technical knowledge in relation with certain players, i.e. to be kept as a secret. Firm-secrets play a great role also today. Only in later times – to an increased extent since the enlightenment age – it was found valuable to record it in writing. This knowledge of passing-on is the first indicator of the tradition of technical operation and the first place, epistemologically made explicit, for the reconstruction of technical praxis. But other historical and archaeological sources have also to be evoked for understanding the tradition of technical operation. Technical tradition is here understood as a consequence of the processes of selforganisation in the sense of interdependence of factors of development. The interdependence of technical players and the back-effects of individual innovations as a spur for further innovations in corresponding upheavals also count here. In the technical tradition the forwarding of the knowledge of technical operation and technical capabilities takes place through demonstration and linguistic instruction. It requires technical institutions, which serves the praxis of securing man’s life and existence. Technical operation is thus a survival-ensuring praxis of man. Technical traditions are of different kinds, since each type of technical operation focuses upon specific objects. For example, the use of artefacts during construction or treatment of soil, knowledge of breeding or a particular medicinal or natural-historical knowledge such as, for example, on navigation or the use of healing herbs. The type of technical operation is constituted by the description of the use of resources and the realisation of goals, especially from the perspective of implicit knowledge. Technical operation manifests itself in different operational patterns as leaked implicit knowledge during the use of artefacts or natural processes in the background of technical tradition as instructions for a technical operation. Here, technical operation as interpretation-construct stands for the interdependence of individual and social technical operations, of the use of artefacts as well as natural processes by considering the specific operational situations and the divergent types of technical operations. Technical operation, in daily life, can acquire a playful and artistic character. But, professionalization makes technical operation more demanding in terms of time and efficiency. Technical innovations, in connection with technical tradition and technical development, are also classified under economic and social process. Technics is not seen form the point of view of artefacts, instead from the individual, particularly social use of technics as well as the construction of new techniques. The intertwining of invention and use during the interpretation of technical operation is here thematised. One-sided interpretations of technics can thus not be justified in the background of a theory of technical operation.

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The word praxis has evolved from the verbs “to complete”, “to carry out”, particularly “to perform” (prassein/prattein). There are countless instances, where the word means to go down a path, to carry out something till completion or takes in to account the success of operation and thus means to cause or bring about something or have success. The equivalence of meaning of “to do well” and “well being” is particularly substantiated in the Socratic tradition (Bien 1989, 1277). A new dimension of meaning, which emerges from the close connection between a way of life and praxis and different from its uses in biological contexts, is clear in Aristotle. Praxis becomes a specific human, i.e. customary category. It deals simultaneously also with a specific and fundamental anthropological category (Bien 1989, 1280f). The differentiation made by Aristotle between poiesis and praxis has to be done away with by the outline of conception of technical praxis. Practical knowledge emerges, in this sense, through the use or treatment of concrete details. This use is the criteria of the practical in the real sense. Practical knowledge cannot as a result be taught theoretically. To understand the essence of praxis in its contrast to theory is as a result characteristic of a particular tradition. Technical praxis has to be understood as a common technical operation. Here it is all about especially the success and failure of technical operation as a common technical praxis. The consciousness of fallibility has to be strengthened against the delusion of feasibility. Technical praxis has to be understood as the regional totality of human operation to produce meaning through the moulding of nature. The aim of philosophy of technics is to work out the meaning of sense and non-sense of technical praxis. Technical praxis is understood as a cultural design located between self-preservation and the act of designing beyond itself in the framework of the natural. Technics is an autonomous cultural area with a certain dynamic of its own, which constitutes the technical praxis. The goal is actually analysis of the constitution of technical operation on the basis of an intervenistic conception of technical understanding, which conceptualises technical understanding in the framework of technical operation. Technics can attain a value of its own as a result and ultimately take advantage of man. Technical praxis comprises technical processes; its automatisation und ultimately forms of system-technics. The employment of technical knowledge in machines and through that a new generation of technical resources, rather than its industrialisation constitute the central point of approach. Technology cannot be understood not just in the paradigm of production. Implicit knowledge can be only more or less, and not exactly, implemented or modelled in machines. A crucial point of approach for the negativity of technical praxis can be seen here. We live this way in a phase of making a science and of methodologisation of technical knowledge, which has even narrower boundaries than science itself. Even then, in the end the methodologisation and theorisation of technical construction like that of the use of technical resources is not strived for in artificial intelligence. Technical praxis is first of all as a phenomenon of tradition, open for rationalisation, theoritisation and evaluation, which means also for the questions of legitimacy. The practicability in the construction as well as in the use of technical media is reflected upon. The problem of organisation as well as shaping of this technical praxis is also reflected upon (Irrgang 2008).

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The power of technics grows with the transition from the technical to the technological operation and not least through system network. This increases the potential of failure and not absolutely that of any misuse, since determining it would mean setting a pre-condition that more or less accepted legitimate use of certain ways of technics exists. The issue of misuse of technics already implies that technical resources at least intentionally drives their application, but doesn’t determine it, since that would have made any deviational use of it impossible. Since there is obviously no instance, which determines the legitimate applications as a whole, we must have an open field of possibilities of the applications of technical resources as a point of departure, where a non-legitimate use has to be specifically marked by legal means (Irrgang 2007d). The potential danger of technically induced catastrophes increases through system-network and the potential repercussion implied in it. Seveso, Bhopal, Harrisburg, Tschernobyl and Basel have realistically and in detail shown us the possibilities of crises of the technical world. Today, we see everywhere in our industrialised world crises and appearances of crises of extremely explosive nature. The manmade crises have definitively replaced the natural crises, which in the past stayed opposed to each other. The energy crisis, environmental crisis, emerging resource crisis, economic crisis and unemployement problems-all these crises are today manmade structural problems and system-problems, which generate fear, criticism amd enquiring questions of social acceptance (Lenk 1994, 35). However, operational spaces are emerging through technical praxis for designers as well as users of technics. We can talk about a technical praxis, only if there exists no determinism in technical development. It doesn’t mean that social compulsions and obviously also technical limits for the use and invention of technics don’t exist. But one cannot think about technical praxis without freedom. The compulsion, under which hard labourers are, is not compatible with technical praxis. The compulsion for the optimisation of technical resources and to use certain materials for that is admitted. But these compulsions don’t deny the freedom to refrain from technical operations or to look for alternatives for certain forms of technical operations, which for example, promise more use or satisfy the needs better. There exists implicity at least an idea of good life behind a technical praxis, where technical operation like any other operation can become non-traditional. Hence, technical praxis is also constituted by the question about humanistaion of technical praxis. The overcoming of hard physical work and thus that of technical processes, which are associated with non-human strains, a humanisation of the goals of technical operation, is the task of technical praxis as form of ethos. Here, technical praxis means, that technical operation becomes a cultural design and not a Procrustean bed of technical development as a development in the steel house. Praxis, here, as a form of technical life has to be understood not only from the stand point of rational planning, but also from that of implicit knowledge about realisation of technical goals and sometimes also from that of implicit knowledge about technical goals themselves. Also, implicit knowledge in its application sets as a prerequisite certain forms of planning and design. Here, an institutionalised form of technical praxis has to be differentiated from that of the life-world. Besides, there is a

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technical praxis of the life-world which is different from the outright rationalised and predictable form of technical praxis. Ossified technics, inflexible institutions, non-creative and inhibited users of technics destroy obviously the technical praxis, the way of life of people dealing with technics. But the failure of operations is obviously exactly like the failure of certain forms of praxis. This applies clearly also to technical operations and technical forms of praxis. The morally relevant horizon of technical operation manifests itself exactly here in the framework of a practical way of life, which rests especially on production, but puts production in a greater life context. The construction of buildings, artefacts, equipments, instruments etc. has to be understood respectively not as a self-goal, instead it is built into the cultural context and is part of the process of civilisation, in which the humanity frees itself in increasing measure from the restricting conditions of nature. This process is understood by the technical process as a form of life in the sense of a moral demand and a task. The understanding of technical praxis as producing goods changes radically with the industrial revolution. Karl Marx has aptly described the alienation of people from the praxis which produces goods. Today, technical praxis portrays itself as an association of research actions, technology as knowledge of processes and theory of technical methods and economic-strategic actions with a praxis-structure, which are determined by institutions, undertakers and organisations dependant, with its central structures, on technical networks and are increasingly subjected to globalisation. That is how the technical has transformed itself into the technological praxis. Here, the praxis becomes increasingly dependent on the organisation of technical processes. Technical action involves always stronger technological features and man becomes more and more integrated with the technical conditions of his praxis. Technological action means that technical actions become less dependent upon natural conditions and rather their prevailing conditions are created through increasingly technical actions. Even then the thesis of a connection between technic-phenomenological and technic-hermeneutic ways of approach stands. The special feeling in the treatment of raw materials and raw goods carries itself also into the treatment of technical apparatuses, instruments, machines and in a transferred sense also of technical systems. Here lies the connection between technical and technological praxis (Irrgang 2008a). A central point of departure of technical praxis is the satisfaction of needs. Need indicates in a subjective sense a lack associated with the effort to remove it. In an objective sense, need indicates the means for the removal of an already felt lack. And technics provides the means for the satisfaction of needs. It is justified, at least when it deals with real needs. Here, there appears already the problematic element of a need-oriented technics-ethics. Which needs then justify the implementation of a specific technics? The concept of need has had in the course of its history specific relations to economy, anthropology and psychology. The point of departure is the idea of relativity of needs, which are dependent upon the situation, particularly the social milieu. The question about the acceptability of technical forms of life, technical forms of actions, technical resources etc. cannot be raised anymore in this background.

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What remains is the recourse to the individual evaluation of benefits by each individual. But this makes a group activity, i.e. technical praxis impossible. In this respect, it appears necessary from a moral perspective to bring the idea of benefit as well as that of need under a broader conception of good life. What is beneficial and what is a real need, must be assessed from a higher point of view. Hence, criteria like satisfaction of needs and realisation of benefits refer to a morally normative concept, so that they can be assessed as morally relevant empirical criteria in the framework of a cultural concept oriented towards a life-world. The cultural and social scientific significance of this, what Husserl called the life-world, was already clearly seen by Max Weber. Cultural anthropology has taken up this concern. Modern sociology and cultural anthropology fall into a similar line in their productive directions as they appeal again for settling-down and make the study of the mundane and its unquestionable conditions the main object. Everyday knowledge as the unquestioned, but always questionable background raises two methodological problems. (1) Life-world in the sense defined by Husserl is always ever mine and thereby historically and culturally pre-shaped. We can therefore talk about the life-world of alien cultures only in a derived sense. This makes a double operation necessary: Thematisation of alien phenomenon as such can also occur, according to phenomenological reduction, by experiencing the alien phenomenon as mine, i.e. mirrored in the cultural pre-conditions of my life-world. (2) Life-world as everyday world of unquestionable conditions is an ideal-typically accepted constant. But this changes as soon as radical transformation of historicalcultural type with crisis character appears or makes the mundane boring and creates a readiness for change. But life-world encompasses also the knowledge of good and values, which can be achieved through technical action (Irrgang 1998; Irrgang 2007a). In the life-world setting is the transition between technical norms and ethical-moral transitions fluid. A moral value is thus attributed in the sense of technical action to the satisfaction of needs, even if the value of technical action in the sense of work is primarily functional. Technical praxis understands culture as processed nature. The cultural philosophy of Gehlen understands culture as development and working out of a form of praxis, for example, a technical praxis with regard to the total cultural-civilisational development. Technical praxis has to be embedded in the understanding of development of cultures, world views and religious ideas, of norms and values and thus in the context of processes of transformation of ideas of cultural and moral values. The point of departure there has to be an implicit practical knowledge of symbols and instruments. The latter aspect plays practically no role in cultural anthropology. The essential deficits of cultural anthropology here have to be made up for. I have introduced the concept of technical praxis for this purpose. Technical praxis is shaped by practical knowledge and cultural models. Technics was always classified under vital-values. The contribution of technics to religion (temples and grave constructions), to art (work tools, raw materials, tools for processing, instruments etc.) and to science (instruments, information storage and transmission) was hardly considered. The neglect of technics in cultural anthropology became noticeable in the lacking study of material culture (Pfaffenberger 1992, 491).

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Social anthropology inquires into culture behind the artefact. But there were no adequate inquiries into anthropology of technics and the material culture. Here, the relation between technical development and cultural evolution and their mutual influence would be a highly interesting area of research. The concept of socio-technical system could play a central role here. The anthropological data of pre-industrial understanding of technics could be incorporated into this concept. It is about finding out the intended function of an artefact. The standard interpretation of technics begins with necessity as the mother of invention. The demand or need presents challenges for the technical inventor. Different levels of intervention in nature demand new inventions. That is how the technological age of different levels of development ends. Man has in the process surrendered his cultural creativity since the industrial revolution to machines (Pfaffenberger 1992, 492–494). Technics is seen both as a destroyer and an inventor. It improves fitness while going about with everyday life. The thesis of industrial development as driven by needs is supported by social anthropology. This analyses the function of an artefact and its social significance. Technics increases the evolutionary fitness of man. Technological development is here dependent upon the cultural evolution. This can be understood from the use of wheel, which in the beginning was used only in the religious ceremonies, then in wars and at last in the transport system. In South America it was not at all invented in the beginning because of the existing geographical conditions. For social anthropology the inquiry into the development of labour is more important than that into technical aid. The social coordination of labour in relation to technology cannot be explained plainly as domination over nature. Here, we can bring in Thomas Hughes’ concept of social technical systems. The social, economic, juristic, scientific and political context of technology is important for the description of an innovation. It deals with the necessary integration of all these factors (Pfaffenberger 1992, 495–498). Technical determinism assumes that a work tool allows for only one form of technical use. Traditions, also of technical kind, end in institutions. Arnold Gehlen acknowledged this. The genetically preformed nature in man in its variety of cultural combinations is difficult to be found out. But even then, drive-like predispositions for ethical impulses in the sense of social regulators can be presumed (Gehlen 1973, 37f). They rest above all on the instinct for mutuality (Gehlen 1973, 49). In-situations create distance between man and himself and enable freedom from oneself (Gehlen 1973, 75). They release to mobile freedom, but within the limited structure (Gehlen 1973, 96). That is how it results in re-inforced norms, which are called rights (Gehlen 1973, 39). Enlightenment is the emancipation of mind from institutions (Gehlen 1973, 102). This has not certainly had beneficent effect on the control of society and technics and has not least led to moral hypertrophy. Morals themselves can trigger aggression in this condition (Gehlen 1973, 153). But morality is ultimately not a question of conscience, instead that of institutions (Gehlen 1973, 174). Institutions relieve through the introduction of mutually binding rules. They bring this benefit of relief when they regulate generally the social action. The accountability becomes thereby a functional requirement, which the institution directs

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at each individual. The starting-point of accountability-ethical interpretation of institutions is the action- and competence-theoretical divisibility of accountability. The inner structure of accountability becomes explicable with the category of accountability. Here, the formalisation of accountability in the authority was the impetus of institutional development. It makes possible a situation, where several persons can be involved in the context of accountability. Not any group of people put together deserves to be characterised as society. There should exist a certain agreement among them in thought and feeling. Certainly, the corporately formed groups do not have their own arrangements. If at all they own something, then it is on grounds of conception of legality, which provides it with a fictitious personality. But juristic fictions do not create any emotional attachment to corporate bodies. The ideas of a collective will, which rests on the theory of individual rational choice in the concept of collective behaviour, come across difficulties (Douglas 1991, 26). This theory doesn’t attempt to explain, how group solidarities are formed. We develop a strategic practical knowledge with institutions, also those, which evaluate technical action. Institutions are constituted through traditions, by co-operation, and not through rationality. They should not be hence, necessarily rational. Culturally formed styles of technical actions and traditions like regional specialities of house constructions are dependent on the existing conditions of local technical actions. This throws up questions about ranging from interculturality of technical actions up to that of so called technology transfer (Irrgang 2006). There existed, perhaps, the lonely inventor as a marginal figure between 15th and 19th centuries, but technical action occurred in collectives and traditional groups like e.g. between master and pupils and later in mining academies, architecture schools and technical universities. In view of social action, the question about the evolution of the social order of the overall process is significant, where a particular type of technical action becomes prominent as social action. Institutions are not characteristic for processes of classification, instead for their constructs of interpretations, in which we grow up or are born into. These manifest themselves in linguistic form, e.g. in role models. Role model can encompass 1) an ideational structure represented in the individual consciousness and 2) an unconscious cognitive schema in the form of a complicated design. Role models take a middle position between normatively mediated value and real experience. It deals with a pictorial representation of a guiding idea. It is difficult to systematise the concept. It exists in the psychological, pedagogic and sociological literature and means in Psychology something that has to do with life-style, life-plan or with leitmotifs in the framework of personality development. In sociological respect, role model means an institutionalised schema of behaviour of a dynamic foundational structure, whose leading function is largely automatised. In sociology, a type of person is described, who feels himself obliged to follow a particular world view or way of life. Economic processes and technical development can also be understood as the consequence of culturally conditioned role models. Here, it is about the image of an enterprise. Technical culture encompasses ideals and images of technics, technical world views and ideologies. They can no more

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be traced back to ethical principles. But they still provide value imbued orientation knowledge, where different evaluations of technics are almost constitutive for interpretations of technics. Conflicts over technical and cultural values as existing conditions of technical action demand a rational way of going about dissent in the interpretation and evaluation of technical action. Dissent management is necessary for that (Hubig 1993). For, monitoring and shaping of technical actions is the basis of processes of interpretation. This must be developed by a philosophy of technics, in order to question dissent about its justification and possibly to resolve it in a compromise with regard to the evaluation of technical action. A fundamental problem of technics has developed because of the situation, where only engineers perceive themselves as legitimately active with technics. The narrow understanding of engineering and technological sciences of technics as construction and design was replaced by the thesis of technical practical knowledge as the basis of technical action. This way we can comprehend more precisely the problem of technical action: that of mundaneness, since professional technics also helps to manage everyday affairs, perhaps sometimes also to realise some amount of creativity. The self-misunderstanding of many engineers consists in the fact, that they take themselves for rational planners. In fact, if they try it also in the construction in the sense of practical thesis, their technical design is accompanied by uncertainty and their best planned projects threatened by failure, especially when technical construction is viewed as realisation of a technical object, which can be put to successful and instrumental use. The Know-how encompasses the knowledge, which is namely, “how to do”, which is acting and making. The account of daily praxis founds hence a certain art of thinking (Certeau 1984, 61–72). What is important here is the harmonisation of different practices. The physicality constitutes itself in the use of apparatuses and instruments and one should pass from one body to another. The voices of body should be heard. Resistance to the ideology of enlightenment through books and a kind of modernisation through writing can be detected: the praxis itself cannot be reflected upon completely. A technical artefact is thus either a work tool, a technical construct or a product. An artefact is a technical means or a medium by another possibility. Theoretically, one can distinguish between the work tool itself and its use, particularly its application. But the technical artefact as such can be judged only in the context of its use. One can ascertain, whether a work tool or a construct functions or not, only if we try to successfully use such a work tool or construct. Here, the clear differences in the praxis begin to blur. The source of technical power is technological development on the basis of technical praxis. Excited by the discussion on the critical theory of technics and technology, one can now look for the systematic location of power in relation to technics. Aristoteles distinguishes technical action 1) as use of technical means and products like how the steersman uses the rudder from the 2) technical action of a ship builder who constructs the rudder. To this extent, it requires the science of material, which has application during the construction. Aristotle distinguishes thereby the construction of technical supplies from its use and ascertains that a useknowledge put to use no way presupposes the knowledge of construction. Aristotle

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does not discuss the case, which is interesting for us, whether the knowledge of construction presupposes a certain knowledge of later use. It is certainly not implausible to assume for this time, that knowledge of construction and useknowledge cannot be separated, since construction and use are linked to each other. In this respect, one can have a double origin of technical power as a starting-point. There is a power of manufacturing ability and that of the ability to use. The common root lies in the ability to go about technics and the ability to use technical means, through which the potential of technical means can unfold itself (Irrgang 2007d). The dispute about technics is at the core a dispute about control and power. Control is the praxis of power. Every user of a technics exercises inevitably, whether he/she wants or not, some control, by having at his/her disposal the properties technological instrumentarium offers him. The user determines the side-effects through the use and non-use of a technics. Power can be meaningfully determined accordingly only in connection with conflicting goals of different individuals or social units (Kornwachs 1993, 15f). The power of technics changes here in the transition from technical modernity to technological hypermodernity, from science based technology (SBT) to techno-research (TR). Modern technology is characterised by its fundamentals rooted in natural science, whereas hypermodern technology integrates research. This difference in the understanding of technical creation has found a specific place in the disappearance of the concept of art. The machine construction from 16th to 18th was still called mill-art. The physicalisation of technics and technologisation experienced its peak with the Manhattan project. As we already know, this scenario failed politically, economically and technically. The great catastrophe was evaded in Harrisburg not through basic scientific research, instead by empirically filled feel for possible scenes of damage. The conviction that the best strategy is not the technically most mature and the most perfect one, instead a product which can be used at the right time, set forth here in the late 70’s. There evolved the model “rapid prototyping”. The reflexive epistemology of hypermodern technology evolving there centres around not the concept of absolute truth, instead that of success (Wengenroth 1998, 130–135). Technics constitutes society and culture on the one hand, but on the other society and culture constitute also technics. This circular path of feedback constitutes the basis of technological development. Technologies are characterised on the one hand by the use of means/resources and on the other hand also by their goal. As a result the technical mechanism is, as the outcome of a technological, specifically technical praxis, embedded or rather specifically, characterised by a cultural pattern. The following three patterns form the basis of an interpretation of technology: 1) The general pattern of action, 2) the pattern of practice and 3) the pattern of technology. In concrete terms this means 1) use of an instrument (swinging of handaxe), 2) placing the use of a technical plant in the greater context of practice (hunting) and 3) for the realisation of a technical goal (the great wild hunt) in the context of a wider pattern of use of cultural kind (meat consumption). Technical potentiality states that human praxis and technical artefacts are interspersed with each other as mechanisms as well as means and mutually shape and influence each other in feedback processes. Neither the potentiality of technical artefacts alone, nor the human

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ability alone provides the horizon for an adequate understanding of technology. The intertwining of human actions and technical artefacts rewrites the technical praxis, which becomes technology as far as we try to intellectually penetrate it, review it and instruct it in the course. For philosophy the epistemological dimension is of central importance. Hence, the epistemological dimension (or metatechnology) plays a central role in a philosophical technology. The primary interest of philosophy in technics and its use is primarily a technological one. The decisive thing in technologies is its combinability with denser technological praxis and its capability for embeddedness in social and cultural contexts (also contexts of use). The moment of technical breakthrough leads to a situation, where the path of development experiences as a result of technological praxis an evident change in its direction. Technical potentiality and the change within the paradigm correspond to each other. A technological paradigm aids the description of a sum of paths of development. Technical potentiality determines itself in a double manner: by the technical potentiality of its usability and the structure of technical artefacts, where both dimensions belong to the potentiality of technics. The constructive and destructive potential of a technics are also to be distinguished from each other (Irrgang 2008a). During the antiquity slaves and instruments formed a functional unit. Even in the area of playful technics, which was not application oriented, the technical fantasy of antiquarian mechanics could unfold itself and reach the level of problem solving, which showed no connection to antiquarian production, but must still be recognised as mechanical findings of high quality (Schneider 1992, 201f). A technical practice of construction could not certainly- in contrast to architecture- evolve out of this. Here Pneumatics shows, what a strong connection existed between knowledge of nature and antiquarian technics (Schneider 1992, 206). Heron of Alexandria developed a high number of robots and machines, which functioned with the help of steam or hot air. There existed curiosities: a water-organ, temple doors, which opened and closed by themselves, dolls, which moved and danced and a steam turbine. Why didn’t we use the acquired knowledge of steam and air-pressure to mechanise machines and apparatuses for operations? The rigid social division into classes was the reason in Greece, why there was no industrial revolution. The upper layer, the citizens would have had time, to busy themselves with science and findings. They had no contact with the lower layer, constituted by hand-workers, farmers and slaves, let alone they would have supported reforms. The Greek citizens condescendingly looked down upon the lower class. The social gap could never be bridged. The creative-playful technics of Greeks didn’t unfold the entire power which technics possessed – besides not only among the Greeks, but also among the Indians and the Chinese. An experimental art and art of instrument-making based on experience and something like technical intelligence developed during Renaissance on the basis of a programme of “client” and “art” of technics. Leonardo Da Vinci is seen as the first artist-engineer, who had a series of forerunners. In the meanwhile, research has made clear that most of his designs were an improvement or an extension of the findings which already existed, though some of them were certainly his original

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designs. At the time of his death in Amboise in 1519, the separation between art and technics had already begun in favour of a new combination of technics and science preparing technology. The process lasted two centuries more, at the end of which the clear-cut professional separation existed between engineers exclusively devoted to natural sciences and architects, who went on to be associated with art (Ludwig/Schmidtchen 1992, 597f). With the separation between the architect and the construction engineer the technical and the intellectual part in the construction system were also separated. The engineer is accountable for the resistance and usability of construction artefacts and the security in view of the risks involved. Everything is here optimised to the limit. As a result, there develops a danger of remaining restricted to the technical side of construction alone. But, from an overall perspective, man has developed with his technics and has more markedly shaped his life-space with artificial means (Jesberg 1996, 9f). Fame and honour have always waved at those who successfully managed tasks like the completion of dared constructions, complex machines and logically demanding construction projects. These men were part of a new “technical intelligence”, whose representatives realised demanding technical tasks outside the guild establishment of hand-workers. The stimulus to this European development with centres in Italy and Netherlands was provided by the princes with their political, economic and cultural ambitions. Experts in fort, water and machine construction were recognised as scholars with special skills. The demarcation among them was equally flexible like the one between them and the architects. Demanding technical tasks lay traditionally in the construction of churches. The outstanding cupola, with which Filippo Brunelleschi (1337–1446) completed the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence offers an outstanding example. Brunelleschi’s tombstone in the dome honours him additionally as the founder of the lever-machine, with which the construction materials were transported up to the growing dome. Leonardo Da Vinci with his studies on elements of machines and his attempts to investigate the fundamental problems like friction and power transfer and to set up general rules for the same, was an important part of this scholarly technical culture (Popplow 2004, 2f). The construction of forts was also lucrative and demanding. In the 16th century, overall in Europe totally new fort-structures with unloading bastions were built on the basis of new fire-technics (Popplow 2004, 3). The so called inventor-privileges, which depict the basis of the modern patent establishment, show how significant such a technical progress was for the territorial rulers. Since the 15th century many European rulers offered protection against unauthorised reproduction of inventions. Starting with Italy and German mining areas thousands of such privileges were distributed all over Europe around 1600, among them mostly for small innovations of the technics of machines. This instrument of right encouraged engineers to give away their technical secrets for the benefit of general public. In order to protect the inventor, he/she often already receives the privilege before the invention is completely made public – the functionality of the invention had to be proved certainly within six months; otherwise it lost its protection against unauthorised reproduction (Popplow 2004, 4).

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On the other hand, the social repercussions of machine-technics during Renaissance remained limited compared to the industrial revolution of the 19th century. Mobility was a central characterstic of the biographies of these incipient engineers. Technical drawings, the possibilities of which increased rapidly after the invention of perspective in the 15th century, played a central role in the communication between clients and customers. Like for other social groups, book-printing offered totally new possibilities of self-portrayal in the scholarly culture. In the 16th century there appeared, leaning on the predecessors of the middle-age, splendidly printed diagram-books often with the title “Theatre of machines” (Popplow 2004, 4). New, useful and full of inventions – the engineers characterised their new projects one after another with these attributes. They originated from an intensive theoretical discussion. Individual technical problems were often tested in small models of elements of machines. It led from time to time during the transfer in the ratio 1:1 to expensive experiments. The transition from technical trial experiment to scientific experiment was from today’s perspective quite fluent. Was Galilei Galileo a scientist or an engineer, Leonardo da Vinci an artist or an inventor? All these etiquettes fail in a time, which still does not possess a strong outline of a profession in the background of new technical challenges. Encouraged by constant and new challenges from the side of clients, technical experts appropriated scholarly knowledge and confronted science on their side with new questions (Popplow 2004, 5). The mill-constructor of the 17th and 18th centuries was to a certain extent the lone representative of the art of machine building. The mill-doctor was hence the engineer-mechanic on the heels, who enjoyed huge respect. In the manufacturing production a new quality of labour-division manifests itself and with that also technical power. Special chairs for Cameralism were established around the same time. The technological literature of the 18th century was influenced by Enlightenment and strove to throw light upon the protected knowledge of guilds and also for a rational account of the labour processes. The central thought here was the idea of transfer. It was about reforming the trade through systematic internal transfer. Johann Jackob Beckmann’s concept of technology as classification of processes of production in the sense of handicraft and manufacture, which Karl Marx takes up, is to a considerable extent a retrospective idea, which doesn’t do justice to the development of industrial revolution and the growing significance of natural sciences for technics and technological sciences. In technical view the contribution of industrial revolution has to be seen in the transfer of the function of maintaining and running the work-piece as well as worktools from man to a technical device (Paulinyi 1989, 22). There evolved an industrial, partly automatised knowledge of machines in the sense of industrial revolution. In the epoch of hand-work-tool-techics nothing has basically changed from Stone Age to middle age and further till the 18th century. The optimisation of handwork-tool-technics till the mechanisation of work-tools like hammer-mill, spinning wheel, step-weaving chair and lathe do not change anything (Paulinyi 1989, 29). Also the development and increase of labour-machines for change of forms in the area of manufacture is not an objection to that. Even the textile industry at the end of the 13th century didn’t change in its basic mould with the silk yarning machine

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as the first machine of thread making. Indeed transport and energy technology have made considerable progress in the 13th century. But this is also not an argument against dating the industrial revolution back to the 18th century. The second surge of industrial revolution rested on the technicisation of useknowledge with natural processes in the use of steam energy, in mining, in smelting processes as well as finally in the construction of pharmaceutical-chemical industry. Here, one can speak of a second wave of industrial revolution, which in fact amounts to the application of natural scientific knowledge. In all, the process of industrialisation of technical development is more complex and manifests itself first of all in the economisation of occupation and later in the crossing of empiricalnatural scientific research processes with technical and economic processes, which in increasing measure condense into industrial production. The core of industrial revolution was an interconnected outcome of technological transformations. The material progress took place in three areas. 1) Mechanical arrangements substituted human skills. 2) Inanimate force – especially steam – substituted human and animal labour and 3) In the areas of metallurgic and chemical industries especially, the processes of production and processing of resources were essentially improved. The discipline in the factories was regulated totally differently. It demanded and created a new generation of workers, who had to bow before the unrelenting demands of time. It hid the germ of further technological progress in itself, since labour-supervision implied the possibility of rationalisation of labour. In the entire diversity of technological progress, one can see a unified development: change produces change. Many technical improvements were possible only after progress in the related areas. The steam machine is a classic example of this technical interdependence. A functional condensation machine could be built only after the improved methods of metal processing made possible the construction of suitable cylinders. On top of it, the increase in production and productivity through a certain invention exercised pressure on applied industrial activities. The demand for coal led to a situation, where the mines always got deeper till the seepage posed real danger. The solution was the construction of a more effective pump driven by a pneumatic steam machine (Landes 1973, 15–17). The steam machine threw up simultaneously with the transition to higher bridges the question of safety as a central theme: boiler explosions were shocking results. The history of danger caused by technics to life and health and the crisis of consciousness created by that were mainly explored in isolation. In the health care movement of 19th century a trend was set to understand labour- and environment protection as related areas. The social policy, which led to installation of accident insurance for the worker in 1884, a superficial break-through of the idea of worker protection, blocked the continued efforts of intensification of industry supervision by the state and laying down of individual technical rules of safety and substituted the principle of prevention by that of subsequent compensation. The main disadvantage of the strategy brought in with the accident insurance was that the compen-

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sation remained restricted to accidents alone and chronic health problems were ignored. Alone in 1925, 11 occupational diseases were recognised for the first time as subject to compensation. Material research together with the development of the process of material examination became one of the most important plus points of technical safety in Germany at the end of the 19th century. The new forms of technical power always raised questions about its embeddedness. As a result, a shift of power associated with technics on to non-technical factors, which made the entry of technics possible at all, occurs to a greater extent. The process of designing remains in the centre of evolution of technics and the question about constitution of technical power in the 19th century. Some engineers saw and see in designing a creative action equivalent to artistic production, in which the creative power and intuition of designer enfold. This interpretation contrasts with descriptions of construction processes, which emphasise the significance of routine and experience. According to Wolfgang König the designer shapes the functional demands into a technical form. Design happens in a social space (König 1999, 9). There are national design cultures. One can here speak especially of the American production culture. If British technics developed to a great extent empirically in the industrial praxis in the context of industrial revolution with the educational institutions playing no essential role, the focus in German states was right from the beginning on technical education. The Berlin Trade School founded in 1821 was the most praxis oriented. The French theoretical tradition influenced most the founding of Karlsruhe. The highly scientific basis of technics became an international trend through the world wars of the 20th century. It was not only about experimentally reproducing in the laboratory, but also about the singular, personal experience gained in the praxis. This practical knowledge exceeds the technical area in the narrower sense. Technological science includes, so understood, types of knowledge, which are entirely of social, cultural and political kind. With concepts like experience, Knowhow and Tacit knowledge a phenomenon is addressed, which we encounter at every step in the history of technics. This is valid especially for great technics: for the construction and running of greater and more complex structures, where the longrun material properties, mutual effects between the multiple number of components which are difficult to over-see and also the extremely rare hypothetical possibilities of faults are of consequence (Radkau 1989, 41–43). There doesn’t exist a trend only towards the great and complex in technics. The contemporaries and historians have already established a connection between the economic rise of Germany during the high-industrialisation and the German system of technical-scientific training (König 1995, 189). The growing scientific orientation of technics is generally seen as a sign of modernity. Till the second half of the 19th century sciences had offered essentially descriptions of the world. Now they have started to contribute to furnishing the world with artefacts and to simultaneously deliver a promise of safety for the same. Engineers created, roughly estimated, in the shape of technical sciences, which were evolving in their classical form between the late 17th and the second half of 19th centuries, a identity-establishing special knowledge and a genuine scientific culture with specific application

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contexts, language, thought and argumentation styles, arsenals of methods, symbolic representations and formations of traditions, which primarily shaped the German engineering culture in a lasting manner. The operationalisation of the insight, which was developing with the technicisation of everyday life and consumption in the 20th century, that technical knowledge consists not only in the areas of science and good-production, but also has to take into account the users of technics as active co-producers, who in their use of technics also create relevant knowledge, would be beyond the scope of our theme (Hänseroth 2003, 16). As a result, there occurs also a great shift in the constitution of technical power. The claim of engineers to be the sole legitimate representative and the production of technical artifacts got always weak in favour of embedding factors and also in favour of forms of uses of technics. Since the process of industrialisation of the 19th century, the faith in technics is established no more on the competence of artisans, but on a scientific basis. The proof of a superior performance capacity in the construction praxis helped no way the scientific methods to achieve any break-through. Its significance was rather less in those few cases, where the construction and machine mechanic analyses had already become part of the design process. The construction praxis got along around this time without any scientific processes, which were included only ex post for the scientifically supported analysis. In addition, in view of the still less developed praxis relevance of construction and machine mechanical processes including that of the mathematical apparatus used by them as well as the insufficiently developed use-knowledge of the actors with the new theories serious mistakes were part of the day in mechanical stages and during calculation. In so far as the model of scientific engineering activity, which was entering every day design, demanded an action-oriented force and shaped soon together with the enforcement of school outline in the machine industry and technical professions of construction industry, the professional identity of engineers, it didn’t try anyway in contrast to be action-effective. For the society sciences reaches an instance, which has to produce certain knowledge that can be converted into technics (Hänseroth 2003, 21). The paradigm of the supposed infallibility of scientifically founded statements ensured that now a visibly objective, universal scientific knowledge as an abstract proof of truth, supported by the authority of science as “objectively right” and simultaneously as technics brought about by constraints grew in the gap made evident by the apology and legitimation of new technics. The natural and technical scientific results and knowledge systems tried now to present themselves with their trust in the progress of science as the basis of modern belief in progress in order to compensate for all these legitimation deficits (Hänseroth 2003, 22–24). Self-description like that of an engineer and the external description by an engineer fall apart. The more autonomous instruments and machines become, the stronger they represented it in the technical knowledge, and later the research knowledge, incorporated in them. The technical competence of technical resources evolved this way in the course of history of technics, though always more or less dependent on the technical competence of the technician. It is about user-knowledge and use-knowledge. The

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significance of technical artifacts in their cultural embeddedness goes beyond the functional determinedness of a technical artifact. The goal of constructive designing and production of a work is the optimal fulfillment of all conditions, which have to be applied to individual parts and the overall construction, as well as to guarantee an optimal safety after taking into account the environmental conditions. By safety is meant the safety of construction parts (safety against breaking, undue distortion, wear and tear, corrosion) as well as functional safety (lasting availability), safety of work (safety of humans), and finally environmental safety. It is essential then to find an optimal compromise solution. This, therefore is especially difficult, since the strain during functioning as well as the existing load capacity are subject to more or less strong fluctuations, so that in most cases, we have to start with assumptions during measurement. Especially critical is the recording of additional strains, which appear only for a short period in irregular intervals in certain working conditions. For example, self-vibration, gear, deceleration and acceleration processes as well as thermal fluctual strains all belong to such strains. But, such strains are often at the moment the primary cause of damages (Broichhausen 1985). The increasing tendency of renovation and repair expenditures should be stopped and possibly even reversed. According to DIN 31051, renovation means the optimization of precautionary renovation strategies for damage prevention (inspection, servicing and statistics), overhauling of structurally weak centres through construction, addressing the stress without shifting the weak centres on other construction parts, careful selection of parts, precautions for quick detection of damage and specific exchange of functional units during simple operations and for good accessibility of points at risk. The reconstruction of causes, which led to a damage and determined its range, is superior, since only this way can the connection be understood and similar failures be avoided in future. In modern technics ihence as a rule the life-span of a construction is given in advance. Modern constructions are accordingly constructions for a specific time. The concept of life-span of a construction part is always more often defined than the time for insertion, which bears a construction part up to the technical break. Materials with more dissemination of the property of firmness, like the fluctuations of operational strain, make as a result the overall construction unsafe. Statistics, experimental life-span determination, examination of laboratory experiments and investigations under the microscope can specially help the determination of life-span (Broichhausen 1985). There exists a tense relation between renovation, which tends towards decline, and new production, which presupposes, promotes or neutralizes this case. There is no interest in the philosophy of technics as far as the theme of renovation is concerned, which in fact is unfair. A technical artifact needs certain technical information in order to be brought on. Here, the technical structural information differs from the technical information on renovation. Technical information and the material system stay in a mutually given structural analogy. A use-information beyond that is still required. Causes of deviation of technical artifacts from what it ought to be is the occasion for renovation, where as partial measure of renovation, servicing, inspection and renovation can be distinguished. Simon asserts a categorial unity of

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production and renovation of technical artifacts. Here, technic immanent and technic transient renovations have to be distinguished from each other. The duration of suitability, the duration of use and the duration of preservation are also different aspects of renovation. Collections need renovation and also high-cultures, especially super structures need preservation to a special extent. Lack of renovation comes to light often during exploration of the causes of technical catastrophes. In this respect, there is a responsibility for renovation and institutions of renovation. The economic aspect of renovation as well as the dimension of technical safety during renovation manifest themselves here. One has to start with the assumption of irreversibility of action together with the type of action of protection. Simon talks about an opposition of “should” and “is” (Simon 2002). We demand artifacts by virtue of their right of property, right of availability and right of use. Use and supply are not enough. It is also about the capacity for maintenance. It is the technical forms of appearance of the material-energetic or a dimension shaped by information. Maintenance, renovation, mending, re-production and repair are all aspects of maintenance. It preserves the usability of technical resources and limits the possibilities of growth of technical artifacts. There is a dimension of life-world for maintenance. But maintenance is also an area of activity of trade and industry. As a result maintenance has also economic significance. Maintenance is often seen as part of an ascetic culture and points to the aspect of technical safety (Simon 2002). Technical artifacts consist of not only machines, instruments, apparatuses and aggregates, but also buildings, vehicles and apparels. Real technics has to be distinguished from intellectual technics. There can be a crossing of structural and use information while in use, which is incorporated in technical artifacts. The technical structural information can also be understood as documentation of the “ought to be-situation”. It establishes that way the technical testability. Values cannot be isolated as the topmost preference. There are copyright protection rights and a technical legal mechanism. Usefulness is here defined as the practical usability for the management of life. Work is not the stuff. This may be understood as an objection against Heidegger. Ethics goes beyond the category of need of the useful. An artifact doesn’t come undone while in use. Technical information can exist also in an artistic artifact. It is about the development of possibilities through the artistic artifact. Heidegger talks about the dwindling of reliability of artistic artifacts. It is called wear and tear and consumption. Extreme incidents can also be understood as the causes of destruction and decline of technical artifacts. Aberrations of technical artifacts from the ought to be-situation are the causes for the efforts for their maintenance. Natural, social, economic and technical catastrophes can be distinguished here. When in decline technical artifacts are re-shaped through natural moulding or destruction (Simon 2002). DIN 31051 talks about use, wear-and-tear, strain, reliability, wear-and-tear contingency. It demands observing the service instructions. Restoration is another form of maintenance. It is about the availability of technical artifacts and structures and their reliability. Use in accordance with the requirements is the prerequisite for that. There exists also maintenance, which is not successful. Maintenance is hence the

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preservation of the ought to be-situation and avoiding the damaging influences. It is about maintenance, especially restoration, creation and preservation of an oughtto-be-situation. The technological upper valency can be established through maintenance. The technical identity and the individuality of an artifact are determined by the concordance in their features. There are often diverse forms of technical artifacts. Then different multipliers of the same object are created. Maintenance and repair cause a long-lasting stronger individualization of these multipliers. Obligations for maintenance are the expression of historicity of the technical artifact. It manifests itself in the duration of suitability and usability. In the end, there is a value-decision, namely to do away with further maintenance. In all, the total expenditure for the use of an artifact can be determined (Simon 2002). Maintenance is the area of activity of artisanry and industry. Industry and trade are both forms of organizations of commercial technical activity. There is an accumulation of technical resources in our life. There can also be knowledge-gain through maintenance. During repair, it is necessary, to find out the weak spots and the ones suspected of being damaged, especially the technical failure. What we are looking for is an error, failure and damage. Here, it is about the upkeeping of technical knowledge and skill (Simon 2002). Maintenance has also long-term effects, which can lead to statutory regulation of the evaluation of technics. Precaution is an aspect of technical safety and is the result of maintenance. Risk, subjective riskevaluation and safety are aspects of maintenance. One can draft it also in the sense of ethics of repair. Safety is here often regarded as the ought-to-be-situation. The more infrastructures we have, the more we have to spend for their maintenance or we have to do away with it. But maintenance and repair create also jobs. Our innovation-based perspective of technics proves more and more to be unusable. Success is a question of the context of action of scientific and technological praxis, where the context of action changes itself through success and failure. As a result an action is part of the everyday life. Moral and aesthetic correctness are also part of technical praxis. Criteria of success are justice to the situation, harmony, specifically consistency, mutual suitability, particularly convergence and especially pragmatic consistency of an action. Technical progress, seen altogether in this sense as differentiation of technical resources, can hardly be disputed. More problematic is the progress of technical praxis in view of many accidents, break-downs, ecological outcomes and military actions. Success depends, whether we try to do justice to a situation as a whole, and also on the harmony of the whole in the sense of successful structuring. There are certainly forms of success of technical actions, which constitute themselves only in the realisation of action itself. Success is independent of the person, who is doing the technical work and is rather dependant on the situation, especially the context. The judgment of success refers here to an implicit knowledge of how to go about with technical actions and to their success. Following dimensions play a role in success: 1) the logically argumentative consistency, 2) the pragmatic consistency of action and 3) the appropriateness of context. Safety and risk analysis must confirm the adequately safe running of the structure. Not only that it must be demonstrable to the responsible experts, the essential

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thought processes must be also comprehensible to non-specialists. What is important is good transparency of the system as far as possible, which means familiarity of citizens with the respective technics, comprehensibility of the working mechanisms and verifiability of technics. The modern, more expensive probabilistic methods as well as the classical deterministic methods are all concepts invented by humans, which help us get over our ignorance about the real functioning of technical systems. The probabilistic method is chosen for some problems, whereas for serious accidents as a rule the deterministic method is preferred (Krieg 2000). The concepts of hostility to technics, critic of technics and acceptance of technics are all too common and must be critically questioned. They are also to a great extent inadequate for a discussion on the evaluation and experience of technics. Technical imposition and skepticism against technics are discussed as alternative concepts, where the intellectual and practical levels of evaluation of technics have to be distinguished again and again. Critic of technics is basically critic of the society. The attitude to technics depends on the concrete life-conditions of the concerned. We can make out different forms of satisfaction of process-movements, forms of enforcement of new technics with the help of law and state-power, through market mechanisms and also through incentives. If we do away with the narrow concept of acceptance, the areas of problem (resistance against environmental pollution, reaction to occupational hazards and occupational diseases etc.) become more developed. It is repeatedly drawn attention to the fact, that with the problem of acceptance the room of action of the concerned has to be taken into account. Here there are overlappings with the analysis of the concept of imposition, where the enforcement of technology and the situation of resistance are important. The discussion, shaped by the commonly spread paradigms of growth and progress, about the new and progressive of technical innovations have long obscured our view about the question about the quality and continued existence of a function. Attention has to be drawn specially to the time-bound character of the evaluation of technics and the criteria that accompany it (Stadler/Kuisle 1999). The legal plan of precaution against risk creates a reconciliation between the interest in minimizing the damages and that in technical innovation. In order to justify the precautionary ban of technics, one has to explain the possibility of damage. One cannot classify technics itself as a damage, which has to be minimized. The opponents of transgenic plants have not accepted this line of reconciliation in our estimation of the outcomes of technics. New technics should be allowed, when one cannot nominalise any risk, and only when there is an accepted social need. There is no room for a free examination of needs and alternatives with the valid right of precaution. An examination of needs while allowing technics and products would reduce the achieved level of autonomy and discrimination in liberal societies and substitute private freedoms of innovation and investment in wide areas by state planning (Daele 2001, 119–121). The risk-society is also a society of trust. Trust is the dark side of a society freed of the magic spell and the trusted is the natural side, the inevitable base of techni-

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cised life-world. The real history of technics in modern times is that of an astonishing triumph. The social critical semantic, instead of asking about the trustworthiness of technical reliefs, insists on interpreting the success as marginalization of nontechnical communication. How is it thus possible, that totally unspecific trust-benefits can be introduced with astonishing easiness in the daily use of technics. What is meant are certainly technical artifacts, technical objects and things, which, in contrast to technics, function in the sense of learnable, law-guided course of action. It is about technical objects in the form of practically knowable things already introduced, typically common user-technics and technics for the lay men like the way they are routinely accessible. It is about the trustworthiness of technical objects. More remains to be asked here as to, why our society – comparable with Weber’s “consensual community” – despite the much known danger potentials of technics and its social costs, can be characterized as the community of trust. Approaches of normal form of technics in its functioning have to be developed further. To speak certainly with Heidegger, the uncanny of the technicised world is the functioning of technics and not its failure (Wagner 1992, 1–3). Trust of technics as trust of authority or the modern society as the technical community of trust can be found in Max Weber. Weber differentiates consensus in a rational order (be it of technical, social or symbolic kind) from understanding of the complexity. Consensus and understanding are not identical. Weber classifies acting on consensus as acting on habits (Wagner 1992, 4f.). The more we use technical artifacts, smaller will be the share of things reasonably comprehensible and greater the functionally necessary need of trust (Wagner 1992, 11). Each attempt to gain complete control over the material condition throws up new hidden contingencies and latent uncertainties. The compulsion to select certainly makes possible the testing of successful realizations (Wagner 1992, 15). Trust in technics is produced through daily use and not through ethical reflections. It is not easy in expert technics like nuclear technics or gene technology. They must offer material for daily consumption, in order to gain acceptance. One sees it for example, in the red gene technology. The example of green gene technics shows that the developing countries make use of the chance, which industrial nations did not want to make use of on ground of a false ideology of nature. Trust in technology is a thing of use-knowledge and tacit knowledge. We cannot create this trust before using the technics through proofs and strategies of legitimisation, instead we have to persuade the users to engage with technics by using it once. It is ultimately a question of building up and practicing the routine and of proved use of technical artifacts, which creates trust in technics. We cannot anyway enforce trust in technics. Testing and repeat of successes lead ultimately to trust in technics. The thought of mastery of technics in the sense of mastery of a thing is not right. It is about acquiring and mastering one’s competence. The re-production of successful completion of an experiment in the sense of testing creates trust. It is hence the repetition and not rational argumentation that creates trust in technics. If we don’t give technics any opportunity to prove itself, then we don’t ever give it a chance to put its legitimacy to test. This is a dogmatic process as a rule. But then there are good reasons for the extreme dangerousness of a particular technics.

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Normalisation is the foucauldian term for the monitoring technics, which is a processual concept. The selection of workers in Taylorism or the sterilization plans and practices in the eugenic movement in the 20th century are regulations, which are based on statistical observations and set norms, which aim at the optimization of labour-performance or the genetic quality of the population. Foucault’s normalization would be according to this terminology the protonormalism, which not only tries to make the statistically observed mass phenomena into a norm or a mandate, but also draws a strict boundary of deviation and eliminates, excludes and medically treats those who lie outside it. Protonormalism is a statistical technics of detection and follows a deterministic fixing strategy. The word group around “normal” established itself in everyday language only in the 20th century. The first etymologically right meaning is “regular, legal” and close to these come “daily, usual, popular” (Mehrtens 1999a). The attention on social normalization is common, be it normatively set under the observation of the existing and the possible or gained from observation and be it that they don’t gain acceptance or do gain acceptance indirectly normatively as regulators like in a dynamic orientational and organizational model. The orientation towards statistical creation of data and producing collective phenomena is also common. Finally, the semantic of healthy-ill pattern and their multiple derivates is also common. Normalisation and normalism are close in a therapeutic view and are linked to discourses on the determination of the normal, healthy, usual, and dominant and the exclusion of the abnormal, anormal, sick, pathologic and unusual. The story, which gets to be told under the idea of normalization, is that of experts, their establishment and professionalization: doctors, statisticians, social scientists, business management experts, psychologists etc. They are the ones, who create normality and deviation, since it is necessary to know in the therapeutic paradigm, when and where the need for treatment exists. The decision must be technically operative as much as possible in order to have the objectivity, which is arguable inside the profession and justifiable among other professions. This leads to quantifying, datacreation and objectivisation. Normalism is thus a world-view, which does not anyway involve any totalizing and hegemonic form of knowledge of direction (Mehrtens 1999a). Both “The principles of scientific management” and “The gospel of efficiency” by F. W. Taylor appeared in 1911 and founded the idea of scientific management. In German it is called scientific steering of business and in French they prefer “Organisation scientifique du travaille”. As part of Taylorisation measures the standardization of shovels to the average limit-capacity of 9.5kg was introduced, which in addition conformed to the material to be digged. “Schmidt’s shovel” stands for the system of objects of rationalization: the bodies of workers and their movements, the material, work tools and machines and the interactions in business. The figures should show that the scientific management is objective and fair. The key example of principles is the rationalization of employment of work tool machines. The business rationalization should be carried out this way objectively and according to figures. The purpose of all these is the optimization of labour performance. The shovel, which weighs 9.5 kg and the standardization of the digger make their performance

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of the day calculable. The amount of work is the basis of calculation and planning (Mehrtens 1999b). The disposal of technical artifacts is also not only a technical problem, but also culturally coded (Irrgang 2002c). The disposal of communal waste disposal infrastructure starts in Europe in the middle ages. There was a decline of this branch of waste management through industrialized economy and artificial fertilizers. What served as the basis was a civilisational historic process of setting up a discipline. The evolving culture of throwing away is inseparably linked to the development of canalization and irrigation, of techniques of disappearance and the introduction of purifying power of water. Faeces had a use-value in the middle ages. Hence, there was an argument between utilitarians and hygienists with the construction of disposal infrastructure over the use of faeces (Keller 1998, 61–66). Waste removal can happen out of several grounds: the urban waste removal takes place out of medicinal-hygenic grounds, the industrial waste production out of economic grounds and waste isolation out of production related technical grounds. It has to be distinguished from heavy industrial-cultural waste production (Fassler 1991, 167f). There evolved a waste disposal industry. Waste is dependent on life styles, for example on the concept of city as a place that has to grow steadily. Technological structures don’t have hygiene in itself in the first place. Hygiene has to be understood as a form of culture and it generates the semantics of disappearance. The economically symbolic dwindling of use value of an object happens irrespective of its use. Waste is the negative surplus of the production of goods. Use is culturally enforced. The precious stone or the precious metal is a social construct. The constant, quick ageing of technologies accelerates waste generation. Waste is an intra-socially defined and socially defining pattern of order of high flexibility (Fassler 1991, 198f). The new cultural mandate is to dominate the waste. Waste is related to the civilisational standards demanded. Waste depends on the fact, whether an object falls out of the category of utility. Waste is a retraction of a social modality, namely that of a social mode of the use of artifact in context. It is about the loss of one dimensional quality of use value of an artifact (Fassler 1991, 213). The construction of use value determines the life span. The power of technics rests on the technical skill (of humans and technical artifacts) and its social organisation in technological structures. It increases and becomes more complex. There emerges the danger of concentration of technical power. The Celts sacrificed to the Gods dozens of their bronze daggers, which were the basis of their social power. Today technics seems to have made itself into the religion of modern times. Technics lends power, but doesn’t impose itself as a form of domination, except grand technics, which presupposes certain social organizational forms. Technics demands also social power in order to be able to preserve itself and move further. Here, it is about the power of organization of labour as part of cultural technologies. Technics is constructed, maintained, used and disposed by humans. The power of technics is in relation to humans anthropo-operative. Since man himself is a power factor, but not fixed, the power of technics is ambivalent. Technics doesn’t

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evolve by itself. There is always at least one client for technics. The systems presented by themselves are also created by humans. Even when a robot builds another robot and has itself repaired, the human element of technical power remains unaltered, even if it fades under these circumstances. The anthropomorphous form of technical power remains there in all its forms for the derivative of technical praxis. Technics is extremely dependant on its utility. The usability of technical resources and technical competences is the other side. Utility and technical competence are complimentary conditions in the man-machine relation, which however cannot always be brought to agreement under all circumstances. Power defines itself also on the basis of availability of technics. Technics is related to humans, but it also has a meaning of its own. Technical power manifests itself in history and not least in the history of innovations. Today man creates artificial ecosystems, for example big space ships, which represents a new milieu for humans. Even then a completely autonomous technics for a longer period is not possible. The big technical space ships also need human aid for steering and repair at least in crisis situations and unforeseen circumstances. The power grows cumulatively from usability, availability and introducibility of technical resources. The technical resources must be constructed and produced for this purpose. The difference between construction and production is not big from the view point of technical sciences (it is the difference between individual and serial production). But the difference is big from the view point of political technology. The fact that the USA could switch so quickly from the serial production of machines to that of war instruments has considerably influenced the Second World War. The source of technical power is the management of everyday life, especially through its technical design. Technics leads to social discrimination and along with it subordination and superiority and different forms of slavery in history. This was often perceived in different ways. The antiquarian military machine helped mainly in acquiring the slaves. Technical forms of life influence society and naturally also the way in which people live. Something like work discipline exists only since the origin of human settlement. It was in later times either intensified under the conditions of collective labour or partly driven back. The formation of technics is a question of power now with respect to itself. The technical dispositive has to be thought over in double terms, namely as a dispositive of competence to use technical artefacts and as dispositive of technical structures. Technical power grows out of routinisation, institutionalisation and traditionalisation of the use of artefacts, out of which technics altogether emerges. Technical power has to be thought over and understood in a new sense from the point of view of usage. The technical use of nature is not dominating the nature, rather basically that of attempting and testing, which means it can also fail and it fails often enough. In the Marxist interpretation of technics, technics is clearly an instrument of power, but technics as power is basically ambivalent (Irrgang 2007d). It is about designing ecologically and culturally embedded technics, which guarantees a maximum number of people a life worth living with the corresponding quality of life. The implementation of machines according to the technological plan

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of action is not capitalistic or socialistic, but it can be employed in a labour organisation in both ways and manners. Technical artefacts and structures exercise a certain power over its users through multiple, but limited possibilities of use. Technical praxis is not completey free, but is also certainly not determined by technics. But our everyday praxis is this way completely like the technical praxis. The question about the power of technics in the beginning of 21st century thus turns out to be extremely plural: On the one side there is construction and production and we have use on the other. But embedding and maintenance also influence technical power. In all we can detect that in the 20th century the power of engineers and manufacturers declines and that of users and consumers increases. The factors of embedding also play a central role. The question of technical power doesn’t appear one-dimensional, like it is assumed by the traditional critical theory. There is not one alternative to modernity, instead many alternatives within the path of development, which are more or less modern (Irrgang 2007d). It should not be argued that the aspect of power of technical praxis has to be seen only as good, instead it is about considering the power of technical praxis as a cultural feat and thereby initiating a culture of reflection on and weighing of technology. The concept of power turns out to be thoroughly ambivalent at least since the time of renaissance and can be interpreted from different points of view. In view of the origin, we can see the political or economic dimension as the essential factors. With respect to the influence or the effect of power, power can be interpreted as instrumentally effective or normatively legitimate. Power can also be evaluated as positive or negative, either as a natural or as an artificial and alien phenomenon. Finally, with respect to origin and place, power is differentiated as personal and non-personal systematic and structural or institutional power. Often these aspects of significance are seen as opposites. It is certainly more plausible to look at and understand these individual dimensions of power as in a mutual relation, where the art of exercising power lies in avoiding one-sidedness and neutralizing the individual factors (Irrgang 1993, 628f). What serves as the motor for the development of technical praxis is not conflicts, rather the processes of self-organisation of the organisation and structuring of technical praxis like labour-division, professionalization, differentiation of technical skills, where the client (in modern terms, consumer) has always an important word to communicate and shows user-unfriendly technics or rather a phenomenon of mass production and mass consumption. Technical values are produced through co-operation and from time to time also through competitive situations. But the values are dependent on producers as well as users and likewise there could be conflicts while determining the values of produced by technics. Technics may well contribute to the differentiation of social layers and classes, but the conditions for class struggle are caused less through technical life-conditions than through political relations. Technics produces to an increasing extent pro-technical expertise, by which technical capacity can be classified and evaluated. From labourer to the coworkers and master, complimented by engineer and lately by the application ori-

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ented lab researcher, a system of regulation, classification and organisation of professional engagement with technics has emerged, which makes technical knowledge and capabilities assessable. There are technical, material constraints and the so-called “bottlenecks” in the technical construction and in the technological cover of the embedding organisation, which applies and uses technics. The primary and temporary analysis of the technical path of development has anyway made the working hypothesis plausible that it is not conflict or class struggle, which sets in motion the dialectic of history, instead it is co-operation and accumulation – naturally related to a series of setbacks and failures – that establish technical power. There are actually areas, in which technical development orients itself less towards paradigm of self-organisation and rather more towards forms of hierarchical organisation, namely mining, military and big architecture, which have to be analysed in the next chapter. The primary temporary plan of organisation of technics takes shape in view of the constitution of technical power as follows: (1) Self-organisation: Co-operation – competition – conflict (2) Self-organisation: Tradition – innovation – embedding/adaptation. (3) Hierarchy: Domination – power to dictate – implementation. The association of paths of technical development is characterised by the fact that there is accumulative character of small improvements (from time to time there were also retrograde steps), which grow into paths and traces of development. There can be an association of paths of development of supply in the sense of infrastructure. Hierarchical model of association and central infrastructure belong together (All ways lead to Rome). There are also central infrastructures. The thought of conception of the path of development has to be modified for technical development. Paths of developed are formed through the realisation of development potentials of technical kind and the search for the right embedding. Technical artefacts exist in a methodical context and develop out of each other. Technics emerged later doesn’t falsify the earlier one. But some forms of technics turn outdated and become out of use. Naturally there are new paradigms, which are introduced over longer timeperiods. Besides traces of development, networking is the second dimension in technics. Urbanisation and metal processing lead to differentiation of social layers and thereby to technically conditioned power. Trade and military along with technical resources produce excessive wealth and establish power. The blacksmith and the entire artisanry gained a special significance with the Bronze Age (Irrgang 2007d). A delegated technological intelligence can already be detected in ship-sailing, wind and water mills and in firearms. Technical models of action are in the external perspective outcomes of events, which simulate routine technical courses of action for the technical use of instruments, natural processes and machines. Technology is the rationally planned capability to use technical resources in order to produce technical values. A three-fold order of organisation of technological structures can be seen here. The structure of man-technical resources structure can be understood in a three-fold divided manner.

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(1) Hand-job with initial mechanisation: running machines through humans, where the first individual steps of labour can be taken over by machines. (2) Automatisation of production, complex steps in the process of completion are carried out by machines themselves. (3) Robotics, perceiving and learning by machines including expert systems and automatic programming and understanding of languages. The intentionality of a technical artefact or resource doesn’t stem from the artefact alone, rather from the technical praxis, which produces, maintains, uses and finally disposes this artefact. The accompanying praxis also has to be considered for determining the potentiality of a technical artefact (Irrgang 2008a). The engagement with the invisible and technical actions implemented by machines leads to operationalisation on a second level. It establishes the functionality of an operationalisation. In all, such patterns of action are seen in positivistic form. It deals with the pattern of course, particularly of function. Embedding in the technical praxis is not considered in the first place in the positivistic reduction. A technical resource becomes self-evident while using the visible. The technical pattern of action of the shovel is evident and we don’t need any instructions for use. Experiences of operating machines are possible. We know the operation of buttons, livers and gears through longer experience and we know which effects it can produce. In this case, it deals with an indirect trigger of action of the machine. I know the pattern of action of the machine either on the basis of theoretical instruction on the pattern of function of the machine or on the basis of continued experience of use. We can see this in the learning experience of a car driver, who later changes gear on hearing the sound of the engine. If a meaning can be constructed into technical artefacts in view of a particular operation, technical artefacts can also have the same way a moral significance. Artefacts have themselves no purposes of action or intentions, but they can be constructed from the perspective of a third person and can be constructed into artefacts as outcomes of events of operational kind. The paradigmatic dimension of the use of technical resources is also the centre of technical power. Earlier, most of the technical artefacts were passive and became active only through human actions. Today, apparatuses and machines have a life of their own, which can almost be interpreted as activity. Some of these have a structure of the zombie-agent. The moral relevance and the development of any slant of technical artefacts and resources are strengthened and intensified through technical praxis. What is decisive is the organisation of structure in the use of technics and its embedding. Technology is the explicit knowledge of use, which can be instructed. It has double potentiality, namely the power of hardware and the power of useskills. There are also implicit forms of technology here. The following basic data on technologies have to be distinguished: (1) Technology of acquiring (resources) (2) Technology of production-skills. (3) Technology of use-skills, embedding technologies and (4) Cultural technologies, which evaluate and organise technologies.

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Development of resources like hunting, agriculture, bio-technology, breeding, mining and in a certain way also science belong to the first category. Building construction, mechanics, pottery, weaving, smelting and ship construction can be counted under the second category. Trade and consumption can be included in the third category and intellectual techniques, rights, values, management, organisational science and operations research come under the fourth category. Cultural technologies must know well the management of values in the sense of a culture of reflection on technology. The shaping of technology occurs through cultural technologies. Philosophy as a theory-led undertaking is not suited for cultural technologies (arts). Sophistry has imparted to philosophy a false and terrifying image of cultural technologies. The use of technics presupposes an enlightened, rational and market-oriented user, who came into existence in the industrial areas since the industrial revolution and in households since the technicisation of everyday life in the 20th century. This user belongs to a minority worldwide. Technological development can be understood as the self-organisation of use of technical resources without the checking and dominating instance and without any steering centre or system. Technics as such forces no steering state power. There are but technical compulsions like the construction of irrigation systems, creating resources for metal production and taking care of gigantic cities like Rome in the Roman Empire, which makes state’s intervention necessary. The giant architecture like, for example that of pyramid construction is also part of that. Technology is technical knowledge as outcome of use, experience and implicit knowledge of one’s own skills, understanding, development, conclusion and thought, which lead to exhibiting, showing, leading and learning. Technology is open towards aids like showing, sketching, mathematics, geometric construction and also while experimenting. It knows different forms of documentation: the expected potential form of a technical machine, a technological structure or a technical praxis. Technology is (1.) evaluation, which means the capability to use technical structures and praxis. In addition to that, trials under safe conditions are unavoidable. All calculations are marked by the residual risk of practicability. The use of results of the trial during the technical action itself is linked to the residual risk. Technical action as the capability to handle technical potentiality moves in the field of tolerance, which distinguishes success from failure. The important task of technology is to work out this knowledge and the limits of tolerance. (2.) Technology as processual and practical knowledge between art and science. Heidegger criticizes thought in stocks and resources. To make available is only one side of the capability to handle. Finally, Heidegger criticizes also only one aspect of technics, which in my opinion is less important.

2. TECHNOLOGY AS KNOWLEDGE OF PROCESS AND DEALING BETWEEN ART AND SCIENCE Capability to handle can be understood as the capability to make and capability to use. The western schizophrenia consists of a terrible picture of technics as the oppression of nature and in reality an extremely successful technology, which enables human beings to travel to moon. Heidegger’s suggestion in his late philosophy to develop technics from the point of view of arts hardly helps. In my view, it would be much more radical and interesting to develop art and religion from the point of view of technics. After all, it is an idealistic interpretation to understand technics from the point of view of art. But technics is not a toy, instead a form of life and survival. Art attempts also to allow things in their own peculiar form to enter our life. It appears more interesting to me to interpret technics and art from the point of view of the capability to handle. Why does a new technology become natural to us so soon? The question ignores the core of technical innovation. Only the technology, with which the technological texture of our life-world is compatible, becomes natural to us. The myth of Prometheus implies that technics changes the life-world from scratch. This is quite simply a philosophical prejudice about technics, since technics itself is the root of life-world and not the unarmed eye. Hence, technologisation doesn’t signify revolutionisation of our life-world, instead its increasing closure. Our life-world is sensomotorically/technically and linguistically constituted. Here, the problem seems to lie in the fact that technics substitutes and destroys human potential more and more. But on the other side, technics creates new comptences and potentials and particularly encourages such, since man learns each time a new skill through technics. Technics as such was not invented by man. Man lives already in a lifeworld shaped by technics. Man didn’t invent the language too. Technics and language are part of a biological-cultural development, which was constituted by man, but have also constituted man. Technics and language are life-worldly horizons, in which inventions and discoveries happen or rather can occur. Here, technics of plants or factories (artefacts, outcomes of actions) has to be distinguished from technics of thinking. Life-world is in all a collective competence, which has to be realised through the participation of subjects. There is no principle difference between poiesis and praxis, if we set special emphasis on the act of producing. In my view, poiesis implies stronger the routinised, automatised courses of action in the context of technical action, whereas praxis represents the uncertain part, in which innovations have to happen. The use of technics distinguishes itself more clearly from poiesis, in the sense steering a ship does from its construction. They are certainly both forms of

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use of technics. Technical sciences have specialised in the analysis of technical “Erga”, that is technical mechanisms. Technical praxis is technical action with the application of technical resources for technical goals. It is the realisation and implementation of technological knowledge in the sense of technological potentials. Is technological knowledge also thus technics or does technics limit itself to Erga? I mean that technological knowledge in the sense of technical potentials is much more important than as technical artefacts. The capability to handle technical artefacts captures the essence of technics much more likely than the analysis of technical artefacts. The capability to make signifies the technological functional knowledge as explicit knowledge. In contrast to that, the capability to uses assumes actually only technological knowledge of use of the most implicit kind. Technological potential covers thinking, which serves as the basis of acts of production, in the sense of skills and knowledge, implicit and explicit knowledge and dispositions and competences. The technical contains the elements of manufacturing and handling in the sense of designing and working. Technics produces more than as was immediately required and hence it is the reason for wealth and the needs for decoration, which go beyond it. Decoration is a part of the culture. The technical is therefore a form of life and not a subjectively active production. The technician builts a house, but actually he should design the stay. The thing is not that technics is only made and remade, rather it is above all rethought. The technical mediality of the self-instrumentalisation of one’s own body and the physical mediality of selfshaping in physical exercises (sports, arts, science and meditation) opens for technics a new access to the human body. The condition of technical artefacts takes shape in the field of possibilities of their use. Technical worlds of the object evolve, which are used professionally or technically in the everyday sense. Mining handles the production of resources for further processing. The construction of high ovens is a technically demanding feat of engineering and the mountain industry belongs at least in the milieu of evolving technical sciences. The process of metal–melting and building arms are planned for the military or other technical experts and not for the normal end-users. This is different in the case of trade goods. Technical sciences are viewed traditionally in opposition and contrast to natural sciences and technics is occasionally seen as applied natural sciences. As a result, an important factor, atleast of modern European technics is considered for the scientific interpretation and the other important ones are left out. Günther Ropohl (Ropohl 1991) differentiates the technological and scientific paradigm of technical sciences since the end of 18th century. The scientific paradigm of technics can be dated back to Francis Bacon and other enlightenment philosophers later. It emphasises the practical use of natural sciences and analyses primarily technical artefacts and technical material systems in the natural scientific paradigm. The scientific paradigm rests on a reduced understanding of technics as natural scientifically oriented theory of science of technical sciences. The technological paradigm is oriented towards the working concept and the technical praxis and the shaping of human systems of needs. The socio-economic embedding of labour and technics comes to the fore here. Technical praxis of construction, which must not be necessarily classified under the working concept, takes its place rather in the tradition of arts and skills in

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the interpretation of technics. The following investigation undertakes the attempt to adopt through a phenomenological-hermeneutic analysis of technical action, particularly of technical praxis, art and science as horizons for each other in a scientific, philosophical interpretation (epistemology) of technics as technical praxis und technical sciences. Ultimately, a theory of technology has to be built, where the fundamental change in the understanding of technics and technology is taken into account. The traditional theory of science of technical knowledge has to a great extent ignored the aspect of knowledge of handling and the implicit knowledge, which establishes the artistic character of technical skills (and that of knowledge), in the characterisation of technics. A hermeneutic programme of technical knowledge and understanding has this implicit knowledge as the starting point and develops on this basis a pragmatic-hermeneutical understanding of technical action, grounded on an analysis of the use of work-tool, especially the use of natural processes in the instrumental understanding as implicit knowledge of handling (Irrgang 2001b, Irrgang 2004a, Irrgang 2007b). It is not the analysis of work-tool that is of primary importance, instead that of the success, which can be achieved with the help of instrumental action. What is explored is the kind of realisation of an intended effect. The interpretation of implicit technical knowledge here goes beyond the existential analysis by Heidegger of the technical use of things (Irrgang 2001b, Irrgang 2004a). The scientific programme of technical sciences and technology a-mounts to a positivistic way of looking at technics and technical praxis and signifies a naturalisation of technics, technology and technical praxis. The intention here is not to present any descriptive phenomenology of technics and its technologies based on the paradigm of an empirical turn in the philosophy of technics (Irrgang 2007b). I would rather like to present a parallel between an empirical phenomenological constitutional analysis of the relation between technical praxis and technical resources (constitution of object of technical action) and an empirically influenced model based on the philosophy of history. What should be worked out are the structures of technical praxis in its relation to operationalisable courses of action, which were implemented in technical resources according to three paradigms: handling of patterns of action, of machines (also of patterns of action implemented in them) and of interconnected technical structures and systems. Parallel to this runs the handling of visible, invisible and elementary technical means and resources, which in increasing measure makes scientific support for technological knowledge necessary (techno-science and techno-research). This is linked to a hermeneutic philosophy of technics. It carries out with a developing language the constitution of meaning of technical praxis and its corresponding artefacts through the analysis of cultural embedment of technologies, especially through consideration of following three dimensions of potentiality of technical praxis and technical artefacts. Philosophical technology or metatechnology interprets this potentiality in three patterns of 1) efficiency and functionality 2) use or usability and 3) customary value, whereas the traditional technical science limits itself to efficiency and functionality. The hermeneutically developing language doesn’t choose any scientific theoretical or analytical technical language and also

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not the jargon of philosophy of technics by the later Heidegger, instead an interdisciplinarily oriented philosophical terminology in the context of a technology-reflection-culture (Irrgang 2003b). The programme of an implicit knowledge of handling on the basis of a process of understanding of the possibilities of the use of natural processesor of work-tools becomes the starting point for a philosophy of technics (Irrgang 2007b). This implicit knowledge of handling should here be reconstructed certainly by the material structure, which is used and by the habituality of the user, in the sense of knowledge and skill intermingled with each other. In the hermeneutical theory of action of technics, an object or an artefact meets a user in a certain context of reference, for example, a stone that can be used as a hand-axe and a nuclear plant, which should provide electricity. The programme of philosophising of technics suggested here interprets technical artefacts in their technical methodical context and in the context of their social use in the cultural framework (than social projects) as more or less institutionalised forms of technical actions. Research programmes till now limited themselves mostly either to tracing the laws of construction of technical artefacts or recording the social projects. A methodically validated mediation of both approaches of research appears to be badly necessary as a starting point for a philosophy of technics. It should also prepare the basics for a scientific theory of technical sciences. The technical-instrumental realism of a pragmatistic philosophy of technics has evolved out of the technical use of reality. This use is measured according to the success and failure of technical action and its products. It deals here with the technically mediated reality, where of late technically produced virtuality more and more takes the place of technically produced reality. It is about a developed and interpreted world on the basis of acting access to reality. This form of reality doesn’t carry the character of any copy of reality or nature, especially just because the technical-instrumental access to reality changes this. Therefore, the constituting elements of reality in the technical action have to be traced first of all, for example, how they manifest themselves in trade, agriculture and in breeding, and the ideas of the model, which serves as the basis here have to be analysed. The variety of perspectives of valuing and interpretation of technical action refers back to the theoretical as well as practical mastering of technical action. The opposition between “natural” and “artificial” through the approach of technical knowledge doesn’t serve here as the basis for the aspect of handling of technical action. There are much more flowing transitions with regard to the object and process. Technical praxis constitutes itself out of community based, particularly socially institutionalised form of technical action. Technical praxis enfolds itself here in cultural historical terms in different types of technical actions, which realise the pattern of means-ends in different ways and understand them in the sense of intermingling of technical ends and technical media. Cleverness while choosing technical goals and technical media presupposes a communicative and discursive praxis and classifies technics under the same. In a society based on the division of labour with complex technical systems planners, builders and users are often divided with all the three located in their own networked systems. The categories of

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progress, preparation of potencies and feasibilities as specific technics induced form of our thought, our action and our life-form have to be considered, where a theory of action of technics should be converted into a modal theory of technics (Poser 2000, 111). Technics in the space of possibility of technical praxis receives its own weight, as far as technical resources and the outcomes of technical resources are differentiated from each other. Both have in the conception of an instrumental realism a certain inherent law and technical potentiality. The praxis underpinning of technics states that the hermeneutic-phenomenological philosophy of technics belongs to anthropological interpretations of technics only in a wide sense. This philosophy of technics focuses on the construction of technical structures (e.g. infrastructure and big technical systems etc.) as well as technical traditions in the sense of technical games and habits of technical praxis. Paths of development are developing forms of praxis and they manifest themselves in technical structures. Technical structures cannot be changed easily like the forms of technical praxis. The attempt to find something natural and non-technical in the physicality as the basis of technical praxis is doomed to fail. Physicality is nothing natural in so far as human subjectivity manifests itself already in human physicality as the fundamental prerequisite for human praxis. Technical art has to be understood as realisability in the interpretational horizon of the possible space of technological praxis. Technical praxis on one side and the outcomes of technical praxis have to be differentiated ultimately. They are exactly two poles, which must work together for the overall understanding of technics. The technically possible in the sense of technical structures is dependent upon material properties, natural laws etc. and not only on praxis-laws and strategies of action. The technically possible depends not only on natural laws as well as technical rules, but also on social and cultural structural conditions. The room of possibility of technics defines the horizon of the history of possible technical findings and discoveries. Two forms of praxis have to be differentiated here: the one of production in the sense of a routinised technical praxis and the innovation in the sense of a creative technical praxis. The outcomes of technical praxis can again become a starting point for new forms of technical praxis, which should improve the existing ones and possibly remove unwanted side-effects of technical industries. Technical praxis presupposes work tools and creates factories. Both are a part of technical praxis and will become, in the course of time, independent of the praxis, which creates them and the object of a using praxis. The praxis, which creates and the one, which uses are closely linked to each other, but possibly presuppose different technical systems, namely the system of work-tools of technical kind and the system of factories of technical kind. Technical praxis is characterised by growing re-networking. Our kind of world-wide development is in a certain way instrumental-technomorphic, at least reconstructive and is anyway in accordance with technoscience-conception in the non-mesonomic areas. Technics can be accepted as planted praxis, as design and project, which anyway do not lead to the overall plan. Technics is in this respect in all not a project and also not well planned.

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But technics is something created and produced. Today, praxis is the act of collective subjects. That was also earlier not different as a rule. Technology can be considered as a system of arts, technics as a system of scientific technics and labour as technical routine. The link and double-link create a new form of its own of technics with greater power than the simple technics of work-tools- the structural technics. Technics covers the aspect of skills in the sense of a technical subject and the aspect of technics in the sense of a technical object, a technical form, a technical structure, which, according to Heidegger, has the character of a challenge. Technics is that, the essence of which shows itself in the process of manufacture and use (Heidegger), which contains surprising elements and which is not planned in all details fully in advance. The aspect of power of technical skills has to be differentiated from that of technical artefacts (as work-tool like a mechanism). Technics can be considered as a result, as a product of the process of humans becoming independent of nature, but not in the sense of an independence, since technical artefacts must be maintained as well by humans. Technical action as use of means is considered a detour. It is not about an instrumentalism spared of philosophy, rather about the technical orientation and composition of some kinds of cultural action. Means and goals of technical praxis are technical artefacts and the praxis alone is evaluated through success and failure. Means, goals and technical praxis are linked to each other in the sense of a feedback-circle and constitute the paths of development. The routines of action are quite central here. The routines of use enable options of action, but they also fix them in certain context. The experience of resistance is in this context very im-portant. Deficits of description of action through traditional practical syllogism cannot be denied. ‘Causing’ will have to be understood as causality of action and not as an efficient causality. Conscious and planned actions have to be distinguished. Power and potential also to carry out the planned, belong together. The structures of technical means manifest themselves in structures of production, infrastructures, in trade, in the laboratory and are structures of the process of making technical aids available. Infrastructures can be mechanisms of technical praxis. In all, the structuring rooms of possibilities result through the potential of technical artefacts and the potentiality related to that. Weaving can be understood as production of a structure of executions. What lie as the bases of praxis are action and the pattern of operation. The ability for the actualisation of pattern of action defines the competence. There are mechanisms of regulation of practices beyond the subjective competences. One mechanism of regulation of practices of technical kind is, for example the use of fire arms. Technics keeps on offering in the course of its developmental history such technically induced forms of praxis and creates through them social compulsions, new cultural forms, social forms of praxis etc. In this respect, mechanisms of regulation of practices of technical kind are about power factors. The rules of having at disposal or also the strategies of praxis are power factors. The ability to construct and transport technically induced forms of having at common disposal (resources and competences) produces power and in certain association technical life-forms. It

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deals with praxis strategies of technical and non-technical, thus in all of cultural kind, in which technical aspects can exercise power. Three basic structural elements of praxis forms as power factors have to be differentiated: (1) Functions of use of technical praxis as well as that of technical artefacts (efficiency) (2) Strategic dimension or pragmatic-institutional forms of co-ordinated ac tion. (3) Praxis with the inclusion of technical artefacts, (4) Ethics (customary-moral quality of praxis). Here the regulatory mechanism of the operationality of (technical) practices under all the three points above can be reconstructed and evaluated. Technical resources are potential functions and power factors. Certain forms of practive have a structure, which is led by material, cognitive and normative rules and hence can also be described. These rules of operationality rest on the structures of competences and are manifestations of skills, which certainly go beyond subjective competences and become competences only then, when they manifest themselves under the regular points of view of operationality of collectives. The culture is the sum of all forms of practices, into which all the subjective competences of action must flow. The ability to have technical resources and products at disposal in the sense of designing and the ability to use the same are part of it. The patterns of action produce and describe the courses of action. Culturally coded models of action produce power and are also oriented by power. The new technical potential functions like the new technical competences have the character of a demand: they raise the question of meaning- and that forms actually the core of the task of ethical evaluation. The steel house, the frame, the installation and the colonisation of life-world- technics is seen as a heteronomic factor of cultural development. But technics is a part of human culture, neither its limit nor its enemy. The precision motor of man is the common origin of art and technics as the fundamental areas of human practices. The delegation of the chain of means and ends to technical systems and machines leads to an instrumental reduction of the patterns of action. Robots are machines of higher order, but they are still machines. There is no principle difference between an automatic weaving chair and a humanoid robot. The simulation of precision mechanics remains to be simulation. Patterns of action are reduced to models of technical operationality. The more autonomous they are, the stronger our options of action are limited by them. In the trans-classical technics the introduction of alternative means are made difficult. The technologies of communication make the perception of distance more difficult. Trans-classical technics has a contingency of higher order. In trans-classical technics, the anticipation of the use of technics in controlled, planned trade disappears for the manufacturer as well as the user. Hence, what is necessary, are specific increases of competences (Irrgang 2007a). Earlier, we understood to a great extent the technical resources, which we could use. We can use the technical things in increasing measure without having under-

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stood or having to understand them. None the less, we understand also today a considerable part of technics, which we can use, at least based on the division of labour among some of us, without the need to have an exact scientific knowledge of the techniques, which serve as its basis. If we look at breeding and bio-technology, there were times, in which we could use technics, understood it reasonably, but without possessing an exact and adequate scientific knowledge. The actual thing with technics is not the scientific knowledge, instead technical artefacts, which we can use. The ability to use and the understanding of the technical artefacts is no science (despite system theory, evaluation of outcomes of technics, technical knowledge and technical sciences), instead an art. The social and cultural embedding of technics is realised by a stronger measure through the thesis of use than by science. The unpredictability of the behaviour of modern technics and the uncertainty of modern and ultra-modern technics resulting from that are not absolutely restricted to this. The ideal concept of action presupposes perfect freedom in the beginning and complete control at the end of actions. This type of action takes place extremely rare in the technical practice. It remains restricted to a traditional action, although purity in this sense demands something superhuman. Instrumental and strategic action takes place often in uncertainty and demand other than traditional ethics (Irrgang 2007a). Routine runs monitored and innovative action not unnecessarily in the same measure. On the basis of dispositions I acquire certain competences during action. Available skills are actualised, expanded and improved. The concept of technical dispositive is used in this connection. It characterises the context of provision, the violence and authority of order especially the context of possibility of technical practice. Implicit legitimations are built into the background structures of practices. The institutional structural conditions determine the roles in collective action. Dispositives describe technical provision and technical roles. The thesis of use presupposes a conception of embedded technical artefacts (i.e their initial orientation towards superficial structure of technical artefacts) and not any causal theory. The implementation of the operational structure of technical actions in artefacts leads to a situation, where the objectifiable part of technical competence and the pattern of action can be implemented in machines. In this respect, the spinning machine and the weaving machine have evolved through the transference of human model of production onto mechanical production. Technology rests hence, on natural laws and the objectifiable human courses of action and their implementability in technical artefacts. The ability to use laboratory results, machines, apparatuses and infrastructures is part of technical, particularly technological practice. Technology is the objectivisation of knowledge of technical use and technical competences, the interlinking of technological structures with forms of humantechnics interaction. The robot is exactly like this a consequent result of this technological development like a synthetic life-form. Technological understanding and natural scientific explanation should be used with each other in the sense of “as well as”. Technical practice remains present in the creative process of construction, in inventions and in research. The object of investigation of a common technology is the behaviour

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of technical routine and technical innovation. The technical potential as artefact can be attributed to its inherent pattern of action. The individualisation of common technical processual patterns happens with robots. There is also modelling of natural processes, e.g. the watch. Implicit knowledge, artistic ability, experts, professional experience and expertise are features of technical practice. The rationalisation of expertise appears as putting it on a scientific basis. The feat of experts rests here on extreme performances of memory. The crisis of the culture of experts in view of innovative technologies cannot be ignored. The older, more experienced expert doesn’t remain on the same level as the recently fashionable youth culture. It is experimental technology, which replaces in systematic form trial and error, testing and individual experiments. There emerges a lab-technology, which in increasing measure inherits the classical natural science and also drives the basic research. Another apt concept for describing the merger of techno-science and new key technologies would be innovative technology. It deals with research based, particularly innovation oriented technology or techno-research. Technology can be understood as improvement of technical practice through the extraction of structures of technical practice, which is an attempt to implement these in technical worktools and to interlink them in structures. Technical organisation uses technical artefacts as work-tools and produces technical mechanisms. Construction means on a large and small scale the beginning of an organisation of a new mechanism, be it an individual thing like a cathedral or a mass product. The construction of something new in the sense of a new type of technical mechanism constitutes a small innovation also in societies, where technical routine predominates. In the European modern age, innovation becomes the driving element of technical development. We try to establish it scientifically, but it remains an art. The rationality of technical practice lies in its artistic character, even if the function of technical resources and mechanisms can be possibly explained scientifically. Technical sciences have to design a new technics out of its function. Technology is in contrast the structuring of technical practice. The hermeneutics of technics throws up the question of meaning for technical practice as well as technical artefacts. Technical operations were replaced by the implementations of machines. Spinning and weaving machines, “railway rivals” substitute the horse carriage and the production of medicines takes place through pharmacological production. There emerged a belief in technics as a useful science with the transition to a mechanical system. It causes the objectivisation of technical practice through the implementation of machines. Inventions are restricted to technical constructions. There is no necessary connection between technical functionality and innovative use of a technical artefact. Such a connection has to be first of all established for each invention and even more for each innovation. As a rule, it is a field of potentialities, out of which routines meet select combinations. Innovations don’t fall from the sky, even when they cannot be forced. The technical logical outcome of thought, which serves as the basis for an innovation, the pragmatic implications, which connect a novelty with this routine, from which it resulted and the context of genesis of innovations can be reconstructed. Technics and techno-science approach the reality since the modern age in a similar way. The common paradigm on the status of the art of engineering

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represents the best practice of engineering and is the most reasonable practical standard, against the background of which the individual engineer has to be evaluated. It is about a relative standard here. Special attention is necessary, in order to judge the engineer against the background of the state of the art, which pre-dominated, when he went about his task. Different countries have varying formulations of the state of the art (Koen 1985, 31–35). What is the state of the art? The rule of the engineer is in each condition intended toward searching for a heuristics, which can be brought in, in order to compare the personal condition of the engineer with the state of the art or the best practice of engineering (Koen 1985, 39–42). The taxonomy of engineering heuristics contains 1) some rules of thumb and orders of magnitude 2) some factors of safety 3) some heuristics, which define the attitude of the engineer towards his mechanism 4) some heuristics, which the engineers keep to, in order to keep the risk within acceptable limits and 5) some rules of thumb, which are necessary for the maintenance of resources. The central task of the engineer is to provide answers, when they are demanded and to define his mechanism within the limits of solvable problems. The engineer is in general optimistic and convinced, that a problem can be solved, if it has already not been solved by some other way and he tries to do it with as less expensive as possible. In case, he is a member of a team, he receives honours only anonymously. What is important are risk-controlling heuristics, which amount to making small changes initially within the framework of state of the art in order to minimise risks (Koen 1985, 45–51). The art of engineering cannot be reduced to a simple trial and error procedure. In fact, the art of engineering is a goal-oriented problem-solving activity. This neutral definition of the art of engineering is no help, since it characterises only human action. The use of engineering heuristics focuses its attention on the point to be discussed (Koen 1985, 72). Technics is in the sense of paradigm of artefacts the sum of all artefacts. Technical praxis means technical activity as the ability to use technical artefacts including its manufacture (technical arts) and technical resources. Here the manufacturer of technical practice with the application of technical resources can be differentiated from the user of technical practice with the application of technical mechanisms. Technical knowledge is knowledge of technical artefacts in the context of a technical practice. Technology is the theory and knowledge of technological practice as the ability to use technics. It is the theory of technical arts in the sense of trade, architecture and mechanics. Technology No. 1 is hence the theory of practice of technical production of product cycle, of technical mechanisms (erga), of design, of construction, of production, from the idea up to the completed product. Technology No. 2 is the theory of technical use of technical mechanisms (erga), i.e. of the potentiality of the ability to use technical artefacts till the completion of corresponding goals. Technology No. 2 presupposes an evaluation of technical artefacts and technical practice in the above described three-dimensionality. Theory in the sense of technology means first of all (1) possible tradition in the sense of demonstration and description (2) drawings, mathematisation and geometrisation and written tradition in the sense of textbook of encyclopaedia and (3)

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putting on a scientific basis. The epistemology of technology rewrites meta-technology as hermeneutics of technics. In this respect the meta-technology of 1) production and use of technical artefacts as well as 2) of structures have to be differentiated. Technology as knowledge and theory of technical practice rewrites first of all a form of organisation of knowledge and one of the social institutionalisation of technology, which should guarantee its instructability and tradition. Technology in the sense of form of organisation and social institution means different kinds of realisation of architecture as technology in the sense of construction drawings, stone mason’s lodge book, sketch books etc., of mechanical text books and treatises, of treatises by engineers in the sense of renaissance, of encyclopaedias and text books in the age of baroque, of text books and instruction laboratories in the age of technical universities and modelling and E-learning including text books in the age of information revolution. Collection of examples and laboratories are also equally important like the guilds, trade masters and unions, in which, for example the engineers organise themselves. The Ecole polytechnique, the technical colleges and the technical universities correspond to the demands of theory, i.e. that of tradition. But, they became in increasing measure institutions of technical innovation. Instrumental acting is a machine-implemented, automatised processing. This means, in the course of history, more and more courses of the process of technical activities, i.e. the patterns of technical action and also the use of natural processes are implemented in machines after they were technologically comprehended in their structure, so that they have almost an automatised course of action. All these culminate in the humanoid robot, which can carry out in increasing measure several human actions, possibly also several natural processes, integrated in itself and independent of humans. The point of approach of technology is anyway the description of human capabilities, which concerns the control of sensomotor and “tacit knowledge” of humans. The phenomena of so called implicit knowledge are a common human appearance and a basic fact of human physical mind (Irrgang 2007b). Only in the context of technical practice does something specifically technical emerge out of it (Irrgang 2008a). Hypermodern technology is Research Based Technology, a research based technology or an innovation oriented technology. We have always tried to speak of technological revolutions, like Neolithic revolution, metallurgic revolution, urbanisation, mechanisation, industrialisation, scientific-technological revolution, and the technologically innovation oriented research revolutions. Even if the concept of revolution constitutes an adequate category of interpretation possibly in the area of sciences, the concept of revolution is not apt for epochal description, since it suggests removal where actually ‘joining’ contains a more correct potential for description. Technologies don’t replace each other, instead they complement each other and will be even in the context of new technological paradigms and horizons in a state to integrate conventional forms of technology. One more concept can be introduced as central for technology, namely that of technical potentiality and technical dispositive. Both rewrite the model of going about with technical resources (technical artefacts or natural processes), whereas the model of action of technical praxis, which was still leading in the paradigm of

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trade, is still restricted to the course of a process that can be implemented in machines. For the implementation of machines - and only for this - the three dimensionality of technical praxis is converted into the one dimensionality of technical courses in machines. In this respect, the three dimensionality of the one who uses technics and the one dimensionality of the robot can be discussed. The critical theory is right in cases, where the engineer, the homo faber (Irrgang 2010b) is considered as a machine and as a robot (or a technical slave). Dispositive means framework of disposal, power and authority to order, framework of possibility, background structure of practices, implicit legitimation, institutional structural orders for practices and roles in collective action. In the context of the dispositive, technical disposal, technical roles etc. refer to the concept of horizon for the interpretation of such dispositives as well as the concept of paradigm for the description of technical practices in the context of the plan of technology. The invention of rifle, particularly of canon around the end of Middle Ages with all changes in the military industry up to the epochal end of Middle Ages through the very same rifles and canons marks a basic technological paradigm in the sense developed here. The computer, which developed itself further to become PC and internet, is an essential component of a further basic paradigm, information technology, which describes the lines and paths of development right from the giant computer after the second world war up to the PC and the derivates which emerge from them. The architecture in the sense of construction of irrigation field and urbanisation is also such a fundamental technological paradigm. What are of interest to the present work here are particularly paradigms of technical development on the macro level. Paradigms are not socially constructed according to the method suggested here, instead they are the results of technical potentiality, which are reflected in the technical paths of development. Technical potentiality is not an abstract concept, instead they must be made concrete by means of technical paths of development. Technologies, which are in a state to convert technical practices into a lifeform led and underpinned by technology, are paradigmatic. But forming networks is the basic paradigm of technologies and not the division of labour carried out right from the beginning. In this respect, technology is understood here as forming the network of technical practices. It deals with the development of structures of technical practices and technical systems, particularly structures (Irrgang 2008). Technological theories of technical arts consist first of all of technical routines, which in the first place have to be written down in construction drawings text books etc. There are constructive and useful technical practices. Implicit technologies such as oral tradition, demonstration of routines and traditions have to be differentiated from explicit technologies like writing and construction drawings. The difference between technology and science lies in the fact that in science only causal knowledge is valid whereas in technology also the knowledge of use matters. To be distinguished are 1) scientifically processed technology (techno-research) 2) technology, which enables science (techno-science) 3) hybrid formation of science and technology and modern key technologies. There are no technological revolutions in the exact Kuhnian sense. There are also no paradigm changes, rather only paradigm complementarities. The analysis of the structure of technical arts must understand

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connection as a structural element of technical arts in the sense of structuring of technical arts. Technology is not identical with culture, but it directs culture. It is hence a dominant cultural factor and cultural area. Technics becomes a dominant factor of everyday culture with the industrial revolution, big technical systems and the technologisation of everyday life. It was certainly already so with the hunters and collectors during the time of settlement and urbanisation. Only the technical life-form and the societies formed out of it are organised and structured differently. Technics impacts in all other areas of culture, especially as far as intellectual techniques and other communication technologies are concerned. Technical construction is an important process between invention and innovation and thus during the evolution of anything new in technics. For this purpose those technical knowledge and technical skill should be analysed, which condition the construction in the area of tension between knowledge and art, particularly rationality and routine and creativity and intuition. Interactions, which are actually not linguistic, but which determine construction as visual phenomena till right inside the nerves, take place especially between the head of an engineer and the drawing board, particularly the computer. There are certainly not only constructive ideas, which determine the characteristic logic of the technical and the construction, but also the socio-cultural or economic ideas, particularly structural conditions, which establish the technical path of dependencies of cultural or national kind. Long term cultural imprints can impact on technical development up to national construction cultures, particularly construction styles. Central for our mode of access to the process of technical construction is the thesis of “tacit knowledge” by Michael Polanyi, on which the other explicit knowledge rests. Polanyi describes a dynamic conception of knowledge, which constructs itself in action and hence is related to the completion of action of the engineer or the technical collective. The crisis of technical “art-culture” begins with the philosophy of enlightenment and the industrial revolution. First of all, mathematics is seen as an aid programme for the praxis and it helps only when one knows also the praxis. But the art-culture is then set against scientific understanding. The old canon is dead, a new path is propagated, namely that of scientificity, which doesn’t rest on models or tradition. In view of the novelty we must substitute the path breaking knowledge of experience and look for a new legitimating strategy, a new apology for technics. The traditional proof of legitimacy was through skills, but for iron bridges and rails there were initially no proof of experience. Thus man looked for science as an instance of legitimacy, where the proof of truth of a supposedly objective technics occupied the place of art. The debate of material constraints emerges in the background of the spread of positivism also into engineering sciences. Certain forms of construction are excluded by the culture of skills. Structural frames are determined on the basis of formulaic systems of signs. Calculability takes the place of effectiveness as a criterion of evaluation. That the culture of skills is dying out through technical education and professionalization cannot be denied. Technical universities received educational patents, wherein part-time job markets were separated by these patents. For example, there predominated a culture of praxis initially in the

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US in the 19th century (the so called “shop culture”). From the middle of the 19th century there developed a “school culture”. This happens especially with the founding of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The use unifies the structural and functional element, even if it should be heterogeneous. The technical object is produced by adapting to this object. In this respect, there is a natural technical revolution. Stability is the characteristic of technical objects (Simondon 1969). Resource or resources (or technics as quintessence of resources) are the central or actual theme of philosophy. It is basically because man is essentially characterised by the fact that he doesn’t stay (anymore) in an immediate relationship to the world. He is always dependant on the resources developed by himself to theoretically develop the world and practically manage it. Such a demonstration succeeds however not in the theoretical, instead in the method of intuition. This method reacts to a failing practice, to experiences of disruption during action, to hardship and disgust, to losses and alienation, in short: to those, which intervene during the use of resources. We are directed to the process of doing and the experiences that accompany it, which nonetheless need a conceptual identification. Generally, we understand resources as those results of action or those objects or artefacts, which are suitable, particularly proven in its use to realise the goals of our action. We experience means-end-complexes, in a wholeness of the account, incorporated in the availability of the stuff, in which we come across the for-the-sake-of-which (das Worumwillen). We find ourselves located in such a state of provenness of things and the corresponding routines of uses in the world (Hubig 2002). As quintessence of a real resource-possibility, such concepts of resources can be exemplified only in their traces (success, failure, to be surprised etc.) during use. That way we learn about means and ends through action. Resources are, so understood, a continual existence. There hides behind resources like with all concepts a rule of identification, which we can make of as intention. With respect to the evaluation of resources, we find ideal-typically two completely opposed cultural diagnostic lines of argumentation with a view on the development of modern technics as the quintessence of our having the resources at our disposal. On the one side it is emphasised that in the trail of development of technics of trade through the technics of machines to the technics of system there has been an increasing separation of resources from concrete end relations. Technics develops in increasing measure universal work tools and universal machines. The opposing line of argumentation, the way it is presented by the cultural pessimistic critics of technics, emphasises that in the course of this development technical categories become dominant. Modern technics lacks the experience of resistance by the resources, which they trigger when they are not successfully applied. Similar to the universalisation of resources, the mediality of modern technics can be understood as the open structure of organising, as the unfinished machine, particularly in that problematic sense autonomous, like how Josef Weizenbaum understands it with a critical purpose, in order to describe the uncertainty of the most modern informatised technics. Certainly, such an open mediality leaves behind in smaller measure traces of its limitations. Pragmatism of media relates itself to the idea of provenness of resources (Hubig 2002).

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Technical resources adapt themselves to human production, they adapt themselves to the task, for which they were constructed. This way it can lead even to functional over-adaptation. The technical object exists in a point, where two milieus meet. It must adapt itself simultaneously to two different milieus and indeed to the geographical and the technical milieu. But the adaptation can also be not successful. Adaptation can be understood as concretisation. Here, the coherence of a technical ensemble is important. Next is the principle of individualisation important. The technical world could be decentralised after the industrial revolution allowed, on account of the possible transport of energy now, to produce in cheaply in different places. Technicity can be understood as an instrument of technical evolution. It determines the technical progress. Technics can be here mastered more than the practice, which stays behind it. There exists an internal distribution and self-regulation of the task. The individuality of technics is an imitation of the individuality of humans. Humans observe safety rules, in order to conserve the technical object and to maintain the fulfilment of goals, specifically of functions. The human individuality finds itself again and again degraded to a technical function, in order to usefully construct technical individuals. The technical object must be integrated here into a functional ensemble (Simondon 1969). Inventions were always due to the systematic efforts of the engineers concerned. This growth of knowledge is not about genial inventions or accidental discoveries, which bring about dramatic changes in the technical practice, instead about daily efforts of engineers, carrying out an enormous amount of systematic investigations and concretising their results into useful data. Fantasy, creativity, production of knowledge and methodic search for solutions are integral components of the activity of engineers, which have to be equally considered for the design of a complete epistemology of production of engineers and for the operation of technical artefacts. We can understand the principles of operations as information on the effects of natural laws, which are referred to set goals. Functions and principles of effects can be differentiated here. In the process of construction it must be clarified in the first place, which functions the artefact should fulfil and which purposes it serves. Thereafter in a further step it must be explained, by means of which physical effects the function can be fulfilled at all. Furthermore, it has to be determined, which geometrical and physical effects the artefact must show, so that the physical effect is in the desired manner. There is obviously a strong connection between function, physical effect and concrete formulation. The elementary concepts of construction play a constitutive role now for the concept of normal construction. The basic ideas of construction- principles of operation and normal configurations- turn out to be demanding, complex and somewhat non-transparent (Mildenberger 2006). Technical knowledge has since the 19th century, mostly a basis in the natural sciences, but it explains their elementary statements in a concrete fashion and that way becomes a complex level of knowledge about a richer world. In technics, the revisions in the technical construction become frequently part of the safety factor. It is about an additional charge, which should help to neutralise the error of calculation. It functions here also as a negotiator between the assumptions of theory to be realised and the incompleteness of real relations. Material errors, lack of finish

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and unforeseen strains, all these must be neutralised by the safety factor, because of which it is sometimes characterised also as non-safety factor or as factor of nonknowledge. The improved training of engineers, the spread of slide-rules and thereafter of electronic calculators have certainly made the use of table-system superfluous. What initially looks like a simple proportional knowledge, turns out to be a codified knowledge of experience, which was raised to a norm (Mildenberger 2006). The tricks of designers enable in normal cases, but also going beyond the usual tasks, to arrive at functioning functions of construction. The process of construction is always represented similarly. After the analysis of task-setting, systematic, possible principles of path are sought and finally the principle variants of solutions are evaluated. What is important is the evaluation at the end of each stage, which certainly can never be absolute. For, we can always find criteria, which let one solution appear better than the other. The ways, in which solutions are founded and established judgements are made, can only be partly explained and be made binding. For the creators of technics the phenomenological theories are often of high value. They should be accepted as independent forms of technical knowledge. These phenomenological theories have only less explanatory character or a corresponding scientific qualification. But they are indispensable for practice (Mildenberger 2006). The special competence of craftsmen is related obviously to a special monitoring of the body and a specially trained perception. Further, a part of craftsmanly skills can be substituted through correspondingly designed tools. A good craftsman is not totally absorbed in his skills. He is characterised by his ability to react flexibly to contingent situations. Tacit knowledge becomes always trained and highly developed judgement skill. The trio of skills, experience and judgement skill define the core of tacit-knowledge-modelling. Experience and technical knowledge are thus thought in tacit-knowledge as referring to each other. The concept of experience introduced earlier can informally explain the use of theories as background knowledge (Mildenberger 2006, Irrgang 2007b). The beginning of modern technics was to a large extent the time of great practical men, who depended many times on long experience, craftsman-like rules and a sense for practicality and to whom theoretical treatises and academic training appeared superfluous. Problems of a general scientific theory of technical sciences cover three problem areas: technics and knowledge, technics and skills, technics and invention. A theory of technical sciences must overcome the one-sidedness-reduction on the one hand to material systems and on the other to natural sciences. Methods in the core system are regular principles and instructions for those who work on scientific problems in order to carry out intellectual operations (and practical) for the purpose of knowledge or design. This is essentially possible in three different ways: 1) A concrete scientific problem was solved methodically tentatively, more or less intuitively. The methodical process was afterwards reproduced, particularly reconstructed. The successful methods in the concrete cases are generalised. 2) The proven methods in certain subject areas are examined, compared, abstracted, generalised and classified. We attain typically general valid systems of methods for a subject area. The application of these systems of methods demands

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certainly because of their high grade of abstraction, concretisation into the object of investigation in two directions. It has to be differentiated, which method, more particularly which methods are to be applied, and the methodical process has to be concretised and detailed corresponding to the object of investigation. 3) The general methodical principles can be derived from a theory, which understands the general laws and principles of human designing. If the specific characteristics of an object of a scientific area are included simultaneously, we attain methodical principles, which are typical for this scientific area. They regulate rather the methodical process and fulfil the function of metatheories (Banse et al. 2006, 15–20). The technical sciences belong to that group of sciences, whose declared goals consists of anticipating plans, directives, instructions of action, rules as well as designs for something new, which in turn steers the human action to be carried out there and leads to a more effective mastery of life-worldly “conditions”. The characterisation of technical sciences as synonymous with engineering sciences is used in the following. The 17th and 18th centuries were a time of the beginning of theoretical and empirical research of nature. The systematic experiment became more and more the central means of acquiring knowledge. The high status, which mathematics was accorded in the scholarly circle was related also to the fact that we could separate ourselves by means of mathematics from craftsmanly technics (Banse et al. 2006, 21–26). The German technical sciences of 19th century can be conceptually and cognitively divided into three phases: 1) A phase of systematisation of technical practice lasting till 1860. 2) A phase of theoretisation lasting till 1890. 3) A following phase of renewed praxis connection on a higher level, in the course of which the technical sciences became independent. Around 1890 there evolved a contra movement of technical scientists, who called themselves practical, against what appeared to be a tendency of over-theoretisation. In the natural scientific disciplines like Electrotechnics there were small laboratories, which aided exercises of the students and had less in common with industrial technics. Other arrangements were determined for the examination of material and investigation of firmness and stress of the most important construction and factory materials. What were lacking were laboratories, in which experiments on machines to be used in industrial practice were allowed to be carried out. Such laboratories of machines experimental field evolved according to the American model around the turn of the century. Initially they aided especially teaching and later more and more also research. The methodical independence of technical sciences doesn’t mean that their later development was smooth. Technical sciences followed the model of construction throughout the entire 19th century and also beyond that. After the turn of the century the model of production joined the model of construction (Banse et al. 2006, 29–35). Technical sciences build a group of disciplines, which consists of numerous individual or sub disciplines. A great inhomogenity and heterogeneity become visible here right from the beginning. The greatest part of expansion of technical scientific group of disciplines happens in this way of putting technical practice on a

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scientific basis. The function oriented technical sciences lie to a certain extent opposite to the production oriented ones. The broad concept of technics is related to the basic conditions of skillfulness and means any skillful rule-based procedure in any human field of action. Such definitions of concepts have certainly no clear borders and hence there are certain difficulties of separation between artefacts and material systems on the one side and art works and systematically altered plants and animals on the other (Banse et al. 2006). The concept of technical action is accorded prominent significance in the theory of technical sciences. Technical rules show a specific ambivalence. On the one hand they express knowledge through what is technically possible. The reproducibility of technical rules is the pre-condition of teaching and learning skill in view of technical action. The explanation of the implicit, since only then it becomes teachable and specifically improvable, is an essential element of creativity in engineering sciences. Legal, economical and ecological structural conditions and traditions of good technical scientific practice are part of the social structural conditions of technical construction. Finally, engineers can judge at most the immediate outcomes of technics entrusted in them, something like emissions or the probabilities of prognosis of technical complexes (Banse et al. 2006, 64–69). Technical knowledge involves an intentional moment: the manufactured artefact has an end like the act of manufacturing. As something immediately available, it shows the characteristic of being a mean for an end. The point of departure is the implicit knowledge of technical-craftsmanly kind. It is common to all kinds of inventions that they basically bring into line an idea of function and the knowledge of a technical potential. Structural inventions have to be differentiated from functional inventions. They must be based on a real ideal of use and must express their usability. The technical constructional action can be structured, but technical problem solving remains a risky action. The euphoria of setting a scientific basis in technical sciences has made the idea of calculability the main focus. The unfolding of general expectation of rationalisation developed itself in technical course over the course of the century. The vague preliminary stage of generation of ideas was ignored as a rule. The mutual relatedness of intuitive or works that are unclarified at least in their epistemic status on the one side and the classical rationality of control based on the abstractable representation of essence on the other are represented as duality of a “level of action” and a “level of results” (Banse et al. 2006, 133–137). The need of technical sciences for constructive, operable, image-analogous and system oriented mathematical means was satisfied through mathematics only hesitantly (Banse et al. 2006, 201). Technical rules are statements on proven means-end relations. Technics is hence a search for regularities and is based on a pragmatic conclusion regarding the best strategy of explanation, where the actual criterion is the provenness in practice. The reliability of technical functions should be established as a result in theory as well as in practice. A technological, particularly technical scientific theory consists of technical rules related to each other and implies the question about the coherence of this body of rules. To be differentiated are 1) a structural theory of theoretical artefact (know that) 2) an operative theory of its use (know how). Both dimensions

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are important for a technical science. The relation of technical knowledge to technical scientific knowledge consists in the theory of object in its relation to metatheory. The metatheory must here bring especially the dimension of methodological question and the social dimension into relation with each other. It deals here with the understanding of technical artefacts as well as its use, where the latter dimension is of special interest, since this dimension was ignored till now in technical sciences. It deals hence with both dimensions: 1) truth values of technical knowledge and technical science 2) use value of technical artefacts. Invention, accumulation, exchange and adaptation are the driving factors of technical-cultural development. The borrowing of foreign technical practices is still much more a source of inventions. It is a process, in which several inventions from different sources are united to form a common cultural basis. As a result of the exchange cultural development takes place with greater pace. In some cases the relations are narrow, in some other cases there are distant points of contact. The system of all these mutual relations forms the organisation of culture. Inventions in a cultural field can hence take place in three ways: as an original invention, through borrowing from another cultural circle and through adaptation to inventions in the neighbouring cultural field. These adaptations do not take place immediately, instead with a certain lag, so that we can talk of a shift of cultural phases. The interconnection of cultural fields shows a variety of gradations. Adaptation in this sense can be a very difficult process, which can demand building of completely new social institutions. The process of adaptation can be too difficult and can lead to complete disorganisation. Among humans adaptation to the environment means more than survival or death of a certain number of individual beings. Adaptation means exactly the levelling of social institutions and customs. These derived or indirect adaptations to the technical elements in our environment are usually not recognised. The technical environment is unlike the natural environment a quickly moving giant mass. It is therefore not astounding that our society with its several institutions and organisations finds itself staring at an almost unsolvable task in its adaptation to a whirling technical environment (Ogburn 1969). There are a series of reasons, why there exists a great gap between technical developments and the social changes caused by them. The contact between social institutions of technics doesn’t take place directly, instead it is mediated by numerous interlinks varying according to the context. A well spread development plan would be so that the technical development would have its effects initially on the economic organisation, which would further cause change of a social institution like family or government. Changes of government institution have a further effect on the third link in the multilinked sequences of technics, industry, government and social philosophy. The economic interpretation of history is in reality a technical interpretation of history. Governments change only at a very slow pace. The resistance of a social structure against any change is a wide spread phenomenon, which can be described as cultural inertia. The longer the delay, the higher will be the costs in the end results, even more detectable will be the shortages and even greater the misadaptations.

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Innovation means improvement of the old and development of the new abilities of humans and their social organisation. Technological innovation means growth in the power of human technology to establish new and improved products and services. The effects of technological innovation on man and his surrounding were good and useful as well as destructive. His growing abilities to establish energy technologies and to create transports freed man from the limited powers of animal muscles. But the same technologies have just as much polluted his air, his water and his soil. Man’s use of technological innovation in order to manage his physical environment has led to a fast changing world and a growing complex of social and physical properties. Innovation is a process linked in itself, in which many, creative actions, from research on services, linked in an interrelated manner help the realisation of a common goal. The process of innovation is not only a technical development, instead it must be a well understood social undertaking. Technological innovation is a process of perception or production of relevant knowledge and its transformation into new and proven products and services, for which man is ready to pay. The process of innovation has to be differentiated from the organisation of this process. It requires mass units of effectivity to be able to evaluate innovations (Morton, 1971). An important source for the change of technical knowledge is the failure of technical action or technical practice, like accidents, for example, bridge collapses. Here, there are entirely different kinds of technological and technical problems. A second source of technical problems is the functional failure of introduced technologies. Technics are introduced more because they function successfully than because they are required. A third way is the extrapolation of the past technical success. There evolves a problem here of cumulative growing improvements. A fourth factor is the inequilibrium between the related technologies in a given period, which is often seen as a technological problem. Fifthly, some problems are seen rather more possibly problematic than other real risk potentials of a technology (Laudan 1984). The artefact-character of all technical products is exposed to a strict judgment through a means-end-rationality. The suitability of certain means for certain ends is always judgeable through success and failure, i.e. through achievement and non-achievement of certain end through certain means. The success of technical action must not be attributed to factual consent of any group of persons, rather it must anytime transculturally demonstrate anew its practical provenness. Criteria are the success of technical actions and the functioning of technical instruments and apparatuses. The transition from the theoretical to practical provenness and from technical practice to theory must be explained here, which has remained strange to a philosophical tradition oblivious of technics (Janich 1998). Safe technics is a technology in its corresponding context (technics and waiting). Adapted technology is a social and cultural status, which is not inherent to technics. Technics must be hence designed on a certain ideal of safety, of the user or of environment friendliness. They are each time culturally shaped in contrast to technical functionality, which is frequently constituted by natural laws and is hence seen as objective and value neutral. But operation is a cultural criterion of evaluation; operability as an idea of designers of the users of their products is a cultural

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pattern of evaluation, often moulded by prejudices (for example, about the user) or one’s own ideas of safety and environment friendliness. These unadmitted prejudices have to be admitted, reflected upon and thematised. Epochal differences of standards exist between technical and industrial paradigm. But there can also be lesser differences between technical systems and structures themselves, like especially, the way their embeddedness appears. The differences of embeddedness are not in a rare fashion centrally related to questions of training. Differences of standards can thus concern the technical-industrial level and also the cultural, social and institutional levels. The biggest problem is the comparability and their paradigms, particularly parameters of different technics related cultural standards, since they remain in the foreground in the context of questions of evaluation of technology transfer (Irrgang 2006). It is here about the formulation of technological front and technological head. This is the object of innovation policy and it tries to strengthen existing technological trends. The technological progress becomes as a result an outcome of an asymmetrical process. The limits and weakness of the theory of market powers and their influence on technological development become obvious (Dosi 1984). The structural conditions for technical change and industrial transformation thus demand costs and market structures. We have here fundamental features for industrial dynamics. Technological opportunities, cumulative growth and the existing applicability respectively are structural conditions and important features for innovations in the sense of technological prejudices. The theories of technological gaps produce asymmetries between different firms, which are caused by different skills in manufacturing and commercialisation of innovations. The gap between the initial absolutely innovative introduction of a new product and its first imitation defines this technological gap. It is determined through rate of diffusion. One factor here is the elasticity of market demand. The leading land in a specific technology is also important here. The life cycle of a technical product is very short and the rate of technological change is very high. This accelerates asymmetries between firms. There are also international technological symmetries. The role of technological leaders is determined by a series of structural conditions. There are some products, which only the technological leader can produce. In this case, the differences in individual countries are irrelevant. This leads to an international specialisation and division of labour. Creative imitation can often be recommended for countries with a different technological level. Country specific knowledge and skills, level of training, regional specificities and wage rise, all these describe market specificities, which play a central role in achieving, particularly enforcing innovations. All these produce structural conditions, under which firms function (Dosi 1984). The state of technics covers technical traditions, the state of implicit knowledge, use-knowledge, documented or non-documented, and technical competences. It refers to a phase, a section of technical development, at least a part of epochal paradigms of technical competence and characterises a form of technical practice. Technical level characterises through this a knowledge of reflection and the cultural level is defined by a historical condition as a construct of interpretation. It has to be seen each time as a determination of a site within culture and signifies

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a certain state of innovation, a level of innovation, which has managed and processed a community or society. Overall seen, the concepts like “state of technics”, “technical standard” or “cultural level” are constructs of interpretation. They assume a relatively static situation in a sea of innovations. Such a situation is hence hardly in its entirety transferable, instead at most some of its parts. Innovations differentiate the respective level of technics. They enable as a result technology transfer on the one side and on the other, they make this thing difficult. Technics prepares things, processes and events for the fact that they function to some extent reliably and regularly (i.e. repeatable and with safety) and possibly don’t contain any surprises (risks, side effects) and can be built again and again. The traditional routinized technical construction is a question of technical practice. This technical practice is initially codified and becomes point of departure for mathematisation of technics and putting it on a scientific basis. There were only a small number of inventions till the modern age. Setting a scientific basis and codification happened initially for the purposes of theory and academisation, where cognitivemethodological and social-institutional aspects play a role. A special problem of modern technical construction practice forms itself in the question: how do we put innovative design on a scientific basis? And what must be taken into consideration here? A double location of technical constructive practice like that of technical design sciences has to be assumed here: 1) the functional ability of artefacts, concerning their design, 2) the culturally embedded skill of engineers for the construction of technical artefacts. Another point of view in connection with this question is the unexplainable effectivity of mathematics, the mystery of usefulness of mathematics. In the 17th century mathematisation of real technics, which was originally based on empirical knowledge, sets in. The instrumental empirical knowledge implies however a methodologically relativised empirical concept. It is about the relation between phenomenal and instrumental experience. For mathematics as well as any other technics it is required that they should treat the object and should not substitute. Adequateness and safety are the determining criteria here. The knowledge of over-determinedness of empirical phenomena through mathematical designs- there are at the time several numerical worlds, has primarily led to the fact that they are placed against the criteria of simplicity and aesthetics, which are actually not of mathematical nature and to this extent are subject to arbitrary decision. During the development of philosophical evaluation of practice it can be indicated that successful practice can be based only on the truth of the theoretical assumptions which served as its ground. The idea that a false statement can still lead to the desired result of an action must therefore basically appear erroneous. In other words, usability assumes basically correctness (Gallee 2003). Development and design of technics belong together. Design of technics causes (sometimes) small changes in the path of development, which are but not radical from the existing technical and social guidelines. What is important is the question of subjects of change like intellectuals, interest groups, firms, organisations, engineers etc. Development of technics emerges through the co-operation of many technically active people, so that it looks in entirety in a general model like a process of

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self-organisation. There are models like this, which are attributed by a semi-subject behind the backs of concretely acting people to technics and its development. We can here speculate still more and bring in theory. In the end, development of technology cannot be anticipated, instead it can only be tried out. This is associated with certain risks, not all too big in several areas, if we carry out professionally the experienced job of an engineer. If the difference between poiesis and praxis makes any sense at all, then poiesis is routinized technical practice. Why this should be inferior, cannot be understood. It helps much more the realisation of certain safety standards. Furthermore, it enables the development of trust in technics (Irrgang 2002a, Irrgang 2006). The first history of technology was written by Polydorus Virgil in 1499. His writing was the result of many literary debates on antiquity and modernity. This debate, which was carried out between traditionalists and modernists in the beginning of new age resulted in the fact that the moderners cast their first sight on technology and invention. The debate between traditionalists and modernists led to the discovery of progressive cumulative nature of technology. This is a turning point in the description of process and the discovery of the idea of progress. The cumulative nature of technology leads to demands of Francis Bacon and others for a reform of science, so that it assumes a cumulative character. This way the idea of a cumulative progress was formulated already in the early history of technology, although the discipline of history didn’t make any progress almost in the same measure (Layton 1981). Technology is seen by most of the philosophers of technics as action. But it is rightly seen, a knowledge. It deals with a knowledge, which concerns human actions, which can be best described as technics. The connection between technology and knowledge has a long history. It is based on competences, abilities and the qualification to be able to apply knowledge effectively. The scientist is a hybrid in a certain manner, which brings together the craftsman and his empiricism with the systematic thinking ability of the scientist. The scientific revolution took place, when the social barriers of both the components of the scientific method broke down and the methods of superiority of craftsman were taken over by the academically trained scientist. That was the time, in which real science was born. Technological ideas must be translated into instructions of design (Layton 1974). The delegation of binding of means and ends to technical systems can be completed only in a double manner. Centred on the means, it is delegated to apparatuses, which increase the efficiency, which beyond that try to be relieved by the use of resources or support its use (assistance systems) and moreover ensure the use of resources and guarantee its success through the awareness of monitoring functions. Centred on the mediality of technics, a delegation can take place, where the systems as it were higher level apparatuses shape the room of action in a certain manner. When systems of this kind are so designed, that already the mediality regulates the application (typical example is ubiquitous computing, which aims at making the milieu of our action intelligent), then not only technics, but also the mediality of the technical becomes evident in a way, which doesn’t allow to perceive positively or

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negatively and design beyond the competing worldly references. Since the experience of difference between planned and realised goals is lost to the extent than the conceivability of means and ends intended in systems, the corrective mechanism is transferred into the system. The chance of a self-assurance of the reason of action is lost. The life world is itself virtualised, since its perceivability of authentic origins of its design is given up for the sake of functionality of its effects. Our theoretical and practical worldly references are in all virtualised in the border case. The anticipatability of a use of technics in the trial of a planned action as well as through developers and users disappears, since the regulative performances of adoptive systems don’t demand any more that the action must take place routinized, under the plan carried by common sense and under images or stereotypes (Hubig 2006). A new pragmatism appears necessary. Since we are used to see technics as a house as hard as steel or as installation, we have overlooked the structural relation of human actions and exactly the resource-likeness of also the hyper modern or transclassical technics. For, not a single automatic machine (not even a humanoid robot) runs by itself, but only in the context of human technical practice (energy provision, maintenance, waiting and repair). In this respect, I agree with Hubig with respect to the meaningfulness of resource-likeness of technical artefacts and processes, but remind to be careful with the concept of virtualisation. Even if we don’t understand technics in its entirety, we must learn to go about it. Technical structures remain real and retain its power, even if we don’t understand it. But the incomprehensibility of certain technics has not prevented also in the past the technological use of technical resources and becomes a problem only if we confuse technology with science. Peter-Paul Verbeek emphasises stronger than I do the peculiar character of technical resources and technical products. His work “What things do” would like to point to the often ignored materiality of technics in philosophies and theories of technics. He talks in a transferred sense about the action of technical artefacts alone. We have erased the materiality of technical things from our consciousness with regard to use as well as of design. The result is the loss of authenticity and alienation from what technical things really are. As a result, the actual value of artefacts is ignored. Artefacts represent according to the current conception a radically transforming power, which alienates humans from themselves. What is emphasised are the non-technical elements like the social organisation and the will to power. It is overlooked here that technologies have different consequences in different contexts. The traditional transcendental approach of interpretation of technics attempts to interpret technology from the point of view of its conditions and possibilities. In contrast to the transcendalism of classical philosophy of technics, Verbeek tries to develop an approach to technological culture, which develops the concrete role of technical artefacts in human existence (Verbeek 2005). The concept of preparedness to be used defines the role of artefacts in technical action, particularly a specific technical intentionality. Technical artefacts have separate and peculiar properties. Technics can be understood only through the manner, in which it is there and is used. Technics functions always only in concrete practical contexts and cannot be adequately analysed outside these contexts. The insight that

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technics cannot be separated and differentiated from its use doesn’t imply that it doesn’t have any essence and that it is so the way it is only in its use. For many technics a kind of multistability results from it (Verbeek 2005). The dematerialisation of technics makes blind about its power aspect (the intelligent house, internet, computer, mobile phone, lifestyle-technics, anesthetisation of technics, for example in automobile and loss of reality) and leads to fading out of brutal aspects of technology. Technics as an event is the result of technical practice. The technical power is not a product of humans, instead it is possessed by technics and also it transforms itself in the course of history. According to Heidegger, technics or technical things are outside our controlling power. Philosophy of technics becomes more and more a kind of fundamental philosophy, which overcomes, particularly engages behind the approach of theoretical and practical philosophy. The technical thing is initially a real thing, a human made thing, not with its own thing-like sense, instead with a human made sense. Architecture and engineering industry are connected to economy and trade right from the beginning. In particular, economic and military points of view lead to the bringing together of technical paths of development to a technical alliance, particularly a technical infrastructure. But other cultural technologies also have this capability. We can see this in the problems of construction of irrigation fields, related to giant architecture of urban kind and drainage regime, where a leadership elite in the sense of a priestly caste takes over the big organisation. Trade is related to the development of writing and mathematics. Mining and metal casting are pre-conditions for the education of the rich and development of financial industry. Technical alliances constitute a technical standard and are a prerequisite also for the world historical processes like the journeys of discoveries and the beginning of colonialism. The concept of technology, which serves as the basis here is a systematic concept and not identical with the concept of technology, which has become historical. The historical concept of technology has strong affinities 1) to institutions of apprenticeship, school system and system of technical education, 2) to economy, theory of labour and a conception of production, 3) to technical competence, technical capabilities and skills, like they are summarised in particular in the art-concept of technology. This broad concept of technology is more adequate for an understanding of technics than bringing into contact only the technician with the mechanic or the engineer. The technological interpretation expands the art of engineering and emphasises the artistic character of technical practice. The narrow concept of technics originates from the tradition of architecture and mechanics and is considered in increasing measure as the art of designing. The science of manufacturing or the system of trades becomes technology as the science of process with Johann Jakob Beckmann at the end of the 18th century. We have this way a change from object orientation to process orientation, which is related to the concept of technology. The technical practice becomes more complex and more abstract. The labour processes are parallely connected (by means of camshaft) in combination with driving machines (initially water and wind mills). There occurs with the industrial revolu-

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tion an expansion, particularly a change in the concept of technology, which is interesting. Spinning is a technology and so is weaving. Industrial revolution draws together the knowledge of both technologies and implements its courses of process in machines. The same applies for writing of texts and its documentation (only circumstances are otherwise either clay tablets or PC). Technology describes the currently operant structure of technical practice, irrespective of whether it is carried out by man, individual artefacts or both together. This operant structure is characteristic for the potential, particularly the dispositive of technics. Actions without the acting subject become events. This happens, when actions are reproduced in machines and run processual-schematic without any human help. When this happens the character of a socio-technical structure with the human-technics interaction remains intact. If we isolate the examination of machines without any consideration of associative structure, we reduce the structure of technical practice to a dimension of the instrumental under negligence of the useand traditional dimension of technical practice. The “one dimensional man” is a machine, from the automatic weaving chair to a robot. We should learn to understand and define in a new manner the responsibility of technics in use- competences. The attribution of responsibility is a matter of human-machine interaction and not of isolated machine. In the industrial revolution the use-competences of humans, which were applicable in the pre-industrial times for spinning wheels and looms, get transferred to complex weaving machines which are also driven by other machines. The associative structure of technical practice remains preserved in principle, but the object changes. Instead of an associative structure with tools a useknowledge of machines is now necessary (Irrgang 2008a). Technology appears in three forms: 1) as knowledge of the capability to produce, design and manufacture the technical artefacts 2) as knowledge about the structure, function and efficiency of technical artefacts and indeed in the form of technical resources and technical mechanisms 3) as knowledge of the capability to use, handle and apply technical artefacts. Technology as knowledge appears in the form of implicit knowledge and capability (to be able to demonstrate and show as well as describe and name) and different forms of being able to make explicit (modelling, drawing, mathematisation, forming rules). The basic typology of technology of technical resources covers the technology of application of tools, technology of nature processing, technology of natural processes, technology of observation of nature and technology of technical construction. It is about technology as knowledge of use-models of technical resources of the most different kind. Combinations are possible here. The use of technical resources in the sense of product cycle covers the technology of 1) design, production 2) use, consumption and 3) disposal, particularly reuse. The third aspect of the first dimension of technology consists of the use and spread of innovation and thus the use of innovation, the use of diffusion of technologies and the use of technology-transfer. The third dimension of aspects of technology-technological progress connects the statements on structural levels of technology with interpretations on the historical level, particularly belonging to a historical epoch and the level of technics.

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Technology as description of the ability to use and grasp the plan of technical action, particularly the pattern of practice, takes place on three levels. Structural levels of technology cover 1) the ability to use technical resources, 2) implementation of technical pattern of action as the pattern of use of technical resources in machines and a new ability to use machines instead of work tools and 3) the relation of machines and the ability to use technical structures. The transition from the 1st to the 3rd level hasn’t made use-knowledge superfluous despite the scientific basis, instead man had to learn to develop, beside the technology of the use of work tools and the technology of use of machines, on a third level the technology of use of network structures. Technology becomes always more abstract in all these points, but no way less real because of that, instead more powerful and unmanageable in a decisive measure in terms of outcomes. The necessary technological competences become more comprehensive and more abstract, so that setting a scientific basis can help the development of use-competences. But the development of use competences on all three levels is values of experience, in which scientific calculations can be of supportive aid, but they cannot substitute basis of experience in use. Parallely, the three levels of use of nature can be differentiated in a systematic respect: 1) use of the visible, 2) use of the molecular, 3) use of the elementary. An epochal classification of the historical level follows from these systematic classifications, particularly the belongingness to a historical epoch and the level of technics in the sense of 1) pre-modern technology, 2) modern technology and 3) hyper-modern technology (Irrgang 2008a). Through cultural technologies there emerges the socialisation of technological knowledge in the sense of application of technological knowledge in technical praxis and the production, particularly setting up of technical mechanisms (erga). Cultural technologies in the sense of technical life forms and collective forms of technical practice, differentiation of society (layers and classes): pre-modern technology aids predominantly the satisfaction of needs and includes technics for acquiring and producing food stuff, technics of inhabitance and settlement (trade), technics of orienting and helping, technoscience, intellectual technics, artistic technics and technics in the service of religion, mining and trade as well as military technology. Modern technology is characterised by the independence of technics, energy technologies and stability, scientifically based technologies, automatisation and networking and by big technical systems and technologisation of daily life. Hyper modern technology can be described through technoresearch, technological networking and technological structures in the area of information technologies, energy technologies as well as biotechnologies and nano technologies. A fifth dimension of technology concerns the social differentiation through technologies, which manifests itself in division of labour, particularly in professional technologies. We have also here a twofold basic pattern (systematic as well as of epochal kind) namely 1) Handicraft, 2) machine operator or engineer and 3) VDU worker. Handicraft covers hunters, farmers, shepherds, craftsmen, architects, construction workers, drivers, sea men as well as soldiers, warfare labourers and miners. In addition to that there are priests and officers as administrative specialists.

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Machine work is carried out by the engineer, the industrial worker (engaged in production), the scientist is engaged in innovation research, the security personal and the personal work for infrastructures. On top of it there are technological service professions, communication management and mobility management. VDU work consists of automatised production, work places in service areas, internet work places and of similar kinds. Putting technics on a scientific basis should increase safety against accidents and bring about lesser use of resources. Physics, especially chemistry of technical artefacts could be here possibly improved, when all parameters were known in adequate measure, which often enough was not the case, since the most complex processes in a steam machine or in a petrol engine were known only decades after we had the corresponding technics in the most successful manner. But safe technics alone doesn’t guarantee safe technical practice, even if safe technics increases the probability of the safety of technical practice. Pre-modern technics is considered as unsystematic and plainly empirical. This is a prejudice and doesn’t do justice to technical designing based on implicit knowledge. The achievements of the Greeks and their colonies lay in the construction of war machines and other machinery. Technical practice of design depends on paths of development, where two dimensions have to be differentiated. One is a systematic functional dimension immanent to technics, in the development of instruments, work tools and machines, which build on each other. Here, the construction industry, military and mining were dependent on an infrastructure, which was suitable to a special extent to set free the paths of development. In the second dimension there were paths of development also in the social institutions, in which technical praxis was organised between slaves, free guilds and miners etc. On ground of the uncertainty of life-world with respect to technics and since technics itself is a part of the life-world, life-world can offer no operationalizable measure for the evaluation of technics. Apart from that, there is not just one technics, rather different basic paradigms for technology. Diverse kinds of technologies (at least the technology of Handicraft, machine technology and techno-research) can be differentiated, each of which requires a different evaluation, through the conception of embedding of technics through use patterns of the life world. The idea of measure for technics thinks technology and its embedding dualistically. With the turn to technology we should set a threefold pattern of evaluation of technical rationality as a basis, namely that of functional, useful and moral patterns. There is hence a technical- functional, a life worldly-cultural and a moral dimension for the success of technical actions and that of the technically made. This dimension is for technical practicality and technical functionality. It determines the success during the realisation of technical resources. The life-worldly embedding of technics is a further criterion, especially for everyday technics, which cannot be certainly easily determined like the technical practicality. Hence we employ often enough the pseudo criterion of factual acceptance. After all, it is about the realisation of moral goals, luck, justice, durability etc. Manufacture, use and disposal of technical artefacts as different forms of technical practice develop out of itself also concepts of rationality, which enable its evaluation (Irrgang 2008a).

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Evaluation processes are the results of self-organising processes of interpretation and argumentation (Irrgang 2007a). Important evaluative perspectives are daily relevance, friendliness, particularly easy usability, which ultimately also lead to acceptance. Adequacy in its second, life-worldly cultural dimension cannot be easily mathematised and easily described. There are certainly also functional-instrumental conditions of meaning for technical action, which have to be fulfilled, so that technical action becomes successful. The mathematisation of technical design led to a reduction to the technical functional. The adequacy of technical forms for the human body and its needs were originally the points of departure of development of technics in the cultural development of the history of mankind. This makes plausible the criterion of cultural embedding, where its evaluation depends on individual areas, in which technics has to be employed each time. With the setting up of scientific basis of technics, the technical is separated from the body-apriori of technics as a measure for the embedding of technics, although it ultimately remains intact. Adequacy is the expression for fitting technical forms (artefacts) in a technical, anthropological, cultural and social context.

3. TECHNOSCIENCE, LABORATORY SCIENCES, TECHNORESEARCH – GENESIS OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY The concept of technoscience has been developed in the last decades of the 20th century, in order to be able to epistemologically understand the technically embedded experimental natural sciences. Don Ihde developed a concept of technoscience, which emphasises the technical dimension of natural knowledge and natural science as well as its cultural embedding at least since the early middle ages. Carl Mitcham represents a concept of science-technology-systems (STS) and its interdisciplinary exploration. But the approaches of technoscience conception till now are narrowly positioned: they should invoke more strongly the historical dimension and consider more strongly some phenomena, for example, medicine with its connections to science and technics. In addition, the cultural embedding of technoscience is of special interest philosophically. A culturalistic concept of technoscience includes its selfdescription as well as heteronomy, its epistemic justification, its practical-instrumental justification (implementability) as well as its social-institutional validity according to social and cultural models. For Don Ihde technoscience is a cultural product and technoculture another word for technology. Modern science is essentially embedded in its use of instruments, i.e. in its technologies (Ihde 1993b, 56f). Today, the cultures remain under the central theme of the written, where a re-thinking on perception should take place. Technological processes are laid down. Human cultures are not pre-technological. An entirely different kind of embedding of technologies in cultures and in life-worldly practices has to be considered (Ihde 1993b, 49). Technology changes the environment, but it is also culturally embedded. In this respect, technology is older than science and philosophy. Technologies which change the perception have to be considered. Progress is in all underpinned by a scientific culture. The risk analysis allows to differentiate between positive and negative progress. The intercultural exchange of technology has often produced technological innovation and development (Ihde 1993a, 65). Don Ihde calls the existential technics the focus with respect to technics, which lays value upon our experimental boundedness and experience with our own creation, namely technology. In his earlier collection of essays Don Ihde would like to carry out in the sense of a return of philosophical reflection upon a critic of experience with technics from a clearly American perspective and make more precise therein by means of phenomenology the experience we have with technics. If Heidegger is right and Don Ihde agrees with him that humans are essentially self-interpreters, we find ourselves in a new situation of interpretation with respect to technics and technology (Ihde 1983, 1–3). Philosophers of platonic or idealistic kind tend to see technology as the result and consequence of ideas and consider technology in its present form as applied

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science. Don Ihde suggests in contrast to carry out a philosophically informed analysis of technology and human self-interpretation (Ihde 1983, 9f). Don Ihde believes that the current projection of an ideal world in future, namely the spaceship, in which humans live and move about, finds its expression in the present existential practice. In a precise sense the metaphor of spaceship is the consequence of a technological environment that was becoming independent and continuous for humans and which expressed itself not only in construction works and technical resources, but also in mini environment of such things like automobile, traffic systems in technological suburbs completed with television, water toilets, gas cookers etc. The house has become a technological cocoon which normally excludes something that is called nature. In the metaphor of space ship the nature disappears as a reference point for technics (Ihde 1983, 21f). With regard to the genesis of technoscience, Don Ihde advocates the thesis that there is a very specific sense, in which technology has to be seen ontologically as well as historically preceding science. Even in the Greek science and in the real praxis technologies are used for measuring. The lack of a suitable technology certainly determines the limits of an original and primarily contemplative science. The normal view on the relationship between science and technics with regard to technoscience is accompanied by an interpretation of the history of modern science and technology which can be characterised as follows: after a long dark period in the European history there was a revival of the Greek scientific spirit that was accompanied by a new beginning which we call Renaissance. Europeans became once more interested in the questions concerning nature, speculated on nature and developed methods for the understanding of nature which we call modern science. This movement was historically carried out by men like Galileo, Keppler, Coppernicus and it was possibly compeletely systematised by Newton (Ihde 1983, 25–27). Martin Heidegger argues in his essay on technology for the ontological and not for the historical priority of technology over science. On a certain ontological level technology is – more precisely the essence of technology – a certain kind of experience, in which humans connect their relation and organisation of life to the natural world. For Heidegger, technology is ontologically prior to science and historically it appears later (Ihde 1983, 29f). One begins to understand with Heidegger, how science in this perspective is seen as a necessary work tool for technics, particularly technology. Science becomes a means of knowledge, which provides power and knowledge becomes a Baconian kind (Ihde 1983, 33). Don Ihde explains the difference between European and non-European technics by means of ship journey. Polynesian navigation took place without instruments. It functioned without fixed points like the polar star which cannot be seen in the southern atmosphere. The Polynesians had also no technologically fixed point for the compass. It was hence a very complex system of sensual perceptions which were handed down by a persistent and secret tradition through the school of steersmen. Don Ihde cannot present the complete details and properties of this system of perception. But he would like to mention at least some of the basic points of Polynesian navigation.

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1) A key factor in this system of perception was a highly developed sense of wave patterns. Waves move over the pacific with certain regularities and the Polynesian steersmen learnt to use wave patterns for precise instruct tions of direction. 2) Patterns of cloud and light could also be observed and fixed in the trade tion. 3) Although the behaviour of birds and its pattern were not unknown to the European coastal sailors, the distance of their separation from the land and the knowledge, in which direction the land lies, was an interesting compo nent in the observation of the returning birds. And alone the knowledge, which fish lived in the vicinity of islands, enabled the Polynesian sea men to consider ocean as a familiar, known and an understandable world. 4) The knowledge of star signs was transferred from generation to generation of sea men. Since there was not a single immobile polar star, the Polyne sians developed a sophisticated, temporally characterised and dynamic model to interpret the movement of stars over the horizon which changed their direction during the course of the night. In fact, all these constants were united in an effective, dynamic and temporally changing system (Ih de 1983, 42f). It can be obviously concluded from this that two practices of sea navigation, completely different in their features imply two different kinds of understanding of the world and our understanding of the world is technologically grounded at a historical point of time which actually lasted at least a thousand years. Technologies embody and mediate experience, so that our understanding of the world also changes with our technologies (Ihde 1983, 44–46). Systems of perception are culturally moulded and embedded. In this respect, here emerges the problem of an intercultural perception (Ihde 1983, 111). The puzzle of horizon is made in Heidegger’s interpretation. The problem of horizon shows the direction of radicalisation of phenomenology through Heidegger (Ihde 1983, 121). It is the phenomena itself which teaches the lesson, what should happen, particularly what is allowed to be seen. Now there is a completely new radical understanding of phenomena developing in fundamental thinking. It is related to Heideggers talk about region (area) which is that of the visual field. This field stands for the complete status and the significance of the phenomena of horizon lies simply in finding the relevant aspects within the experience itself. In all, one can think here of an opening to the visual world (Ihde 1983, 123–126). Horizons open paths in technics like in research. While the concept of paradigm originates from the logical field, the concept of horizon comes from the visual field. Phenomenology and hermeneutics correspond as method to the two kinds of human mind which can be classified under both halves of the brain: the visual and the linguistic are the two basic aspects of human mind. I would like to support the thesis developed by Ihde about a pre-modern underlaying of science through technics and shift the genesis of technoscience (in the broadest sense) sometime in the past. It starts at least with the development of early technical civilisations and is related there especially with medicine and calendar

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(astrology). A comprehensive concept of technical-scientific dynamic of development must start with the interdependence of three technical cultures of every day technics, professional technics and technoscience as well as their partial independence and autonomy. Notwithstanding the technical elements in natural science, astrology, particularly astronomy and medicine 5000 years back, one cannot speak at this time about technoscience in the valid sense today. Still, the genesis of natural science and medicine with respect to the relation between science and technics is of considerable interest for the interpretation of technics as well as for modern natural science. Since the Renaissance the crossing between technics and natural science has been increasing. But only in the second half of the 19th century one can talk of a real setting of scientific basis of technics in the context of laboratory science and only in the second half of the 20th century one can talk of technologisation of natural science (technoscience in the specific sense of hybridisation of technics and natural science). The following have to be differentiated: 1) Magical sciences of nature: calendar, astronomy and astrology, medicine as natural healing science and surgery, breeding science, bioprocess technics (fermentation). 2) Experimental natural science, astronomy as navigational aid and cosmology, (natural scientific and technical) mechanics, natural sciences. 3) Laboratory sciences, natural sciences, pharmacy, medicine. 4) Technology-science; technologised research in the modern key technologies like space travel, energy technologies, information technologies and life sciences. This area, which has less to do with engineering sciences and was hence wrongly ignored by technical sciences as too unspecifically technical as object of investigation, has to be considered without doubt by the history, sociology and philosophy of technics and requires a metatechnological reflection from a philosophical perspective. Early forms of technoscience are natural science, astronomy and astrology in the form of calendar cycles. They are structures of order of everyday praxis and have implicit principles and postulates or also certain tables, explicit rules and explicit rules and strategies (Certeau 1984, 48–53). The farmer had to look up the calendar, observe the weather with mistrust and follow the course of stars. The agrarian techniques lead to a new culture with a new world view and a series of new forms of religion. The observation of annual rhythms and along with that also the observation of night sky becomes important for survival. In this relation the shape of mother earth has to be emphasised particularly. It doesn’t deal certainly with personification in the strict sense, instead the essential relation between man and life on earth is emphasised. Birth and death of corn and humans belong closely together. This is the beginning of Demeter cult (Leeuw 1970, 91). Nature as the source of force and power is redeeming in the religious sense (Leeuw 1970, 103). Holy life is a community life and each birth in this world is a wonder and revelation of power (Leeuw 1970, 212). Homo faber aids the weak life with its tools and there is manifestation of power here also. Participation in this world and not theoretical knowledge is the goal of

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religion. Magical conduct aims at an influence on the world and manifests itself in a mythically shaping conduct. The essential aspects of cyclical thinking emerge with the agrarian techniques. The circle of life and knowledge is a circle of power. The circle symbolises the mutual relation between all things (Madows 1992, 21). The knowledge about the pulsating life rhythms was the basis of Indian traditions. The year was seen as a big circle and this circle was divided into fields of influence on earth. The entire nature is understood as flow of energies. Everything physical and material is manifested thought in its core. The thought that everything in nature is round shaped and only humans think along linear lines is what manifests itself in the symbolism of the earth-wheel. The circle is the container symbol for the comprehensive, for everything-that- is and for the comprehensive totality of the space, where the globe is spread in six directions. The daily cyclical run from midnight to midday and the annual course from the winterly solar turn to the summerly solar turn, dawn and dusk, which correspond to same-days and same-nights (21.3 and 22.9) in autumn and spring opens up a basic space, which includes a wheel with eight spikes. Important civilisational achievements were the discovery of writing and the introduction of calendars. Although both these innovations are not directly part of technics, they have considerably expanded the areas of technical action (Hägermann/Schneider 1991, 41). All high cultures had early forms of technoscience. The Kodex Dresdensis contains, for example, a Maya calendar which was acquired in 1739 from Vienna and contains paper sheets of bark with double sided descriptions. It gradually gives way its mysteries. The relation between politics, religion, world view, calendar and astronomy was very deep in the Mayan culture. Several construction projects were oriented according to the astronomical celestial appearances. Such astronomical observation centres remained in Tikal and Uaxactum. Only four Maya codes survived the times till today. Today we can almost completely decode the peculiar hieroglyph writing of Maya. The manuscript from Dresden is the most important source on Mayan astronomy. It contains a table of Venus, cyclical calendar systems as well as table of possible solar eclipses. According to standard chronology, the Mayan period is estimated to be between 300 AD and 830 AD. The combination of astronomy and astrology allows to date exactly certain events. Apart from that, Obsidian can be determined to be an object of trade from Guatemala among Mayans and can be dated through used fire stones. The verification of standard chronology with the stamp of Venus in Copan allows a more exact dating which considers also the development of style in the Maya writing. One looks then for certain correlations. The culture of Tolteks and Mixteks emerged sometime between 925 and 950. According to the statements of calendars and excavations Mayans had contact with them. But according to the standard chronology Mayans were at this point of time as a culture already extinct. According to the new dating and chronology the decline of Mayan culture took place only in the 11th century. For, with Codex Dresdensis the first phase of the document can de determined to be between 474 and 479 and can be differentiated from its additions which were made between 1155 and 1166 (Fuls 2004).

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Once again, a basically different picture comes into being about Europe, where the first results emerge. The three thousand year old “Nebra sky disk” from Mittelberg close to today’s city of Nebra in Sachsen-Anhalt is an essential element for astronomy in Europe, which was not related to the urban civilisation in this continent. The observatory of Mittelberg is possibly the oldest in the world. The sensational find was the forged metal disk of Nebra, where a golden star and enamelled ingredients were worked into a bronze disk. This disk contains a star map, which was altered twice, when the knowledge about the sky above Mittelberg changed. One can interpret this disk as a user manual for the astronomical stone-settings like in Stonehenge. The forged metal disk contains sun, moon, stars and two stylised sun ships. The disk was altered and added to twice, for example, the subsequent addition of a sun ship can be proved. As a result, the growing astronomical knowledge was taken into account. In all, the disk proves the existence of a sun cult during this time, in which such settlements were not believed to exist in Europe. In addition, it documents also a form of intellectual technics outside urban civilisations, which one believed otherwise to be possible only within these (Märtin 2004b). The older traces of settlements in the vicinity of Nebra date back around 5000 years. There was a trade centre in this place, where this observatory belonged. It establishes an important proof of the enormous significance of trade for the technical path of development through technology transfer. That is how probably gold from Siebenbürgen and other metals like copper from the Alps were imported, which were necessary for bronze alloy. There were salt and copper in Mittelberg alone, where parts of copper were also introduced from somewhere else. Gold was also imported and in all there existed wide ranging trade. Bronze created new technical possibilities for equipments of daily use, like for weapons, in the centre of Europe. It revolutionised agrarian technics, for which the astronomical observations have been necessary or at least helpful, and also the mobility of military power, which used these facilities. The sky disk of Nebra contains important information on the course of the year. If the Pleiade appeared for the last time on the 9th of March, the time for sowing would begin. The observation of stars in its religious significance in Europe was exactly technically pragmatically oriented as in Mesopotamia. It was true in case of the knowledge of medicine man. There was not a single city in Europe with permanent centres like in the urban civilisations, but there existed still a technical culture of high standing, which was more decentrally organised than in other parts of the world. There developed certainly no writing and no fortified cities despite close trade relations (Märtin 2004b). Researchers always find traces of astonishing cultures in central Germany, dating back to Stone Age and Bronze Age. The circular grave structure of Goseck, which is today a reconstructed cult site and which was created around 7000 years back, contains its own acoustics similar to the one in Stonehenge. In contrast to the cult site in Great Britain, the one in central Germany has certainly 1675 oak posts which, in two concentric lines forming an opaque circle, is rammed into the surface, reflecting the sound waves. The echo sounds, as if there is an invisible master there speaking- the Lord of heaven, the Lord of time. The south-east and the south-west

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gates point at the sunset and sunrise on the 21st December, the gap in the fences in the east and the west during the sunrise and sunset on the day of summer solstice as well as during the sunset before the night of Walpurgis in the beginning of May. These days mark essentially the calendar of the inhabitants of Stone Age, since they were the important moments which determined the farming year. Even 7000 years back farming was done in Europe according to the annual cycle, in which people celebrated the key days, which set in advance the rhythm of their life. The circular burial structure in Goseck, 40km south of Halle, was a place for dialogues with higher powers. A 1 ½ m wall and a 1 ½ m deep ditch separated the two worlds, the terrestrial world outside and the extra-terrestrial inside. This way evolved this space for the sacral. The archaeologists found parts of a hand in a pit with traces of fire. Remains of a ritual amputation? Sacrifice of a finger or a hand? The answer cannot be found today (Löwer 2007). Aerial archaeologist Otto Braasch discovered Goseck in 1991 from an aircraft. After the end of the Ice Age 10000 years back, central Germany was also a scene of radical changes triggered by immigration and inspired by the discovery of new technics. Man felt the desire for property and power with domestication and the farming of plants and experienced how the society was divided into the rich and the poor. All these were pre-conditions for the evolution of trade, art and civilisation. Seen this way, in central Germany was one of the cradles of European culture. The immigrants, who changed the face of the continent forever, came from the fertile Crescent, which stretches in the shape of a sickle between China and Mesopotamia. In the 7th century BC, they started on a journey; they looked for new fields and meadows, supposedly, because the land they used till then was already used upthey still did not know about manure (Löwer 2007). In central Germany people built solar observatories and created artistic artefacts. The culture of Unetice came to an end in 1600 BC. It might appear like a legacy that the unknown masters have fixed the imaginary world of the central Europeans of that time on a small round bronze disc, the sky disc of Nebra which was found in a hoard. The knowledge documented on the sky dic of Nebra corresponds to the knowledge found in the circular burial structure in Goseck. What is documented here is the astronomical knowledge which stretches over 3000 years. The sky disc is the oldest known calendar in human history. It was founded by treasure hunters in Mittelberg in 1999 (Löwer 2007, 60–65). Even 3000 years after Goseck the sky disc of Nebra helped by means of constellation of stars to determine the deadline for farming (Löwer 2007, 68). There existed a calendar of 365 days in a year in Egypt. What is important is the mathematical clarity of the Egyptian calendar. Each coronation inaugurates a new epoch. There are three seasons, the one of flooding, that of sowing and finally that of reaping. Three (“seasons”) multiplied by four (“months”) multiplied by thirty days make 360 days, which is a normal year. The so called 5 ¼ epagomenal days (beyond the year) remain as a balance here which shifts the natural system gradually. There was also an astronomically founded calendar by observing the heliacal rise of the fixed star Sirius before the daybreak of 19the July. This marks the beginning of the water rise in the Nile. According to the decree of Ptolemy III, the

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day of the appearance of Sothis was called the beginning of the year. This star was seen as a Goddess of flood and was a strong female Goddess. The calendars have two functions: 1) measurement of time, 2) determining the cyclical events. The solar cycle, lunar cycle, stellar cycle and the cycles of planets have to be brought together here. The problems of the calendar are based 1) on incompatible astronomical cycles and 2) on the problem of fractions of day. The cycles don’t add up to full days (Bomhard 1999, 6–7). The Egyptian shifting year (“Wandeljahr”) of 365 days is short by a quarter of a day. On the other side the fixed year of Sothis is well known. How come the Egyptians always used the shifting year (“Wandeljahr”), although they knew the fixed year very well and also the disadvantages of “Wandeljahr” (Bomhard 1999, 8–10)? Sirius and the year of Sothis belong together. The early rise of Sirius is the true early rise of astronomers and the visible start of a new astronomical year. Early rises share a relation with the season. Only those stars are visible, which are located opposite to the dark, nightly side. Early rises are phenomena which happen towards the end of the night. The summerly monsoon winds in Ethiopia, which are responsible for the flooding of the Nile, correspond to the astronomical events of the year of Sothis. The year of Sothis lasts hence, 365, 25 normal days. Sirius comes closest to the length of the tropical year. All the four years have had to introduce a sixth epagomenal day to keep the “Wandelyear” current. The sources do not say anything and the Greeks say that the Egyptians didn’t know about the sixth day. The decree of Ptolemy III speaks of a sixth day ever four years, while the rise of Sothis shifts every four years by a day. It was supposedly not actually introduced, instead the civil year and the year of Sothis were used simultaneously. Both were connected to a flexible calendar which came to completion after 1400 years (4 times 365). Both the systems must have emerged around the same time (Bomhard 1999, 22–30). The principle of the flexible calendar led to a series of uncertainties and inconsistencies. The overall structure of the calendar rested in fact on the choice of the fixed star Sirius. The structure of the calendar system has clearly the Decans as the basis. The order is built around Sirius, the central and the dominant element of all Egyptian astronomical diagrams and rests on the civil mobile year as the normally used calendar year during the entire Egyptian civilisation. The theory of Egypt’s flexible calendar was hence a lasting invention with regard to the calendar (Bomhard 1999, 83–87). Medicine is the oldest branches of techno-science besides the science of calendar and astronomy, particularly astrology. Egypt was highly competent in technoscience for almost 3000 years. Egypt was leading in architecture, astronomy, mathematics and medicine. Their art of treating injuries make us suppose that the cradle of medicine was in Egypt. A great number of papyri related to medicine have been discovered. Countless medicines and herbs are known. The highly regarded art of amputation and prosthetics, not least that of mummies with prosthesis came from Egypt. Herbs and medicinal plants were buried along with the dead. There existed also doctors for labour accidents as portrayed on the stone sculptures in Egypt. Their doctors certainly didn’t have by large any anatomical knowledge because of mummification of the dead.

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The practicing of technics was carried out in the early stages by religion, especially in forms of magic and myths. Hunting and farming were occasions for countless ceremonies and sacrifices. Not least, astrology aided the validation of this technical practice, which implied safety of the basis of human life. Technoscience in this phase can be understood as the meshing together of a natural scientific practice (knowledge of stars and the nature of humans), a practice that aids human life (future and health of humans) and approaches of scientific experimental observation, out of which laboratory science grew later. The cyclical ideas of year and calendar developed in farming, which were also then needed. It was important to be able to calculate each time the timing of reaping and sowing. Ancestor-worship, spirits of the dead and ritual cannibalism were all part of farming cultures. Modern science was always technologically embedded. Today is technology closer to science and very much different from earlier forms of technology. Hightech-medicine and rural economy indicate the degree of technicisation. The global problems of technical practice of techno-cultural societies become more often more evident. An autonomous technology has led to a technlogised totalisation and has called into question the cultural embedding of technics. The question of relation between humans and technology has to be hence asked again (Ihde 1993, 113). The concept of technoscience emphasizes the role of instruments in science. The physicality of the observer and the laboratory correspond to each other. The more practical, historical and sociological the new interpretation of science as institution becomes, the further comes the physicality to the foreground. It emphasizes the praxis oriented sensual perception and the thoughts which are based on it (Ihde 2002, 100). According to Don Ihde the epistemological model of modern times follow from the model of “camera obscura”: reality is external, it is represented and as a result becomes internal. Truth is established through the correspondence between object and its representation. The problem of “internal Homunculus” or subject emerges with this model of knowing (Ihde 2000, 21). The alternative theory of science originates from pragmatism and is based on the concept of implicit knowledge. The significance of technics for natural sciences is underlined also by Peter Janich. He has developed a constructive version of the idea of technoscience without calling it so. Technics was often overlooked in natural sciences (Janich 1992, 199). The technics of construction, production and control of the correct, i.e. the measuring instrument which meets the function of its specific purpose precedes the extraction of measurement results. An experiment differs from the invention and construction of a machine only marginally (Janich 1992, 205–207). In contrast to the shifts of theoretical paradigms and crisis of fundamentals, there has never been a total collapse of technical basis of natural sciences. As a result, the weaknesses of a theory of science become more evident, which ignores the technical character of natural sciences. Natural science is not a fate imposed from outside, instead it is the result of a goal-oriented search for technical practicalities (Janich 1992, 210–213). Don Ihde has set for his book “Expanding Hermeneutics” the task of enriching the self-understanding of contemporary science as technoscience. The book on the expansion of hermeneutic is in the first place the result of a philosophical cultural shock, which was produced by the insight, that hermeneutics and science are not pit

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against each other as it was traditionally considered. The first and the most important access to the theme of hermeneutics and science is the insight that the computer represents another form of hermeneutical access (Ihde 1998, 3-5). The origins of hermeneutic lie on the one hand in Greece, where Aristotle conceptualized the topic as hermeneutic and on the other hand in the hermeneutics of traditional and venerable religious texts which have experienced different kinds of interpretation (Ihde 1998, 15). The expansion of hermeneutics amounts to a new interpretation of the basic relation between the world and the knowing I, which is based on a reversal of the Cartesian formulation of this relation. What is central for hermeneutics is a linguistic access to reality (Ihde 1998, 21). Don Ihde proposes hence a phenomenological hermeneutics which overcomes this narrowness. In contrast to the restorative tendencies of hermeneutics based on the philosophy of language, the phenomenological hermeneutics is about the embedment of language and the unfolding in thousands of languages which is ultimately related to this function of embedding as a concrete way of observing languages. Interpretation is in fact a form of saving and conserving and as a result in certain way conservative. But phenomenological hermeneutics is only then rightly understood, when besides the conserving function of interpretation, also the new vision of science fiction as a constitutive component of the expanded hermeneutic access to language and reality is accepted (Ihde 1998, 22–25). The implicit fixation of perception in Husserl’s theory of intentionality and his version of phenomenology have to be overcome here. Heidegger’s and Merleau Ponty’s to-be-in-the-world are versions of an existential interpretation of the phenomenological method. A reflexive turn is associated with the new phenomenology (Ihde 1998, 26–31). The subject is embedded, embodied or incarnated as the one who perceives and speaks. The body is the perceiving subject in the perceptible world. The task of hermeneutics is to open for language the access to its fundamental, particularly original possibilities. The founding of the linguistic world in the perceptible world changes the form of worldly inhabitance from a natural world to a cultural world (Ihde 1998, 36). Hermeneutics was originally special theory of interpretation of texts. The expansion of hermeneutics can be recorded with the arrival of modernity. An analysis of instrumentation requires hermeneutics. But not only Galileo, who uses telescope, is interesting. For, he is himself embedded in the praxis of research. Phenomenological hermeneutics has led to the conception of an instrumental realism (Ihde 1998, 39–44) and a hermeneutical form of pragmatism. Technologies are always culturally embedded. The transfer of cultural technologies is hence especially interesting (Ihde, 1998, 48). A radically transformed and modified, hermeneutically and empirical oriented epistemology sees in technoscience a completely technologically embedded science as a necessary programme, in order to make the non-perceptible particles perceptible and see earth as a planet, which is an indispensable pre-condition to engage with the entire earth as one dimension. But Husserl’s mathematisation of science is only an indirect process. The embedment is the technological mark of primary percep-

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tion through instrumentation. Heidegger’s concept of “Zuhandenheit” (direct availability or disposal) had already an indirect relation to instrumental realism. According to Heidegger’s interpretation, science is instrumental in a double manner (Ihde 1998, 51–54). All images and paintings are in themselves instrumental and they must be seen or understood as instrumental. The scientific practice requires as a result a phenomenological hermeneutics. Contemporary technoscience works with means of technological embeddedness of its instrumentation. Its use of instruments is wide and multiple. In order to understand this, we need a critical hermeneutics, which expounds a phenomenology of instrumental variations in the scientific understanding of the world (Ihde 1998, 58f). Empirical-pragmatic hermeneutics of technoscience is in the first place the art of learning how to read images. Science fiction and technomyths are also central to a hermeneutics of technoscience (Ihde 1998, 105). The new pragmatic hermeneutics strives for the pre- and extralinguistic meanings of the flesh-world-correlation. Flesh, the body, can be experienced in different manners, pragmatic (sensormotoric) or empirical-sensual (Ihde 1998, 109; Irrgang 2007a; Irrgang 2009a). Husserl’s method, the fundamental position of his phenomenology, was heuristics. Merleau-Ponty has taken a non-fundamental position exactly in his book “The Visible and the Invisible” (Ihde 1998, 119–121). Hermeneutics, when it is not itself fundamental, remains structural. But this structuralism is of its own kind (Ihde1998, 125). Modern technoscience began as an institution in the early modernity while it shaped itself as the other of religion. In the process of constitution of an experimental natural science that followed, it was considered alternative and quasi-theological (Ihde 1998, 129). In order to prove, how hermeneutics can be transferred into technoscience, Don Ihde expounds, how hermeneutics or the interpretative activity occurs in science, to prove that hermeneutics can be transferred into science. Ihde demonstrates in the analysis of scientific praxis, the unique ways which science has undertaken in order to establish a visual hermeneutics. This hermeneutics, similar to all forms of writing, is technologically embedded in the present and contemporary science and implicitly present in the development of visual machines or technologies of imagination (Ihde 1998, 137f). The opposition between hermeneutics and positivism must be deconstructed in the first place. It is about propagating a method and the ability to understand nature in the sense of natural sciences. A more realistic way of looking at science and its history requires a pragmatic turn. It led as a result to a hard tussle between philosophers and sociologists of science (Ihde 1998, 141–144). The philosophical perspective develops a hermeneutics of practice. Pre-modern hermeneutic believed in a naïve manner, that the nature contains a writing which God inscribed during its creation. Nature was understood as a book. Now the phenomenological hermeneutic tradition has to be modified and must be freed from certain prejudices about science, while the position of the embedded observer is discovered (Ihde 1998, 150–155). A hermeneutics of practices of visualization within sciences is required for that, which re-opens a way for us to reconstruct the derivation of science from the life-world (Ihde 1998, 161). Telescope and microscope, camera obscura like cloud chambers are corresponding examples. There is no perception, also scientific

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one, without technical embedment. But all embedment is situated and constructed with relation to culture and praxis (Ihde 1998, 171). My central idea proposes to investigate not only the traditional natural science, but also medicine under the aspect of technoscience. Medicine is indeed no science in itself, since it is only the use of knowledge of different sciences and also different techniques (Goerke 1988, 7–12; Irrgang 2008b). The use of instruments in medicine started in relation to measuring in the clinic as well as in practice. Lense and microscope changed fundamentally the theory and practice of medicine. In 1665 Hook made possible the identification of disease-causing agents with the help of a microscope. Pasteur and Koch substantiated the bacteriological working method only in 1878. The electro microscope (since 1933) allowed to analyse the subtle structure of cells. Laboratory medicine developed along with scientific chemistry in the 19th century and based itself on the development of exact processes. Clinical-chemical laboratories became an indispensable part of hospitals in the 19th century. The corresponding technics of investigation helped the researcher in medicine and not the patient. In the context of laboratory medicine pathological measurement values were standardized (Goerke 1988, 22–51). Röntgen discovered cathode rays on 8.11.1895. The dramatic introduction of X-rays at the end of the 19th century led to an immediate and persistent way of treating and perceiving human body. It changed he manner, how each time people looked at themselves and each other. The piece of novelty in the beginning vanished in less than a generation, after the X-rays were widespread and this technology was embedded in a special machine believing culture in the 20th century. A new wave of innovation appeared 75 years later with the spread of computer aided generation of images. The possibilities to look inside the internals of human body increased further. The discovery and spread of X-rays filled the gap between pure science and its technological application. The use of X-rays is obviously the result of fundamental research. X-rays resulted in the fact that the flesh appears transparent. Now there are several image generating processes, which give images also of the internals of human brain: computer tomography, nuclear and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and nuclear medicinal diagnostics (Goerke 1988, 75–99). Instruments for surgical interventions are partly old. They were knives, tweezers, saws and probes in the beginning. The majority of the technical aids, after they were initially made in skilled trade firms, are manufactured today in big industrial firms that are chiefly the same which supply instruments and equipments for diagnostics. The points of departure were the treatment of wounds and the stopping of blood vessels. Anesthesia for pain free operation was a pre-requisite for the big surgery (Goerke 1988, 121–136). In 1954 heart-lung-machine was invented and it made new techniques possible in the context of heart surgery. This starting point led to further technologisation of medicine. The heart pace-maker was one of the first outcomes of this beginning. There was especially much need of technical equipments in Orthopedics. The technics of hospital was a technics of its own. New high tech forms of medicine are based on electro therapy and laser therapy in the treatment of cancer in a combination of operative process, laser and chemotherapy (Goerke 1988, 141–160).

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There are only a few analyses about the different and complex use made of scientific instruments. No scientific or experimental apparatus is however self-evident (Gooding et al. 1989, 32). Instruments received a central role in discoveries. Instruments could be either passive or active during the exploration of nature. Among the passive instruments are work tools for measurement like cloaks, chemical systems, electrometer, galvanometer and certain astronomical instruments. By increasing their precision, the value in the construction of theory increases or new discoveries become possible, but not absolutely. A second group of significant passive instruments includes telescope and microscope. The latter doesn’t interact actively with nature, instead it makes possible to isolate certain phenomena in a controlled environment of a laboratory, the same way the air-pump for creating vacuum served as a pre-condition for the analysis of free fall. It was generally accepted that these aids can reproduce the real natural processes. The debate on the trustworthiness of experiments concentrated in the first place on an instrumental level. The debate got more difficult, when laboratory equipments and experiments grew in their complexity since the 18th century (Gooding et al. 1989, 39–41). Laboratory experiments isolated phenomena in the beginning and determined their peculiarities. In the second phase, the laboratory models tried to imitate certain phenomena. Laboratory research spread this way in general in the 18th century (Gooding et al. 1989, 48). There were several attempts to develop measuring instruments with the help of laboratory models, in order to reproduce naturally occurring phenomena. Many experiment models of that time dealt with atmospheric electricity (Gooding et al. 1989, 52). The interaction between instruments and scientific exploration, particularly discovery happened in both directions. Progress of instruments led to new discoveries and the other way around, new discoveries influenced the construction of instruments (Gooding et al. 1989, 58f). While philosophers debated long over the saturation of theory about observations, the discussion recently is about technics or the saturation of competence of observation. The approaches to science till now were initially not successful in this point, since they didn’t recognize the remarkable share of the technical in the results of experimental and theoretical sciences in so far as they are the products of construction and reconstruction. The recent analyses show that experiment is a source of conceptually deeper discovery and of theoretical significance. Experiment is the basis of conceptual as well as technical transformations of nature. Experimental research falls under traditions and programmes exactly like the theoretical work. Philosophers haven’t granted enough justice to the severity of scientific justification and not recognized that this is of social nature. They have assumed that experimental information can justify certain goals by explaining the logical consequences of an experiment. They have ignored the so-called generative justification or the derivation of a goal from what scientists already know in favour of pure consequential theories of justification. Experimentally developed phenomena play a significant role with regard to generative justification. The social consensus of experts answers the central logical problem of generative theory of justification, especially that of regress of logical justification. If only incomplete information and fallible knowledge are within

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reach for us, the justification becomes unavoidably regional and social. The methodology is then not only a question of logic, instead it must also satisfy our cognitive and social undertakings. These needs are part of the cognitive condition and the condition of realisability of experiments (Gooding et al. 1989, 301–303). Kuhn’s paradigms develop not only fixed models for further work, instead they can be transformed through these. The modeling itself is interactive (Gooding et al. 1989, 310). If we assume that the scientific methodology intends to rule the community of research and scientists, then any passable methodology should be defined by the community of scientists and its sources including experiments and computers. It is about the strategies of demonstration in science. Experimentalists demonstrate the reality or the artificiality of an effect or a particle, which can never be derived with a deductive argument. If the background cannot be controlled by construction, it is then included by the measuring function. Theoretical assumptions lead us to pick out a piece of the phenomenal world which is of interest. The relevance and applicability of certain types of instruments must be ensured. Could it be possible that the same time can play a role as the detailed imagination of a particular apparatus. When experimentalists construct their arguments, the power of conviction of their demonstrations depends typically on the theoretical and experimental knowledge, which was at least partly borrowed from the past. Carnap points to the fact that the strict separation between theory and experiment as well as the progressive collection of elementary reports of observation are not permissible. Experiment organizes ultimately the perception. It can be pointed out, how the theoretical expectation shapes in a profound way what and when it is observed. Experiment improves the theory. There was a separation between experiments and theory in different disciplines of physics in the 20th century and it became a significant feature of an intellectual, social and also pedagogic structure of physics as a discipline. Experiments are in a certain sense elaborated filter, which are set in a space to distill phenomena (Galison 1987, 1–13). The statistic science of atoms contains mechanical analogies. Its results are satisfactorily guaranteed. What is important here is the result of a key experiment. It is confronted with the theoretical prediction. What is theoretically significant is the search for standardising principles. The expectations must be defined here. Theoretical expectations play a central role in the decision to end certain experiments. The Scylla and Charybdis to end an experiment stay as a result and as a task before the theory of science (Galison 1987, 21–72). In the cloud chambers big electromagnets try to filter elementary particles. Cloud chambers contain an entire series of belief statements and opinions on the birth cry of atoms. The energy spectrum of the cosmic rays is considered in order to reach a conclusion about its existence. Clear photographs can be obtained from the cloud chamber and hence it is of great interest. The processes of testing for quantum mechanics are developed here. Bohr’s model of atom was only an initial approximation. The common theory of today offers a good explanation for the different emissions or particles appearing at the same time. Swarms of particle lead to a new arrangement of phenomena and tasks to interpret the traces. In addition they must be measured up, or to be more precise,

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photographs from the cloud chamber must be interpreted. The quantum field theory may be valid as a result as the theoretical end of experiments there. The results of the observation which end an experiment are as a result identified. Here, it deals with the certification of validity of computer methods, i.e. the experimental apparatuses also themselves must be tested. Theory thus draws the borders of phenomena themselves. Here there are primary and secondary particles. The point of departure is the different points in the cloud chamber and the beginning of interpretation is the calculation of energy (Galison 1987, 78–132). The ending of a high energy physics experiment leads to a growing separation between theory and experiment. The elementary particle accelerators lead to a huge improvement in the engineering performance. The processing of data in the computers for the interpretation of measurement results is central for the laboratory work throughout the entire phase of exploration and not just after the completion of the experiment. This processing of data became part of the apparatus itself. It can be shown, how much of the burden of an experimental demonstration was transferred on to the data analysis. It is about differentiating the signals of experimental kind from the background information. A long-term change in the physics of 20th century is marked in the study of weak interaction. It is here about a collective knowledge. The absent theory of the weak interaction has consequences, since it must successfully distinguish the background roar from the signal. It required for that theories of spatial distribution of signal and background roar, of models and the background (Galison 1987, 139–169). No one believes initially in the theory except its author. Everyone trusts an experiment except the physicist, who carried out the same. Experimental debates can grow, even if the specific experimental goal is not contested. Explanations are necessary to avoid the implications which can destroy the coherence of the theory. It is about programmatic laboratory praxis. Specific models can be formal and not necessarily visualisable. The experimental process from beginning till end is theorypacked and requires interpretation. The theory leads to standardization, models and phenomenological laws. There is an instrumental type of experiments, special tasks of experimental explanation and an individual success of experiments. Theorists and experimenters have their justification. An experimenter constructs often an apparatus entirely special to leave out the background roar and the very perspective chosen by him can leave out phenomena which actually interest him. Procedures, constructions, interpretations of data- all these fundamental attitudes complete an experiment. Each of these steps causes a partial identification and isolation of artefacts and a certain access of science, which go beyond the difficulties of the process, and defines the real context of laboratory life. Interests contribute to the formulation of experiments, but not to their end. The sociology of scientific community is significant for the reduction of data, construction of experimental apparatuses and the formulation of experimental goals which are often enough shaped through collective basic assumptions. It leads hence to a certain construction of arguments which do not anyway exclude an experimental realism (Galison 1987, 244–261). Laboratory is a cultural institution with a history. What lies as its basis as the experiment is a much more reduced idea, and many experimental sciences are not

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what we could call laboratory sciences. Experimental sciences remain in the context of justification of a particular scientific knowledge. Laboratory sciences produce images. Laboratory sciences are determined by a greater degree of technologisation compared to the experimental sciences. It means, the cost of technical apparatuses, especially in its networking is clearly greater than in experimental sciences. Apart from that, what lies as the basis of laboratory and experimental science is a somewhat different theory (Pickering 1992, 33–36). If mature laboratory sciences can justify themselves and give answers to explained phenomena produced in the laboratories, how can one generalize them? Nothing is more remarkable in this context than our success which we have from time to time, when we convert stable laboratory sciences into practical action. For example, when industrial machines or medical apparatuses are formed out of prototypes of laboratory science, they function then trustworthily under controlled circumstances. They may or may not be also useful in this luxurious milieu of everyday life. In fact, a few things function as good as the products produced as per laboratory science in a world which has not become a laboratory. In this case, it is a coincidental matter which could have also been different. But what may always be the case, success or failure is not enough to justify or falsify a theory, for which phenomena produced in a laboratory can be cited. The applicability of laboratory sciences would no more be a coincidental incident or a wonder for such a subordination. The application of laboratory science on parts of the world is certainly not so problematic and radically affected by wonders, as one could suppose, instead it is actually a relative hard and well-founded matter. Mature laboratory sciences refer to true phenomena which have been produced in the laboratory. A science is true with regard to phenomena which contain analysed data produced by instruments and apparatuses, if they were modeled by certain topical hypotheses. The theory of a mature laboratory science which justifies itself, has nothing more to do with the problem of induction. There is no guaranteed or non-analysable eternal self-justification for a laboratory science (Pickering 1992, 58–61). The objects of research are reconstructed in a laboratory by arranging them in a new temporal or spatial order. Laboratories introduce and use specific differences between processes, to which they are linked, and processes in a scientific area (Knorr-Cetina 1999, 39–44). In the case of elementary particle physics, the laboratory produces negative knowledge. There is an analogy here to closed universe. The elementary particle physics has unreal objects. The experiment constructs and sets up apparatuses, in which the particles are registered. This level of representation reconstructs the results in the detector and transforms gradually the signals into a form which interests the researcher as the echo of the particle. The background and the result are important in this context. The problematical in the experiment constitutes the background. It allows several phenomena to disappear. There is a wider range of noise, coincidence, unforeseeable and undesired signals in a detector, which is dependent on the electronics of apparatus itself. It can hence be difficult to find, particularly to reconstruct the event, which is the basis and which we are looking for. Blurring effects develop with regard to non-determinability of distribution and the uncertainty with regard to the enveloping processes.

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The insignificance of units of measurement and of measuring also has to be considered. The measured can be regarded as evident. Evidences are considered capable of proving or refuting theories, of suggesting new phenomena or of representing more or less interesting and more or less obvious results. Any measurement is certainly theory-packed and depends on a certain paradigm, particularly a certain tradition. Measurement and experiments have a powerful role in the validation of knowledge. But the main problem is the experimental equipment (for example, the detector for elementary particles). The experimental result depends completely on the experimental arrangement and is in itself completely insignificant. The experimental quantity must be related to theory. We need scientific hermeneutics or a hermeneutic theory of science for that (Irrgang 2003b). The experimental value becomes interesting only in relation to the corresponding theory. In such theories constancy is regarded as a criterion of rationality. This becomes important especially in the measurement of mass (quantity) of a particle (Knorr-Cetina 1999, 50–54). In the age of technoscience nature appears simultaneously as a central category and extremely precarious. Nature serves simultaneously as an instance of legitimacy and is technically dissolved to the same extant (Weber 2003, 13–17). In the background of accelerated scientific and technical development and an increasing confusion between the categories of nature and culture the question arises, whether the nature is actually a relevant category in our contemporary thought. The concept of nature represents a vacant position in the contemporary critical philosophical discourse. We can certainly speak of a certain renaissance of the philosophy of nature since the 70’s. In the early modernity there was an erosion of metaphysical order, a loss of overbearing principles of order. The subjectivisation of thinking happened in modernity through Kant and Descartes. Related to that was the decline of the philosophy of nature. The increasing scientific grounding and technicisation of everyday life led to a rapid rewriting and a new definition of the understanding of nature and its effective dissemination in the discourses of technical sciences and the life-world. How can we think about nature beyond the total rage about practicability, visions of absolute control and management of contingencies on the one hand and abstract hostility to technics and naïve sentimentalisation, particularly exoticisation of the completely other on the other hand (Weber 2003, 19–49). The technical production of new organisms rests on the bio-cybernetic concept of nature and a techno-scientific culture (Weber 2003, 114f). Big technologies imply a transformation of traditional natural science (Weber 2003, 117–128). The levels of representation erode too. The knowledge about the constructedness of knowledge leads to a theory of fabrication of knowledge (Weber 2003, 134–153). In techno-science it can lead to a new definition of organisms as machines, especially as cybernetic machines. Genetic code is the guaranteer of life. The new life principles self-organisation, information, code and emergence are so. Matter is regarded as carrier of information and life is seen from the point of view of instrumentalism. KI and robotics have the compatibility between man and machine as the point of departure. This implies imbuing machines with life. The strong variant of Artificial-Life (AL)-Research aims at the re-creation of the living through the artificial and technical. Cellular machines are a sign of that. Nature has made nothing

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which a computer also could not do. This is at least the conviction of the community of KI-researchers. AL would like to construct models which are so life-like that they cease to be models of life and instead become examples of life (Irrgang 2003b, Irrgang 2005b, Weber 2003, 157–194). The technical, rational, mechanical model of modernity, that of Homo Faber (Irrgang 2010b), must be overcome by a model of networking technology, a highly complex technologised hyper-modernity as the basis of a new technological culture of the 21st century. Technological modernity which developed in the beginning of the 20th century doesn’t lead to a post-modernity, rather to a hyper-modernity of the 21st century. The basis of this high-tech civilization are synthetic raw materials, synthetic living beings and synthetic information. They all require interpretation, so that their use is possible. The technicisation of everyday life defines the first half of technological revolution. The technicisation limited itself initially to a large extent to information technology. The programme of technical systems thinks technics as artifacts-oriented. In fact, technics evolved along the paths of development and develops re-networking structures, embedded in a social, cultural and historical context. The individual strands of technological development become again autonomous. Systems seem to be projects, but only individual technical systems develop that way. The meaning of an epoch can be derived only in an anticipatory leap forward. The age of big machines is well past, even if individual machines are still built. Now there is a change towards ecologically oriented ways of construction. The technological practice is based on the tradition of laboratory. But it changes this paradigm through the modern means of information technology. The traditional model of laboratory sciences has been fundamentally transformed in this respect. But the laboratory praxis, irrespective of the type, has by itself no validating power. It requires a scientific or at least a technological theory. The laboratory praxis is an institutionalized form of experimental praxis. Justification and validation are not solely logical- methodical operations, instead they are institutionalized or more or less institutionalized arrangements of the scientific community with regard to the methodological standards and corresponding questions. Experimental science is technically oriented and instrumentally marked and hence cannot be thought without the accompanying hermeneutically-interpretative praxis. All these features become stronger in the laboratory sciences. This has become the practice. In all, it is the technological variant of experimental science. In the laboratory praxis, there is a stronger recourse to implicit knowledge in the intertwinement of experimenting, testing and constructing, where no knowledge can be justified, instead the practice at least pragmatically justifies itself during the success of what happens in laboratories. We certainly need some interpretational clarity for this purpose. The trial character of experimental conception is transferred onto the criteria of success of laboratory praxis, which can be deduced in its outcomes. Derek De Solla comes to the following results with regard to differences between science and technology: 1) Science has a cumulating, narrowly knot structure. It means that new knowledge is changed by narrowly connected and fairly new pieces of old knowledge.

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This characteristic separates science from technology and from humanistic scholarship. 3) This characteristic is typical of many social phenomena in science. 4) Technology shares with science the same high growth rates, but it shows many more complimentary social phenomena especially with regard to literature. 5) Technology may have beyond that a similar cumulating narrowly cut structure like that of science, but the state of technics is more decisive than the scientific or technical literature. 6) Science and technology have their own separate structures of cumulation. 7) Since these structures are separate, direct influences of science on technology and vice versa occur only in special cases and the ones with traumatic effects like the change of paradigms. 8) It is probable that technology in the research front is closely related to science only in those areas of scientific knowledge, which can be described as part of the system of learning and training and which doesn’t concern the research front. 9) Similarly, science in the research front is related only to the external technological knowledge, while the preceding generations of students are no more engaged in the research front of technical states and in its innovations. 10) The reciprocal relation between science and technology involves also the fact that the research front of one is related to the established phases of another. 11) It is hence naive to consider technology as applied science or clinical practice as applied medical science. 12) Hence, we must be conscious that the goals of individual scientific research can be possibly used for individual technological potentials of problem solving and vice-versa. But both effects of cumulation can be supported for their separate goals respectively (Price 1965, 568). It is essential to develop the particular nature of theory building and technical knowledge in technical sciences. Technological potentialities lay the cornerstone for technological paths of development. There are no new processes of development without inventions. If everything remains the same, the path of development remains stuck in the technical routine. But the prerequisite for innovations are trained technological skills and a corresponding technical fantasy like creativity among the developmental engineers involved. Also, the development of information technologies and bio-technologies show that technical know-how is perched at the beginning and the technical demand follows. In the green bio-technology, it was initially the Herbicide-Resistance-Technique, which one mastered and then offered in the market. This offer was surely not taken up by the market. Hence, the factor of technical know-how and technical skills are not enough to bring about an innovation. Innovative products of technical know-how must come across the demand triggered

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by a certain product. The demand of technical knowledge in the economic market forms thereby one aspect and the demand in the scientific market is the other side. Molecular biology is not a traditional natural science. It has essentially made progress through a mix of methods and new techniques. The result is qualitative information about materialized information, but not quantifiable knowledge of the law. What was important for molecular biology is the progress in the understanding of methods. But biology as a comprehensive understanding of the structure and function of overall cells has not up till now any way been replaced by molecular biology. Molecular biology is a milestone on the way to technologised science with a new kind of explanations. Quantitative aspects are up till now ignored in the gene technique. Molecular biology seems to be hence on the way to a comprehensive qualitative science. Since Khorana’s experiment which involved a gene transfer for the first time, gene technology has achieved in principle the status of a research praxis. The inclusion of computers in the modeling of the context of genomics and proteomics, the whole of proteins, the further use of experimental processes and the development of methods of separation and analysis favour the development of a comprehensive laboratory praxis, which registers a constantly growing degree of technologisation. Many of the outstanding insights in molecular biology in the last 40 years came through the explanation of molecular structures. The most wellknown and perhaps the most spectacular insight was the modeling of DNA-Helix by Watson and Crick. AI is not a science or even a theory, instead a technology which concerns the development of hardware as well as software (Matteuzi, 1995). Expert systems and their programming are not science, instead the art of engineering. Especially the development of software for robotics and the machines working autonomously belong to the working areas of techno-research. The programming of different software can hence be understood as technology in the sense of implementation of schemes of action and strategies of search in the sense of mixing of methodological and technological strategies. Technologies are not true or rational, instead they are effective or ineffective. Success and failure lay down here the scale of interpretation and evaluation. As a result techno-research is not a science, instead it is more strongly shaped by technology. I don’t want to state here that there is no more science done at universities, but the foremost front of technological work and that of the level of technics, which takes the society forward is technologised. Also the “scientific theory of nanotechnology” (Janich, 2006) is so that the artistic character in this technology comes to the fore. The miniaturization up to the atomic level allows us to develop entirely new stuff and energy sources which don’t exist in nature and hence are of synthetic nature. Nanotechnology is part of a technological revolution which comprises also synthetic biology. Techno-research is hence rather the further development of technoscience than that of classical natural science. The characteristics of new methods are the manipulability and visualisability of atomic, to be precise, molecular objects. It is no more about finding universal molecular laws, instead about technologies which allow strange phenomena to appear in complex situations (Janich, 2006, 2). What stays in the foreground are

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the skills of the researcher, competences which allow the feasibility of certain methods and technologies (Janich, 2006, 4). The development of pharmaceutical drugs shows precisely the possibilities of conversion or alternatives of original applications which enormously expand the assessment of potentials of hypermodern technology. The conversion potential should be considered as far as possible in assessments of acceptability. What is not relevant is the potential of innovation in the area of application, but it is certainly in the fundamental area (Janich 2006, 29). The demands of praxis in pharmacology, medicine, breeding, agrarian production, regrowing raw materials and in the applied art of bio-engineering (nano-technology etc.) go beyond the level of performance of traditional non-technologised research and science (experimental science), so that technologised laboratory science is oriented also in fundamental research towards technologised research praxis. It leads to a revaluation of the artistic character in technics and technology in the research praxis and to a new evaluation of use-knowledge, to be precise that of implicit technical knowledge and to a change of components of science in the technologised research praxis through technological practices. Technical, particularly technological use-knowledge and its scientific reflection, to be precise systematization constitute a technological practice and a technologised laboratory practice. Knowledge gain is a pragmatic criteria which can have also ethical relevance during transformation into products and theories. Why knowledge gain just for the sake of knowledge gain – pure theory or basic science – should be especially ethically high standing, is no way comprehensible from a pragmatic perspective. There still doesn’t exist an epistemology or scientific theory of techno-research. Signs of that can be found in Irrgang 2003b. The praxis of techno-re-search is also not still completely established. It seems to be clear that technology becomes more dominant and the artistic character which directs the use-know-ledge and technology, becomes of increasing significance. Technology was the theory of use of technical processes of craftsmanly kind up to factories. After the age of mass production we return now to a certain extent to technology, but naturally not so, as if technology had not existed in between. The artistic character is renewed, certainly in the context of wide digitalization and the spread of the art of simulation. A return to the visual – after the age of the formal – takes place with the re-appearance of the artistic character of technology. The eye of the engineer is replaced by the computer, but only seemingly, since even in rapid prototyping constant human control is needed. The association between nanotechnology and digitalization can result in making the nano-area visible to a certain extent, since customers can learn to use technological products manufactured. Also, customers must be able to assess the technological potential, so that trust in nanotechnologies emerges. Technics remains visible and the black box must become at least grey in order to be acceptable.

PART II: USE OF TECHNICAL POTENTIALS: POLITICAL TECHNOLOGY In the second part, the political technology, the user stands in the foreground, the professional as well as the layman. In the sense of a philosophy of everyday practices, it is about the productivity of the consumer, where especially the use or the consumption is thematised. Consumption is regarded here as a hidden production. What should be reconstructed is the everyday creativity of the user and his ways to operate which constitute innumerable practices. Practices are a mixture of rituals and machinations, manipulations of space, operations of networks and conventions. This cultural activity of non-producers who use a product again is important to be analysed here. What should be reconstructed are the everyday practices (Certeau 1984, XI–XX). The everyday praxis is characterized as the person, by anyone and no one, i.e. by the common man. This is characterized as the big majority. The access to culture is in a certain way narrative and functional. It is about narrating stories. These stories are narrated in the name of the normal and the usual and of everyday life. It is about words and their everyday use. This everyday use is the normal use (Certeau 1984, 2–11). Games and narratives define this way of speaking. Certeau would like to develop operational models of popular culture. There are innumerable ways to make something; innumerable cultural techniques and as many formalities and ways of practices. There are types and ways of operation and above all there is the context of use and a rhetoric of use, to be precise a rhetoric of praxis (Certeau 1984, 29–39). The concrete functions of everyday praxis must be explained here through its genesis (Certeau 1984, 45–47). The procedures are linked to the technological apparatuses. Here, there are certain practices in the foreground, which organize and form certain institutions. These are specific effects of power. Bourdieu has also offered an “Outline of a Theory of Practice”. It contains ethnological studies and develops alternatives to myths of knowledge. These studies have their own style. Strategies which distribute tasks, are reconstructed. Genealogical tables and family trees are also structures of order of everyday praxis. These have implicit principles and postulates, but also certain tables, explicit rules and strategies (Certeau 1984, 48–53). Strategies exist in certain combinations, where an entire series of metaphorisings takes place. There are objective structures of praxis and its genesis. They can be theoretically reconstructed. Constructed models of praxis are possible and a theory of praxis can be formulated, whereby the performance of adaptation to the structures of action is reconstructed. The genesis of a new form of praxis implies the internalization of structures of one’s own habitus. Genesis is the way in which a way of praxis is generated. There are especially methods of case studies for this. Habitus, habit, ethos, mode of action, common sense and the second nature of man are reconstructed and comprehended

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here. Habitus includes an accepted reality and the observed facts consist of strategies and associations. It can result in an erosion of reason and dogmatic belief (Certeau 1984, 54–60). Ergonomics is the science of use of work tools in relation to their environment. The use of work tools presupposes: 1) the right use of power; 2) the search for a usable substitute, in case a work tool is lacking or is not available at the moment. Work tools have different meanings, different functionalities and as a result also possible roles in use; 3) the actual use takes place unconsciously, other than when it is interrupted by a failure; 4) the kind of use varies between incompetence and mastery. Work tolls mediatise our way of going about the world. This way there takes place a coupling of perception and action. The association of results of experimental psychology, sociology, anthropology and ergonomics has led to a different understanding of technics and also of labour (Baber 2003, 1–3). Against popular view, the human way of the use of technics is fundamentally different from that of animals. Hence, Baber reaches the supposition that use of work tools must be related to intelligence. Work tools are frequently used for the completion of a task. One can for example, learn to count with fingers. The fingers are also then work tools. The content of the idea of a work tool has been stretched too far. But it is difficult to deny that there are also cognitive artifacts. The external representation leads to the support of knowledge feats. This is the case as a rule with work tools. Work tools need preparation to be used. The available and the one available to handle with can be thoroughly distinguished from each other. These points are important in the conception of a task. Thus one can have the point of departure the fact that the essence of a work tool lies in itself. The use of work tools has a strong cognitive component which allows to carry out these processes, irrespective of the forms of representation. The influence of context for the knowledge feat has to be considered here. The following tasks have to be fulfilled by a work tool: 1) The work tool must be in a position to represent and run the functions, for which they are constructed, as good as possible; 2) the work tool must be well proportioned and must be adapted to the dimensions of the user and the demands of the task; 3) Besides, the work tool must be so constructed, that the performance of action by the user can be optimized. In the demands on the work tool, the capacities of the user and the size of demands of work should not be crossed. 4) The work tool must be constructed, that the costs of use are minimized, especially in view of tiredness, injury etc.; 5) The work tool must give an adequate, usable sensory feedback, in order to give the user a suitable opportunity, not least through also the use of work tool itself, to be clear, in what way the performance of action has been successful. The use of work tools implies perception as well as action in co-operation, thus a kind of sensomotor function, which is determined by the characteristics of work tools and which influences the movements of the user (Baber 2003, 4–9). If we consider the five properties, humans and chimpanzees differ from each other in the first point, that man can strike a nail into the wall, whereas chimpanzees certainly can crack only a nut. With regard to the second point it says, that the work tools may not be difficult for the connection especially between head and hand.

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Chimpanzees use also occasionally stones as work tools. The third point, the optimization of the performance of action leads to the fact that among humans, in all kinetic energy is used for the transference of power. It is similarly possible among apes, even if supposedly on a lesser theoretical level. Besides, risks should be lessened and there should be a certain feedback. This is applicable to humans in a certain way, but also not in a certain way, since accidents can happen here too, exactly the same way they do among chimpanzees. And the improvement of existing skills happens only among humans. Animals can as a rule only in exceptional cases learn from mistakes and failed attempts (Baber, 2003, 9). Baber understands work tools as means of expansion. The tools owe this to four characteristics: 1) the technologies we use, to think seriously about the world during the labour, support, correspond or expand our physical or cognitive skills; 2) the practice of acquiring and exercising the skills are related to our intentional behavior with regard to labour and our daily activities. 3) Language is a manipulation of communication of concepts. 4) Adaptation is the manner, in which humans use physical or cognitive skills in order to satisfy the demands of technology. These characteristics lead to the fact that technics implies as a rule an expansion of our sensomotoric, i.e. technical, and our linguistic-communistic skills of physical kind. There are four levels: 1) tools and artifacts, 2) praxis, 3) language and 4) adaptation, or rather embedding. Baber differentiates between labour and everyday life, where both are parts of our life world. In this respect, mundaneness should not be equated with labour, but also not with everyday affairs, rather it must be understood as part of our life world. Knowledge is also part of our daily labour, i.e. professional life. Exactly viewing, each purchase represents a mathematical problem. What is interesting in a theory of the use of technics is the fact that such strategies vary from culture to culture and even then share common basic structures. There are also forms of engagements, where everyday knowledge implies essentially a form of the use of technics (Baber 2003, 11f). A theory of the use of work tool, to be precise of the physical use, describes six forms of use to differentiate the use of tools: 1) which concerns the environment, i.e. responding to aspects of environment, 2) morphologically, especially in order to use our hands and head, 3) motor-related, the ability to manipulate things, 4) according to perception, i.e. to interpret the feedback of tools, 5) cognitively as the ability to represent, especially to understand the function of tools and 6) culturally as a model of learning from others (Baber 2003, 16–25). Also insects and crustaceans use work tools. Some morphological characteristics already lie in the use of their organs, which include almost a certain use of the tool. The use of tools is in general very rare. The use of tools is rather a part of overall behavior, which is inborn (Baber 2003, 16–25). Use of tools is characteristic of primates. Orang utans use tools rarely in nature, but they are skilled users of tools in captivity. There is use of tools also among wild chimpanzees. Chimpanzees look for and use sticks as means of aid. They break open nuts and use stones partly for this purpose. Sticks are used to get closer to termites or honey. Apes are more playful in captivity. Köhler’s studies in the First World War have for the first time brought attention to the

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skills of use of technics by apes. Köhler’s description is certainly extremely anthropomorphic. Chimpanzees have a certain talent for generalization. They acquire sensomotor-related skills considerably earlier than small children. The delayed development among small children allows ultimately a playful trial of anthropological potentials. It enables also cultural learning. Chimpanzees demonstrate the basic features of the use of technics. They have the skills for generalization (Baber 2003, 27–39). Only humans are capable of modification of objects found in the surroundings, in order to make tools out of them. Some animals adapt the found objects with simple means that they simplify and improve their use. Does the use of tools demand cognition? It must be assumed in any case that the structures of the surrounding and the plan of action are correlated. The systematic production of a stone tool is much different from the use of technics by chimpanzees. The creator of these tools must have had an image before his eyes on which he has worked. Experimental archeology has shown how much of artistic skill is needed to strike, for example a handaxe with different sharp edges. Apes don’t work on a stone in the wild. In captivity it is certainly different. Orang utans and chimpanzees learn the use of stones from humans. The Oldowan tools in Africa are around 2-5 million years old. They are pointed towards the end. There are sharp-edged corners at the front and on the sides. This kind of hammer already goes beyond what is known to us from the animal kingdom. Experimental archeology can develop potential forms of use of this tool. The next level is acheulean-stone tools from the age between 1 million and 500,000 years. They have been produced very much systematically through trial and error and are based on a select choice of materials (Baber 2003, 40–19). Labour or the use of technics lies between risk and certainty. Implicit knowledge and skill play a very special role. It must be seen with respect to the use of a tool and also the change of surrounding: how can one split attention? One must then during the use of technics keep an eye on the hammer as well as the nail, which is ultimately not possible. It is hence not simple to learn to understand the language of tools. Rules summarize the experience of earlier users, provided there is a language. The division of labour demands more and more different courses of labour. Besides that, the control of the tool depends on the skills of the user. This applies to the use of tools in the Stone Age as well as flying an aircraft or running a nuclear plant (Baber 2003, 51–68). Simplification of labour is one factor behind the change of tools. The tools were adapted to the individual and local situations already before the mass-production. Mass-production has led to standardization. More compromises between the factors of influence on the change of tools have to be noted. Most of the tools are tailor-made for human hands. What matters here is the anthropological function of hand in the use of technics. The most wide spread material for tool is wood. Artificial materials imitate the positive properties of wood. There is efficiency in the use of a tool. In order to use a tool, we need certain attitudes, balance and a skill to do or act (Baber 2003, 69–76). The semantic of tools also must be mentioned. There is semantics of the product which is based on the significance of the product. Here rises a question about the

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interpretation of the product. It is important for interpretation to determine the characterizing forms of access. Motor skills and abilities of the user play a central role here. On the other hand, the influence of aesthetics cannot be shown by hand. There is a significant function, on which the operation of a tool depends. In this respect, the cultural significance plays an important role. In modern times the physical and cognitive tools have to be differentiated (Baber 2003, 82–87). The failure of the use of tools can appear to be the result of a human error, wherein the ability to carry out an action is absent. An action can fail on simple grounds, namely because there are too less or false means. One hasn’t simply laid hands on the tool. There are hence also accidents apart from the cases of fundamental apraxia. Brain stores information on the object, with which one works and in this respect, it requires also a process of neurological adaptation (Baber 2003, 89–103). Apart from psychic tools, there are also electronic computers. Here it deals with artifacts which should improve human perception. Some of these skills expand human capabilities. But many of those are in the area of preparing activities which don’t concern the actual flow of activities. But there are special tools as cognitive artifacts. Inexperienced cooks and their use of cooking tools differ clearly from how experienced cooks go about them (Baber 2003, 104–110). In the course of 20th century the use of technical tools changed from physical to cognitive. A look at the future tools and their mostly physical activities will lead to the fact that human actions with less necessities of physical intervention in the world will be forced to bypass it. On the one hand the role of automatisation with regard to the reduction of human labour competences and skills has to be considered. One must see that the division of labour initially amounts to a double sided problem. On the one hand is the political question of necessity to simplify labour, so that they can be used in a controlled form by the employer up to the manager and on the other hand is the technological question, how can one divide the functions between man and machine (Baber 2003, 112). It is important here to differentiate between motor abilities, perceptive abilities, conceptual abilities and organizational abilities. The point of departure here is that machines take over more and more from the sensomotor abilities and also in the automatised labour machines take over more and more from conceptual and organizational labour. The man-machine interface become more important in this context. It is about controlling programmed machines. The entry key is no more only machine-language based, rather it can also influence sensomotoric processes, like in the case of so called joystick. The simple computer mouse represents a kind of virtual tool, or more exactly put, it allows the users to manipulate on their computer screen all kinds of representations of tools. The task of a mouse generally, to be precise the use of a mouse, or any other of this controlling paradigms, is to select objects and manipulate them on the computer screen, which can be described as direct manipulation (Baber 2003, 113–115). Demonstration or the process doesn’t take place in fact on the screen itself, rather through a fixed function between the tool used and the user, so that the demonstration on the screen is more of an illustration of the procedure of work than

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the practice of carrying out the task itself. One can certainly interpret the observation of the mouse similarly as the feeling of using a hammer (Baber 2003, 116). Now humans have to do with technical tools which can alter their behavior. It is about the transparency of hidden operations. In this respect, new systems are systems which can multiply the reality (Baber 2003, 120). Cognition becomes more significant for the use of technics. There are task-specific technical paradigms and innovations. A supervisory system of alertness for the monitoring also of modern technics is necessary. Repeatable routines are those which can be implemented in technical artifacts. Goals, patterns, subordinate goals, simple actions and sensomotoric plan of action can now be implemented in machines themselves (Baber 2003, 125–137). What is important for the construction of tools is the fact that the functions of use can be realized with technics. Sometimes we use both hands to use a tool, for example, the use of a joystick. Visual perception is of special importance for the use of technics. It has to be noticed that the tools make special handling necessary. The following principles have to be observed here: 1. There are models which keep ready suitable hand movements for manipulable objects. It is not necessary here that such a pattern of use is planned in advance, instead it can be defined in action itself. 2. The plan of action defines a suitable coordination of actions. This includes artifices and coordinating structures. 3. The process pattern is defined by a suitable sequence of actions (Baber 2003, 146f). The pattern of use makes it clear that the selection of a path for solving the problem, especially achieving a goal, depends on previous experiences. 4. The experiences of the use of technical artifacts and tools depend on previous experiences with similar tools. These models of technical actions are embedded in cultural traditions and experiences with specific tools and the kinds of tools of the country, in which the users live. Knives and forks are received this way in some countries quite naturally, whereas in other countries sticks take their place in order to fulfill the same task. In this context, the cultural experiences and influences of the surroundings are central for the development of patterns of actions. It is important to consider in this context that the use of technics is related to pre-conditions, should realise goals and must use certain paths for the realization which are offered by the initial pre-conditions, demands of tools and the goals. The constitution of opportunities and paths to be used are conditioned definitely in many ways. In this context, it is important that visual perception generates a very important context between motoric and cognitive models. Both are central for the use of technics. In this respect, the visual or the visual area is also of greater significance for the use of technics than other areas of sensual perception. It has to be seen here, what influences the construction: 1) The use of a tool defines the possibilities of use. The experience the user possesses in using things is important here. 2) The use of a tool sets paths for the future use. 3) The construction of a tool takes place in a work space or a work place. This has to be considered also in the use of tools (Baber 2003, 151). This change in the interpretation of technics goes back to the reception of phenomenology and its concept of the life-world. This leads in the folklore to an engagement with material culture, i.e. to an analysis of technics in everyday life and

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to an analysis of mundane technical action. Technical action in everyday life means here external forms of the use of technics and from a cultural perspective, the structural determination of technical action (Beck 1996, 195). The genesis of technics has to be conceived as a social process and the situational ambiguity of technics in everyday life has to be stated. The marginal conditions of social actions have to be analysed. The expert theoretical approach has as starting point the assumption that the use of artifacts determines and stabilizes actions. Technicisation is understood as a civilisational-historical development which is interpreted as transfer, alienation, reinforcement or objectivisation of real actions. The analysis of use interprets the conditions under which actors acquire technical artifacts and classify them in their life-style (Beck 1996, 206–209). Technics as “steel house” means a form of technics which functions without any trouble and is free of contingencies. Heavy industry is a model. But formalized models of action do not comprehend actions. In contrast to abstract logical models, practices are characterised necessarily by uncertainty and fuzziness. There are no constant rules, instead only practical models. In the deterministic plan, technics appears as an essential guarantee of social stability. Hence, we try to achieve formalization and rationalization of options of actions of users through technical instructions. The social-economic competences of the inventor play a great role through inventions in developing a technical system (Beck 1996, 210–214). Since technics can be brought in for building an infrastructure, the political implication of artifacts cannot be ignored. Technics is management of contingencies and not removal of them. Technics discovers new options of actions. But it also has to be seen as a source of rise of contingencies. In the use of technics, one has in addition a relational understanding of technics. Technics is not only a detached resource, it becomes much more part of actions in its use. Technical resources exercise influence on the goals of action. It emphasizes the situational understanding of technics and recurs to cultural and social contexts of technical actions (Beck 1996, 224). Bad product design leads to defective use. One could see this in the area of expert systems and artificial intelligence and in the structural couplings between machine and the user. Hence it suggests itself to interpret the use of technical artifacts or the engagement with them as a text. The context restricts the possible ways of use of artifacts. Hence the interpretational flexibility of technical artifacts and their situationally linked use have to be emphasized. Societal conventions make the use of technics possible. It owes this to a cultural contextualization (Beck 1996, 241f). Hence there can arise a question about the meaning and significance, which the artifacts assume for a user. It is about thematisation of technical cultures of use (Beck 1996, 279). Pragmatism has especially dealt deeply with the concept of use of technical artifacts. It investigates the interactional, experiential and constructional processes based on concrete actions as technical actions (Beck 1996, 280). Technics can stabilize and destabilize actions, it can also be understood as a creative action. The practice-theoretical orientation in the interpretation of technical action is interested especially in practical, situational and cultural knowledge. What is significant here

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is the conceptualization of cultural knowledge (Beck 1996, 324). Sociology discovers again the creativity of action and thematises the practices of users which actualize the potentiality of technical artifacts. Routinised action in everyday life has to be differentiated from the creative use of technics (Beck 1996, 330f). But they influence each other. Technical action is hence affected by contingencies. Technics has to be seen in the context of practice. The constitutive, situational relation of practice manifests itself in the everyday use of technics. One can hence speak of a technological infection of practice. It manifests itself in the routinised use of technics and in instructions for the use of artifacts. Instruction of use of technics can be of linguistic and non-linguistic kind. Use sets orientation as a pre-condition. The orientation complex of technical action is constituted through an argumentative-discursive practice in differentiated structures of order, which develop the central arguments for the evaluation of specific types of technical actions. The permitted and non-permitted kinds of uses of technics are discussed among them. The symbolic struggles for justification of different kinds of use of and engagement with technics take place here (Beck 1996, 355). Socially and culturally different styles of technics have to be differentiated (Beck 1996, 352). Consumption has become a central element in the description of modern society. But it doesn’t mean, in contrast to earlier interpretations, that modern technics would alienate humans. Borgmann criticizes along with Heidegger the consumption mentality, although there is a certain contradiction here in his conception. The temptation through the ability to use, particularly to consume is ultimately no form which substantiates alienation, although Heidegger and Borgmann appear to assume so, not least of all because technical things don’t lead exclusively to passive consumption. Technologies have certainly reduced the kind and range of efforts which are necessary to acquire and collect goods. Technology grants opportunities for the non-engaged and passive consumption, but it also provides new possibilities of engagement. Hence, the post-phenomenological philosophy of technics doesn’t support the thesis of alienation proposed by the critical theory of technics. On this ground, the post-phenomenological perspective provides a completely different world-view and other approaches of interpretation of technology than the classical philosophy of technology. It enables a more differentiated, careful and empirically oriented view for the exploration of entirely specific technologies. The terminology of post-phenomenology enables to describe technologies not only in terms of functionality, but also as mediation with regard to the relation between humans and their world (Verbeek, 2005).

4. POSSESSION AND USE: TECHNICS AS THE BASIS OF SOCIAL FORMATION, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL POWER Resources and technical practices as fundamentals of power, forms of power as effect mechanisms of power and means of power as the concrete application of power have to be differentiated. Resources are possibilities to have raw materials, information and colleagues at our disposal. The forms of effects of power can articulate themselves in multiple forms, like the power to reward, to punish, to impose sanctions, legitimate rule, power of information, power of experts and the force of order or command. Means of power as instruments of exercise of power are threats, promises, instructions and arrangements. The exercise of means of power requires a tactic and has costs of appropriateness. Nature as resource was always a significant source of technical power. Special stones and metals were produced in mines and changed technological life-forms and also societies as a result. We must restrict ourselves to some exemplary cases. The beginnings of mining date back 20000 years. They were flint-mines in Australia and Upper Egypt. Copper was mined already 6500 years back. Production of mineral raw materials through technical process can be divided into production of metal, precious and semi-precious stones, salt and glass. Mining, melting of metal, alloy, melting of glass and techniques of salt-works are all part of that. This type of technical practice tends to use mechanical means of aid and as a result points already to another epoch. The origins of mining lie initially in the excavation of metal lumps with the digging stick (Singer et al. 1956, 558). The requirement of raw materials increased with settlement and the mining of firestones was really worth it. Exactly speaking, flint was already mined in the Old Stone Age. The shafts had initially the task of following the flint layers up to the mountain. There were two grain-growing areas in Europe; in Poland and in BelgianDutch region. The trade regions of the products produced there covered more than 500 miles around the sites of discovery. The building of shafts goes back supposedly to the deep mines (pitfalls) of Stone Age men. Deep shafts were built with the help of antlers as crowbars or with the help of hammer stone or pounder (Donaukiesel) and hammer and club hammer (especially from Grünstein). The main problem was the difficult physical labour in a crouched position or on side, quarrying and removing the chalk as well as breaking off the flint (Suhling 1983, 24–28). The next step with regard to mining development was copper. Initially smashed copper was found in Middle East Asia and Turkestan and melting was possibly accidentally discovered by fire. The earliest copper find dates back 10000 years. The smelting of copper was found around 7500 years back. The moulding of metal was possible with stone hammers, since the melting and further processing temperature didn't remain all too high. In this respect the invention of melting technique

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was possible. There are early evidences for the melting of copper in Catal Hüyük. The spread of metallurgical knowledge started supposedly from Asia Minor. There was melting of copper possibly already in Anatolia in 7000 BC. There are evidences of copper mining in Indus Valley dating back 500 years, in Iran dating back 6000 years and in Central Europe 4000 years old. Coppermining in the Alps dating back to the Bronze Age has been there for 3000 years, while the oldest bronze objects in Urs are 5500 years old. Distant trade of mining products, especially stone axes and also copper, began already 5000 years back. For example, Mesopotamia possessed a highly developed metal art, although it didn’t have any ore deposits, while the Incas had rich iron ore deposits, but didn’t have the technical tradition of melting of iron ores and they didn’t directly require it, since their technique of producing very hard copper was advanced. This underlines both the essential factors of nature as object of processing through technical processes as well as technical tradition and the training of human skills to be able to transform natural objects into artefacts in order to be able to utilise natural processes with technical intentions. The role of chance in the development and improvement of tools to work on metals may not be underestimated. The structure of the stone as played a great role with regard to the evolution of hand-axe (Singer et al. 1956, 68). Both the factors establish technical power and have led directly to the constitution of society in the great river civilizations spread all over the world. Mouldable iron appeared for the first time in the 2nd century BC in Anatolia and cast iron in the 9th century BC in China. The hardened steel appeared in the early first millennium BC and cast steel in the early first millennium BC in north India. It was a unique invention in the Hittite empire. Irrespective of that there was probably smelting of iron in China. Iron has a relatively high boiling-point at 1530 deg. Celsius. Cast steel without the mixture of cinders was present in Taxila in north India in the end of the first millennium BC. There was in later Arabia molten steel, out of which extra-ordinary swords could be moulded. The Chinese produced cast iron in great amounts through the process of blast furnace (Fagan 2004, 46–48). Another power factor is the use of weapons in war. Initially one fought with hunting weapons and with the evolution of civilizations war weapons became differentiated. War and sport was always related to each other. There was a javelin thrower in the older Stone Age in France. The boomerang was used in Australia 10000 years back. There are arrowheads in Africa dating back 60–70000 years, about which we at least assume this. Arrowheads made of stone were used in Spain 18-20000 years back. It can be proved that there were arrows in Germany 12000 years back. What is specially refined is the boomerang. Bow and arrow were the first weapons of shooting. Humans were also shot at by bow and arrow, since there were armoured Egyptian warriors as weapons of defense (Fagan 2004, 172–177). Swords, daggers and speers are also things which were developed initially in the civilian area, but supported soon important military interests. The existence of flint stone daggers in Turkey in the 6th millennium BC has been proven. There existed bronze swords in the middle Bronze Age in the Middle East and in Europe. There were iron swords in Greece in the 9th century BC. There is a Spanish sword from the 3rd century BC and it can be dated back to the Roman Empire. Slasher was

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developed in China in the 11th century BC (Fagan 2004, 178). Armours, helmets and shields were developed against arrows, swords, daggers and spears as defensive weapons. The oldest military protective clothing dates back to 3rd millennium BC in Mesopotamia. Protective caps were developed also in Mesopotamia around 2500 BC. There existed specific protective clothing in China already around 1700–1045 BC. The armour was invented in Greece around 1500 BC. The boar’s tusk-helmet originated also in Greece around 12050 BC. Iron helmets are said to have existed in China around 475–221 BC. The chain armour was developed in West Europe in the 3rd century BC. In all, the production of weapons and protective weapons appears to be a race for better arsenal of weapons. The protective clothing was initially made of leather and shields were the first weapons of defense (Fagan 2004, 182– 185). Stone walls and fortresses existed in the Far East in around 6000 BC. City walls are normal in Mesopotamia since 3000 BC. Limes and Hadrian’s Wall emerged in 2–4th century AD. The first known fortification wall is the 8000 year old city wall of Jericho. Egyptian fortresses had city walls. This kind of architecture was trusted with the task of protecting the trade routes. Hittites, for example, were familiar with fortified cities. One can recall the lion gate in Hattusa and also in Mycenae. Babylonians used adobes. But the roman defense complexes were of different kind. But they used also wood. The Chinese wall was built between 2700 and 2000 BC (Fagan 2004, 187–190). Initially, the battering-ram in Egypt around 1900 BC, the earth ramp in Babylon in 2000 BC, forts in 2000 BC and catapults in 400 BC before Syracuse were used as siege machines. There were invented in the course of attempts to conquer ramparts. Siege towers were introduced and artillery and catapult were mechanical machines in use, of which catapult was often employed. Crossbows were tiny catapults (Fagan 2004, 192–195). Tanks were developed in Mesopotamia in 3000 BC. Chariots were developed in Egypt in the 16th century. There existed a chariot in China and similarly in other cultural contexts in the 12th century BC. Saddle-horses were developed in Egypt in the 14th century BC and cavalries in Syria in the 9th century BC. The two-wheeled tank with a steering and a fighter revolutionized combat technique in a certain manner. In between there existed a cavalry in Assyria, in Nineveh and the roman cavalry (Fagan 2004, 196–199). Penteconters were initially the warships in Greece in the 8th century BC. The triremes originated in the 6th century BC in Egypt or Phoenicia and the Hellenistic era-warships in the 4th century BC in Sicily. There are single-rudders and penteconters. The roman fleet had also three-rudders, four-rudders, five-rudders and multiplerudders (Fagan 2004, 200–203). The transition from the Neolithic economy to the power-centred economy was linked to the increase of technical order, mathematical accuracy, specialized skills and knowledge and above all of the centralized intelligence. It was also related to the great civilizations and river systems like in Mesopotamia and Egypt. According to Mumford, the myth of machine and the cult of the kingdom of God appeared simultaneously. There is no doubt about the origin of unconditional sub-mission to the king and his special capacities. It was hunting which developed the initiative, the self-confidence and the remorselessness to win and maintain power and it was

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the weapons of the hunter which provided the backing of violence to his orders, above all the readiness to kill, irrespective of whether they were rational or irrational (Mumford 1981, 203). There evolved in astronomy and calendar-art a new kind of science, of a different kind than the sharp observation and the intimate familiarity which had favoured domestication. It was based on an abstract, impersonal order, on numbers, measurements and exact drawing. It was meant to count the days, to observe the solar year and to foresee the swelling and overflowing of the river Nile (Mumford, 1981, 203). Without the reverent belief in and absolute obedience towards the will of the king which has been passed on by city guards, generals, bureaucrats and guards, the machines would not have been viable. If this attitude couldn’t be maintained, the mega-machine broke down. The human machine had two aspects from the beginning: a negative, violent and often destructive and a positive, life-enhancing and constructive one. The second one could not be exactly functional, when the first one didn’t exist in certain measure (Mumford 1981, 222). Whether organized for the purposes of labour or war, the new collective had the same regimentation, exercise the same kind of coercion and punishment and limited the tangible use to the ruling minority which had created and controlled the mega-machine. What remained in the centre was the social pyramids which originated in Egypt and Mesopotamia in the age of pyramids (Mumford 1981, 245f). The entire praise of production and use of tools which was mistakenly seen in relation to the early man, is justified from the Neolithic period onward and had to be even augmented with regard to the later achievements of artisanry (Mumford 1981, 273). The effects of advanced civilizations in the Far East Asia didn’t reach Europe directly except in the south eastern corner of Greece and Crete. What went on here in the evolution of metal age were evidently independent processes, the consequences of which have significance in terms of history of the world (Bergmann 1987, 9f), which establishes the connection between technical power and social form. Different weapons in the grave finds of men and different kinds of traditional apparels and jewels in the grave finds of women in the individual periods of the earlier Bronze Age show as results regional groups of grave finds in north west Germany. Different weapons can be ascribed to different styles of combat-besides close combat distant combat has also to be employed- be it with spears or bow and arrow. It might even be related to another combat strategy (Bergmann 1987, 40f). The hierarchical classification of the arms of men and the traditional costumes of women, which have to be interpreted now, could be dealt as the social structure (Bergmann 1987, 74–78). Hence, the Europe of the Bronze Age can be divided into two societies which can be presented as different with regard to their arms. On the one hand there is a concept of segmented society, where there is relative independence and a council of elders in the sense of the primary among equals in a rather flexible community pre-dominates. On the other hand there are tribes under chieftains, who carried out wars with the reclamation of land, something which was known from the other ethnology. In contrast to this, there are military undertakings of tribes which are less aimed at the reclamation of land. The transition in the described space, from a rule

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of the council of elders to the chieftain as the leader can be comprehended. The former own an egalitarian fundamental structure. The necessary leadership of the community lies mostly in the hands of elders or a so-called Big Man which formed the head of the community without any real external power and which consisted mostly of groups of relatives (Bergmann 1987, 83f). Perhaps, the units organized like tribes towards the end of Neolithic period, who supposedly lived still in the subsistence economy, were as extinct cultures, most probably brought into an economic inequilibrium through the introduction of metal culture during the early and later Bronze Age. The tribal feuds and wars may not have been rare before, and they grew with the appearance of new weapons and combat strategies and their quick and always innovative development further into a factor which possibly dominated life in a more significant manner than in the old Neolithic times. A social structuring that gets always stronger and a growing prestige can be observed. These things might or could have caused at least a dynamic of development which leads to constellations, from which a reversal of the existing power in the segmented social structure was no more possible or was possible only in a difficult manner. A transition to the rule of chieftains was hence already predestined (Bergmann 1987, 86). The use of metal had drastic ecological outcomes. The clearing became more wide spread through the felling of trees. The infertile moorland useful for farming purposes and other special things like pasture of sheep penetrated into the forest free areas. The specific, hard iron precipitation of the moorland, impermeable to rain water, but sliding towards the valley degenerated the ground and it became no more capable of carrying the highly valuable plant species (Bergmann 1987, 111). The pasture moved towards oak-birch-mixed forest, already as an outcome of the revolution of metal age. With the entry of metal the powers in the community became evidently effective, which can be characterized as explosive in a certain sense. But what linked the cultures of Neolithic Age with those of hunting and collecting was the fact that they represented those subsistence societies. They lived from the income from field and herds and they gathered materials and resources like stones from the surrounding nature for their instruments, equipments and weapons. There was a certain exchange with the neighboring communities in areas of specialization of production of certain foodstuff, though this didn’t lead to any economic dependence (Bergmann 1987, 115f). The division of labour increased with the introduction of new metals. The cooperation and link between different metallurgically important labour departments and districts also strengthened: the extraction of both the resources by miners, on the one hand copper and on the other tin in deposits separated farthest from each other in Europe, the metallurgical processing into most possibly pure metals, the alloying into Bronze, the longer transport between these labour departments, the carrying of materials to these workshops, the building of trade and/or migratory trade organisations and the effects of these external forces, which make more and more dependant on the recipients of products. The loss of subsistence was above all part of these. In contrast to copper and tin, the ingredients of bronze, appeared iron, although of a very different quality, in many places. Extraction, processing, and

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possession of iron showed soon new serious social-political outcomes for the communities; much stronger here than in the earlier Bronze Age (Bergmann 1987, 118). Wide related trade networks thus became the pre-condition for the production of new paths of development breaking metals - and at the same time its immediate outcome. Europe began to grow together. Knives and axes of Bronze were more tenable and efficient than those of stone and the weapons became more efficient and impressive. Bowls and dishes, arm rings, collars and jeweller for robe could be made from Bronze. Those who were possessed objects of Bronze, owned insigne of power and hence commanded respect. The desire for more began to grow in humans. The society divided itself into rich and poor, ruler and subjects. Man began to think in greater spaces. Despite the weapons and readers of the Bronze Age man lived his daily life still like in the Stone Age. This didn’t change so quickly and a traceable, even if no way widespread entry of metal into everyday life can be detected only in the later epoch of the Metal Age, the Iron Age and that too only in recent periods (Bergmann 1987, 119). People of those times received practical knowledge in chemistry and physics, in the use of new materials and heat through the invention of new artisan techniques like the production of Bronze. These are achievements which have decisively influenced the course of the world in the long term. From the foremen of the once hunting and gathering communities we witness a transition to the rulers of trade routes. They controlled the traffic of goods and earned a name through that. The rulers of the Unetice culture of the Bronze Age, which followed the Beaker culture that was wide spread in Europe formed strategically favourable cave settlements in the region of Saale, mostly at a distance of 15 to 20 miles. The rise of Babylon had not yet begun, since central Germany had already had the first economic boom in its history. Magnificent axes and lady daggers were in demand as prestige objects as well as burial objects from Scandinavia to South Germany. In the foothills of Halz and in today’s Halle (the name comes from Hal-salt) salt was extracted. It was used for spicing and for conservation for tanning and leather. The precious amber came from the Baltic Sea into the inland. Porters and pack-animals travelled across the land and heavily loaded boats travelled on the river. Metal fins which are made today testify to this: trade routes from all parts of Europe crossed at Elbe and Saale (Löwer 2007, 57–60). If in the beginning the kind of arming was decisive, it became later the kind of organisation. The legions of Rome are a relevant example for this. The roman army played a central role in the history of the city. It created and safeguarded an empire which in the course of history covered Europe, North Africa and Far East. The common image of this army is that of a perfectly organised and strictly disciplined force of professional soldiers who already exhibited astonishingly many aspects of a modern army. At least one part of this image holds right for certain periods of Roman history. It certainly doesn’t say anything about the far reaching changes within the military establishment of Rome during its rule over centuries. The country army of the middle republic (3–2 Century BC) was recruited from citizens who were subjected to military discipline during the time of war, only to return later to normal civilian life. The soldiers were wealthy men, generally farmers who owned enough

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land that they could pay out of their income from the land for weapons and war equipments. The service in the army was for these soldiers not a job with opportunities for promotion, instead it was a duty which they were obliged to perform for Rome. It was this military, which conquered Italy, defeated Carthage and earned Rome a position of supremacy in the entire Mediterranean area (Goldsworthy 2004, 1). The second phase (1 century BC till 3rd century AD) began with the establishment of a permanent army of professional soldiers. The expansion of the area of power meant that wars took place always at a greater distance from Italy, which in fact made extensive Garrisons necessary in the conquered areas. The militia system was not suitable for this arrangement. The legionary, mostly a poor man who saw the possibility for a promotion in his profession in the army, took the place of wealthy farmers who served in the army for short periods of time out of a feeling of obligation towards the republic. The outcome was a fundamental change in the relation between the army and the state, which made civil wars possible that shook the republic. Finally, Augustus created an army which was loyal to him and his alone and his successors stuck to this principle. Under this principate the Roman army reached the summit of efficiency by completing the conquests of the empire and subsequently safeguarding the rule of Rome. The Roman army during this time corresponded in the truest manner to its image spread today (Goldsworthy 2004, 7). The last phase (3–5 century AD) falls in the late antique, when the permanent army increasingly came face to face with threats from abroad, while it was at the same time worn down by civil wars. New units, weapons and equipments were introduced and the structure of the army changed during these examinations. But despite all these many things remained the same and there were greater differences between the army of the middle republic and the one under the principate than between the latter and the forces of the late Roman Empire (Goldsworthy 2004, 7f). Iron was initially rare in the provision of soldiers. Spear ends made of bronze, daggers and swords were gradually substituted by weapons made of iron. Some time later the Romans took over the Hoplite Phalanx, which was introduced in Italy probably by the Greek colonists. Hoplites were foot soldiers armed with lances and they derive their name from the round wooden shield. Besides, the small sword was part of the armament. The development of closed arrays marks the growth of the Roam population. But it is also a hint that a considerable part of the population where land owners. Going by records, the Romans took over the phalanx, after they came across the Etruscan hoplites and because of this innovation it was possible for them to defeat Etruscans. There was no sudden turning away from the noble war hordes to a phalanx of citizens (Goldsworthy 2004, 21–24). The Roman army remained a militia army and the census recorded all citizens who could be recruited for military service on account of their asset. A legion consisted generally of 4200 foot soldiers and 300 riders. Important for the armament were the long spear and a sword, now and then also a dagger. Armours, helmets as well as shield were used as defensive weapons. The militia army was basically not a permanent army and even when the legions stayed for a while, they were apparently numbered again at the beginning of the next consular year (Goldsworthy 2004,

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26–33). The Romans didn’t consider for a long time a fleet for themselves as necessary, since all their enemies in Italy could be fought in their country by their army. In 311 BC the republic appointed two officials for the fleet, who were responsible for the construction and maintenance of warships. Each one was in command of a squadron of 10 ships, probably Triremes. In 261 BC the republic ordered the construction of a fleet of 100 quinqueremes and 20 triremes. It was a prelude to an extensive programme of fleet construction with the goal of destroying the Phoenician naval power. The warships of fleets in the antiquity were galleys equipped with rudders. Compared to their size, a great number of units were accommodated in their narrow hulls. Some of the greater ships had also throwing machines, but they were certainly not capable of fighting off or sinking an enemy ship. There were two other methods for this in the sea war: ramming and boarding (Goldsworthy 2004, 34). Big parts of the Roman army were concentrated in the vicinity of politically significant centres, close to the big cities in the east and also to Rome; the Praetorian guards and the units supporting them were constantly strengthened. Some regions of the empire, where there was a great resistance in the population and there existed groups of robbers, were not completely under control and demanded also the stationing of greater garrisons. The big part of the army was certainly deployed in the border provinces. Under the principate these bases were constantly developed and made enduring. Wooden walls and straw roofs were substituted step by step by stone walls and tiles (Goldsworthy 2004, 152). The Romans might have rarely observed big concentrations of troops. The attacks of the smallest groups were essentially more frequent. In this respect, Hadrian’s Wall was also not built excessively high. What was more important was the fact that this way the return journey with heavy or unwieldy booty was made extremely difficult (Goldsworthy 2004, 161). The wars of conquest and punishment expeditions were naturally offensive operations. The Romans followed the tactic of taking the initiative as soon as possible going into offensive also in defensive wars, where an uprising had to be defeated. The flexibility of the Roman system was applied there. When the situation demanded, they could also conduct a small war, in which the main army was divided into several columns of marchers, who could carry out surprise attacks with lightning speed and also attacks without warning because of their mobility. One cannot say that the Roman professional army was inept at fighting against enemies who had resorted to guerrilla war. The ensured supplies for the army were of special priority for every Roman commander. There developed under the republic a system of transporting huge amounts of provisions and materials from distant provinces to provide for the troops in the war regions (Goldsworthy 2004, 168–170). The siege was also perfectly possible. The operating crew for the throwing machines was selected from a series of cohorts and they didn’t form a separate unit. What kinds of artilleries existed there and how skillfully they were served, varied from legion to legion (Goldsworthy 2004, 192). In the late antiquity, more was done for the construction of fortifying structures than in the earlier epochs. The existing camps were strengthened and new forts came up in places which had to be defended well

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(Goldsworthy 2004, 206). A well-equipped and organised army of professional soldiers cost much money for the state. But it could also be dangerous to the emperor, if his high-ranking officers supported an usurper (Goldsworthy 2004, 214). The legionary as a professional soldier implies the professionalization of military and technical praxis with one’s own technological knowledge. Battles, movement of troops, sieges, camps themselves, fortifications and routes, cavalry, ship construction and ports, weapons, war equipments and mechanical equipments, all these were as sub-technologies part of the military field. A space was created through military means, where trade could be conducted. This is the experience which Rome passed over to Europe and which, at least I think, has resulted in the history of European colonisation. Great empires could also be created through military means, which offered a pre-condition for creating a demand for luxury goods, which could be again be satisfied by through refined technics and trade. Rome can be considered as a city-state with a militia system of farmers and citizens with defence strategies. This zone of protection created a zone of better basis of food with the subsequent growth of population. This population growth, not least in Rome, created material constraints. In its heydays providing for Rome was not possible, was particularly always difficult with resources in Italy alone. Professional armies are more successful in strategies of conquest. The constitution of the Roman republic changes with the rearrangement of the army and also the other way around. Big technologies can be used in a better manner in the military field, since military means set the ground for hard preparation and careful training of expensive and multiple technologies and strategies and not least because technically competent persons and experts are available and are trained. The technics of siege also sets a pre-condition of high technological competence and indeed not only individual weapons and equipments, but especially also experienced and trained soldiers. A connection between the professional army and the wars of conquest can be reconstructed here. There exist separate trades in the professional army. Defensive wars can be conducted perfectly with the public army, but changed situations demand also changed forms of organisation of going about technologies. Technical competences and technical artefacts play a central role in the battle and even more during the siege and also in the setting up of camps and building of infrastructure. Artillery, throwing machines, guns, onager or “wild ass” as well as torsion guns were mechanical equipments which were part of the war technology. In the beginning of modernity technical power like political power grew on the basis of technics, above all on ground of innovations in the area of mining. The biggest progress in the technics of Renaissance can be noted in the closely linked areas of mining, metallurgy and chemistry since the middle of the 15th century. The new process of social transition was characterised by new forms of mobility. There were movements of revival in the cities with profane goals. There emerged a growing flood of technical publications. The recognition of practical technical experience had also been the precondition of renaissance humanism. Trials on mining took place during this time. Agricola has written a work on mining and the practical experience of nature in this background. He follows an inductive path in his writing

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“De re metallica Libri XII”. He conveys here also the knowledge of miners about minerals. It was not only a technological or natural scientific debate, but also the social pros and cons of points of view about environmental protection reflected in this general debate on mining. The general demands of knowledge among miners were quite high and included the knowledge of many arts and sciences. Agricola’s strength lies less in the process engineering-methodical side than in the most exact detailed description of technical instrumental arrangements and mechanical equipments. He was a practical person. Agricola stresses emphatically that metals are not to be blamed when they are used for destruction. The cultural problem of technics comes up in this context. Above all, Germany was the centre of the lively mining and metallurgical technics. The search for efficient machines for the extraction of water engaged the inventors (Klemm 1999, 86f). The effort for power machines manifested itself in the flatrod system. These flatrod systems which were found around the middle of 16th century in the Ore Mountains and which at times stretched beyond 5 miles served in a moderate measure the function of modern electrical transmission lines. Horse-gin was also used. The imperial and above all, the Saxon inventor privileges of the 16th century helped to recognise a very progressive practice of law. Novelty and commercial utilisation of the invention were the most essential preconditions for granting a privilege. The German mining and metallurgical industry which was flourishing since the late middle age, which Agricola and Ercker show us, suffered certainly a slow decline since the middle of the 16th century. The rearrangement of trade routes in the age of discoveries, the introduction of metals from the newly discovered America and finally the development of an independent iron industry in England were the reasons. Fugger was originally a weaving family from Augsburg which made a huge leap forward to a multinational concern by financing the election of the Spanish king Karl I in 1519. They started initially with the trade in textiles and moved more and more to the trade of exotic goods. An important step was the monopolisation of silver and copper mining. It led to the construction of a widely branched trade system. It became an important financial service provider and followed the politics of consequent monopolisation (Bauer, Hallier 1999, 96–98). The renaissance mining promoted early capitalism and the power of Fugger. There emerged a growing stratum of independent workers (miners’ guild). In the conurbations and cities of coal and steel industry mining was seen as the source of royal power. The Habsburgian world power under the emperor Karl V was based on the silver current from the Alps. Copper was specially used for the artillery. Mining led to increase in the power of sovereign princes and modernisation of states and in a certain way also the thirty years war. One could only with difficulty do justice to the increased demands on the size of production and the economic viability of coal and steel industry without improving the technical niveau. It led thus to the improvement of art, of know-how. The innovations helped above all to save the muscle power. A systematic modernisation of the instrumental and methodical fundamentals of production, specific technology transfer, strengthened provision of capital and better material like hardened steel in all promoted mining (Suhling 1983, 126–134).

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The changes of social kind in the 18th century through technical power become even more massive with the industrial revolution. The 18th century is characterised above all since the middle of the century by a new concept of nature. There develops a new relationship with nature, a new approach towards nature. There was naturally exploitation of nature in individual areas also earlier like in mining or water pollution through the manufacture of paper. In view of the pre-industrial commerce one can doubt, whether there were nature-friendly economies and suppose that there existed already a tendency of exploitative use of nature (Bayerl 1991, 11f). The situation in mining is already described by Georg Agricola in 1475. It is about a Latin writing in a juridical style on the appraisal of “pros and cons” of mining. It can be concluded from the discussion about mining that environmental problems as a result of commerce were already well known in the beginning of early modernity. The problem complex restricts itself to individual, specially exposed regions: steel and mining areas and commercial landscapes. The local connection of the pre-industrial environmental problems must be emphasised time and again (Bayerl 1991, 16). The advancement of economic thought was not debated in the 18th century, instead the emergence of a new quality of economy and technics. It was about overcoming the economy of self-sufficiency. Nature was increasingly seen only in terms of its use for the economic well being of man. There is a necessary connection between the spread of this understanding of nature and the accomplishment of “big industry”. The history of nature as the description of three nature kingdoms (animal, plant- and mineral kingdom) was a leading discipline in the 18th century. The description of plant kingdom, botany occupied the first place in this regard (Bayerl 1994, 29). Indeed, since the phase of radical change between the late middle age and early modernity in the 15/16th century considerable evolutionary developments in individual modernising areas had taken place in the economic, technical and scientific sectors. This evolutionary progress of economy, technics and science applied only to certain areas and had insular character. But it contributed to the fact that a new economic and technical level was achieved in the 18th century, which discovered new solutions. The limits of technologies hitherto led to “bottlenecks”, like for example in mining (water could not be lifted from greater depths any more with the conventional mill and new power machines became necessary), in process technology (the hitherto “trial and error” method proved to be inadequate in the chemicalthermal process like for example in metal smelting and glass production) or in the development of raw materials. The thought of general welfare made headway in the 18th century. Population increase was seen as the basis of this welfare and commerce had to contribute with its expanding production to provide for an increasing population. In the 18th century we reached the pinnacle of development in the economic, technical and scientific areas of relatively prospering and growing societies, which were at the same time affected by a crisis as a result of rising population, since the growing population doesn’t reach a point of saturation in the framework of a traditional system. This means a gradual headway of the thought about progress and growth which has to be supported not only by the economic policy of the state,

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but also the “useful” sciences. Science, technics and economy have to progress (Bayerl 1994, 30f). In the 18th century the individual nature kingdoms and their objects, were described to a great extent from the point of view of their utility. This is the case with Johan Jakob Beckmann too, where there is certainly no system to be observed, according to which Beckmann describes the utility. What seems to be more relevant than the scientific-historic categorization of the classification system is the character of a department store which the nature kingdom assumes and is paradigmatic of the view of nature in the second half of the 18th century. The original system of extraction of natural materials, agriculture, was naturally the object of utilitarian thinking. There were already signs of technological thought in the area of agriculture among the cameralists of the 17th and 18th century, for example Julius, Bernhard von Rohr (1688–1742; Bayerl 1994, 33–36). The ecological imperialism is transferred to the entire world through the colonisation of the non-european world. According to Georg Rudolf Böhmer in his “The technical history of plants”, the economical view of the nature kingdom is complemented by the technical view (Bayerl 1994, 44). Only the total understanding of nature under the aspect of utility in the 18th century, the breakthrough of the paradigm of economic exploitation with the signum of technical-economic view of nature explains the industrial victory march and also the problems, which the industrial society has presented us today. The society defined itself through utilitarian activities and utility and function became its evangelism. Whether the economy was defined by the central management of the welfare state or by free trade was only a gradual difference. The success was ultimately decisive. This re-education of traditional societies took place on all levels. Man, who is part of the nature kingdom, was also discovered as a resource and in the sense of populating and thus of population growth, was seen as a source of riches of the absolutist state. The next step was incentives for innovation (Bayerl 1994, 54–56). Since 1750 there existed a strongly accentuated thinking about economic growth. The key concept or the password in this context is blissful happiness. An essential complex of ideas and actions necessary for the transition to industrial society remains hidden in this concept. The concept immanent theological telos dominates still the religiously imprinted theory of nature of Wolff. This structure of argument became mild half a century later in the second important German encyclopaedia “Krünitz”. Blissful happiness had become a universal, utilitarian-hedonistic, social concept. Johann Heinrich Gottlob had made a hierarchy of scientific disciplines under the aspect of their utility for the human needs. The “oeconomico urbana” (urban economy) forms a predecessor of technology. It grants its main attention to the description of natural resources, which are used for the production of goods. What manifests itself there is the technical view of nature. The description of natural resources concentrated initially on the known raw materials of production. But it had to gain a different focus sooner or later by paying attention to the state’s end goal of blissful happiness- an extensively classifying examination of

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resources and the search for expansion of usable resources (Bayerl/Meier 1996, 137–141). The optimisation of natural resources formed the new task. The question of the welfare of future generations became increasingly more important. It refers to an anticipation of the question of resources central to industrial capitalism. Individual happiness could be achieved only through the task of certain rights and with the recognition of priority of happiness of the state. The propagation of material happiness as the end goal of the state and the link with the absolutist population policy resulted in the fact that an expanding commerce must increase the production. The idea of growth along with the paradigm of the 18th century enters the society. It is not the energy question that is the problem now. The production bottle-necks have to be seen rather as a question of raw materials and production technics. One cannot say that there was any disregard of nature in the economic theory at this time (Bayerl/Meier 1996, 143). The second dimension of the thought about growth in the 18th century was the conditioning of human resources according to a regulated and goal conscious labour, which promoted social welfare and happiness through the exploitation of natural resources. One of the fundamental rules of the mercantile economic policy, i.e. ban of export of resources, is based on the consciousness of dependence on natural resources (Bayerl/Meier 1996, 147–151). Animals were highly valued as providers of raw materials. While the energy question was still not virulent as an obstacle for further economic development, the question about raw materials was on the agenda. Growth was possible only, when the hitherto selfrestrictions of productions were overcome, as a matter of priority also the shortage of raw materials. The knowledge about the three natural kingdoms was temporarily the essential means to expand the basis of raw materials. The European industrialisation is inconceivable without the economisation of nature which began in the 18th century (Bayerl/Meier 1996, 156–158). The publishing system contained the fundamental features of wage-labour relations. The hand-made article is a basic form of the modern factory labour. The publishing system has to be understood as an outwork dependent on entrepreneurs. It remains outside the guild system and can introduce and fix other working time rhythms than those which are fixed by the guild system. The publishing allows also other sources of earnings. In the farm reproduction in the entire house, production, consumption and generative reproduction were quantities seen in relation to each other inside a familiar overall system. These principles are revoked to a great extent in the small factory and division of labour. Smith emphasises the effect of the division of labour and diffrentiation of wage levels, which increases productivity, which is ultimately implied in this principle. Hence, production is seen now in the sense of a mechanism. What is central for this is the hierarchical differentiation of the working qualification. This implies a new structuring of the labour process and also of social structuring (Pohlmann 1997, 55–68). The first phase of industrialisation was pre-scientific. The natural science and its will to dominate nature and the primacy of controlled experience have an implied technical character. Technics is an essential element of natural sciences. The concept of rational causality is also particularly part of that (Pohlmann 1997, 71–74).

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The labour-, particularly tool-machine can be linked to the steam machine. The effects of mechanisation of labour are immense. Children and women with relatively lesser qualification can be brought in to work. They pay price as a result with their youth and life. Their new life remains under the sign of work discipline. In the beginning of industrialisation the working hours were extremely long. The industrial cities grew as centres of population. A new system for the support of the poor became necessary. The mechanisation of the means of transport led to new travel experiences and the re-designing of cities (Pohlmann 1997, 82–94). The rise in productivity in the agricultural sector supported the liberation of farmers since 1820. The forms of commerce and the expansion of the domestic market were of considerable significance for the German empire. The construction of the German rail network was extremely important for the transport infrastructure. Mass emigration happened parallel to the migration of industrial structures. There emerged grand business structures. This led to transitions within the workforce and to the creation of a new middle class (Pohlmann 1997, 105–120). The practice of marriage became natural only with the formation of the industrial society. The death rate could also be decreased, which with high birth rates led to a growth in population. The change of diet in the sense of vegetabilisation was important. This meant a demographic transition (Pohlmann 1997, 123–132). The extended family gave way to nuclear family as the model (Pohlmann 1997, 147). The middle-class intellectualism as the academically educated middle-class complemented the middleclass ideal of family. There developed in between a difference between professional labour and residential space. It brought about a new organisation of the genderspecific organisation of labour. The division of the structure of the middle-class residential space into family and professional system was propagated in the sense of the ideal of a “sensible love”. The family became the opposite pole of the system of achievement (Pohlmann 1997, 157–166). Hence there emerged a new system of social inequality through the industrial system. Class and standing as well as social status and the concept of stratum were newly defined this time in a manner induced by technics. The concept of stratum, for example thematised the life situations of social groups. It brought about a fundamental transformation of the social order during industrialisation. The reconstitution of the concept of society in the era of industrialisation includes 1) reduction of power, 2) reduction of power differences between individual strata, 3) it led to an enormous growth of mutual controls and dependences in the context of power relations, as a result of which social developments could no more be planned. As a result, Max Weber’s point of view of sociological thoughts starts to undergo a transformation today (Pohlmann 1997, 171–185). Technical potentials are the basis of technical power. They have initially human competences as the basis to be able, in the context of the most common technical praxis, to carry out certain technological actions, which can be increasingly delegated to machines with the industrial revolution. Potentials have a minimum, maximum and an optimum, wherein potentials are realised through use. Also the availability has the potential-character and varies between minimum and maximum. Technical power is somewhat fluctuating

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and depends on the success and failure of technical praxis. Technical power is constituted by collective technical actions (technical praxis) on the one hand and on the other by the growing power of availability of technical artefacts. If the powers are not adequate for the maintenance, it results in the decline of technical power. Technical paths of development, technology transfer and trans-cultural modernization are forms of technical praxis and have often a project character and are hence at least partly rationally planned and are comprehensible as accomplishment of a technical task. The same doesn’t seem to apply for wider paths of technical development or big technical systems, since feedback effects of many kinds thwart planning and designing. Such forms of technically institutionalised practice of more complexity follow the patterns of design of gentler kind like ideas, visions and models. They establish above all the technical power. A philosophical reflection of technics and its forms like the different concepts of understanding of technology may not reduce the development of technics to the determining productivity. It must possibly consider many factors of development and must methodologically consult about its significance, meaning and value. What is attempted is a convergence of perspectives, with which the development of technics can be interpreted. In addition, an understanding of technics and technology has to be developed respectively and it has to be discussed, which arguments are for or against a particular interpretation. A supporting network, technical tradition, system of infrastructure and technical network of help are necessary for the process of invention, development and innovation. The process of technological change and the process of development were based on the negative feedback-metaphor. Research and development meshed together and they were based on the three-stage process of invention, development and innovation. The idea of technical tradition was central here (Staudenmaier 1985, 35–80).

5. PATHS OF TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT, TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AND TRANSCULTURAL MODERNIZATION Technological change is a historically random social and cultural process. The cumulative accumulation and combination of the technological change (of individual small steps of inventions) is normal and the system model of technological change is based on these ideas. It is about linkage and growth of the system, to which the growth of technically established power is related. On the other hand there are technological paradigms and their revolutionary change. It deals with the continuity and evolution of technical change. What are required for studying the structural conditions of technological change are a metahistory and a metasociology (Parayil 1999, 21–36). The change of technical artefacts is the manifestation of the process of technological change. Invention, innovation and development as well as technology transfer are the main vectors of technological change. They operate among each other and do not follow any law-like rule. Technological change is a historical process which has an effect inside a random social milieu. Technological change is a continuous and cumulative process. Technological change is as a result in all a problem solving activity. Problem solving heuristics lead to functional problems of technology. Technological change is embedded and achieved by social interests and powers (Parayil 1999, 177–184). Technical power can be established this way. Here there are paths of development of totally different structure: 1) of the discovery of technical principles about the invention of technical product, 2) of the discovery of technical principles about a multiplicity of products in the sense of a split-up of paths of development. It can lead this way from rotation to potter’s wheel, a vehicle or a mill. The constituents of the paths of development can be described in the areas of technical science, political economy and culture. The political technology is here particularly interesting. From a cultural theoretical view, technical products are part of a complex system of relations and significations, moments of socio-cultural construction of reality and their significance. The material culture has to be inquired in its mutual relationship with the symbolic and social structures. The concept of culture is here applied in different areas of action. If one were to borrow Clifford Geertz’ understanding of culture as an ordered system of meanings and symbols, mediated by social interaction, then products can be understood as material, objective part of culture. Product culture is the sum of contemporary products and part of an organisational culture. The meaning of technical artefacts doesn’t exhaust in their use. Material artefacts are not only the objective expression of the culturally produced reality, instead they contribute also to its construction. They are models of and for culture. As manifestations of collective values they function just so as symbols of social integration like differentiation and classi-

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fication. A fixing of the use function of products is not socially and culturally admissible. The social use of products is neither ascertainable from their properties, nor can they be detected simply from the instructions for use. The differences between the useful and the superfluous, natural and cultural are the results of culturally generated selections. Cultural integration, cultural conflict and cultural change all hence belong together (Geertz 1994, 191). Symbols which are related to technics, real symbols like the machine or the technosphere, must be complemented by symbols as elements of a technical world view like some technical progress. The thesis which is plausible within the conception of dealing with technical actions, amounts to the fact that we had such an idea with regard to technics already in the beginning of any technical development and this wish is not fulfilled by the technical development, since innovative technical development allows to develop such an idea only in course of time (perhaps, ultimately only towards its end). They describe processes, in which technically generated and mediatised power is involved in a considerable measure. A political technology which is obliged to the idea of socially embedded autonomy, should certainly be designed in the critical discussion of political economy, which spans from Karl Marx to Andrew Feenberg (Irrgang 2007a, Irrgang 2007d). In his ethnological hermeneutics Geertz emphasised the interpretative character of culture, but exaggerated with the metaphor “culture as text” the linguistic share of the reconstruction of culture. His social anthropology remains hence still traditionally text oriented. The approach of his cultural theory of technical development represented here refers to technical actions and its products (which are normally not a text), where particularly, the self-interpretation of acting persons as the actors and an outside interpretation of these actions are confronted with each other, resulting in an image of technical culture. In all, the teleological world plan is less plausible, even if it is interpreted as technical progress (Irrgang 2002b). Cultural history was frequently narrowed down to intellectual history. The idea of human dignity was also cited time and again. The explanative historiography helped the cultural theoretical strategy of the adoption of philosophy of history. Intentions of action and moulding were eliminated this way (Gil 1992, 32). History can hence be viewed as an irreversible sequence of overall situations. Cultural theory is an action oriented research model, in which the real individuals are the actual doers. Hegel’s idealistic reflective notion of the absolute world spirit and Adorno’s negative dialectics are speculative models, which are today not adequate for a philosophy of history. History is not a complete system like it was meant by Hegel. Cultural theory will have to develop by means of concrete stage and analysis the fact that history is the product, historical result as well as the active subject of human actions. In this respect, the historic-philosophical context of a cultural theory appears to be a hermeneutic problem (Irrgang 2002b). Pre-studies on the conception of culturally embedded technical-economic development (Irrgang 2002a; Irrgang 2002b, Irrgang 2006; Irrgang 2007d) have refered to Anthony Giddens theory of structuring of social processes (Giddens 1988). Routine is the predominating form of social everyday activity. Most of the everyday

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practices are not directly motivated. The study of the context, particularly of contextualities of interaction is an essential component of the study of social reproduction. The theory of structuring shows, how narrow and fundamental the practicability of institutional order is related to the phenomenon of power and how it generates structural constraints. We require hence a hermeneutics of power in the sense of a political economy. Innovation means improvement of the old and development of new human capabilities and their social organisation. Technological innovation means growth in the power of human technology to establish new and improved products and services. The effects of technological innovation on humans and their milieu were good and useful as well as destructive. His growing capabilities to establish energy technologies and establish transports liberated man from the restricted powers of animal muscles. But the same technologies have polluted his air, water and earth. The use of technological innovation by man in order to come to terms with his physical environment has led to a rapidly changing world and a growing complex of social and physical properties. Innovation is a process linked in itself, in which many adequately creative actions related to each other by research on services help in an integrated manner towards the realisation of a common goal. The process of innovation is not only a technical development, instead it must also be a well-understood social undertaking. Technological innovation is the process of perception or production of a relevant knowledge and its transformation into new and proven products and services, for which people are ready to pay. The process of innovation has to be differentiated from the organisation of this process. One needs here units of measurement of effectiveness to be able to evaluate innovations (Morton 1971). Innumerable case studies on technical-scientific developments have had individual inventions, industry branches, the history of firms and inventors, particularly inventor biographies as objects of study. What is common to all these case studies is their restriction to small sectors of technics. Technological archetypes were formulated in this respect. It led to a postulation of the economic determination of technical development. Apart from that, difference in levels between the knowledge of producers and users were postulated. The isolated action to a large extent in the analysis of technical development, has led to an inadequate theory construction, since it was attempted to describe technical developments by means of economic categories alone. The monodisciplinary and isolated ways towards the conception of technical development should be abandoned. Technical progress is first of all the gaining of new technical knowledge and thus a process of gaining information. Such a conception considers technical development certainly not as a social process and hence understands this as accumulation (Pfeiffer 1971, 23–29). Such a conception can explain only technical complementary effects. Big innovations which change the paradigm and inaugurate new forms of technical trade have to be differentiated from small innovations which result from the structure of use of technical actions. The knowledge of handling results from a process, founded by contingency, of transfers and analogy constructions. The knowledge of handling depends on the style of technics and as a result on the joy of innovation of a technical routine. Models of interpretation become a central part

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of innovative behaviour. In the traditional engineering-like ideology, the inventor followed a basic model of linear logicality, where innovations could be planned and calculated. A hermeneutic conception of technical action on the basis of the thesis of knowledge of handling sees here a process which is essentially more complex: the person involved in a technical action must learn to understand and recognise an innovation as such. This is a process of understanding. Communities and tradition are the most important places, where technological progress takes place. If one doubts the construction, the machines are re-constructed. If something breaks, it is made bigger, according to the motto of construction. The second most important difference between technological and orthodox scientific theory lies in what is accepted as acceptable and legitimate simplification. Thirdly, engineers must consider more strongly the economic and social values, since technology is not only a knowledge system, but also a social system. Internal organisational and external cultural requirements must be considered here (Laudan 1984, 31–41). Cognitive change in technology is the result of the problem solving activities, which have been reflected upon, of the members of relatively smaller communities of persons engaged in technical activities. The direction of technological change is often defined by the state of art, particularly of technics, which the technologies have already reached while in use. It means the function of the technological level, achieved is in fact important. With the conception of paths of change of products and processes we have found the first model of determinants and the orientation of technological change (Dosi 1984, 8–14). According to the cultural turn, technical development is seen as a model for cultural development. Technics is an expression, which is equally ambiguous in the mundane language and in technical-scientific and philosophical discussion. It is used 1) for the mastery of a pattern of action (for example, technique of a pianist and a painter), 2) as preparation and control of means for fixed goals according to functional and instrumental rational points of view (like for example in the big chemical processing technique) and 3) products of construction along engineering lines and of craftmanly production of artefacts, something like equipments and machines, which serve the purposes of transport, the transformation or storage of material and energy or the substitution of human cognitive feats (information technics) and also of production of immobile artefacts like buildings, streets, bridges and finally of work tools for intervention in the natural environment (Janich 1998, 146–148). But the technical levels are no way determined by the technical state of technics alone. They are the result of process of standardisation and the outcome of a successful incorporation of technics in the current technical praxis. Acceptance and cultural assimilation as well as crossing of technological paradigms are the preconditions for processes of standardisation and successful technology transfer. The necessity of leaders for these processes must be emphasised here. Cooperation and coordination are required for the enforcement of a paradigm. It is not the technical functionality that is differently coded, instead the organisational level, without which a machine doesn’t function or is safe, is culturally determined. Technology alone without the corresponding cultural transfer is not adequate and creates generally more environmental problems than it helps to avoid them. Besides the question

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of socio-economic embedding of technological innovations, the internal structure of technology and its development is of significance for the evaluation of technical progress. Innovations in the development of new materials have played a central role in the growth of industrial productivity. The structural innovations refer to the manner of product design and they have also played a central role in the technical progress. Another factor is the change in the taste of consumers. System innovations in contrast, enable integration of different technologies and represent the most important type of all these innovations (Sahal 1985, 80). Technical development is a combination of plan and unplanned outcomes and hence not an evolution or self-organisation in the natural scientific sense. It is about unfolding, development and origin of technical power in different regional centres. The development of technical power is linked here to certain preconditions which can be understood and determined. The development of technical action, which can be partly prognosticated doesn’t imply any analogy of indeterministically natural processes. A general line of development can still be traced, although there is no “logic of development” of technical action in the strict sense. The conception of knowledge of handling and instrumental understanding as the basis of technical action should render an epistemologically established vanishing-point for the reconstruction of technical development. It has to be inquired, to what extent is the knowledge of handling not only a fundamental characteristic of medieval technics, but also the constitutive role it plays in the industrial revolution and in the age of information technology and biotechnology. What serves as a point of departure for the conception of technical development is the model of knowledge of technical handling. This knowledge of handling represents a kind of rationality which cannot be identified with hitherto known scientific constructs of rationality. The knowledge of handling is based on trial and error as well as on imitative actions. This rationality represents this way a combination of the rationality of processes of technical tradition and the rationality of trial and error, where it is also rational to cut short the process of trial and error through methods and to change the number of trials. The concept of rationality with respect to the constructivist philosophy of technical action in a hermeneutic conception of technical action is changed through this approach in the knowledge of use. The result is a nonlinear, multicultural, interlinked and a feedback giving conception of paths of development, which are frequently broken, are full of accidents and are historically marked (Ihde 2000, Irrgang 2002a, Irrgang 2006), has still only a vague similarity and extensive relationship with the traditional model of technical progress. Husserl’s phenomenology, which uses the development of hidden contexts of meaning to demonstrate the purposefulness of development of natural science and technics in Europe, requires a fundamental questioning of and confrontation with the worldwide development of natural science, medicine and technics or exactly a transcultural hermeneutics of technics. Husserl’s purposefulness and teleology is at best a heuristic model and methodic ideal and derived not just from history alone, but also from the intentionality of action, for example of technical praxis. The presumed purposefulness is nothing beyond an occasionally helpful construct of interpretation.

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Technical development describes the origin of technical material systems in the sense of a product cycle. An example is the laser cash register with readable article number which has radically transformed the idea of self-service shop. It organises automatically the stock turnovers and trade margins in a network system. It has radically changed the entire inventory control system including the personal requirement and has caused a structural change in trade (Huisinga 1996, 31–101). With regard to the constituents of innovative processes, trends of innovation and their determinants, there is a theory of demand and the theory of technological stimulus. Market powers were seen as the main determinants of technological change. The point of departure in the demand theories here were the needs, particularly consumers or user of the use function. According to these theories, one can know a priori, whether an innovation will be successful or not. This way the smaller, particularly greater technological breakthroughs could be understood. The explanation of needs is difficult also with the assumption of needs. The supply pressure supposes market as the determinant of innovations. But the theories of supply pressure and demand cannot explain the time plan of innovations. The technological pressure and the significance of economic factors must still be explained. In all, a one dimensional conception of science-technology-production should be avoided. The growing role of scientific inputs, the complexity of research and development and the significance of learning through doing have to be considered in the explanation of innovative effects. An essential factor for innovation is the possibility to be able to take a monopolistic position at least occasionally on account of the patent right. Market concentration and market power are decisive factors in the description of determinants of innovation. It can here lead to a mutual influence (causation) between technology and market structures. The empirical and theoretical levels in the technological knowhow have to be differentiated here. Innovative and imitative actions can have the same effects. There are firms, which can influence market structures. But there are also technological differences between firms. Certain indicators for productivity, profit margin and profit rate can be developed here. The matrix for the mean value for each industry can be determined. We have this way technological discontinuities between individual firms and constantly innovative firms, national and international (Dosi 1984, 94–102). Firms have only a restrictive maneuvering room for price determination. Individualistic approaches don’t take us far in general. Imitation and learning through trial are successful strategies. The monopolistic situation in the beginning in an innovative firm is very important. Demand elasticities and price levels determine each other mutually. The strategies of firms become structures here and new and small innovative firms enter the scene. What is important are the factors, which concern the entry of new firms. The capital intensity and profit expectation are important here (Dosi 1984, 103–193). Diffusion itself has to be seen as an innovative process. There is a diffusion of innovation among the firms themselves and a diffusion in the demand for technological products. It is about a continuous progress along a technologically defined line. In addition, there are endogenous mechanisms of competition, which also promote innovation and the technological linking of different sectors (Dosi 1984, 285–

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287). The corresponding levels and gaps can be defined only in the context of paths of technical development. Cultural factors were almost ignored till now in all the structural theories of description of structural conditions of innovations. They play a central role in the formulation of technological competences as well as in the areas of production and application. Philosophy of technics has here a new field of tasks. In this respect, one can talk of a line of technical development as a path of innovation. Technological paradigms represent a consensus between groups of technological experts in firms or in organisations inclusive of firms (Esser et al 1998, 14f). In contrast to the situation in basic scientific research, in which consensus is required only among experts in the concerned scientific area, a new technological paradigm can develop only, if the consensus includes also the user and if a double consensus in the paradigm and the model is reached. What serves as a precondition for the origin of a new technological paradigm is the testing in production and application. An agreement on a new paradigm or a so called conclusion can be reached, only when it becomes evident through the decision of the user to buy, which of the properties of the product are important for the user, and if it is necessary for different groups of users, so that technological alternatives remain alive (Esser et al 1998, 27f). Bell’s vision of telephone and the achievement of a telephone paradigm and a telephone model of a “universal service” were not the result of a process of competition, instead the outcome of a stipulated and set telephone standard, which was the precondition for the realisation of a comprehensive network. The processes of standardisation were necessary for that. Apart from that, the necessity of system leaders has been demonstrated in this case. In addition, the devaluation of human capital in the change of paradigm has to be pointed out (Esser et al 1998, 30–32). In this model of steering through demand the society can be flooded with inefficient products and technologies, which can weigh upon the current and future generations. We drive still the wrong kind of automobiles, still use the wrong kind of nuclear reactors, work with a non-optimal design of type writers, key boards and a technically non-optimal video format. We participate in such interactions and technology transfers, for example in computer networks and telecommunication systems. There is an entire series of products, of which the usefulness for the user and consumption is not yet proven. The use of an article increases definitely with the growing number of consumers (Esser et al 1998, 119–121). Technological change has changed the working and life conditions of man, increased his wealth and introduced new life styles. But technological change has also expanded the military power of destruction and led to ecological catastrophes and social tensions. There have been several attempts to measure the national rate of technological change and economic growth. Governments have supported scientific and technical activities, especially in the area of military research. Technological change leads to the dismissal of labourers. It plays a central role in the economy of labour. The technological change depends here on industrial competition. Technological change is described in terms of progress in knowledge relative to the industrial skill (Mansfield 1968a, 3–8).

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Technology consists of knowledge, which is used by the industry with regard to the principles of physical and social phenomena as well as the peculiarities of fluency or the laws of movement including a knowledge, which takes into account the application of these principles in production as well as the application of genetics in the breeding of new plants and the knowledge, which takes into account the daily operations of production as well as the thumb rules of craftsmen. Technological change is hence the progress of a technology. The technological and technical change has to be distinguished here. A technique is an applied method of production, a technological change is the change in the knowledge, a change in the technique is an alternative in the character of the arrangement of process, of products and of organisation in which they are currently used. Even when a change in the technology has taken place and is internally related to the past scientific progress and breakthroughs, they have experienced necessarily an indirect and no way simple path of transition with regard to these breakthroughs (Mansfield 1968a, 10f). Technology establishes this way economic and social power. Diffusion of new techniques is characteristic of innovations. An invention has less or no economic significance or power before it is applied. The gap between innovation and invention needs to be closed. These gaps are often quite long. The decision for innovation means a capital investment, where innovations happen more easily in big firms. The importance of external sources and resources should not be underestimated. What is central is the extent, to which the firm was in a position to predict the technical success or failure of its products. In this context, what is central is labour management. Safe projects are preferred to the unsafe ones. A detailed description of applied research programmes in laboratories and the development projects seem to induce and hint that most firms expect a complete compensation of their stake in research and development in four or less than four years and that the immediate factors appear quite soon, that is only a few months later. If the projects are successful, the expected profit rate of an invention in the area of research and development is quite high. There is no embedded technological change here. The model for that takes into account only technological factors of development. Then there is a model of technological change embedded in capital, so that both can be compared against each other (Mansfield 1968b, 45–71). The rate of imitation varies in large scales. It depends on the profitability of the use of an innovation. It is extremely difficult to estimate this. If a high level of competence is necessary for its use, the initial phase will be ridden with difficulties. Firms prefer simple equipments, which demand only less competence (Mansfield 1968b, 136–144). Besides, smaller firms accept innovations quicker than their bigger rivals (Mansfield 1968b, 191). The difficulties of definition of technical progress on account of its diversity are enormous. The concept of progress includes 1) the ability to produce a greater output of economic kind or 2) to produce qualitatively better output from a given amount of resources. Cost reduction is not adequate in order to record technical progress. Not all economies have ignored product innovations. Process innovations lead to new machine structures. Schumpeter’s idea of destruction through innovations and his idea of cycle of firms have emphasised the cumulative importance of technical-economic

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progress. The interpretation of technical progress as well-founded in the constant growth of innumerable small improvements and modifications with only very less and rare big innovations was formulated by S. C. Gilfillan in his book “Inventing the ship” (1935) and “Sociology of invention” (1935; both Chicago). Louis Hunter emphasised also the innumerable small improvements and adjustments of anonymous number of pre-labourers and mechanists in his book “Steamboats on the western rivers” (1949). The cumulative character and the lack of individual, outstanding innovations are here meshed together (Rosenberg 1982, 3–7). Karl Marx recognised the significance of technological change. Technological innovations and the origin of capitalism have to be emphasised. In chapter 7 of the first volume of The Capital great store is set on technological factors. But not all technologies allow the application of scientific knowledge in the production sphere. Craft and small factories are capital producing technologies. Production is capital accumulating. Technological change in the area of machines is rather natural (Rosenberg 1982, 34–46). The cumulative character of small inventions for improvements has to be stressed. Apart from that there are also bigger improvements in productivity. The transfer of technological change from one sector to another economic sector through the sale of transfer mechanisms involved has significant implications for our understanding of the process of growth of productivity in the economy. The electrical energy was accepted by the industry quite quickly, not least because it was cheap (Rosenberg 1982, 62–79). What is central for the rate of diffusion and accomplishment of an innovation is learning through the use of new technologies. The introduction of technological innovation has to be modelled as a learning process. Here it is about the economic implications of learning through practice (Arrow). It is a progress of machines. The embedded and non-embedded technical knowledge have to be differentiated here. Highly specialised knowledge is today’s knowledge of use. ‘Learning by doing’ was demonstrated in the aviation industry by means of the history of DC8. What was central here was the request for reduction of fuel consumption. The maintenance cost of motors also had to be reduced. A greater availability of aircrafts should be accompanied by a greater accountability of their use. The high labour costs of maintenance and repair of aircrafts is a central factor here. It is a strong motivation for improvements of repairing skills and maintenance. The systematic complexity of telephone industry has also to be pointed out here (Rosenberg 1982, 120–138). The influence of science on technological-economic development also cannot be underestimated. The works of Schmookler, Griliches and Mansfield are important here. Science is not a completely exogenous factor for technology. The difficulty is the use and the attempt to show and specify the links between economy and science. Science in the 20th century has become an extreme cost factor. It has to be emphasised that technology is not only application of the previously acquired scientific knowledge. The economic incentives, which are the basis of technological innovation, have to be worked out. It was the practitioners, who supplied the empirical material which scientists could examine. Metallurgy can be regarded as an example here. The influences of technology on science have to be equally stressed.

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Technological improvements have brought about more than only the specific type of new knowledge. The test process thus became important like the wind tunnel. Technological progress identifies in a sensible way and at the same time without ambitions the orientation of new scientific research, which promises a possibly high level of profit. It is about collecting useful information and processing them. The growth of knowledge is cumulatively and interactively linked to new scientific knowledge and leads to technological applications. It is about improvements in the introduction of innovations. Finally, there is a technological breakthrough in some points. The rate of change in the structure of economic incentives, for example, prices of raw materials, is also a central factor for innovation (Rosenberg 1982, 149–159). The adoption of new technology is selective and incomplete (Rosenberg 1982, 189). The receptivity of Europeans to new technologies and their ability to assimilate them, wherever their origin was, were essential elements of the development of a European culture of inventions. The international technics transfer has taken place already for a long time, but it became extremely accelerated in the last 150 years. The innovations in different areas were linked to each other. The ability to adapt and to modify before the technology functions in a socio-economic environment is a great art and an important task. Industrial revolution and the related changes in the structure of rural economy and labour world were only the beginning here. Innovations in the transport system and mobility have also increased the significance of interior regions. The reduction of costs of the transoceanic ship journey was also important. Apart from that, the introduction of freezers in ships and trucks was an important innovation. Industrial revolution depends not only on the factors in the periphery. Reduced costs of transport stimulated trade since 1880. There is a growing dependence of the British economy on export markets in the textile industry (Rosenberg 1982, 245–253). The transfer of industrial technologies to less developed countries is unavoidable. What is important as indicators are the different ways and paths of development, in which the Japanese have adopted western technologies. R&D is not a zerosum situation, in which the receiving countries gain and the donor countries lose (Rosenberg 1982, 258–279). The concept of path dependency and the new feedback economy was formulated by Brian Arthur in 1990. Technology transfer can be described differently than previously with the help of this theory. According to this model, it cannot be predicted hundred percent, which technology can be transferred successfully and which of the innovations will ultimately find their way in the market. It depends in a certain manner on the number of users, which can be won in a certain time period. That is why firms offer reductions in order to arouse certain interest among the initial customers in certain consumer goods, so that the old standards, which have made the use of a certain technical good meaningful, can change to give chance to new technical goods, for examples the ones that are eco-friendly. It is about creating incentives for customers, who have already invested in the old standards and must now invest anew in order to repay through the purchase of new technology the costs, which incur, if the use of new technical goods has to be made possible in the milieu of users. For the borrowing of a certain technology costs not

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only the price of this technology alone, but also the transformation costs of the hitherto standards and paradigms, which have to be changed now (Esser et al 1998, 136). In the entire series of cases, the technically fully mature or technically better concept finds no way any acceptance. Rather, those systems are generally accepted, for the social acceptance of which more has been invested. It is not enough today just to develop and offer technologies, instead certain paths of development, of transfer and of use must be offered, so that a certain new technology can allow for itself in the background of standards already introduced and in view of the necessity of having to learn or demonstrate new forms of use and new standards. Less ecofriendly technologies are continuously used in multiple forms this way, although there already exist better technological solutions. It is not only a question of economic, but also of social costs which incur if new standards of use have to be developed for new technologies. Arthur’s thesis of paths of development and paths of technology transfer should not in addition be misused in the sense that they are used as a justification for different kinds of governmental industry controlling measures, which could fall back on the argument that they were ultimately used to prevent the development of lower levels of industrialisation (Esser et al 1998, 148). Rosenbergs concept of learning through use has to be considered here, where technics is in a flux in the initial phase (Arthur 2000, 13–15). When the adoption increases, the use and experience also increase and they become more embedded and incorporated in the accountable and effective variants of technics. There is certainly a market of adaption with different adapters (Arthur 2000, 16–27). Path dependent processes lead to the building of macrostructures. There is a model of structuring according to the most legal models. Path dependent processes are based however on probabilities. Path dependent systems are based on non-linear interactions. But there are also stronger laws for non-linear dependencies (Arthur 2000, 34–40). The origin of structures of technologies can be explained on the basis of path dependencies and the interactions involved in them. Different worldviews have to be taken into account there (Arthur 2000, 45–49). Professional buyers and sellers are linked in a circle of information feedback. The denial of risks also influences the paths of development. There is hence no anticipated effectiveness, which is constitutive of the development of paths. Learning effects on new products also influences the development of path (Arthur 2000, 69–80). Learning-by-doing, adaption and embedding are forms, which can be explained by this path dependency model. Formal mathematical models prove to be inadequate here. Apart from that the assumptions of distribution are also important here (Arthur 2000, 88). One example for the path of development of historical kind are the lines of development of cities. Small events in history can have great consequences. What is important for path dependency models are learning-algorithms (Arthur 2000, 136–139) and the historical and ecological point of departure. Since this model is historical, it can take into account in contrast to the ahistorical model of “homo economicus”, aspects of power of technical-economical development. Innovation is regarded as the source of productivity, material wealth and the destruction of old places of work. The approach in systems of innovation is valid

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for the study of innovation and technological change. Innovations are new creations of economic signature. It is about processes through which technological innovations come about. These are extremely complex and include elements of knowledge, action and the transformation of technical knowledge and action into new products. Today innovations are not carried out alone or by individual firms. If we want to describe, understand, explain and possibly understand the process of innovation, we must understand all important factors which shape and influence innovations. It is about the structure and dynamic of such systems, which can be characterised as “National system of Innovation” (NIS) (Edquist 1997, 1–4). All technologies have been designed by humans. They are in this sense socially designed. The framework of specific organisational forms is hence culturally embedded. Institutions are central for this. It is about industrial research and development, an academic infrastructure, other institutions and the government policy of promotion. Institutions have to be understood in the sense of routines (Edquist 1997, 22–28). Institutions have been proven to be significant for theories of innovation in a growing fashion. Sahal and Dosi have rightly recognised the signs of time. For them it is about developing the concepts of institutions, organisations and markets in the context of an institutional economy and an institutional theory of technical change. Institutions are a set of basic attitudes, routines, established practices, rules or laws, which regulate relations and interactions between individuals and groups. Institutional structural conditions are hence of greatest significance. Organisations are formal structures, which want to make and put through an explicit suggestion. They are all parts or factors of the taxonomy of institutions (Edquist 1997, 41–49) and technically established power. In the conceptualisation of infrastructures and the description of their effects, it is necessary to differentiate between physical-material and knowledge infrastructures. What is central is the correlation in systems. It is about systemic interaction of institutions. Economic infrastructure and technological infrastructure have to be differentiated. Infrastructure is about distribution of resources and products as well as about help systems. The infrastructure cannot contain also material components and represents often forms of services of the public sector. These are technical standards, educational systems and legal systems. The technological infrastructure is a set of collective, specific skills and abilities relevant for the industry, which were installed for different applications and which play a role in two or more firms or user organisations. They are a prerequisite for effective cooperation to produce public goods, for example, public safety. Infrastructure must be designed as an overall system. It is multiuser oriented and is arranged in the setting of a technological regime. Infrastructure is regarded as a multifunctional framework. It is about supportive competition, transport infrastructure, telecommunication infrastructure, knowledge infrastructure, industrial knowledge and fundamental technological abilities (Edquist 1997, 86–95). Economy plays here the role of knowledge infrastructure. Education, training and skills for research and development must be made useful. Standards, regulation and protection of technological activities play a central role here. There are several

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national innovation systems and they are dependent on the respective national infrastructure. The correlation and meshing together of components are very important for infrastructure. Infrastructure carries the character of composition and is a decisive factor in the determination of technical power and its symbolism. Organisation of infrastructures, administration and management of infrastructure is also constitutive (Edquist 1997, 96–104). Innovation systems live on technological opportunities, on cumulation and on technology and suitable conditions. A sectoral access to infrastructure is also possible. There are deep rooted, culturally just as much external aid factors for infrastructure. The inner factors are influenced through culture and history. It is about technological advantages. Different levels of interaction within path dependency can be distinguished here (Edquist 1997, 107–110). Tradition and the inertia of industrial organisations mesh together. Important in this context are the perceptions and utopias for the future, which can change this tradition. Paths of development of firms and the possibilities to change these exist. One can speak of discontinuities, but mostly the transition turns out to be smaller than expected. Alternatives originate initially within the paths of development and the new paths of development originate only in the fundamental paradigm change like in the generation of electrical engineering or in the renewable sources of energy. Level of technics is hence not an inconsiderable factor of technical power. Three fundamental paradigms can de distinguished with regard to use of technical resources: 1) Use of work tools and natural processes. This presupposes implicit knowledge and can be learned through demonstration. Implicit knowledge in the use of technical resources is available worldwide, even if some technical resources are available in a technical culture and not in others. Transfer of technics happens also on this level, mostly through migration of competent technical actors. 2) With the industrial revolution a new technics of machines and a form of automatic production originate which cannot be managed by implicit knowledge alone, instead it presupposes explicit theoretical and technical-scientific knowledge. But this can no longer be mediated by the conventional resources of the tradition of technical knowledge, certainly not in a short time, instead it presupposes a high level of specialised technical training. Only a foreign engineer has such a competence in handling machines on account of the combination of implicit and explicit knowledge. It is about abstract skills, which can be learned at universities and includes experiences in handling machines. This can initially be made only there, where machines are also available. These experiences in handling can be learnt and acquired under guidance, however at a greater expense of labour. 3) The handling of linked technological systems like nuclear plants, computers, mobile telephones or the modern technics of medicine and gene technology. Not only explicit knowledge of technical handling is demanded at this level, but also natural scientific and technological knowledge, which is still one level more abstract and farther from implicit knowledge. Acquiring the knowledge of handling such systems seems to be prolonged at least in the foreseeable time and presupposes a higher technical training (Irrgang 2008a).

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According to the theory of pathdevelopment, innovations lead to islands of modernisation. They develop their own regional technological culture which is characterised by the combination of economic and technological factors respectively. The procedures of embedding have a different course here than among the general population, since here already a series of modernisation and technologisation processes have taken place and the structural conditions for technology transfer and its embedding were already transformed to some extent. As a result, acceptance for modernisation effects can be gained here, but there is a higher non-simultaneity of the speed of development between the islands of modernisation and their surroundings. Islands of modernisation have a bridgehead character for further technical development and the corresponding processes of modernisation. Actors in these islands of modernisation are as a rule not connected to their traditional culture in the same measure like their friends or family members living outside it, something which can lead to considerable social and cultural tensions. On the other hand, they are not unfamiliar with the traditional culture, hence not unprepared for the task of cultural adaptation and embedment of new technologies and are even occasionally adapted for the same. The process of learning to handle machines is time consuming and is dependent on trial and error. This way is not without dangers. And the fact that foreign engineers can do “more” than oneself, creates not only technical problems, but also questions of recognition, social prestige and cultural embedding, which must be solved to carry out technology transfer successfully. Apart from that, the property of modern technological systems, which run autonomously, leads to an unjustified supposition that they always run automatically and do not require continuous checking and safety. But in many developing and threshold countries technics is awaited, when it doesn’t function any more. There is no safety culture there like in Germany. A very high trust in technics increases risk. In this respect, it is sensible to expect certain risks. A safe technics is guaranteed not through technics alone. It is rather the context of technology which “guarantees” (for example, waiting by aircrafts) safety and this must be mediated. The waiting intervals must also be transferred on safety grounds. Because of interlink and feedback effects something like a structure of technical development is formed, which certainly changes in time, a technical cultural level, a cultural level as a very complex concept of relation. “Niveau” comes from French and means level or horizontal surface. Trends of social structural changes, paradigms of use of technical resources as well as cultural patterns and forms of behaviour in handling technics can also be characterised with that. Epochal differences of levels exist between craftsmanly and industrial paradigms. But smaller differences between technical systems and structures themselves and especially during their embedment can also appear. Differences in the embedment are nor rarely related to the questions of training. Level differences can affect thus the technicalindustrial level, but also the cultural, social and institutional. The biggest methodical problems are the comparability and the paradigms, particularly parameters of different technics related cultural levels, since they remain in the foreground in the

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context of questions of evaluation of technology transfer. Infrastructure and technical level are the expression of technical power. The following aspects can be distinguished with regard to technical levels: 1) The stock of technical artefacts, their interlinkage and the structure of their interlinked functionality; 2) The state and level of technical competence (skills); 3) The technical structure of tradition; the state of technical training and technical knowledge; 4) The state of technical institutions; 5) The state of technical standardisation (juridical-technical framework of rules); 6) The organisational level of technical structures and systems (technical infrastructure up to technosphere); 7) The acceptance and the cultural-social embedment of technical resources and structures in the sense of a successful social and cultural embedment. According to our western understanding of technology, the respective highest technological level has the respective highest grade of automatisation and rationalisation. But for developing and threshold countries, the highest technical level is often not worth striving for, since not much energy and expensive capital must be used in view of supply of cheap labour. Many suppliers are not in the position to meet the demanded high standard of quality that problems with technology transfer originate. Hence developing and threshold countries often don’t fall back upon the new technology, which certainly doesn’t meet the very latest standard with regard to environmental pollution. The advantages of more labour intensive and cheaper technical resources must be weighed against the disadvantages of higher levels of environmental pollution and one sets about the best way own developments, which make possible the criteria of 1) labour intensity, 2) environment friendliness 3) less purchase and running costs, 4) easy implementation and 5) profit generation, in the development of technical resources. The new environment technology developed in the West is cost intensive in the area of energy. One must look for alternatives here, which lie possibly in the area of bioprocess, particularly the raw materials that grow again. The promotion of technological front by the government alone leads to the trap of acceleration, which acts as cost driver, ex. in automobile construction and health system. We need rather not only the promotion of technological front, but also a more focused promotion of imitation and adaptation of technology (Irrgang 2006). Industrialisation in industrial countries was accompanied by increase in welfare. Now the question arises in an increasing measure, whether this increase in welfare can constantly go on. The costs of welfare, particularly of maintaining it becomes increasingly revealing. If a technical level has to be maintained, repairs are necessary and one cannot use everything anew after a short time as much as how one cannot earn only with the highest technical level. The use of the respective highest technical level is often not only financially risky and is on the same ground not desirable for countries with financial problems. What serves as preconditions

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for technological levels are innovations, which have constantly new paths of development in view, as well as a manageably long term and stable institutional framework. This is also the precondition for technology transfer. This framework must be guaranteed through the cultural system, especially its socio-economic dimension. The dimension of religious world view of the cultural system must also contribute to this stability (Irrgang 2006). The maintenance of technical power requires the use of human potentialities. The wide discussion on the technologically competitive position of nations in the areas of high technology refers always to the process of catching up by the threshold countries. The technical progress and the origin of differences of growth are of special interest. An attempt of explanation of the international division of labour between industrial countries and developing countries as well as threshold countries and between innovative and less innovative countries result from different levels of development and different research intensity on account of technological advancement, specifically technical gaps (Joenitz 1999, 11–39). The high speed of innovation and the high increase of performance in the age of globalisation lead to a technology induced global economical structural change and to an increasing internationalisation of production. The technological transformation of the entire political economy is in process and leads to the loss of significance of traditional factors of production and raw materials in favour of information (Jonietz 1999, 46– 75). This is related to huge shifts of power. The risks of development for the threshold countries should not be left out here, for example, the loss of connection to industrial nations because of the cumulative character of technical knowledge. There certainly exist possibilities to skip the stages of technological development during technology transfer. The adaptation of imported technologies, particularly the independent development of new technologies has to be specifically emphasized. The problem of engagement has to be above all taken into account there. The compensation hypothesis is also invoked in this area. New technics would bring to the scene new service providers and the resulting investment and will get under way higher qualification of employees. Adapted technologies must take in to account the social dimensions of technological innovations. Appropriateness of technology is dependent on the knowledge and skills of the user. Technology transfer uses islands of growth, particularly of modernisation with trickle effects. But economic growth is not identical with development. An outcome of level differences in the technical area is the migration of highly qualified labour force to industrial countries. The search for starting-points to lessen technological dependence is important here. Technological competence is quite central in this context (Jonietz 1999, 93–121). The development of a society and the penetrating power of technology transfer is often dependent on the availability of skilled workers and managers (Jonietz 1999, 139–210). Lack of user friendliness, limited reliability, technical troubles, time constraint and material as well as supply constraint along with energy and other system constraints combine with the compulsion to act borne out of an innovation mania and problems of the target of technics that has limited competence to act. Apart from that there is a problem of target of the ethics of technics not least because of the

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limited competence to act. Technics and the analysis of requirement must be developed with outcome analysis and the question of cost for new technics. Competitive skill is a central methodical criterion here. The concrete possibilities of influence of the state on technicisation are certainly limited. The unclear plurality of moral and value conceptions make the formation of judgement difficult. Among the most important of them are health, welfare, environmental quality, social quality and the unfolding of personality (Rophol 2003). Domination is the consequence of certain forms of praxis. The domination, which forms part of the self-formation of organisational cultures and the one which results from the separation of labour from others have to be differentiated. Furthermore, there is domination through the use of organisationally conditioned social relations and through implicit restriction of life chances. In all, there are three different theses with reference to the origin of power: 1) domination rests on a material basis capable of accumulation, 2) domination is supported by a legitimate ideology, 3) domination takes place by means of a discriminatory social categorisation (like for example, riders and farmers). Organisation is thus a form of order and a social object. Communitarisation is a form of labour context. Buyers and businessmen have appeared as organisers also in history. Organisation may be considered as a new modus of structuring by the society (Türk 1995, 39–66). Labour was often represented as a form of struggle (Türk 1995, 39–66). The organisation of technical practice includes the origin, use, maintenance and disposal of technics. This must be organised. In this respect, technics can be understood as technology, i.e. theory and knowledge about organisation of technical practice. The power aspect of technics is related to path dependency and technical level. Even if the paths of development don’t determine, technical development makes guidelines for social differentiation, like how access to metals or weapons earlier and market leadership and patents, which a firm possesses can have a coercive effect today. Technical competence has an effect in dispositions. The ability to be able to act, leads to power, even if not necessarily to domination or coercion. Success and failure are phenomena of power and skill. Rule desires obedience and coercion coerces it. There is without doubt compulsion or coercion induced by technics, for example in war. But technical skill doesn’t compel, also for technology transfer, unless there are good reasons and goals of action for that. Differences in technical skill are definitely preconditions for the reflection, whether a technology transfer is meaningfully and ethically justifiable or even desirable. Opponents of globalisation make this power aspect quite clear, also when they don’t consider the cultural embedment of technics, since technics alone without any consideration of its cultural and value dependent embedment implies material constraints, coercions and things like that. Exactly speaking, the power aspect of technics in the context of globalisation makes just clear that a world-culture-reflection culture is necessary. Only through world views or ethical considerations, which all cultural phenomena are, can one decide, whether a technics or a technics-transfer is desirable or necessary (Irrgang 2007d). The forming of power happens traditionally and culturally through 1) Violence, compulsive behaviour, instinct (anthropological level)

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2) Right (institutional level) 3) Morality, religion, ethics (cultural-idea driven level). The shaping of technics must be in a stronger measure complemented by the shaping of use of technics. Handling of technics produces power and it must be shaped, not just technics alone. The question arises: who may legitimately be and why be excluded from the use of which technics (for example, technics of weapons)? The sensibility of a technics is the object of culture of reflection on technology. The challenge is a permanent reflection with regard to permanent innovation. Who is the user of which technics? That is one of the leading questions in this context. The natural trust in technics on grounds of habit and trivialisation must be at least complemented. This is a test of technology-reflection. The improvement of human condition as a scale of evaluation of technical development and the correctly and falsely used potentialities and capacities of technical kind, like the emancipation from the chain of nature, the set-back of which we are experiencing now as ecological problems, are the programme of enlightenment modernity. Technical paths of development are results of power struggles and political conflicts and not any fate. But often the end of such conflicts and the settlement of struggles are of fateful nature. Political technology has long been ignored. Perhaps it is the most important discipline of a philosophical technology with regard to the technicity of power. The instruments are offered in multiple forms as instances of technical problem solving. This leads to the situation, where rather rockets are built instead of carrying out negotiations. Every technical project restricts itself to a partly solution. The interference and feedback between different technical projects can be appraised only with great difficulty. Consumer power is a form of democratisation of technics. It means namely an exertion of influence on the development of technics (where critical theory has certainly trouble). It is life worldly and not philosophical and dispute that legitimate, like I mean, if it – in contrast to the market economic theory- remains the sole criteria. One must thus pose a question- who has technical power: the engineer or the contractor or either of the two in an ever different manner? Hence, a three way approach of technical power can be developed. 1) The power of technical capability (technical practice) 2) The power of technical artefacts (installations, equipments etc.) 3) The power of interconnectedness and back linkage of practice and installations in the so called socio-technical systems. There are emerging forms of technological and technical structures in their retinity (back linkage) here, which is neither rational nor irrational, neither accidental nor planned (Irrgang 2007d). Power as cultural greatness manifests itself especially in symbols. This can also be technical artefacts and technical competences. With regard to technical power I recommend a three way pattern of evaluation: 1) Recognition of use value, utility value and exchange value. 2) Recognition of valuability in life. 3) Recognition of traditional, particularly ethical values for my self-realisation and the realisation of common good.

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This three way pattern of evaluation applies for things, particularly technical artefacts, for persons and life forms. Power means accessibility of other things, for example technical resources. Trade increased the use potential of technics and became a further source of technical power. Trade by barter existed in the beginning. The question, who introduces a new technics and who uses it for the first time, is interesting. The rich upper class profits advantageously from the new technics. The ruling class, which also have an interest in the new technology and in addition, possesses the necessary means to own and introduce new technologies and have the means to buy the necessary know-how which is required for the operation of new technics (and for maintenance). Engineers and inventors were as a rule at the service of the ruling class, before firms took their place. Technics is the source of wealth of a society, since it produces and prepares goods which are traded from resources to places of production, infrastructure (distribution) and up to disposal. Wealth is commonly acquired and distributed. There are certainly scarce goods with limited use rights. The division of labour was seen till now as a central social principle of constitution in the philosophy of technics. The division of use is at least as much interesting. The institutionalisation and professionalization of technical practice and technical power begins with the development of urban civilisations in the great river systems. There originates technical culture and society in the real sense. Architecture and the accompanying practice of construction is the motor of this development. The practice of production of everyday technical objects on the basis of “tacit knowledge” is refined. The beginning of economisation of everyday technical practice can simultaneously be seen here. It leads to the production of goods only for trade and not for one’s own needs. Precious metals are objects of trade and the precondition of development of finance markets which also come up in these cities. Technical power ties itself with economic potencies. An infrastructure as a precondition for the circulation of consumption, production, construction of technical resources and artefacts and as a basis for technical practices is created. It is a further form of technical power. A radical change of consumption structure because of the density of human population in cities leads to new forms of production, especially forms of mass production and new forms of distribution of technical goods. As a result, inventions in the area of construction become possible and with the formation of city states drastic restructuring in the entire series of technical practices took place. In this respect, in this cycle of restructuring of technical culture and technical power, one can speak of the production of a technical culture. There originates for the first time a locally restricted interconnectedness of technical practices and partly a kind of techno-structure. New forms of technically established power constitute itself with writing and the accompanying forms of cultural tradition, so that also higher levels of culture start to build on this basis. A form of literary culture related to religious ceremonies and which makes further forms of cultural life possible develops on the basis of material culture. There originates a feedback-circle of technical power. Whoever has access to technical resources or technical products, can impose his will on others, to accept technical works in exchange for the feats achieved. Growing technical resources

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and works make necessary a society, which is always differentiated. There originate professionally motivated different layers of the population and possibly even classes. The Indian caste system is the outcome of also an old system of professional castes. Big technics like that in urban centres makes another social structure necessary than the decentralised farming settlement or the nomadic animal husbandry. In the largely established irrigation systems were in addition a good planning and leadership necessary. In this period in Mesopotamia as well as in Egypt writing and a method of calculation originated. Apart from craftsmen and traders also humans, who neither produced nor traded goods settled in the cities: religious leaders, land surveyors, architects, teachers etc. There was a lively bustle in the economic, intellectual and religious spheres. The cities enjoyed a great measure of independence. There were urban early technical cultures, in which one could speak of a strong centralised administration. Besides the administration of administration in the secular sphere, the existing religious hierarchy also played a role. The temples were not the only places, where city Gods and other Gods were worshipped. Besides that, they built also the centre for development, in which lessons were given and education was organised. The technics in Egypt was above all oriented toward three things: farming, warfare and architecture. The invention of bronze in the middle of 3rd millennium led to wide trade relations. In Assur profit was the central idea. There originated an entire net of trade settlements. The Assyrians had an excellent organisation of business. Long donkey caravans transported goods. A donkey-load amounted to around 56kg. The owners of the pack animals were hauliers and they were responsible for the loss of the load, since there didn’t still exist any insurance. If he lost any caravan, he had to start everything anew or sell himself as a slave. The trade system was supervised in a privileged manner by the government. The council office building was the main centre of supervision and management of trade (Kaster 1986, 99–126). Navigation establishes sea trade. Already 5000 years back there was significant sea journey in the Mediterranean Sea. The dolmens were perhaps shipped in the Mediterranean Sea even 8000 years back. The oldest seamen in the Far East Asia were Sumerians and Babylonians. One can find the shapes of ships on roll stamps. They had trade with India and East Arica. The Egyptians were rather river boatmen. In 3000BC there existed certainly sea going ships. The Sumerians were also in a position, around 5000 to 6000 years back to build seaworthy ships with a displacement of 30 tons (Sahai 1996, 19). The monsoon wind which blows constantly in one direction or another made it relatively easy to sail over the high sea of India in one direction and also the other way. The Indian Ocean is a region, which is uniquely suitable for sea journey. Besides monsoon winds, a clear sky for 6–8 months of the year with visible stars makes sea journey easy. In other months, when it rains, the ships generally undergo repair work to prepare for the next journey. Astronomy developed in India at least 3500 years back (Sahai 1996, 243f). Sea journey and ship building are an important precondition for technology transfer and cultural exchange. The economic and social developments with regard to technology were neglected for a long time. Especially neglected was the interaction between technics, society and economy. The

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area of trade and transport of own production is here an independent technical culture, which has developed along with the urban technical cultures 5000 to 6000 years back. The Indus culture had several ports, particularly a central one which was possibly the birth place of navigation in India (Irrgang 2006). Surplus agricultural goods could be exchanged against other desired articles and raw materials. Stocks could be built this way (Gööck 2001, 11). The agricultural technical-sociocultural paradigm carried the seeds in itself, which led to urbanisation. The development of city started probably in Catal Hüyuk (today Turkey) around 9000 years back and led to the development of technical-urban cultures. The advanced cultures of the Bronze Age developed as urban communities in the regions along the big rivers of the east like the Nile in Egypt, Euphrates and Tigris in Mesopotamia, the Indus in India and Hoang-Ho in China. Metal extraction, means of transport, vehicles, sailing ships, pack animals and especially agriculture supported by irrigation systems formed the basis of these cultures. The construction of pyramids, working, transport and erection of obelisks belonged to the great technical feats in Egypt. These huge tasks were carried out only through the absolute state power, which funded simultaneously also the religious organisations (Klemm 1999, 17–19). Ramsay the Second (1298–1235 BC) was the first, who introduced especially the industrial manufacture of bronze and glass around 3300 years back. Pre-forms of industrialisation can be detected as a result in relatively earlier times and they find their continuation in the big factories of the Hellenistic and Roman times. Blast furnaces for the manufacture of bronze and facilities for industrial production of chariots have been found during excavations. The first lending operations came into being in Mesopotamia around 4000 years back. One could invest profitably the money from prostitution. Money was the precondition for the functioning of bigger and earlier urban technical cultures. Initially musels or precious metals took the place of money and paper money is a Chinese invention. Certificates were also issued. Social differentiation, the origin of bigger properties and the tendency to earn prestige through demonstrative consumption were the reasons for the increased need of valuable luxury goods, which was met on the one hand by specialised craft work in the Greek and Roman cities and on the other by imports from the east. Since the production of luxury goods was restricted normally in those regions, where the raw materials of high quality were available, the consumption behaviour of the small, but very rich upper layer contributed to the intensification of trade (Hägermann, Schneider 1991, 59). Discovery and exploration of the world happened mostly through merchants. Trade and development of humanity belong together and rest on the exchange of gifts. The phenomenon of labour serves as its basis. The nature produces nothing without human engagement. What belongs to trade is above all the storage and sale of goods. The exchange of good or sacrificial offerings is already depicted on a stone plinth in Ur in around 2100 BC. The exchange of flint and stone axe was already proven 6000 years back exactly like the exchange of gemstones and jewellery items. Metals and the origin of raw material-streets also promote trade. The nature lays down the ways initially for that. The merchants in those days were loners and individualists, who organised transaction and barter-

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transaction. Trade and writing belong closely together. The original pictographic writing helped the storage and passing down of data. The initial pre-forms can be found in the context of cave paintings. But writing originated for the documentation of trade goods and exists on clay tablets in the southern Mesopotamia. The invention of means of counting also happened in the context of trade. The pictographic system included abstract signs for trade goods. This exists on the Hammurabi-Stele in around 1700 BC (Bauer, Hallier 1999, 11–17). Distant trade is initially state trade. The traders were primarily suppliers for kings and priests. They required especially incense. The traders guarded the secret of origin of their goods, especially the secret of the colour of crimson (Bauer, Hallier 1999, 22f). Simple technologies have probably spread from certain centres through trade or particularly were newly invented as far as the required raw materials for that were available. There existed in Mesopotamia clay models of vehicles in around 2000–3200 BC. There were also the remains of vehicles in Mesopotamia in 2600–2500 BC. A fixed wheel existed in around 3500–3000 BC in Switzerland and Slovakia. Wheels and toys existed in around 200 BC–200 AD in San Salvador and Mexico. The wheel was invented at least twice, namely in Mesopotamia and in Central America. The development of carts followed from sledges. The oldest functioning vehicles come from the time period of 2600–2500 BC in Buruk (southern Mesopotamia), in Ur and Kisch. There are images of such vehicles dating back to 3200–3100 BC in Buruk. There was a thrust of development here in parallel to the development of plough. Carriages were also used for ploughing. Vehicles spread rapidly in all directions. The oldest carriages were four wheeled carts. In addition, there were also two wheeled carts. In the 3rd millennium BC there were vehicles also in East Europe. The development of wheel in Latin America happened later. The wheelbarrow was invented in the 3rd century AD. The Rickshaw was invented in 1200 BC in China. Horse breeding began 6000 years back in Central Asia. The metal snaffle originated in the 15th century BC in the Far East. The saddle originated in the 5th - 3rd century BC in Central Asia. Armament originated in the 15th century BC in Mesopotamia. Horses were bred in different places. There was excellent horse breeding in Syria. Eurasian nomads like Scythians led to mixture of races among horses. Carriage-horses ran with yokes like the ox. This harness was unpractical for horses. The saddle was made of wood, augmented with metal and leather. The horse armour was made mostly of leather. There existed already tough riders in the Greek army (Fagan 2004, 138–141). Boardwalks existed in Northern Europe in the 4th century BC. Wooden footbridge existed in Germany and Ireland in late 2000 BC and caravan roads existed in Mesopotamia 5000 years back. The Via Appia was built in 312 BC. Stabilised paths existed in marshy areas and there were log roads in impassable areas. Mule-tracks made of bundles of twigs and brushwood in the longitudinal direction and with props also existed in the marsh. In the 4th millennium there were paths for vehicles in Germany and the Netherlands. The building of vehicles was a result of the introduction of wheels. There was a widely branched network of streets in Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. Also the Mycenaeans knew well constructed

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roads for traffic. The construction of streets required armies of labourers. The Chinese as well as the people in Andes knew about trade routes (Fagan 2004, 142– 145). Stone bridges have been there for 2000 years in Greece and wooden bridges existed in Turkey in the 13th century BC. Floating bridges existed in Assyria in around 700 BC. The Pont Sublicius existed in around 600 BC in Rome. The existence of sluices in the 1st century BC in China has been proven. Initially, a tree fallen over a stream served as the natural bridge. The first artificial bridges were probably built by wood. In Babylonia a 115 m bridge over the Euphrates was built in 605 BC. Hanging bridges made of bamboos and lianas exist in many countries in South East Asia. The oldest known stone bridge comes from Knossos and dates back to 1900 BC. The Romans built real vaults. The oldest canals served the purpose of irrigation and drainage. But they were then expanded and developed into ship canals. The great Chinese canal was 1700 km long and was regulated by sluices (Fagan 2004, 146–149). In the 13th century European distant trade flourished. Cogs, further developed from the models of Frisians of the tidal area, spread in north Europe, especially in the region of the Hanseatic League. Instead of axes, craftsmen started making planks using saws almost forgotten since the Roman time. The hydral energy enabled mechanisation through saw mills. Instead of the narrow and thin boards, there developed thick planks which cover the entire breadth of planks. The precious raw material was better utilised, even when the split planks were not firm. The keel was flat and right angled, which makes the ground moderately bent open into a caravel, i.e. the planks with their narrow sides hit each other and were linked only through the ribs. The flat upper side as a result had advantages during the possible grounding. The ship builders used then clinker bricks for the straight and slanting stem and also for the first planking row, so that the hull, seen from the side, appeared universally clinkered. A rudder put up above the hinge in the middle of the trunk was an innovation, which distinguished itself clearly from the side rudders of other European ship models and later became the standard. Powerful cross-beams running from one side of the ship to the other, penetrated the planks in a safe distance to the water line and stabilised the hull. At the stern, or often at the bow in bigger ships, initially simple fort-like structure rose high, which offered the boatman and other travelling merchants a guarded living space and also an easy access to bows and crossbowmen during fights on the sea (Sauer 2002, 77–79). In the 13th century there was a great increase in Europe’s trade volume on local, regional, national, international and even intercontinental levels. In certain places and on certain routes, the conducting of trade changed fundamentally, which was gain closely connected with the increase of trade volume. This change of trade methods has been occasionally characterised as a trade revolution. This was made possible through a considerable growth of population and an increase in the volume of money in circulation. The capital cities of Europe were the centres. Beyond the capital cities were the centres of trade and production and the European mining regions where precious metals were extracted. The important areas of trade included grains, especially in the coastal regions of the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea,

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cattle trade in Denmark und the Hungarian lowland plains, wool trade in the English hilly region and the central plateau of Castile, fur trade in Russia and Ireland, trade of elephant tusks of African and Indian elephants, silk trade in Sicily and China, slave trade in steppe and West Africa, dye trade in Portugal and Java, hawk trade in Iceland, pearl trade in the Persian Gulf, alum trade in Asia minor and pepper trade in South India (Spufford 2004, 12f). The big business branches had their main buildings in the capital cities of Europe especially because of the growing concentration of consumers in those cities. Removal of trade obstacles was the precondition: improvement of roads, building bridges, setting up inns and transport firms, but also of tolls, highway robbery and the restriction imposed by the state on trade. The significant phases of transition of the trade methods in the 13th century form the essential background. The merchants of the great trade metropolis of North and Central Italy introduced these changes. The increase in demand for luxury goods in the 13th century was supported by greater amount of liquid cash, which was again carried by the revolution of rent. At the end of the century the land owners demanded their rent essentially as money instead of the earlier combination of goods, services and coins, where money was always the least significant part (Spufford 2004, 13f). The novelty was the merchant, who didn’t travel. The firms were now divided into three different groups: the traders with a permanent office in North Italy which specialised in financing and organising the import and export business. They were specialised managers, either those on the country route or the ship owners on sea routes, who transported the goods from the firms to the trade representatives. And thirdly, the chief professional trade agents themselves, who devoted their energies to selling and buying in accordance with the instructions of the firm owners. Trade branches were normally very loosely organised. There existed Christian enclaves in the Arabian countries and vice versa. These fondacos were often small and restricted. The model of fondaco was adapted by the Venetians for the German merchants. They were established in separate quarters. Besides that there were consular buildings. The foreign merchants had often their own place inside Europe for religious worship. In the process of this change in the trade system the pedlar who travelled in West Europe and the Mediterranean Sea with his goods, was replaced by several different persons who carried out different tasks. This change came about only in those regions, which had a concentration of adequate money and a corresponding volume of demand. Shares and financing, which lasted till then only during the trade journey, became permanent elements in the 13th century. The speculative capital also developed in this way (Spufford 2004, 14–19). In all, there developed an impression that the transport of goods between the 13th century and the end of the Middle Age became quicker as well as cheaperapart from glaring exceptions- and safer. The omnipresent lines of traffic of pack horses and mules, accompanied also by the owners of the goods, which they transported, were replaced initially by two wheeled and then four wheeled carts driven by professional drivers in different times in different regions of Europe – even in the mountains. These drivers were organised in a network of inns which could store and pack goods. The change was the result of a revolutionary improvement in view

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of the breadth and quality of the streets, as well as the construction of innumerable bridges. The religious motives especially in the beginning of this development provided an impetus especially for the construction of bridges on pilgrim streets and setting up of hospitals for pilgrims, poor journeymen and for those who were facing difficulties in remote places. When the revolution of streets gained momentum, the building of good streets, which were suitable for primitive coaches as well as carts, became more and more the object of state policy, especially in places, where the state had commercial interests. In other places, the building of streets was partly a reaction to the pressure of merchants from trade centres. The expenditure for the building and maintenance of roads could at least be partially met through road tolls paid by the users of the road. This could again transport goods more cheaply as a result of the improvements. When the costs of transport according to the volume or weight sank, the range of goods, which were profitably transported on a particular stretch became always bigger (Spufford 2004, 169). The southern Netherlands were in a certain sense the industrial core area of Europe in the Middle Ages. In a wide cigar shaped area full of cities, which stretched from Calais near to the coasts of the English Channel to Cologne on Rheine, an astonishing range of goods were produced. The finest woolen goods of Europe, the cheapest woolen and linen carpets and the biggest brassware factory existed here. Besides that, iron was also processed here, among other things into arms and the best swords. In addition, tin vessels and coal mines were also important in the middle ages. In Italy there was a line towards the North, which stretched from Sienna through Perugia up to Ancona, a second industrial region, in which an equally extraordinary and partly congruent range of products were manufactured. Further, there were glass factories, potteries and the manufacture of soap and paper. In the third space between the Alps and the Main there originated only late an industry with linen fabric as the main focus. The cities included Nurnberg, Augsburg and Ulm (Spufford 2004, 172). The spice trade was essentially a nonEuropean business in the region of the Indian Ocean and the Europeans could only be marginally involved in this Asian trade. An essential part of the Indian Ocean was ruled by the Indian and Arabian sailors, especially by the Gujarati merchants, who largely had their seat in Cambay on the Indian coast around 400 km north of Mumbai. Other important spices had often, like the home grown herbs, besides the medicinal, also a culinary significance (Spufford 2004, 264). After a century of growth, because of the increasing industrial and financial significance of Nurnberg and Augsburg, southern Germany became the centre of European inland trade even before the 15th century (Spufford 2004, 264). Till now, scientists and historians of science, who dealt with the last century or the times before, have essentially laid their focus on production, distribution and supply. The customer in the pre-industrial times was certainly the king and the demand was of greater significance than the supply. Trends of fashion originated at the courtyard and not through skilled marketing. The seller had to fulfil the wishes of his customer, the wholesaler those of the retailer, the importer those of the supplier and the manufacturer those of the exporter. How strongly the production was dependent on trade and how the trade in goods produced in distant countries led to

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domestic demand, imitative production or production is astonishing. It must be pointed out, how the trade in the late middle ages was supported by the development of infrastructure. This was necessary especially for the purposeful construction of bridges and streets, which besides the development of mountain passes and improved river navigation made possible the transport of humans and goods more mobile, faster and cheaper. In addition there was an increase in the number of literates and those who could count. Not only technology and heresy, but also pests spread in Europe through the trade routes. Also the art used the traditional trade and travel routes to follow foreign models as well as to market their products all over Europe (Spufford 2004, 304f). At the end of the Middle Age India, China, Arabia and Europe shared the same level of technical civilisation. Whoever assumes that there is technical determinism, considers Europe’s path to technical and technological modernity as exemplary and tries to imitate it according to the model of an industrialisation which is catching up. The pride about independent production and development of modern sciences formed for a long time the two ideological pillars, on which the historical selfjudgement of European culture rested. Whatever remarkable the nations outside the boundaries of Europe may have created, Europe reserved for itself the monopoly of scientific thinking and the formulation of true theorems (Spengler 1993, 7). When there was a wide agreement on the supposed inability of the Chinese with regard to scientific thinking, this judgement was based on the precondition of universal validity of the laws of development. Since no one could seriously doubt that the evolution of modern natural sciences marked a certain objective progress, which but could not be observed in China, a certain level of development could not have been achieved there. Inversely, the reference to the lack of modern natural scientific thinking spared also any engagement with other manifestations of Chinese culture, since the development of the social whole could be hardly spectacular before the development of individual sections (Spengler 1993, 30). If the development in China in the Middle Age was technologically so high, then there must be something wrong with the conventional ideas about the unique scientific genius of the western civilisation. Despite that it remained true that modern science, that is checking the mathematical hypothesis on the natural phenomena through systematic experiments, originated only in the West. One had thought about the nature of magnetic declination in China before the West even knew of the existence of magnetic polarity. Certainly since the times of Galileo (1600AD) the new, experimental philosophy of the West overtook inexorably the levels achieved by the philosophy of nature in China and it led to an exponential growth of modern sciences in the 19th and 20th century. The Chinese mathematics had been always rather algebraic than geometric. The differences between the civilisations in astronomy is also exactly so fundamental, since while the Greek astronomy was always ecliptic, planetary, angular, exact and oriented towards yearly cycles, the Chinese astronomy remained always polar, equatorial and organised according to middle values and the passing of hours and days (Needham 1993, 120–122). A fundamental point in this respect seems to be that the Indian science and technology was not based on “either-or” like in the modern Europe, rather on a logic

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of “as well as”. In this respect, it was not successful to separate and set apart “tradition” from “innovation” in the way it has found its characterising expression in Europe in the quarrel of “antique” and “moderni”, rather tradition and innovation remained related to each other. To be more exact, tradition capped in a certain way the innovative processes, so that development with respect to science and technology was supposedly more continuous than in Europe. Institutions in India were as a result more stable than in Europe, at least before the start of colonisation. Tradition is the predominating element in the cultural transfer down the time line in India. India presents thus an alternative model of cultural as well as technical and scientific development, in which the functions of embedment in cultural and religious traditions are of greater significance than in Europe and on account of which innovations were certainly more strongly restricted in their assertiveness (Irrgang 2006). In India and China with the origin of modern science there was no separation between science and technics on the one hand and art and religion on the other. There was no separation into two or even more autonomous cultural areas like in Europe, instead the function of mutual embedment remained intact and hence there was no cultural modernisation like in Europe. Before colonialism there existed not at all any need of technology – or even cultural transfer, other than perhaps in the area of military technology, since both the cultures were more strongly oriented towards the theoretical and the speculative than the European society, which started to show a greater interest in the instrumental and practical thinking. There are hardly any cultural starting-points in South and East Asia for modernisation especially in the cultural sense. The theory of two cultures with different paces of development is not convincing especially for India, instead rather the thesis about two areas of cultures which have less in common between them and hence not in a position to exercise any cultural influence on the development of natural science and technics and vice versa. Tradition, religious as well as cultural, will not develop the power in India to make the development of natural science and technics contribute to the intellectual competence. This is also possibly a reason, why so many models of cultural transfer and ethical transfer fail, while technics-transfer as such had already success till now in a certain manner and could build at least some islands of modernisation. While Europe went through a dark age between the 5th and 11th century AD, in India it was exactly the opposite. The period of fame and grand achievements was here in the classical age. Remarkable progress in areas like mathematics, astronomy, pharmacy and metallurgy was formed up till the 12th century AD. The classical age represents a famous period in the history of India. The history of Indian science and technology culminates in this age. Since the beginning of somewhere around 4th century till the 8th or 9th century AD and some centuries later different branches of sciences make great progress, are codified under different scientific points of view and passed on in texts. The astronomical and mathematical texts have a special significance here. There were leading mathematicians who were exactly versed in astronomy like the Europeans. A series of important works points to that. The value of Pi is correctly shown up to four values after the coma, which is an astonishing feat (Bose 1971, 584).

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The Buddhist doctors achieved great significance with respect to medicinal treatment, which allowed them to be in a situation where they could heal the sick and the injured as part of their religious practice and social obligation. The Arabians had an exact knowledge of the Indian drugs and medicines when they set up trade centres on the Malabar Coast in the 7th century AD. It is probable that the Indian alchemy received its principle impulses and ideas from the southern regions of China where similar types of alchemistic thoughts, based on Ying and Yang were integrated into Indian thought. Nevertheless, Indian thinkers adapted Chinese alchemy in such a way that within a century or two the alchemistic knowledge was formalised in such a way, which is typical for Indian thought. Alchemy (Rasavidya) developed for itself a methodical knowledge and a number of texts, which adapted a great range of alchemistic knowledge for over ten centuries. There is also another alchemistic praxis, which is special for India and its relatives and which has also great significance in the area of Tamil-alchemy. In the classical age, also the technological practices like the metalwork flourished. Historical testimonies of this skill are, for example, the iron pillar in Delhi and the copper statue of Buddha in Sultangani in Bihar, which attest to the skill of metal processing in this age (Bose 1971, 587–591). After the 12th century there appeared signs of decline of creative powers because of the traditional political complications and intrigues. The division into certain castes and productive classes of Indian society had hindering effects on the development of science and technics. The professional artists like the craftsmen achieved respectable productive results and technological knowledge practically without any communication among each other. The training of the mind went this way not hand in hand with the training of hands. In addition, the training of hands was passed on from generation to generation only within the structures of a professionalism ruled by the rigid caste mentality, which had ultimately a damaging effect on the increase of mobility, which alone could push ahead technical innovations (Bose 1971, 484). Needham and Huang observed that the high degree of centralisation, which had been developed in early China, was not the invention of a political thinker or political philosophers, instead was caused by the natural geographical conditions, which belonged to the key factors of technical development also in China. The merging into a united China in the 3rd century BC was not least the result of comprehensive hydraulic construction measures and building of dams against flooding. In addition, there was a constantly growing population pressure in China. Around 1000 AD the Chinese population had grown to over hundred millions. The population pressure led to an entire series of revolutionary processes in agriculture, transport of water, with regard to money and credit system, structure of markets, construction of cities as well as science and technics. The question about the usefulness of machines and pack and work animals is not so simple to be decided in a country, which offered only a few opportunities to feed its inhabitants (Alvares 1979, 103–106). Confucianism let the magic in its positive significance of stability untouched and moreover let the magical traditions remain socially institutionalised. The simple conventionalism of Chinese ethics didn’t require any form equivalent to the European conscience. The necessity to substantiate and legitimate

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social actions remained restricted to the space of family or clan (Spengler 1993, 26f). The necessity of water-management among Chinese had two results: Millions of labourers had to be monitored and a wide apparatus of officials was necessary for that. No one who doesn’t know Chinese civilisation, can imagine the significance of civil service and Mandarinat in traditional China (Needham 1993, 118f). According to Needham, the more one knows about the Chinese civilisation, the more astonishing is the fact that modern science and technics have not developed there. The river valley civilisation of Mesopotamia and Egypt co-operated with each other already at an early point of time. Apart from that, the old Indus valley civilisation was related to the Babylonian civilisation. Only one great river valley culture remained outside the structure of this structure of relations: the civilisation of the Yellow river, Huang-Ho, the cradle of the Chinese nation. In relation to Asia, Europe played almost exclusively the role of a receiver till the 14th century AD and not that of a giver, especially in the field of technology. But in China, the Bronze Age-Protofeudalism didn’t fully develop. The social system which evolved here has been characterised as the Asian bureaucracy or the bureaucratic feudalism. The further development of rivers, canals and sluices was transferred to the central authority here. Salt and iron were the most important, perhaps also the only goods which moved from city to city. They were also the only good, the state monitoring of which was beneficial. This was possibly a reason, why China didn’t have a fully developed monetary economy. It caused above all an accumulation of wealth through bureaucracy (Needham 1993, 145–170). The new technical practices, which developed in the course of the Middle Age are paper manufacture, gun powder and pyrotechnics. The art of paper manufacture came to India from Nepal probably in the 11th century, influenced by the technique of paper production in China. Before the introduction of paper, the early literature was written on Palm leaves especially in South India and on the birch bark in Kashmir and parts of North India. In the 14th and 15th centuries paper began to be used more widely and in the second half of the 15th century Kashmir produced its own paper of outstanding quality. Gun powder was an article of war in the beginning of the 16th century. Mughals, the Muslin rulers in India knew this technique of the production of gun powder and its use in canons. The Indian mechanics were quickly in a position to learn and mastered soon the technique of producing the suitable explosive compositions. The metal casters especially in the central, eastern and northern parts of India were famous for their casts of outstanding pictures, in copper as well as in bronze, of different Gods, which were produced by multiple processes of casting with lost forms (Bose 1971, 598). The development of the technology of firearms in the 14th and 15th centuries respectively, which established the origin of European position of world power, became central for technology transfer, cultural transfer and colonization (Irrgang 2003a; Irrgang 2006). It existed in the beginning of that fundamental change of the European mentality, which formed the basis of a specific ideology of superiority. At least two other world cultures, the Chinese and above all the Islamic, were perhaps even superior to the Christian West at the end of the European Middle Age.

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The innovation of fire arms led from the 14th century onward to a channelization of economic energies towards the military progress. The canon casts from bronze and later from iron was developed in the 15th century and is widely mastered in the 16th century. It is not improbable that gunpowder as the triggering agent for arms could have been known to the Arabs in the 13th century. China knew about an explosive mixture, certainly not the special mixture of saltpetre, sulphur and wood coal. But the Chinese didn’t experiment with gun barrels and explosive materials. Experiments with boxes and gun powder took place already in England of King Edward II around 1320 and of King Eduard III. Whether they led to firearms or led only to fire works is disputed. A phase of experiments with the development of fire arms ended already around the middle of 14th century. Firearms as arrow throwers and a kind of hand grenade had already been used by the Chinese around 1240. The second kind of weapons was a kind of blast mine. The writings of the Jesuit Amiot offer sketches of Chinese weapons from the 12th century. Also the Arabs knew about fire arms. They were driven by nitrous propulsive and explosive elements. It was an exploding object of glass or birch, which was thrown by hand. But it was also a certain Chinese fire spear. The Arabs used clay tubes for shooting. Also Roger Bacon describes fire work and rockets in the time period between 1266 and 1276. Roger Bacons first European powder recipe may be referred to in this context. But Roger Bacon has reported just as less on guns as Albertus. Fire arms appeared in the region of Netherlands already around 1340 (Kramer 1995). The ineffectiveness of fire arms in all is described certainly in all the battles in the 14th century. The knowledge of mixing together of gun powder came to Europe either through the Arabs and the Muslim Spain or from China through England. The stone rifle consists of the functional unity of chamber and the barrel. The technique of loading is necessary for that. The gun powder as a mixture of wood coal, saltpetre and sulphur (more exactly of potassium or sodium nitrate as oxidation agent with wood coal and sulphur) in the form of granulated powder, in contrast to the Chinese experiments with the early forms of rockets and fire work objects and the Arabian use of fire elements, was used as a driving agent for rockets only in Europe. It set as a pre-condition the knowledge that the expansion drive of the ignited gun powder could be used as the kinetic energy (Ludwig, Schmidtchen 1992, 312f). The gun powder in its combination with rifle and canon was the key invention of the Middle Age, which triggered a military revolution including ultimately colonisation. The invention of gun powder alone was not central to this, instead in combination with a metal barrel, which allowed to shoot rockets with greater velocity and wider reach than it was possible with the methods of the Chinese and the Arabs. Also the Chinese had tried to use gun powder as a weapon and it led again and again to the introduction of simpler fire arms, which were but relatively ineffective before this key invention. Also the Arabs knew about fire arms. The technology transfer here was initially from China and the Arabian region to Europe, England or Germany. The relation between gun powder and metal barrel was the result of the art of experimentation, certainly an art of experimentation without the character of any proof of any theory. This experiment had not been any

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experiment of modern natural sciences, instead an experiment of technical practice, like it has clearly often happened in the field of alchemy (Irrgang 2003a). An indicator of the power relations in the Indian Ocean in the 15th century is the sea journeys of Chengo Ho during the period 1405–1433. Over 300 ships, manned by 27,000 sailors waited for the reliable winter monsoon from the northwest, which should push them southwards towards Indonesia and then westwards through the street of Malaga in the Indian Ocean. The Chinese emperor wanted to demonstrate that China is the richest and the most powerful civilisation on the earth. After all, the emperor wanted to promote overseas trade. In all the Chinese prepared between 1405 and 1433 seven two-year long sea journeys (They had to wait for favourable winds before they could return to China) (Marks 2006, 56–58). Around 1435 it appeared as if a strong Chinese presence was guaranteed in the waters of the Indian Ocean. In this year, a great part of the global trade on the ocean remained under the Chinese supervision, though not under direct control. Astonishingly, the seventh journey remained certainly the last and the star of Chinese sea power sank so fast and completely that not only was there no Chinese war ships to be seen in the Indian Ocean, but also the Chinese fleet ceased to exist even in the waters at their own shore. Domestic struggles were the reason why China withdrew from sea journey. It dedicated itself to the task of feeding its population through agrarian economy. The reconstruction and extension of the Great Wall became more important for the Chinese rulers than the expensive sea journeys by the treasure ships (Marks 2006, 59). Till 1750 the Indian Ocean was the decisive trade hub and source of mercantile wealth in the world. Between 650 and 1000 the Arabic traders and seamen brought goods and ideas from the Islamic orient to South East Asia and China and the other way round. They created this way a common linguistic and cultural horizon for the travellers. This trade was carried out widely without any use of armed violence. During the third period from 1500 to 1750 all these changed initially, when the Portuguese, then the Dutch and finally the English and the French introduced armed trade in the Indian Ocean and through that forced those conducting the trade to arm themselves for self-protection or to pay the intruders protection money. India and China were mainly the motors of this violent world trade. As a great agrarian empire, China produced most of what it needed-although it had to import horses, some raw materials, luxury goods and silver. Its rulers considered distant trade then mainly as useful, if it could bring additional wealth to the state or meet the consumer demand for black pepper (inevitable part of Chinese cuisine) and other exotic dishes. China had to engage in distant trade from now on to meet the growing demand for silver which was important for China’s domestic economy. Initially, it brought most of the silver from Japan and later in the 16th century increasingly from Europeans (Marks 2006, 60–63). Some parts of the world, especially India and China made a technological leap forward in contrast to the rest of the world. They could produce industrial goods better and cheaper than anyone else, especially silk and porcelain in China and cotton items in India. Climatic and geographic conditions restricted on the other hand

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some natural products to a place or some places on earth, like spices to the Indonesian group of islands, elephant tusk to Africa, certain perfumes to the Orient, gold to Africa and silver to Japan. Consumer tastes and social conventions shaped ultimately the demand for luxury goods and more and more mass-produced goods and precious metals as the basis of currency systems (something like silver in China). The trade relations between different parts of the world evolved as an outcome of the complex interplay of these three factors. In the face of the cutting off of sea routes through Egypt, Europeans developed themselves into true high sea travellers (Marks 2006, 80f). Waging of wars determined the European state system since its beginning. Till the middle of the 17th century wars were mainly led to prevent the Spanish from establishing an empire and particularly to support the Protestants (in Holland and in German cities) in their attempt to win independence from the catholic monarchs of Spain. European units consolidated on the one hand the European system by reducing the number of political units and led on the other to the development of a particular type of national state as the most successful form of European state system (Marks 2006, 104). India’s textile industry was thoroughly destroyed around 1820 that historians started talking about the deindustrialisation of India. The industrial revolution reduced the costs of the British finished goods considerably, especially in textiles. British cotton textiles, because of their not only reduced the share of Indian textiles in the world market; India became a significant market for the British textiles. The cultivation of indigo, sugarcane, cotton and poppy led to the ruralisation of India. Around 1830 England had practically monopoly in the industrial production of iron, steam machines and textiles and it used this power to sell its products all over the world. That is how the global free trade became the political programme of England. By imposing these principles on India, England contributed to making India a third world country. If the industrialisation in England came about through the accidental coming together of unforeseeable factors, its results could be later targeted according to plan by the other states, who were forced to keep pace with England. The industrialisation in other countries, apart from a few exceptions, took place through the direct influence of the state (Marks 2006, 147–152). The era of modern imperialism, which covered the time period of 1822 to 1914, belongs to the central epochs, in which the western states and their power spread across the globe. Imperialistic activity was now seen almost as a necessity and was purposefully followed. If economic, social-economic and social-imperialistic theories viewed the reasons for the western expansionism exclusively in the bosom of industrial states, the more recent, so called periphery oriented approaches had a stronger view of the processes on the ground. They tried through that not only to show that pioneers, merchants, military and colonial officers and missionaries pushed the often hesitating governments for colonisation, but also can more clearly work out the fact that the nations in the grip of colonisation and expansionism tried in the most different ways to react to the superior strength of the white man and tried to adapt themselves to the new situation, instead of just being the victims. Especially the revolutionizing of technics – steam ship journeys, railways, undersea

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cable, channels like the Suez and Panama channel as well as the enormously grown fire energy promoted considerably the expansionistic processes. In addition, the quinine prophylaxis allowed the Europeans to survive in tropical areas. Besides the national rhetoric, the representation of power is also typical for the imperialistic age. Social Darwinism offered a seemingly plausible model of explanation to explain the violent changes in the industrial society and also the pace with which the imperialistic expansion overcome the resistance of the native population in the areas chosen for colonisation. The way from here to racism was only a small step. But the glorification of war had also to be part of that (Gründer 2003, 154–157). The closing of technological gap between technological front mostly in the USA and at least in some developing countries especially in South East Asia seems to be able to be achieved better with new technologies – environmental technology, information technologies and Biotechnologies – than in the traditional industries in the past. In addition, the implementability is as important as the cultural embedment above all in a world-youth-culture forming worldwide, which would be falsely and briefly described as Americanisation. Adaptation of technology is a difficult task, particularly in the context of transcultural technology transfer, if one doesn’t adequately know the use habits and cultural perceptions of the future users. Since the culture of consumption will spread farther worldwide under the sign of globalisation, the formulation of role models for the use of technics is always of greater emergency. “Technological gap” was defined traditionally from the point of view of construction of technical construction. A consumer revolution happens here in the age of globalisation. If one views technology from the perspective of a creative user, this gap practically plays no more any role. The use of high-tech can be equally easy or difficult like that of a machine. High-tech can always be so constructed that the user can by himself or herself learn to use it. This makes technology transfer easier, but it should also urge caution, to avoid sources of faults and to make technics most possibly safe. This has effects on the producers. One must not always take the leading position in the technological front to become the technological trend setter (Irrgang 2006). We must think over enlightenment and modernisation once again in view of a massively non-enlightened world and on the other side an excessively enlightened world. On the basis of long-term responsibility concepts of ecological ethics must be developed for the purposes of mediation, which are clothed in the robe of the concerning religious tradition, so that environmental protection becomes successful. The erosion of conscience of the basis of rationality and the perception of new forms of knowledge, skills, science and technics mesh together. Pluralisation may be considered as one of the fundamental marks of the new paradigm of modernisation. It deals here especially with a pluralisation of different approaches of practice, the working of cognitive and paradigmatic structural conditions and the transcultural finding for a common practice. The investigation of paradigms of new forms of structuring of the society and its products has to be strived for. It can lead under the sign of globalisation to a de-ideologisation and a paradigmatic use of theories, world views and value systems. The de-ideologisation of political, economic and technical power allows a freer view of new paradigms and structural patterns of

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uncertainty, non-clarity, non-safety and delimitation. This so to say is the other side of the coin, since ideologies guarantee certain consistency in the questions of world view (Irrgang 2006). Technology – like cultural transfer – creates forms of a really restricted, but still common practice, which is not always successful. It had to examine its conditions of implementation to increase the possibilities of its success. The regional adaptation of technologies can be understood as the generation of new paths of development on ground of the processes of interconnection between conceiving goals, paths of solutions and inventions. There will not be an integrated worldwide culture of technics, although it is desirable in a certain manner, at least in certain limits in view of the fundamental risks of certain technologies, which cannot be regionalised. There won’t be a modernisation in a comprehensive sense, like is often supposed today. But there will be a further comprehensive technologisation. The influence of the factors of cultural embedment will manifest itself in the moulding of regional and national styles of technologies respectively and will confirm the thesis of a regionalisation in globalisation in a certain manner. As a result, it remains to be expected that technology transfer will remain risky and precarious also in future, irrespective of which direction and it must be further differentiated from cultural transfer, even if they cannot be completely separated from each other. Modernisation in all requires a new orientation, new utopias, which are inspired by the spirit of sustainability and long-term responsibility. Such a conception is applicable for the industrialised West as well as for the developing countries. A technology- and cultural transfer is necessary here most possibly without any ideological abbreviations (Irrgang 2006). Hypermodern technology evolves through interconnectedness and backwardlinkage. Unmanageability and non-transparency is the result, which leads to the model of limited rationality. Limited rationality results as an outcome of a multiple number of rationally planned projects. Hypermodernity increases the competence of individualisation in view of the tendencies of the loss of individuality (which trail). We have more intensive forms of individualism with hopefully and possibly more consideration of the common welfare and solidarity (Irrgang 2007a). In the hypermodernity different forms of alternative modernity originate like in Japan, India and recently in China and South America, perhaps also between USA and Europe and also alternative forms of technological modernity with the common fundamental feature worldwide of being technological. Europe’s special path lay not in its economic power, instead in its philosophy which revolves around the concept of new, particularly in natural science and technology. This total change had its economic consequences only in the 19th century. Alternative modernities originate at the moment in India and China and have already possibly originated in Japan and South Korea. Latin America strives for such a one and in Africa the beginnings are only humble. The bombing in Japan rang in the hypermodernity and demonstrated the borderline case of apocalyptic power of hypermodern technology. Modern paths of development with the built-in acceleration effect through innovation, competence and concurrence strengthen itself. The idea of innovation changed fundamentally the idea of the path of development. Paths of development

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stood initially in fact for tradition. Innovation causes the potentiating of technical power. The fear of the technological gap by those who are trailing is not justified in all areas. But the area of military is sensible. Borgman has already described in 1984 the push for movement, which leads to hypermodernity. Alternative modernities develop in South East Asia and not only in Japan. The social obligation of competence, which doesn’t emphasize the privilege of the strong, instead the character of obligation of its performance capability is the point of departure of a new culture of competence, in which experts are not identical with elites. Competence is not identical with concurrence. Life with the level of technics, technology transfer and technological gaps are produced by innovation and concurrence. Hence a responsible handling, national as well as international, of the technological gap is necessary. It is a question of good life and hence of ethics. One must say that the competence model must not be inevitably connected to the concurrence model, instead it can also be thought together with the model of cooperation. Perhaps, innovations are much more successful through cooperation than in the background of the concurrence model. In addition, mixed models can reduce the power of models and promote the plurality of alternative modernities. The new order was headed in the French revolution. Here, the rationalisation had to be brought about through force and violence by eliminating tradition. An outcome of industrialisation is modernisation as technology transfer, which in forms of colonisation has possibly led to imperialism. One should not formulate any ideology of European superiority, though we should thoroughly identify and recognise the special path of Europe as such. There were other potentialities and other structural conditions. Mark’s work views the colonial history only as economical. The economic success of the path of innovation is only one of the possible scales. Europe relied on innovation and Asia on status quo and tradition. The moments of innovation society seems certainly to spread worldwide in the age of globalisation. Regions with an old technical tradition like India and China or the South East Asian states have technological advantages. The innovation society increases technical power and constantly creates technological gaps and thereby problems for the conception of an egalitarian justice. But it creates plurality and individuality, which cannot be unconditionally viewed as non-traditional. Performance and competence have to be organised and indeed not exclusively under the structural conditions of the concurrence model. The new Asia aims at competence, at an alternative, a rather collectively oriented model of performance society. A new concurrence model originates this way, a concurrence model in solidarity. The organisation of technics demanded commonness already in the Stone Age. Three basic models of the organisation of technics in the sense of the thesis of handling appear plausible: 1) Self-organisation or the peaceful exchange of material and know-how; 2) Trade by the state as the hierarchically structured organisation of big commissions in trade and architecture; 3) Military paradigm as enforced co-operation, production of labour performances or exchange relations by through armed violence or its use.

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Tradition, steered tradition and conflict are different models of the technicity of power. What is dominant is the paradigm of tradition and not that of conflict like the critical theory meant. The proven handling of technical artefacts and their familiar use create technical power. Innovative technics strengthens conflicts, but doesn’t anyway override the traditional forms of technical power. Conflicts can be, indeed also militarily, and also sportingly, agonally tolerated in the context of a concurrence oriented economic model (Irrgang 2007d). Technical level and technical standards are narrowly related to the ideas of paths of technical development. A technical path of development constitutes itself through technical tradition as well as technical innovation and describes a particular end point or break of the stages after a phase of technical progress at least in the time, often enough but related to the idea of improvement of technical means. The pace of innovation is certainly very varying and dependent on culture. But technical standards are determined no way by the technical level of technics alone. They are the result of the processes of standardisation and the outcome of the successful inclusion of technics in the current technical practices. Preconditions for the processes of standardisation and successful technology transfer are acceptance and cultural assimilation as well as the crossing of technological paradigms. The necessity of leaders for these processes must be emphasised here. Cooperation and coordination are required for the enforcement of paradigms. It is not the technical functionality, which is variably culturally coded, instead the organisational level, without which a machine doesn’t function or is not safe. Technology without the corresponding cultural transfer is not enough and produces normally more environmental problems than it helps to avoid. With regard to technical standards, the following aspects can be differentiated: 1) The stock of technical artefacts, their interconnectedness and the structure of their interconnected functionality; 2) The state and level of technical competence (skills); 3) The structure of technical tradition; the state of technical training and technical knowledge; 4) Technical, cultural and social infrastructure; 5) The state of technical institutions; 6) The state of technical standardisation (juristic-technical set of rules); 7) The organisational level of technical structures and systems (technical infrastructure up to technosphere); 8) The acceptance of technical means and structures in the sense of a successful social and cultural embedment. Technology transfer has two aspects, the transfer from science to production within the same land, but also beyond national boundaries and continents and the transfer of technics, particularly technologies from production in one country into another. Sometimes, the exchange of goods is enough for that, which can be imitated following the analysis. Technics-transfer in the pre-industrial times was relatively easy. The journey or emigration of a competent technician, who had to carry over the achievement of embedment into a foreign culture, was enough. Before 19th

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century technology transfer was possible only through personal movement or exemplary demonstration. It was related to the transferring person. In the system of technical training the preconditions for enhanced technology transfer originate, which becomes independent of the movement of individual technicians. Technology transfer helps here evidently also the transfer of cultural goods and values. Technology transfer is easier than cultural transfer also today, since technological practice is a rule-based practice and at least the rules are transferrable and teachable, even if the practice is not or not always. A new practice constitutes itself only in relation and in embedment in a path of development, which has developed within the culture of the receiver. All forms of practices are no way transferrable and the transfer of practices is a problem. Instead, only rule-based practices like rites, ceremonies, production processes and technical routines are transferrable. It means, during the cultural transfer the practices of a culture consolidate themselves initially into solid patterns, which must begin as such to strive for its embedment. Transfer into much underdeveloped developing countries must be accompanied by a comprehensive know-how-transfer. Technology transfer takes place primarily in connection with the following facts (mechanisms of technology transfer): 1) import of capital goods (especially import of ready-to-move-into-structures), 2) foreign direct investments, 3) licence- and know-how-contracts, 4) imitation. Also for Japan imitation in the early phase of industrialisation was an important mechanism for the borrowing of technology from the industrial countries then. Imitation can be seen as a special case of technology transfer. The transfer of technology (productknow-how) happens there usually in the following manner: The imitator analyses the product to be imitated (by taking apart individual parts). He tries to find out this way the production-know-how which is the basis of the product. This is fundamentally possible, but now and then difficult, since the production-know-how is only more or less reflected in the structure of the product. In imitation, technology transfer takes place only in an indirect manner. Imitation can take place legally or illegally. This is dependent on the legal system and the patent protection in the developing countries. Pre-forms of industrial research and development originate in this kind of imitation (Helmschrott 1986, 3–8). During the import of ready-to-use-arrangements the production-know how is also often transferred to the buyer. The reduction of production capacity is quite often part of the strategies of adaptation. An entire series of adaptation of the processes of production is required. Imported technologies must often be substituted by the local inputs. The production processes are often not cost covering and this is also an outcome of the state support. In threshold countries, the latest technologies are often not borrowed and they remain longer in use. The research in companies in the threshold as well as developing countries aims to a large extent the modification of imported technologies. The earlier technology has normally higher labour intensity. A great part of the transferred technologies remains unchanged. But then the development work is not necessary here. Research is often employed to consider technological changes (for example, to be able to take up local inputs), which result in rising production costs. This happens often because of the state support. Greater

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technological change through research can at the moment still be not observed in developing countries (Helmschrott 1986, 164–188). The inadequacy of technologies, which are offered by the lesser developed countries can be due to on the one hand the characterisation of production and on the other also the type of products, which are not suitable for consumption in the target country. This unsuitability can be changed, if the lesser developed countries formulate their needs more clearly and identify the factors, which have to be considered in order to design particular technologies and technological products suitable for their country. Mechanisms must be developed, which guarantee that technological processes and products in fact correspond to the need and demand in the developing countries. A suitable policy of technology is possible in many questions and on many paths of development. But it consists of conflict with the interests of the political and economic elites also even in the developing countries (Chen 1994, 62). Science and technics are for example differently embedded in India than in Europe. In India the traditional religious embedment remains socially even today in the foreground and has possibly restricted the economic embedment and dimensioning of technics and science, which enables the fundamental orientation towards innovation as the idea of growth that has favoured the concept of enlightenment of useful sciences in Europe. The Indian culture is hence open towards technics and science. Religious elements also find their presence in science and technics, but both remain embedded in a cultural, religious context, so that they don’t try to be independent. Science and technics don’t achieve any autonomy like in the West, even if more and more islands of modernisation have appeared in the last decades, because of which certain tensions between science and tradition can be observed. The fundamental difference regarding the development of technics in modern Europe and India consists in the fact that Europe has been successful since the modern times in an increasing measure, in mobilising technical developments and technical utilities for labour processes and in training relevant technical skills and in bringing about innovations for the same. These skills in bringing about innovations depend in different ways on the effectiveness of trade and industrial, particularly labour governing institutions. If we consider this, it can be observed that India had in the pre-colonial times all the necessary institutions to develop such structures. It was certainly not successful to unfold this innovative process in its fully developed form. This progress restricted itself as a rule to agriculture and craftsmanly skills, which were certainly exercised with high level of perfection (Irrgang 2006). Modernisation is not exclusively a thing of technology and economy. It is about inadequate and non-adapted technology and how one can change this. Here arises the question about the scale. It can again, according to the traditional understanding, only be a further technology or another form of economy. Such approaches overlook what one can describe with culture and everyday life and reduce it to human capital. Industrialisation and technologisation don’t often succeed. Technologisation of everyday life like in the industrial nations doesn’t succeed in China, if one takes industrial nations as a model. China looks rightly for a different path. Technology transfer from big technical systems is certainly not suitable to reform the

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structure of technological production in threshold countries. Everyday technology is related to the introduced needs. Any mistake in the realisation of technology transfer was the neglect of the factor of daily routine. In addition, there is the dominance of western models. An outcome of it is the necessity to formulate one’s own models for technological development or to let them grow out of everyday life. Modernisation justifies its current potentially revolutionary potential through the prosperous outcomes in the future, almost through a futuristic utilitarianism. Modernisation describes paths of development which are characterised by innovation. Modernity is not possible without any philosophy of history, perhaps without any utopia of technical or civilisational kind. Such a technical utopia can fill the gap in the Indian world view like the positivistic metaphysics of the history of Marxism, which a philosophy of history cannot present. What is particular to Marxism is also a positive art of viewing science and technology. Marxism is hence in a certain sense inheritance of the enlightenment philosophy and a theory of modernisation. The Marxist philosophy of technics offers points of departure also for China, which certainly are not in all non-problematic. The collapse of the earlier East Block has left behind here possibly a theory deficit. Ecologically-socially motivated conceptions of the realisations of long-term responsibility could discern here an interesting task. There is a structural similarity between cultural globalisation and the global economic structural features. Under the concept of globalisation worldwide a simultaneity is assumed, which must no way appear inevitably. Problems of dissolution and complex interdependences across the borders of integrated markets appear. There is a considerable difference in productivity and competence. The asymmetrically positioned competition for markets is intensified this way. Structural heterogeneity as the effect of globalisation in lesser developed societies cannot be denied. Poverty and wealth, granting privileges and marginality always fall further apart. But there is also a popular culture of cultural diversity. The cultural external influence which comes from the economically, technologically and media effectively superior OECD world is understood as an attack on one’s own mostly brittle identity and promotes terrorism. The overwhelming cultural influence of the US is understood as domination. Hence compromises have to be considered as the results of a century long history of conflicts. Cultures enter into conflict with themselves and must first of all learn to understand themselves as cultures undergoing a radical change. Globalisation relies on modernisation in the developing countries to create a single technical, civilisational, cultural and ideological level worldwide. It is assumed that this goal would be naturally realised, without it being clear to us whether such a goal can be achieved and which prerequisites should be met in order to achieve it. Besides, it has to be examined, whether this goal is desirable. According to the work by Jürgen Habermas on the philosophical discourse of modernity, modernity is an incomplete project (Habermas 1988, 7). The word modernity has been introduced as a term only in the 50’s. Arnold Gehlen has reduced it to a catchy formula: the premises of enlightenment are dead, only its consequences are on the further course. Gehlen has contrasted social modernisation with cultural modernity.

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The inexorable acceleration of the social processes appears then as the reverse side of a culture, which is exhausted and has entered a crystalline state (Habermas 1988, 10f). This new conservative rejection of modernity doesn’t apply to the unstopped dynamics of social modernisation, instead to the sheath of, as it appears, an outdated cultural self-understanding of modernity. Modernisation was an enormously popular concept and a corresponding ideology in the 1950’s and 1960’s, related to the parting of old colonial powers and the anticommunist fervour. Alexis de Tocqueville talked about democratisation, instead of modernisation. For him it was about an anthropological substantiation for the social change and knowledge acceptance (Laudan 1984, 1–5). “Modernity” in the sense of enlightenment describes values like freedom, individuality, self-determination, human dignity, tolerance and reason. Antimodernity, like formulated initially in romanticism, stands for community, tradition, religion and morality as politics. The industrial society of the late 19th and 20th centuries is characterised by technical and economic progress, by growth, functionality, materiality and prosperity, while the level of reflexive modernity which begins to emerge at the end of the 20th century, is characterised by the consciousness of one’s own limits, interest in others, preservation of nature and technological innovation, recognition of foreign traditions and co-existence with others. On the other hand, modernisation has caused colonisation, destruction of cultures and forced cultural adaptation (Irrgang 2006; Young 1995, 172).

6. TECHNOLOGISATION OF EVERYDAY LIFE, CONSUMER ORIENTATION, RE-USE OF TECHNOLOGY, JOY OF USE AND TRUST IN TECHNICS

The 20th century is characterized by the radical artificialising of the environment. The metaphor of space travel stands for it. The central problems from the point of view of content are the relation of system, control and information and of automatism, information and interconnectedness. The high-tech revolution consists of the following mini revolutions: 1) Revolution of mobility with regard to the expansion of management of distance and speed up to space travel, 2) information revolution up to internet and robotics, 3) medicinal-technological revolution up to high-tech bodies, 4) revolution of environmental technology and reconstruction of an ecotechnological environment, 5) a revolution in the processing of material and creation of new materials like in synthetic biology, nano technology etc., 6) a production revolution with automatisation and processing of further smaller materials, 7) this is related to the revolution of creation of innovation and a revolution of technological creativity which are worked out not least in the military-industrial-university complexes. The half-century from 1880 to 1930 included the constitutive years of history of the electrical help systems. Thomas P. Hughes offers a study of these years, which allows us to observe the order, integration, co-ordination and systematic nature of modern human society. Electrical energy systems demand from its constructors and creators, those who thought of it as well as its managers a manipulation of things of intellects oriented towards the task, for a rational analysis of its nature and dynamics and the ability to engage with the economics of politics and the social vitality of production systems, which embodied the complex objectivity of modern men and women. How did the electrical system, which was small and restricted to two cities in 1880 develop into a regional supply system of electrical energy in 1920? How can this expansion be explained? The electrical energy systems embody the physical, intellectual and symbolic resources of the society, which constituted it then. By explaining this development, one explains the change in the arrangement of energy systems. The historian must reconstruct the changing resources and the aspects of organization and consider the groups as well as individuals, which have built this. Electrical energy systems were built in different societies. The variations in the fundamental characteristics reveal the variations in the resources, traditions, political arrangements and economic practices of a society in comparison to another. In this sense, electrical energy systems are big technical systems as far as they are technology and as far as there are reasons for the change of effects of the social

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change. Edison was the central initiator of the electrical supply systems. He invented the electrical systems including electrical light and indeed not only with regard to the physical foundations, but he also managed its construction, its social institutionalization, its technical realization and constituted in all the innovation and invention of the electrical supply systems. His competences go beyond the special competences as a researcher. He was beyond that a technician and an economist and in that respect, he became successful with the institutionalization of the big electrical supply systems. Edison was in a position to develop a holistic concept for the realisation of his task and to develop the processes of problem solving for the difficulties, which were related to the magnificent growth of these supply systems. The identification of problems led him to search for solutions, for research and development and above all things for instructions and introduction for the use of these systems (Hughes 1983, 18f). The improvement of individual components and elements of this system led to feedback effects and to comprehensive changes of the overall system than it was normally planned. It forced simultaneously the improvement of other components, which was not originally considered (Hughes 1983, 23). These systems included parallely not only electricity for lighting, but also systems of communication through telegraphic lines, telephone lines and radio (Hughes 1983, 33). The technical problems were enormous and also the institutional awakening related to that. On the 4th of September 1882, a colleague of Edison constructed in a railway station at Pearl Street in New York a system of electrical lamps and electrical lighting, but also simultaneously in the entire district along with the railway station (Hughes 1983, 42). The lighting system of Edison, installed initially in New York, was met at the world exhibition in Paris with great enthusiasm. Especially Emil Rathenau and Oskar von Miller looked for contact with Edison, founded also the German Edison Society and tried to set up such electrical systems in Berlin analogous to those of Edison. But there were difficulties with the technology transfer of electro technical systems to Germany. At the instigation of Rathenau in 1887, AEG took over the management of “städtischen Elektrizitätswerke” in Berlin and changed its name into “Berliner Elektrizitätswerke” (BEW). Thomas Edison was not happy about the change of name of the firm and the removal of his name from the complex of firms. AEG was no longer the Edison firm and the new company didn’t carry also his name. But on the other hand, began the success story of the electrification of Germany, especially Berlin, with which the name AEG is associated. The new big energy supply systems ended the era of regional supply systems and electrical help systems, which at best connected two or three cities and led to regional systems in Germany, especially the “Bayernwerke” in South Germany and Britain’s Grid. These regional systems were also characterised by extraordinary growth (Hughes 1983, 363). The American myth of technology was dominant from 1870 to 1970. This can be called the century of excitement about technology. The modern technological nation emerged from 1870 to 1970. The development of comprehensive systems for transport, communication and information as well as for conducting wars and

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provision with basic supplies emerged in this time. The enormously productive inventors like Edison at the end of the 19th century convinced the Americans that they are witnesses of a second creation of the world. We should identify the structures of the technological world. The age of technological enthusiasm refers to technology as goods, services and means of production. Big system creators like Ford who had more power and influence were interested exclusively in the organisation of material world through the establishment of big production systems. The analysis of modern technology led to the rational method, performance capability, order, control and systematics. Technology is the effort to organise the world and to solve problems, so that goods and services can be invented, developed, produced and used. The representation is person oriented, but the culture which forms the basis is not neglected. We see in the workshop of the inventor, how the industrial research laboratory emerges. Independent inventors’ experience a great time in the golden age after the American civil war and the emergence of the enormous productive undertaking, which was finally dominated by giant firms, can be ascribed to them. The spirit of inventors turned to the military in the First World War. The inventions and discoveries became part of a comprehensive production system, which expanded in an impressive manner in the years between the wars. It was the work of system builders. The feats of systematists consisted especially in Fordism and Taylorism. The American performance-oriented society found its expression in that. There emerged construction methods, architecture and design, modern style and machine art. The throwing of atom bombs led to the strengthening of technological counter culture. The technological enthusiasm has indeed waned since 1930, but not disappeared (Hughes 1991, 11–21). No other nation has proved such an inventive power and produced such brilliant inventors as the USA in the 50 years following 1870. There was a rapid growth of patents. Before the industrial research complexes emerged around the turn of the century and long before the big national laboratories financed by the governments in the Second World War busied themselves with the military use of nuclear energy, the efforts for technical inventions were concentrated in the workshops of independent inventors. This time began, when Alexander Bell invented telephone and Edison moved into his Menlo-Park-Laboratory. After the First World War the scientists working in the industry took over from independent inventors the tasks in the area of R&D. America overcame the United Kingdom and became the leading industrial nation in the world. Bell’s telephone, Edison’s bulb, his phonograph and the kinematographic system developed by him as well as the contributions of William Stanley, Nikola Tesla and Elihu Thomson towards the development of systems of electrical power lines contributed to this success. The Wright brothers built the first aeroplane with an internal-combustion engine, Reginald Fessenden, Lee De Forest and Edwin Armstrong did pioneering work in the development of wireless telegraphy and radios. Elmer Sperry and Hiram Stevens did the same in the field of electrical lighting. Sperry was very important for the invention of gyro-compass and diverse nautical instruments. Maxim invented the machine gun. This phase was sometimes called the second industrial revolution (Hughes 1991, 23–25).

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Each of them had striking peculiarities. Edison had more than 1000 patents. His countless patents found their practical application. Sperry engaged himself with more complex problems. He was after all the father of cybernetics. Inventing can be seen as a process, in the course of which new problems emerge and are solved. Radical inventions didn’t correspond to the needs of industrial firms and didn’t solve also the problems of the existing organisations. Radical inventions demanded new institutions, which used them. The bicycle workshop of Wright brothers was important for the invention of the aeroplane. Keeping the balance while riding a cycle and while flying were comparable problems. Sperry developed electrical lighting systems and electrical trams. His patents were related to them. The lamps had to be adapted to the current produced by dynamos and the dynamos had to be constructed in such a way that they produced the current required by the lamps. This mutual effect constituted the paths of technical development. Flashes of inspiration and sudden insights are part of the history of inventions and discoveries. The ideas and inspirations of inventors are often expressed in the form of metaphors. Here is the meaningful noun especially important. Sperry characterised aeroplanes as pack animals. Analogies like wireless waves and figurative ideas were also used. Manufacturers with a certain market share financed the revolutionary inventions of an independent inventor only rarely, since they needed inventions, with which their already existing machines and equipments like the processes of manufacture could be improved. If an independent inventor is fortunate to be supported by a private financier or entrepreneur, he founded usually a firm with him to produce his invention and bring it to the market. In most of the cases the inventor took over a big share of the business as the equivalent for the patents, which he left to the new firm and the entrepreneur was compensated with a share of the business capital for his investment in the development (Hughes 1991, 62–91). After the turn of the century there was increasing labour for the war industry. The wireless telegraphy, radio, aeroplane, automatic navigation system for ships and aeroplanes were developed in close co-operation between the military and profit oriented manufacturers of arms goods. It has a century old history in the West. In the last decades of the 19th century, the arms race on the sea intensified, especially with the British and the German sea fleets. New weapons and communication systems emerged and the technical innovations in the ship construction were dramatic. In 1897 the first steam turbine in Great Britain was realised. The “turbine” reached 34 knots. This led to a further intensification of the arms race. Rousevelt’s ambitious fleet programme was well part of it. Besides, the semiautomatic rifle was also invented. The eager efforts of Wright brothers to sell the aeroplane to the army failed. Till their first successful flight in 1903, they didn’t seemingly have any interest in earning money with their invention. But later they unceasingly tried to awake the interests of American as well as other armies in purchasing their aircraft. The British war ministry had more interest than that of the US. The Wright Company was founded in 1909. Hiram Maim patented in 1885 the most deadly machine gun till then. Elmer Sperry developed the gyroscope for ships. It was less easy for the other inventors to get used to the co-operation with the bureaucracy and military organisations (Hughes 1991, 103–118).

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The sale of radio stations to the navy through Fessenden proved difficult. Fessenden had a technically expensive system. The navy paid attention to easy usability. The First World War was a war of technical surprises. The machine gun led to the failure of attacking tactics. This led to the war of attrition in the trenches. On the other hand, researches looked for substitutes for materials, which were short in supply. For example, nitrogen for explosives and fertilizers were important. It was also about the development of poisonous gas. The British tanks were also ultimately decisive for the outcome of the war. The USA had to leave the leadership in military flying soon to France, Germany and Great Britain. The inclusion of aircraft weapons by the Great Britain at the end of the First World War and the submarine war by the Germans showed the aspects of technological race. The modern warfare was more of a thing of machines than of humans. A navy advisory council was summoned in 1915. In the ensuing time, instruments for locating submarines, air torpedos, flying bombs, control devices and guidance systems and aircrafts with autopilots were developed in the USA. Control devices and guidance systems for different weapon systems were introduced. The narrow co-operation between the inventors of defense technical inventions and the armed forces had by then not taken place (Hughes 1991, 118–143). Firms, scientists and inventors integrated themselves into the newly evolved technological systems. These system builders have cast their stamp on the modern society. Big administrative units emerged through the thirst for power and greed for profit. Henry Ford’s production system was not the most efficient, but the most known. Electricity systems were bigger and more efficient. One could talk of individual production systems already in the middle of the 19th century. Taylor viewed the production system as a machine, in which the human and mechanical parts cannot be separated from each other. Taylorism means putting the modern business management on a scientific basis. Taylor recorded this in 1911 in a book titled “Principles of scientific management”. Workers should be efficient and they should be compensated with a share of the profit, in order to make them stop idling about. On the basis of time studies, he introduced strict business management and piecework. He increased the work efficiency and wages. The rationalisation of the place of work and the process of work were part of his strategy. He wanted to improve the standard of living of the masses through piece-work. Ford has denied that Taylor and his guys had inspired him. He introduced the system of mass production and conveyor belts. His successful model T realised the concept of uninterrupted production flow. The big River Rouge factory, which because of its big window faces was called crystal palace, was the place of production. The decline in production after the huge initial success was the personal fate of Ford. The genial system builder became a despot. An important precondition for automobilisation was the refining of petrol. This threw up new technical problems. Samuel Insull developed supply systems of electricity and gas. The problem with electricity is that it could not be economically stored. In this respect, load sharing centres had to be developed (Hughes 1991, 191–241).

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Lenin remarked that in a socialist state Taylorism doesn’t lead to the exploitation of labourers. The electrification of Russia was part of an industrialisation programme, in which the check dam projects were also included. The Soviet Union wanted to buy all the factories. Fordism won in publicity also in Germany. The increased flow of goods after 1870 motivated the progressive and radical reformers. The electrification introduced the second industrial revolution. There emerged an aesthetics in the new technology. Peter Behrens and the turbine factories of AEG as well as Gropius, who connected Taylorism and Fordism, worked with a rationalised manner of construction as well as steel concrete and developed the idea of terraced houses. Regional planners had to plan now energy production for large areas. The struggle for the public supply of electrical energy was one of the areas, in which the bigger technical systems grew more and more together. After all, the Manhattan project led to a new form of industrialisation, at least as far as the order of magnitude of projects was concerned. It is a landmark in the history of emergence of big technical systems. Many scientists, who were part of them became system builders. Dupont borrowed the design and construction of the atomic pile. The military and the industry had taken over the leadership and not the scientists or physicists. There were tensions between the firm Dupont and scientists. This led to dissatisfaction among scientists in Chicago. A production plant was built in Hanford and the electromagnetic process of separation for uranium was installed in Oak Ridge. Ernest O Lawrence became the leading head of the Manhattan project. Lawrence worked together well with the industry. After the delay and disappointments in 1944, they relocated in the beginning of 1945 to Los Alamos. The dropping of bombs happened, although the Germans had capitulated in between. In 1947, the AEC, Atomic Energy Commission came into being. Inextricability was the characteristic of the new technical system that came into being after the war. The navy worked on the nuclear ship motors, especially on nuclear submarines. The atomic energy law of 1954 accelerated ultimately the nuclear industry (Hughes 1991). In 1970 there was a growing mistrust in technology. Works like Rachel Carson’s “Silent spring” in 1962 and growing environmental catastrophes led to the critic of technocratic society and nuclear energy. In early 1922, a radio boom swept across the United States. The radio was represented as an autonomic power, which was in a position to revolutionise the American society. Twenty five years of technical, economic and cultural experiments, which led to the radio system, was now over. The book by Susan Douglas analyses, how individuals, institutions, ideas and technologies worked together to produce the radio system. The Radio, an invention of the 19th century, became the key invention of the 20th century. For Susan Douglas, it is about the social construction of the radio. The definition of media talks about wireless telegraphy. What was central here was the process of centralisation and institutionalisation of the new medium. Before we turn to the history of the origin of radio, it is important to think, which important institutional trends, individual positions and journalistic practices this new invention was facing in 1899. 1894 was a year of economic depression characterised by wild strikes and a basic attitude of either utopian or completely

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pessimistic kind. The organised co-operation grew. There was a growth of American newspapers and magazines. The human costs of a free entrepreneurship were recognised in an increasing measure. The inventor was seen as seen as heroic or romantic. The romantic image of the radio existed above all in the popular press (Douglas 1987). The Americans assumed that competition creates freedom. In this context originated the dream of electrification of the kitchen. From 1920 a great number of USAmerican households were modified and modernised. In this context the model of electrical modernisation was formulated. Electrical applications at home appeared as brought about by the choice of consumers. A closer examination doesn’t allow us to establish a greater or any general acceptance of household electrical applications in 1920 or any other significant social changes which accompanied its acceptance. The remarkable, commercial visions of a household electrical technology, of a world, in which machines and not persons work, cannot have been simply true in an overwhelming majority of American households. In the 1920s around 30% of the American households were electrified. They were especially households with high income and certainly with a socially conservative attitude. In order to take into consideration the possibility of technologisation of a household, it is necessary to analyse the role of labour and consequently the understanding of labour by women at home, whether the introduction of electrical technologies strengthened the conservative values in a certain manner. Initially, electrical labour saving applications were introduced. In 1920, the growing prosperity laid the basis for comprehensive electrification and modernisation, which happened only after 1945 (Tobey 1996, 1– 6). In 1929, there were five leading firms, which produced 80% of the electrical household appliances. Many firms had also their own generator. The lighting of homes constituted one market for electricity and the other one consisted of electrical services for households. In the wake of the economic collapse, the electrical supplies lost a good share of their industrial market. It was a model of a mass market. Refrigerators remained expensive and were introduced in the household only later. An essential part of the difficulties consisted of the lack of standardisation of the corresponding electro-equipments. The high price of refrigerators prevented its wide spread. Apart from that, there was lack of competency in the repair work. The household technics was not in the first place in the list of wishes, instead it faced heavy competition from automobiles. The mass acceptance of radio in the 20’s is in a certain manner the model for the electrification of households. From 1915 there was a mass market for radio. But the radio was preferred to the labour saving electrical machines. The false handling of electrical household appliances impaired in the beginning their competitiveness. There were competing technologies and services. Only when their income increased, did the households purchase services still rather as labour saving machines. Foodstuffs were sold at house doors and there was laundry service. Apart from that, the African household servants were cheap. There developed slowly households, which could be electrified. The growing family income and the corresponding strategies of sale were important here. The bad state of houses didn’t support modernisation. The idea of fire protection was gain

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positive for the introduction of new technologies. In 1932 and 1944/45 there were certain breakthroughs in the electrical modernisation of households (Tobey 1996, 10–39). In the 20’s the price of electricity was brought down to promote the sale. Safety became a central demand. A graded price system, which rewarded multiple use worked also supportive. Rauschenbush and Laidler had a progressive vision of socially modernised American households with electrification and rise of standard of life in even small cities and farm houses. The conservative vision relied more on industrialisation and had other ideas of the use of electricity. Modernisation increased the debts of households. New hydral power plants had to be set up. There originated the movement for the rationalisation of households. It was about reorganising the family in the name of freedom. An efficient kitchen was the model. The movement for the rationalisation of households produced an entire series of instruction books on household management, including the explanation of the corresponding household budget and on how consumption and acquiring of household technologies have to be in the new world of incomes and mass markets. John Dewey became the philosopher of the nation and of its ideas of progress. He elucidated the significance of electricity (Tobey 1996, 41–55). The Californian movement for public power and modernisation declared itself in favour of the development of hydroelectrics. The public electrification of households had to take place. Electricity had to be offered for industrialisation. It proved supportive that the quality of life was defined by law (Tobey 1996, 62–81). In 1930 Franklin Roosevelt propagated the new agreement and declared a national political framework, which allowed most of the American families to modernise their house with electricity. A public electrical modernisation programme was published and the entire conception and its efforts were framed. A complete exploitation of electricity had to bring about higher quality of life. This led to a new electrical modernisation of the household. In 1934, Roosevelt held several speeches in favour of modernisation. But before that there was a crisis of financing of houses. Taxes on property were also important in this context. In 1934 an association of banks emerged for a new agreement in favour of building houses. A national house construction act was enacted. The new agreement on the electrical modernisation was formed between 1933 and 1935. It led to an expansion of private consumer credits. The social experiment of Tennessee Valley Authority also led to the spread of electricity in the households. The wealth after the Second World War also helped in the introduction of new technology. Strategies of economic security were important here (Tobey 1996, 159–168). The invisibility of the technical revolution was quite characteristic. A connection between the social and electrical modernisation was essential for that. Technology concerns us all, since it is inseparable from what constitutes being human. Inventions and machines are not things, which come into our life from outside, instead they constitute our life-world from inside. Do we shape technology or does the technology shape us? There was also an evolution of tools. Technologies were developed to be made available for the social evolution and development. The production of not only what is necessary for life, but also of the superfluous is part of

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the cultural programme, which characterises technology. Technology deals with problems, which have several possible solutions. Everyday life is full of implicit knowledge of handling the technical means. It has to be pointed out here that cultures developed long before texts. A tool or a technical artefact implies always at least a short history. Narrating histories and making tools belong together. It can be demonstrated in the technology of manufacture of glass. Jacob Biglow’s book “Elements of technology” from 1829 is important in this context. Technics, according to Nye means the totality of tools, machines, systems and processes, which are applied in practical arts and in the art of engineering (Nye 2006). Technological structures as self-producing, self-sustaining and self-programming mechanisms drive home the special condition of technical development. The technological system controls or influences the political progress in a wide manner and regulates obviously the output and operational conditions of social structuring (Winner 1992). It deals with the social control of technical structures. Complexity and autonomy of technics remain in a mutual relationship. High specialisation of knowledge led to the division of labour in research as well as in technology. This brought about wide social complexity. In this respect, one can talk of a certain loss of power of human action in technological systems. For Winner, Viktor Frankenstein is a person who discovers something new, but refuses to weigh up the consequences and implications of his innovation. This is a position of technical irresponsibility. For Winner it is part of the modern technics, which manifests itself especially in the modern energy systems. Energy is used today without any technical understanding of the associations formed by the origin, particularly production of this energy and transport, particularly of supply modalities. But that is the characteristic not only of modern technology, but also the early forms of technics, in which apparatuses and machines are used, the manner of technical effects of which was no way known to the individual labourer. The same applies to automobile and other technical objects. The use of technical objects, without knowing its structure including the individual parts, is of course part of the complexity of technical action and is not restricted to modern technics. It must not anyway have negative effects, since a television, a CD player or an automobile can be used well with the desired effects without anyone having to know the apparatus and its individual parts. In everyday life, we are of course no more in a position to repair all technical equipments surrounding us. But the successful use of a technical artefact or the successful handling of the technical structures doesn’t set any precondition that we must know the details of the plan of construction of technical artefacts and technical structures. The engineer is the not only one who successfully deals with technics. This implies of course a certain democratisation of technical action and technical development. It doesn’t contradict the professionalization of technical action, instead it is a result of making technics a part of everyday life. Winner doesn’t question on the basis of this analysis the demand for the trial of new technical actions, instead he demands growing reflexive competence in technical action itself in the sense of a true political technology (Winner 1992).

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Technics has become a common element of culture in the technicised everyday life of industrial societies in the 20th century. The idea of value of efficient functioning has developed into a common norm. It leads this way to a mechanical technomorphic destruction of the life-world. Husserl and Heidegger with their respective theories of the world of Being assume the primacy of material practice. Technicisation has brought about a fundamental loss of existential safety and depth of life and has led to a precedence of rationalistic instrumentalisation. On the other hand the praise of the feats of technics cannot be overlooked and technics has created even today new forms of inwardness and enthusiasm about itself. Our everyday life appears hardly imaginable without the highly developed technics. This development set in especially since the 50’s of the 20th century. Technical equipments, which have radically restructured our everyday life are personal motor vehicle, telephone, television, refrigerator, photo camera, kitchen equipments, vaccum cleaner and washing machine. With regard to personal motor vehicle the negative effects of giant motorisation can be quite obviously noticed. Our everyday behaviour was changed through PKW as much as through other technical equipments, especially with regard to purchasing habits and how we use our free time. Television has influence on the family structure and our understanding of privacy (Lenk 1982, 62). Partial technicisation of households enables women to work for earning. This has also fundamental effects on the social structures. This behaviour is not certainly determined one sidedly by technical innovations. Technicisation of every day life is socially mediated. The society implies exactly the way certain technologies imply the implicit ways of the use of technics. Moreover, the use of technical artefacts is not independent of their origin. Production and consumption belong together (Lenk 1982, 66). Production raises frequently only the need for the product. The possible goals of action are so to say supplied together with the material system. This is the starting point for the so called thesis of material constraint or technocracy. Such material constraints turn out often certainly to be social constraints. The manufacture of faster cars has of course certain consequences for their use. That this choice promotes rage or dangerous manoeuvres can be rather traced back to the social rather than technical constraints. It has at most to do with the fact that the industry associates faster cars with sportiness. A desired social role is immediately granted with the use of technics. Hans Lenk formulates a complementary principle: freedom can be expanded through the object of a material system (for example, with regard to personal motor vehicle, mobility can be increased). The materially mediated heteronomy is the price for using this freedom (Lenk 1982, 72). The materially mediated heteronomy describes itself through the condition of availability, public pre-requisites of use, logical milieu systems and reliability (Lenk 1982, 72f). All these factors shape the function of action (Lenk 1982, 74). The analysis of the context of origin of appliances must figure out, whether inventions can be attributed to a chain of impulses of the need or the set goal of the searched resource (induction of need), like in the example of sewing machine, or the other way around, whether the invention triggers autonomously a chain of impulses (autonomous induction, which through the existence produces only the need

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like in countless other cases). In view of the sociological analysis of the processes of origin of technical artefacts and as a result of the technical progress, it can be pointed to the social structure of the process of invention itself (Jkisch 1982, 18). The investigation of the technologisation of everyday life is an interesting contribution of the sociologiy of technics from the point of view of the philosophy of technics. Certain deficits in the sociological research can still be recorded here. The analysis of big technical systems follows nevertheless one approach. It can be characterised initially by the compulsion of interconnectedness. The development and control of big technical systems demand fundamental changes and consume multiple resources. In addition, there is the problem of management of the potential of catastrophes in interconnected high-technologies. Technics promotes the rationalisation of everyday life and almost the professionalization of consumer, free time and household production. Modernisation, privatisation and commercialisation develop through maximum technical provisions, which can after all bring together more time and actions than promised from the point of view of instrumental use. The individual results of the use of everyday technics are open and partly unforseeable in the perspective of technics as a systematic project. The function of technics is understood as the discerned meeting of goals in the use of equipments and artefacts. A complex functionality of everyday technics must be presumed here. The economy of labour and time plays an equally big role as aesthetics and do-it-yourself-mentality. Different styles of technics result from that. These styles are dependenet on the competence of technics, the attitude to technics, the intensity of the use of technics and the functions of technics, which offer a certain profile of the use (Lüdtke 1994, 160-164). Since the styles of technics are defined exclusively by special dimensions of competences, attitudes and behaviours, the question arises about the clear identification. The thesis of increased individualisation of the private rationalisation of technics and the blurring of dividing lines of the functions of technics in everyday life leads to a differentiation of styles of technics. Styles of technics as patterns of attitudes, competences, intensities of use and goal-use-experience (functions of technics) have a highly complex structure (Lüdtke 1994, 167f). In the forty years after the Second World War seven times more goods have been produced world wide than in the entire history of nature of man. An end to this exponential growth of material worlds is not in sight. What is more momentous for the change of everyday life than the immediate effects of computers on forms of everyday action is the technics of computer as a deep social structure, which enables a constant expansion of the everyday life around all other possible things and technics (Joerges 1996, 64f). The introduction of home electronics has been wild, full of gaps, unclear and fluctuating compared to other forms of unprofessional technics (Joerges 1996, 77). There are successful as well as disturbing forms of everyday adaptation of wider social applications and implications of computer technics. The recent conceptions of the genesis of technics take into account the genesis of (unprofessional) technics, i.e. technics in everyday life. The definiteness of the view that the category “everyday life” is less apt for the context of processes of everyday technicisation is remarkable. Indeed occassionally an equivalence of

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everyday and life-world is assumed in a some what Habermasian sense. Nevertheless, a kind of movement of distantiation from the life-world system discussions can be observed. An emphatic concept of everyday life, formulated by phenomenological approaches or on the basis of thesis of everyday life, of the principles of organization and the logics of industrial nuclear systems confronted with quite other forms of everyday action, is being revoked. Everyday life then coincides with certain, for example unprofessional or household contexts of use of technics or with forms of action, which are specially related to unprofessional technics, user- technics or usetechnics. In the first perspective, everyday action appears as obstinate, ambivalent and resistant action, also in dealing commonly with technics and the material world. In the second perspective, everyday action is understood rather as specifically external form of use of technics and handling of material environments. In both the versions, one can observe the attempt to determine technics closer on three levels: firstly as a special form of knowledge and action, for example, unprofessional versus professional and then as a special form of institutionalization of action, for example, as the pre-dominance of cultural orientations or common orientation; and as social-spatially described areas of life and action, for example, as household, free time and public sphere (Joerges 1988, 8f). The rather pragmatic understanding of the everyday life comprehends this as consumption, household, free time or sphere of reproduction. What is important in this context is the relationship between the adaptation to the patterns of technical action and their cultural moulding. Where it is mainly argued from the point of view of unprofessional and everyday users of technics, technics appears as a multiply recombinable element of cultural projects. The use of technics, whether in the organizations of industrial nuclear systems or in everyday life stipulates action and a progressing technicisation creates problems here. A narrowing of view on the small unprofessional technics, big production technics and wide infrastructures are not justified here. Unprofessional technics depends normally on big production structures (Joerges 1988, 11f). Interesting is the question, what leads to the different styles of technics-adaptation. The more logical the cultural perspective is developed, the more is the question of production/genesis and use/results transformed into an analysis of the changing codifications of certain lines of technical development in the context of the pre-dominant patterns of cultural interpretation and attitudes. The rhetoric about the compatibility of technical actions opens itself up as a result to other dimensions (Joerges 1988, 14). The causal relations, assumed to a large extent in the research on acceptance, particularly acceptability, between technical development and social outcomes can be called into question at least in the analyses along cultural conceptional lines. The possibility to consolidate the evaluation of values into indicators and norms, so that they can be used to control the processes of political decision making is also as a result tendentially rejected (Joerges 1988, 16). A common understanding of technics looks for occasions for technicisations in the needs to control powerful actors. Technics draws its legitima-

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tion from the promise of relaxation and escalation of action. Outcomes of technicisation are desensualisation, loss of competence and a decline of the ability to judge. In this respect, technicisation brings ultimately no cultural gain to citizens and users, instead only losses (Joerges 1988, 20). Everyday life means first of all “relevant for all”, quite irrespective of the role allocations in highly technicised organizations based on the division of labour. Thematisations of the transition of everyday, unprofessional forms of living life manage mostly without an analysis of technical changes or technical anchoring of action. The theme of technicisation of social processes mediated by equipments is especially interesting. The public debates about the technicisation of everyday life deal often with the themes of fragmentation of life contexts, the crisis ridden aggravation of problems and the violation of boundaries (Joerges 1988, 21–24). The term “everyday action” is applied to relatively weakly formulated areas of action and the concept of technicisation is applied to a special dimension of formalization of objects of action (Joerges 1988, 29f). What is central for the determination of technical everyday action are equipments and technical standardizations determined by them. There are formalized organizations of action also in everyday life, which could be called ritualisation and which have a specific level of institutionalisation. The examples “to wash” and “to drive a car” indicate that the technicisation of household along ritualized role divisions leads to the development of semi professional specialisations (Joerges 1988, 33). The relative powerlessness of laymen in judging about and influencing the boundaries of the possibilities of improvement of those reliable social effects, which can be generated along with the user-technics, has its reasons in the structural changes of the economic system. The analysis of everyday technical action provides insights into the complex contexts of mediation between technics and the interpretations and ways of action directed towards and by them in everyday life. Such an approach sets from a methodic point of view the participatory perspective of the thinking and acting men with reference to technics as a precondition (Joerges 1988, 53). The institutionalized infrastructure (from official support to MOT norms) guarantees the unproblematic use of everyday technical things to a large extent. This is probably the historical pre-condition for the de-professionalisation of this technics. The material construct is the vehicle of own as well as foreign purposes. But it is also the aesthetic, cultural and metaphorical object. The interpretations have to be seen here always in the background of certain expectations of use, influenced by judgment and symbolism and embedded in social and cultural structures. It emphasizes the character of going about technical action in everyday life. The quicker the industrialisation progresses historically, the more the number of admirers, the ideology of family as place of privacy and protection found against instrumental rationality. Many of the theses of loss and danger can be seen on this slide of common emotion and interaction, where the worry is about the one sided encroachment of technical action in everyday life – an area which was till then spared to a large extent by technical rationality (Joerges 1988, 59).

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Despite the increasing capital production and rising level of mechanization of households and increased demands of technical-economic qualification to the consumers, the question of industrialisation of households doesn’t arise (Joerges 1988, 61f). On ground of the cultural embedment of technics, we must analyse the significance, which technics has for individuals and the society. Culture can be interpreted in this sense as a complex of meanings and ideas which come to light in a symbolic form. Symbols not only refer to the structuring power or are an expression of the same, instead they themselves exercise (often in connection with social rituals and dramatizations) the structuring power in everyday life and in political, business and other areas (Joerges 1988, 66–68). Everyday life means obviously what happens everyday regularly and constantly. What takes place each time, happens everywhere and for everyone in the same way – definitely in the context of certain social historical and social cultural borders. Everyday life implies as a result also the local and social ubiquity of the situation characterized by that. Today professional work covers less than 10% of the life time and the dominant part of the remaining 90% falls in the private area. Hence everyday technics is what applies to everyone regularly, everywhere and in relatively same manner. House technique, entertainement technique and free time technique are above all part of that (Joerges 1988, 121–123). Subfunctions of socio-technical action systems go over more and more from human carriers of functions into material systems. The function and use of technics must always be seen in relation to each other especially with respect to everyday life (Joerges 1988, 127). Everyday technical action consists mainly of the use of material systems. Certain elements of the origin of technics can indeed also be found in the forms of bobby, do-it-yourself and independent work, which carry rather a craftsmanly character and hardly achieve the level of industrial technics-production. Skill, knowledge and want, which existed only in the heads and bodies of individual humans and which now could be transferred from man to man through social communication processes, become firmly established in the technical institutionalization of technical objects (Joerges 1988, 128). This way, for example a pocket calculator embodies a stable, supra-individual pattern of knowledge and behavior (Joerges 1988, 130). By using a pocket computer, one posseses the skill and knowledge that are no more one’s own, but they remain at his disposal in an objectified form (Joerges 1988, 131), which one must still acquire while using and can thereby develop technical competences. But if skills and knowledge are transferred by the use of material systems, in which these skills and knowledge are objectified, the material systems turn out to be then the media of technical socilaisation (Joerges 1988, 123). In everyday technical action, one has to then take into account reinforced expectations with quite definite patterns of action. If one considers the example of pocket calculator with regard to a theory of the use of technics, one must indeed admit that the objectivication of rational knowledge and rational procedures dominate clearly. It certainly doesn’t follow inevitably that the pocket computer increases the share of instrumental action by the user. The decision to buy is not unconditionally rational, especially the expected

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benefit in the private use of technics cannot be monetarised. On the contrary, there is the supposition that the symbolic values play a considerable role. Furthermore, it is seldom observed that the tourists abroad or buyers in the supermarket really use a pocket calculator. Despite the fact that it is wide spread, the instrument is only seldom used, where it could enhance the rationality of everyday action. On the contray every now and then all possible calculations are employed, which either not at all or definitely do not correspond to the exactness of a pocket calculator. And finally some resourceful persons have discovered that one can interpret some of the code signs in the 7-segment display, if it is turned by 180 degrees, as alphabets, and have developed interesting puzzle games out of it. Such forms of use adverse to the scheme of things are not in favour of technical material systems lending support to the imperialism of instrumental rationality (Joerges 1988, 137). The man-machine symbiosis in the socio-technical system has won not only functional, but also an existential dimension. Contemporary technics is imperfect, since it is incomplete. Many material systems lack the ecological embedment (Joerges 1988, 139). Technical socilaisation can be protected against drastic abortive developments only through institutional regulation and monitoring (Joerges 1988, 141). The beginning of the question about styles of the use of technics results from the analysis of the use of technical media in everyday action. This question was normally ignored, since the interest in the universal technical principles and the unity of technics was till now greater in research than the concrete research. This changes if we make the knowledge of technical handling the methodological starting point for the analysis of the relation of man to technical medium. What becomes then decisive for a socio-philosophic exploration of technical media are the forms of use, which they make possible. A reflection of the handling-design of technical media is a result of the phenomenological-hermeneutic access to technical action in everyday life. But with different styles of the use of technics arises also the question about orientation complexes, which shape these styles. Cultural specific symbolic functions, among which aesthetic ideals are classified, are built into the use-context of technical devices (Joerges 1988, 150). The everyday use-contexts of technics are professionalized on ground of technical development and the other way around, technics which are initially restricted to a professional use, are made available in everyday use-contexts and are trivialized. This can be observed for example, in the history of artificial lighting (Joerges 1988, 151). Perhaps, the best evidence for differentiation and professionalization of technics in everyday life is the increasing inability of every individual to repair the technics used by him (Joerges 1988, 152). What is investigated is the legitimacy, which results from the sensible handling of technical devices on the basis of knowledge of handling. The separation between the professional and everyday life is today not that strict and it will come down in the future. The knowledge of technical handling is today more wide spread in the everyday world than in the professional world. Earlier, this knowledge was more wide spread also in the professional world. But today also the knowledge of handling plays a big role in the professional world. The phenomenology of technics deals with the methodological problems of the genesis and use of technics, taking

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into account, especially the thesis of the knowledge of handling. The analysis of the pattern of interpretation of the genesis and use of technics in the methodological programme developed here is especially important. The constitutional analysis of technical action comprehends everyday technical action as a construct of interpretation, which has to be interpreted preferably from the point of view of the structure of knowledge of handling. Equipments for use are constructed more or less well through laymen. But also the labour organizations are based normally on the knowledge of handling. As a result, equipments imply certain forms of technical action. What is important for the power of definition of technical artefacts oriented towards efficiency and functionality are the operating manuals and user instructions which don’t constitute any technical arefacts. Despite the power of definition, the assignment of significance to the technical medium takes place through the user. The decision about an innovation and its significance is met during the use (professional as well as unprofessional), where especially the cultural pre-interpretedness of innovations plays a role. In the course of time, the layman doesn’t gain any greater understanding of technics, but growing competence in handling it. It is not only about getting used to technical artefacts. The concept of growing competence understands the phenomena of everyday technical action better than the thesis of everyday rationalization or the enforcement of instrumental reason. Technical action in everyday life is characterized by lesser cooperation and coordination than in the professional world. This makes difficult the generation of technics related patterns of interpretation, which allow us to understand technical development from the perspective of a model horizon and hence make possible further forms of technical action. Technical development in everyday life grows out of the change in technical knowledge as the implicit knowledge of handling. The technicisation of everyday action has contributed considerably to the aggravation of environmental problems and hence merits not least stronger consideration. An ethics of technics can ensue here, which connects environmental compatibility to the questions of social compatibility. The thesis of knowledge of dealing with technical actions makes the determinism of technical development implausible and improbable. Technical practice is in a certain measure pre-interpreted by technical equipments in its everyday aspect and from time to time led in a certain direction. But one cannot talk of a real determinism in this context. The phenomenological-hermeneutic way of looking at technical action doesn’t emphasise the structure of artefacts, instead the significance, which results from the genesis of technics in its use. The cultural specific symbolic functions, which are built into the use-context, are of special interest. This way of looking implies no formalization of the standard of action or no reductions to certain types of rationality, especially not to “instrumental rationality” or “instrumental reason”. It deals with the central question about the conditions of the possibility of integration new styles of technics into life styles and the interpretative preconditions for the process. It is about the change of life styles and the cultural patterns of interpretation of life styles. The choice of patterns of technical action and of consumption like “naturalness” or “health” is of special significance here.

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Technical development with regard to everyday technical action can be conceptualized in the sense of 1) the thesis of relief (the user makes his or her life easier in this manner), 2) the thesis of colonization of the life-world in the sense of critical theory, 3) the difference between the operator and the concerned with respective different interests, 4) the thesis of domination, in which certain elites put through their use interests against others, 5) the thesis of rationalization and 6) the thesis of universalisation, particularly globalization. The phenomenological hermeneutic conception of technical development sees initially in everyday action new possibilities of action and new compulsions, innovations and resulting costs, new patterns of action and their cultural and social use and new results and their management. It is about changes in the guiding cultural and ethical ideas through technical action. The phenomenology of technics doesn’t restrict itself to the changing patterns of cultural interpretation, instead tries to understand this by taking into account the social changes. The changes of family structure and the ideas of family are for that reason important for the understanding of everyday technical action. One can talk of networking and revival of family as a place of production on the basis of information technologies. The question of humanity of development, the rationality of life designs and their change through new patterns of action are important for the philosophy of technics. Philosophy of technics, in contrast to the sociology of technics, doesn’t just accept everyday technical practice and specific styles of use of technics as well as their dependence on models, instead it thematises them in the background of the question of good life and the right action in the context of technicisation of everyday life. It is about the management of crises of technical action and the patterns of interpretation, which form its basis, when the outcomes of technical action become a burden. Then the question arises about the alternative lifestyles and patterns of interpretation of technical action. A phenomenological-hermeneutic philosophy of technics implies this way, apart from the epistemological starting point in an individual acting, an ethics of technics on the basis of the knowledge of handling. The forming of technics can according to this conception only be a continous process of self-correction and never a project in the strict sense. Since the question about the legitimacy of technics is not socially constructed, it is ultimately about the acceptability of technics in the sense of technical action and not about social compatibility. The process of institutionalization of technical development is also not simply accepted as social data, instead questions are asked about its legitimacy on the basis of a mutual critic including interpretations and judgements. The compatibility arguments for technical development can be derived neither from professional life nor from the everyday life. Acceptability standards can be set only with regard to potentials of damage and an ideal of humanity, which is oriented towards the future viability of the human race. Environmental compatibility is not only a scientific-technical-greatness in the sense of a limit, instead it is independent of the environment, which we would like to have. Patterns of interpretation and judgment are part of technical development. According to the phenomenological-hermeneutic philosophy of technics, the changes in the unprofessional forms of technical life should not simply be

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accepted, instead they must be questioned in terms of its legitimacy (Irrgang 2007a). The question of rationalization of everyday life and the organization of everyday action corresponding to the technical-rational principles like effectivity and calculability have long been guiding for the sociological engagement with the problem of technicisation of everyday life. It deals with the influence of technicisation on the organization of housework. One reason for the resistance of housework against rational organization is seen in the character of housework itself. Housework as an activity covering holistic, emotional and materialistic aspects balks at attempts of rational dismantling and standardization of activities. Technics in everyday life caused easiness of labour, which was again partly cancelled out by the new standards of cleanliness. One can speak this way of a new ideology of housewives in interplay with advertising strategies of the manufacturers of household technics and the change of definition of their role through house wives. If the organizational principles from the world of work finds acceptance in everyday life or if technics is integrated into everyday life according to the scales of the dominant rationality there, the technicisation of everyday takes place. As an answer to both these leading questions one can differentiate approaches, which rather follow the paradigm of rationalization, or at least certainly emphasise the technical structuring of everyday action and those which rather assume an independent use of technics (Hennen 1992, 61–65). One has to differentiate here between the patterns of action (or roles) of experts and those of lay men. Both are forms of integration through technics. The basic separation of production and use-context of technics played here in this respect a central role, when a specific form of organization of action was attributed to both the production (scientific-technical system, industry) and use (everyday life) contexts (Hennen 1992, 66f). The artifact sets its producers and users, i.e. the social actors, in multiple social relations and connections to each other and it functions as a social institution and a medium of socialization (Hennen 1992, 92). Hennen designs a technics of everyday action in the sense of a way of reading in terms of the sociology of technics, of the phenomenology of everyday action by Schütz. He criticises the lack of a concept of technics, which can comprehend and reconcile conceptually the structuring technics, which demands adaptation and its flexibility for different ways of use and would be moreover systematically included in a theory of socialisation of action. A fully developed concept of everyday action is lacking, which could explain as the basis of a theory of everyday action, which structures of everyday action cater to the motives behind the adaptation of technics and which could serve as the basis for the factors of determination, introduced rather ad hoc, of the handling of technics like “life styles” or “habitus” (Hennen 1992, 115). It would be to show that there is the power of technical artefacts right in the standardisation of actions for the subjects going about their everyday life. Only this way can it be understood, “how” technics becomes a part of everyday life (Hennen 1992, 116). In the sociological concepts of everyday life, the perspective of an acting subject is developed, who structures his life meaningfully and follows principles which

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don’t get absorbed in the rationalities laid out by social systems. In Alfred Schütz’ work there is an attempt to connect the theory of structure of everyday life as a sphere imposed on subjects to manage their everyday life with a systematic sociological theory of action in the tradition of Max Weber. For Schütz it is about the description of general structures of orientation of action in the “everyday lifeworld”. The Schützian model of “relevance structures” of action can serve as the basis of training of professional and group specific “special worlds”. The life-world of everyday life is the world of practical life management (Hennen 1992, 117–122). Certain relevance-structures are required for that. A social store of knowledge results from the subjective meaningfulness. The artefact is somewhat independent with respect to action, since it doesn’t disappear in contrast at the end of technical action. Experience in the natural setting of everyday life is nothing other than return from the unknown to the known (Hennen 1992, 134–137). Technical artefacts can be understood as objectified designs of action, for example as tools. As outcomes of actions, materialised tools have a certain purpose and refer to a subjective sense. Tools materialise as a result certain purpose or a design, an “in order to-context”. Tools are hence also a sign of solutions of problems. It can be understood as a typical pattern of action, i.e. of a typical end-meanscontext and hence as a meaningful action. Technics emerges as a medium of socialization from the Schützian conception. Many technical artefacts or machines are the results of human actions, which even carry out activities or parts of action “independently” (Hennen 1992, 140–145). The sense (knowledge of technological handling as the structure of the course of technical actions; Irrgang 2008a) objectified in artefacts becomes part of the orientation of action of the subject. These adopt the solution of the problem objectified in the artifact as the typical, i.e. as the socially natural solution of the problem or try out own way of handling the technical medium. If the institutionalising power of technical artefacts as technical structuring or formalization of technical actions is emphasized by one side, then the other side contrasts with the thesis of dominance of subjective, life-worldly ways of appropriation and instrumentalisation of technics (against independent technically functional intentions of action of technical artefacts). Technical artefacts appear then correspondingly as clearly fixed patterns of action or as more or less disponsible instruments of different life-worldly stylizations or goals of everyday practical actions (Hennen, 1992, 147). The social relevance of technical artefacts results from the congruence of primary relevance in the context of origin and the relevance of users (Hennen 1992, 174). The adoption of a design of action objectified in a technical artifact results in the fact that the relevance in a technical culture of artefacts diffused from the scientific technical system into everyday life becomes a natural world view. The question remains about the performance of technics in everyday action and the characteristic mode of everyday practical appropriation of technics. For Schütz, each life world or each domain of meaning is constituted by a specific style of knowledge. The life-world of everyday life is also so. The goal of everyday action is primarily the creation of safety of action and the routinised carrying out of proven designs of

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action. Correspondingly, the knowledge of habit and routine forms the core of everyday practical and relevant knowledge (Hennen 1992, 175–178). Everyday action aims at the deproblematisation of action through routinisation. Familiarity and certainty are hence moments of everyday practical handling of technics. A highly familiar element of knowledge can certainly be also highly unclear (Hennen 1992, 181–186). The role of lay men enables the everyday specific familiar-uncertain appropriation of technical artefacts. The lay man buys an action-relieving adoption of the problem-solution objectified in the artefact as well as the related renounciation of the systematic interpretation of the inner and outer horizon of the artifact with its dependency on experts (Hennen 1992, 192). Everday action as the action oriented towards the knowledge of routine and recipe is practically rational to the extent that it follows practical goals with proven standardized means. Everyday life and technics differ hence not according to the criteria of instrumental rational against expressive (or affective, traditional etc), instead they represent two types of instrumental rational action (Hennen 1992, 205f). Rationalisation is hence in the real sense the institutionalization of action, which relives action subjectively through routinaisation and then intergrates and makes comprehensible socially individual action by typification and standardization (Hennen 1992, 208). Technical action is characterized by the technical structuring of action (Hennen 1992, 212). Technicisation means an extension of the possibilities of action and experience (Hennen 1992, 215). What is important in this context is the technical structuring (Hennen 1992, 226) as meant by Anthony Giddens. Technicisation of everyday life means structuring action through technical artefacts. In everyday action technical artefacts are used unreflected in each specific situation as naturally meaningful and successful patterns of action. This implies a delegation of sub-activities to technical artefacts. Certain relevance is imposed on the technical guarantee system. Technicisation enables action in the natural setting, which represents again a motive (pragmatic) for making technics a part of daily life. Technicisation enables routine action and constitutes the daily central familiarity with situations of action. The technically mediated relief of action implies doing away with the reflection of conditions and results of the use of technics through the users of technics (Hennen 1992, 233–237). The easing of action is hence only a form of reduction of technical action as dealing with technical media. Reflected handling of technical media doesn’t imply any complete knowledge about the way of functioning of technical medium, but implies certainly the knowledge about the contexts of handling and the relevant outcomes of this handling. By referring constantly to technical artifacts in the organization of their everyday actions, the users reproduce the unintended outcomes of action, which are again unacknowledged conditions of their everyday technical actions. The horizon of the knowledge of actors is restricted strictly to the routine management of the defined everyday situation. The non-consideration of everyday action leads to problems of methods in the social scientific evaluation of the outcomes of technics and in the theoretical conceptualization of the context of technics and its outcomes. In case technicisation leads to the loss of control of action because of the lack of familiarity

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with certain artifacts, it leads to the elimination of possible, unintended consequences of the use of technics, which can hit back at the user (Hennen 1992, 241– 245). Providing the objectified solution of a problem helps the creation of the safety of action, i.e. fixed and socialized types of course of action (Hennen 1992, 248), which cannot certainly be methodically reconstructed without individual routinisation. Methodically seen, the individual aspect of the knowledge of handling is more significant than that of socialization. A phenomenology of technical action interprets this certainly not from the perspective of socialisation, rather from the point of view of the structure of technical action in the everyday life. This can be interpreted individually as well as socially according to the phenomenological-hermeneutic approach. Artifacts can be understood in this context as the materialized and objectified results of technical action in its relic-like nature. The unintended consequences, especially of routinised everyday action have to be conceptualized anew (for example, car driving on a huge scale). The construction of more effective motors led this way to better performances with less use of petrol. The advantages in this case were certainly undone not only by new models in car driving, for example by safety (the increase in weight of the vehicle because of that) or by the standard of cleanliness at home, which again compensates for the lesser use of water and energy by the machine while washing or in the shower. What is central for the epistemologically oriented philosophy of technics is the question about the conditions of possibilities of its constitution. It is to be seen here that there are only gradual differences between the professional and everyday aspect of technical action. The routinised knowledge of handling of the layman is more restricted and is directed towards other aspects than the professional technical action. The professional technical action is directed besides the use of artifacts, also towards the production and origin of artifacts like the disposal and recycling of technical artifacts, whereas the technical everyday action restricts itself mostly to the use of artifacts. But other aspects of professional technical action can also tendentially be part of everyday action and the routines of everyday action can become the precondition for further professional use and development. One cannot certainly agree on the basis of a structure of technical action as the knowledge of handling, to the strict separation between the context of production in the sense of professional technical use and the context of use of the everyday aspect of technical action. The conception of sociology (sociology of technics) of everyday action must hence be broader in the sense of a hermeneutic of technics. Jean Baudrillard has introduced in this sense a fundamentally philosophical analysis of technicisation of everyday life. The objects of technical use show since industrialisation a leaping increase. There is a variety of everyday objects. Siegfried Giedions’ “mechanization takes command” (1948) contains a kind of heroic epics of technical equipments. It is the description of performance carriers and their function. Baudrillard examines in what way the mundaneness of technical artifacts is experienced. It is an examination of the state of being addressed by the objects. In the daily dealing with the technical objects one is not conscious of their technical

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reality. Nevertheless the fundamental knowledge lies in this abstraction: The abstraction rules the radical change in life conditions. It has led to a technological language for the technological structure of things. Technology is a structure meshed together, a combined effect as the convergence of functions. The integration leads to an increase in effectiveness and ultimately to structural technology. Baudrillard talks about technemes, simple technical elements and their variations, where less technical fundamental conditions must be respected. The examination of conditions of the formation of an autonomic sphere of the ‘technological’ leads to the structural analysis of objects. The material characterization of a thing and the accompanying secondary meaning have to be worked out and differentiated (Baudrillard 1991, 10– 16). Technology is not a stable system like the language. The purpose of this system is the management of everyday life and meeting of needs. Technology depends strictly on the social conditions of research and thus on extreme constraints. A coherent technological system leads to an independent praxis. The shaping movement of technics wanes on the level of objects and becomes stiff in a different subjectivity of the cultural system. It has an effect again on the technical order (Baudrillard 1991, 17–19). What rules in the arrangement of the living room is no more any mood, agreement between stirring souls, adaptation and trust, instead information, innovation, control and availability of objective data (Baudrillard 1991, 34). The advertisement gives expression to this new attitude to the shaping of space. It is a language of functionality of series-forming in the sense of a functional conversation. The type of an interior designer depicts the model of a functional inhabitant of home. In designing or production of objects man makes himself with the help of a form, which is culture, into a performer of trans-substantion of nature. The object becomes fundamentally anthropomorphic. It concerns the control of technical equipments. Otherwise, a traditional practice determines still to a great extent the way of functioning of the everyday life. It is about the organization of things. Modern man is cybernetic (Baudrillard 1991, 39–41). The atmosphere of the living room depends on the sentimental value of the materials like natural wood and farmed wood, on sentimental value of colour and artificial materials, i.e. cultural ideologies, which provides sheen to certain materials (Baudrillard 1991, 51). As long as tools draw their energy from man, they stay internally connected to him. An adaptation of man to the material happened in a certain way. The revolution in the energy sector brought about another relation to the machine. Keyboard and switch substitute the real technical action. It is no more about carrying out, but also about monitoring. Monitoring protects man from the feeling of really being superfluous. The gesture of spending energy is substituted by that of monitoring (Baudrillard 1991, 63–65). The regulated course of mundaneness is a precept of the state of being maximum organized. Technical development strives for miniaturization. The chronic shortage of space in areas of everyday life has to be minimized. The sylisation of results is accompanied by a growing autonomy of the functional world. The modern technical objects should be specially handled. But today there exists still only the abstract sign of handiness. In this case it is reduced to the organ of touch for keyboard, switch, printer and other similar

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things. The human body delegates only the signs of its presence to the objects, which otherwise function independently. Today the physicality of man seems to be only an abstract reason for the character of form of technical objects (Baudrillard 1991, 69f). The functional environment of the new mundaneness is the end of the symbolic dimension. The traditional way of the artisanry was actually a voluntary work. This is changed by a new form of technical mundaneness. The physicality up to its sexual dimension of the entire technological practice has not entirely disappeared. In fact, the concrete dynamics of the use of force, which has refined itself in devices and gestures of control, has not disappeared. It internalizes itself for a mental dynamics, for a myth of functionality, for the virtuality of a totally functionalized world, something which already any technical object confirms (Baudrillard 1991, 72). The real function of the technical is changed, or to be precise disguised, in this way, for example the heating and the garage. Naturalization, disguise, scenery and plaster surround the objects, which represent something else than what their function determines it to be (Baudrillard 1991, 82). Actually, the entire system of technical mundaneness rests on the idea of functionality. But still, for example, the intimacy of one’s own vehicle and house is marked. What is delightful in a crafts-manly product is that it was produced by hands, the skill of which it stamped. It carries the fascination of everything created. The finding of the descent substantiates the genuineness and authority. While earlier the animation of the house remained in the foreground, the house became the temporary domicile. Here one can establish a conflicting co-existence between the modern functional things and the old objects. Modern mundaneness is characterised by an uprooted domesticity. The past appears as a collection of forms of use and the collection of modern objects of use is another. It manifests itself in fashion and contemporary taste. The passion for collection rests on the possession of objects without any function. The refrigerator is a device as a technical artifact. The automatism and the entire world have changed in functional ecstasy the idea of mundaneness. The robot is a super object and it should be perfect. Here is the turning point, in which the technological management of the world turns into a perverse finality and becomes a threat. The problem of brittleness and transcience of objects must be formulated again, since they are not only factors of safety and equilibrium, but also a source of constant disillusionment. The hypotheses, which form the basis of our society must be called into question, as if the ends and means of technics and the order of production are really rational. The technical society assumes the idea of uninterrupted progress of technics and the moral trailing of social ideas as the point of departure. But the fairy tale about the ideal convergence of technics, production and consumption hides all contra-finality (Baudrillard 1991, 156f). The value order of the modern society rests on the opposition between model and series. The modern everyday world is about the circulation of objects. The series is derived from the model here. It leads to an accelerated innovation of models. There are also nuances here, which characterise the model. The self-realisation in the modern technicised everyday world is only simulated (Baudrillard 1991, 190). When the possibility of choice is only simulated,

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we find ourselves in a situation of blindness. The spread of credit is an indicator of that. We find ourselves in transition from a culture of gathering to that of consumption. The compulsion to buy is enhanced through advertisements and is hastened by the allocation of credit. In this respect, the question makes sense, whether a new humanism is possible at all. Brand names have become meanwhile a universal code for the new standard of life. The recent phenomenon of de-industrialisation and the rapid shrinking of industrial activity call into question some familiar certainties about the development of industrial societies. Human resources are increasingly used up by the production. As a result, consumption comes forth as the determining measure of the actual realized technical progress. Technical progress and industrialisation were considered almost twins earlier. The fact was mostly missed that industrialisation is a phenomenon of activity and cannot simply be equated with an unclearly defined growth of the concentration of technics. Since the wealthiest societies always let only a smaller section of their working population engage themselves with the production of technics, without their potential being clearly exhausted, it is not possible that the industrial growth is led by a self-dynamics (Wengenroth 1997, 1f). There lies an important difference here regarding the approach of research on the genesis of technics, which persists with the producers and explains technics essentially from the perspective of social processes involved in its production. In contrast, it is argued here that the forms of its use play at least an equally important role, since the genesis of technics doesn’t exist without the use of technics and hence cannot at all be explained without it. The empirical result of deindustrialisation serves as the occasion to do away with the one sided production oriented interpretation of technical progress and to understand it as an overall social process, which doesn’t know any hierarchy between an active advancing technics and a passive lagging consumption. The conversion of technical progress into industrial production doesn’t follow any automatism, instead it is mediated by the cultural feat of consumption. Consumption is thus not a dependant variable of technical-historical development, but one that is equally important. The complexity and expansion of technosphere grows here further. The share of those active in the West European industry has been on a rapid unstoppable decline (Wengenroth 1997, 3). An arbitrary expansion of the industrial sector doesn’t seem possible. The western industrial societies knew this since the early phase of deindustrialisation. Without deindustrialisation there would not have been mass unemployement. Deindustrialisation is not the outcome of shift in trade flows, but a common phenomena in all countries with high labour productivity. A cheap production which would create its demand constantly by itself is hence an outdated axiom. Besides, this optimism was supported by the product cycle theory. A continous flow of innovations takes care that the supply of industrial goods is constantly increased and made cheaper. Both create the growth phenomena attributed to technical progress: process innovations take care of cost reduction and product innovations ensure the variety (Wengenroth 1997, 7). Industrialisation is not an automatic outcome of technical progress, but takes place, when the sale of industrial products grows overall faster than the labour productivity in the industry.

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If consumption and production are recognised as equally important and not simply as social, economic and cultural results derivable from each other, it follows that the conversion of mass production into mass consumption necessary for ensuring the activity doesn’t take place inevitably quite barring the purchasing power necessary for the same. On the one hand, the consumer behavior eludes the productivity-paradigm of the industry, namely the demand for constant temporal concentration of all consumption activities with the goal of more consumption per temporal unit. On the other hand the consumption of new, especially technical goods has to be just learned. A theory of consumptive capital must hence be developed, whereby consumers learn always to consume more rationally and to develop a purely instrumental relation to the technical supplies of consumption. Even though studies on the mechanization of house work have shown that this doesn’t amount to less work overall, the short term time gain for individual activities is undisputed (Wengenroth 1997, 8f). By culturally adopting cars and television, two of the quantitatively most important industry products of the post-war period, at least to a great extent in a nonproductive manner, they have blocked effectively the time budget for the following consumer goods. The consumption of technical goods must also then be learned, if there are no institutionalized procedures for that something like the driving schools. The hesitation towards or inability for consumption is one of the reasons for unemployment. The call for new products for the stimulation of industrial activity is hence the realization that technical progress doesn’t happen in the form of product innovations to the extent desired by the policies on employment at the present time. The long lag in consumption in the economic crisis, great depression, preparation for war, autarchy politics in Germany as well as ultimately the war had not only bottled up a great need for catching up, but also created in the production sphere and in the war a gradually increasing familiarity with the predecessors of industrial mass consumption goods of the post-war time (Wengenroth 1997, 11f). Ulrich Wengenroth describes the transition from the classical modernity to hypermodernity in technics as the transition of the project of the right, scientifically founded technics in favour of the project of enjoyable and affordable technics and of the return of technics as art. Technics becomes reflectively modern by denying the limits of mathematical-scientific descriptions of the material world no more as only a temporary incompleteness, but makes it a criterion in the choice of methods. In contrast to the classical modernity of technics, which carried forward the preenlightenment legacy of clarity and absoluteness of truth, the hypermodernity of technics applies the same critical methods of knowledge with respect to its material objects also on itself. The result is a reflected pluralism of methods in technology, which experiences its testing in the social praxis (Wengenroth 1998, 129). Modern technics characterizes itself by its scientific basis and modern industry is sciencebased which results in technoresearch. Secondly, one can speak of a new culturally shaped mundaneness of technical products. This composite of innovation system suggests linguistically that it assumes in the act of innovation the existence of a rule mechanism, on which there can be controlled effects. In this respect, the program of national innovation system

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is still a legacy of the technocratic optimism of the 60’s and 70’s. Beyond that the program of national innovation system in the 70’s had its implicit trust in the functioning of the linear model of innovation process. The hopes of a planned control or predictable influence of the capability of innovation of a particular national economy haven’t been fulfilled. Also the recent history of the federal republican policy of promotion of research provides in view of the poor gains of the massive promotion of civil nucler technics, computer technology or military aviation technics, no convincing evidence of a successful promotion of economy through investments in the context of a planned policy of innovation by the government. Says’ theorem, which says supply creates its demand, applies no more for new technologies. Correspondingly, new technologies are no guarantee for new products (Wengenroth 2001, 23–26). The personal provision of industrial good has long assumed the character of a machine. A successful aestheticisation of life is meanwhile a key pre-condition for social security and joy of life than the accumulation of calorific values, carbohydrates and weather protection. With the tertiarisation of economy and the semioticisation of goods the conditions of success of technical innovation have been clearly recorded by a “cultural turn”, that their reduction to an innovation system depicts not just an improper reduction, but also a complete misjudgement of their internal dynamics. It is meanwhile opinion communis that technics is culturally adapted and is fit into the most different contexts of meaning and use. It doesn’t transport sterile, value neutral functionality which the user as a perfect “homo economicus” can naturally employ rationally for his maximum utility, instead it is a carrier of symbolic connotations and cultural codes, the use specific values and competences of which it presupposes and produces. In consumption values are constituted, according to which the success of technics is measured. Significance and experience elude exact measurement, especially if its quality emerges only in diversity and difference (Wengenroth 2001, 29–32). The incorporation of technological action into more comprehensive service offers exists for example in the area of health, but also in the area of breeding research. The transformation into service society changes broadly the concept of technical action. At the moment we find ourselves in this phase. This leads to the task of newly formulating the thesis of use and handling of technics. The integration of technologies into particular life styles is increasingly important for the accomplishment of innovations and also for the philosophy of technics. As a result, public information activities and acceptance problems become the fundamental questions also of methodology, since they have existential significance for the modern science and technology. The rationalization of production and the consummate rationalization of consumption must have been accompanied by a rationalization of decision making and thereby a rationalization of the knowledge processes. If highly industrialized societies can produce and consume faster than their predecessors, then they must also know faster, why they want to consume what and about the technical knowledge in view of high demands of it as the basis of rational decisions. The corresponding knowledge of consumers becomes always more fragmented and in-

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adequate with expanding technicization. Wengenroth tries by means of recent theories on knowledge and decision processes in highly industrialized societies to understand historically-theoretically the contemporary rationality and the consumer decisions about technical products. The pre-industrial knowledge asymmetry between the manufacturer and buyer of an axe or a spinning wheel is multiplied many times between the manufacturing firm and the buyer of a car or a washing machine in the industrial age (Wengenroth 2004, 3–5). The subjective consumer preference has to be emphasized in contrast to the objective use value. Who doesn’t want to assert that a contemporary personal vehicle is a goal-expense-optimized working machine of change of location. Informally put, it is indifferent for the modern buyers, how the stuff functions, instead what matters is that it feels good and proves its worth in the reliable reproduction of this experience bought for once (Wengenroth 2004, 6–8). This is a certain objectivity of second order. Consumers make the expectations of an objectivisable suitability for use beyond the first spontaneous experience as the starting-point. This is certainly not an argument against the guiding of experience of the decision of primary consumption. Which objective product features guarantee then the experience striven for? That is the central question. If we look at the discourses of negotiation on the technical knowledge relevant for decision towards the end of 20th century, then we notice that their highlights shifted along with the increasing technological intensity of products. If simple, clear and undisputed and fashionable products are presented only with the expected sentiments, then the technical-scientific discourse enters the foreground in the case of products, which are technologically more intensive. This is no way restricted to advertising and television as areas of short discourse, but exists in special more open form in the reactionary parts of public journals carrying more authority (Wengenroth 2004, 8–11). Although aesthetics determines and dominates the technical discourse in many technical products, this is normally not enough for a consumer decision. To just like a car or a stereo system is an almost subversive attitude. Technical-rational reasons only legitimize the decision to buy. One must be able to say something about the use and performance or about wattage and distortion-freeness, in order to be a rational consumer. Hence we must understand consumer decision in favour of or against a particular technics in the categories of trivialization and professionalization of complex technics. The concept of fictions of rationality has to be introduced for that purpose. Fictions of rationality help decision making in this way in situations of incomprehensible technical-scientific complexity and act as strategies of social rationalization. In the case of fictions of rationality in everyday technics, a new way is opened by the theoretical connection suggested by Schimank for the institutional change of organizations, in order to start again in a more fruitful manner the discussion on “technical style”, which fizzled out, for the consumption aspect of technics and to possibly develop it further in a theoretically satisfactory manner. One can thus speak of, besides the styles of producers, also certain styles of consumers. The West European-German fiction of rationality that the diesel is specially economical, durable and environment friendly held ground only for sometimes in the US and was soon replaced by the notion that it is sooty, dirty, difficult

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to start in the cold weather and uncomfortable. That the comparative low duty of the diesel fuel forms the main reason for the higher share of diesel cars, is totally undisputed. The categories of fictions of rationality and consumer styles describe ultimately very efficient strategies to produce consensus of judgment, which can be comprehended and shared, with certainly incomplete knowledge (Wengenroth 2004, 14–18). Risk was the key word of the modern understanding of technics. But the social construction of risk is divergently absent that a social handling of technological development on its basis appears impossible. There are risks, which originate directly from technological knowledge or equipments. Risks originate from modernization, modern traffic and medical technics. The dependency and connection of risks among themselves have to be stressed. Modern technical risks cannot be traced back to the decision of a single individual. The theory of decision as the theory of rational choice of Homo oeconomicus is based on a methodical atomism. This is no longer effective in view of the unforseeability of risks (Irrgang 2007a). Mass consumption increases the risk of faulty products. Beck’s thesis of risk society shows that the rational approach to the theme of risk is partly incapable to solve its problems. There are group specific constructions of risks. The power of moral persuasion, the power of definition and physical power have to be differentiated and they influence the risk behavior of groups. The technical risks of the 20th century are different, since we perceive them differently. The western culture of liberalism and market economy is reaching the limit in the face of modern risks. Risks can no more be traced back to the decision of an individual, who can be made responsible. Our possibility of managing risks also declines with that. The aspect of emergence of modern risks makes prognosis difficult. Hence we need a change of the liberal culture itself. Management and detection of risks are in all a cultural affair (Hiskes 1998). Risk is seen as the product of scientific-technological decision. But it is no more so (Hiskes 1998). Ignorance has taken the place of risk and we must learn how to deal with it (Irrgang 2007a). Mostly we don’t know, whether something is a risk or not, for example, the release of transgenic agricultural crops. Risk cannot be defined personally, instead only transpersonally. Democracy is risky, but it is worth that risk. The transformation of a society into a scaredy-cat doesn’t seem absolutely to be a value. Risks of modern industrial society exist especially in the areas of environmental pollution (Hiskes 1998). Perception of risk is a cultural thing. It is about avoiding the costs of risks. The growing significance of the political aspects of risks cannot be denied. Risks as a product of social processes and technological development lead to a hypermodern culture. This process must be recognized or at least reflected in its political dimension. The rhetoric of technological risks leads to the situation, where it is not immediately clear how modern risks of technological kind oppressed privacy. An example is the biopower. Normalization is considered as a consequence of power. Does risk imply a world of ethics? The traditional liberal politics of technological risk, in which all aspects of modern technology society are reduced to risk aspects, has to

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be overcome entirely. The bureaucratic model forces through in this context. Responsibility is guaranteed by government administration and the authority of the state (Hiskes 1998). But it has to be defined anew (Irrgang 2007a). Legitimation takes place through the power of agreement and approval. Hence the handling of technological risks is carried out today by means of decision oriented politics. It deals with the question, who has the power of decision. Some decisions with respect to collective goods can be taken only on a collective level. Most models of risk estimation lead exclusively to the concept of an implicit consensus. The implicit consensus is considered as a growing consensus. This model leads to an expressive preference of the model of agreement in politics (Hiskes 1998). Classical liberalism states that the responsibility rests on causality, on free will and individual choice. The concept is in crisis (Irrgang 2007b). Responsibilities become always more emergent. Risks make a collective responsibility and accountability necessary, since we have also a common vulnerability. Liberalism has conceptualized risk individually. Risk is brought into relation with a liberal identity. The liberalistic abstract individual has a private and individual economy of interests. It is here about shared risks and public duties. We have to put a model of citizenry in the place of classical liberalistic model of decision. In this respect, a renewed thinking about the democratic theory is necessary. It is about the democracy of risks and political failures. The communicative competences are of great significance here. The political risk community presupposes a thinking and reflecting democracy. It is about a common agreement, common decision and shared basic convictions (Hiskes 1998), but not on the basis of populistic prejudices of a nonenlightened public. This requires a critical correction by an expert culture in the sense of an effective sharing of power. The suitable institutionalization has to be thought about. We are victims of our own social fantasies and believe that its origin lies in technologies. In fact the source of this fear lies in the fact that we are not able to deal adequately with this technology. We have a false understanding of technology and blame the technology for this false understanding. Safety was a modern concept. Handling of insecurity is a candidate for a postmodern concept and it must just be learned. Utilitarianism, which became later the preference utilitarianism was the ethics of modernity. The ethics of post modernity is more pragmatic (Irrgang 2007a). The competences of the population to judge technology must be improved. Controllability and predictability were long considered as the signatures of a technics, which has become a science. The overdeterminedness of technological developments, the unpredictability of complex systems, the evolution of risks far from the possibilities of safe prognoses, the resistance of concerned actors to accepting technologies, the unintentionality of side effects as well as the hybrid constellations of socio-technical systems which are inhabited by human actors and (semi)automatic machines, have accompanied the reflexiveness and indefiniteness of technology. The mutual connectedness of society and technology, which has been getting closer, has led to the experience of an increase of indefiniteness of technology. Making technology flexible has led to the rise of contingency. There are new horizons of ignorance and hence the task of newly defining responsibility in networked systems. Alternative paths of technological development lead to the

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questions of evaluation and estimation. Ethical questions arise, when a new infinity of smaller or bigger maneuvering rooms of action and gaps of expectations, decisions and evaluations emerge. There is an astonishing bandwidth of the phenomenology of the normative. In this respect, a rehabilitation of the questions of responsibility is required. It must take into account the competences of power and intervention. There is a problem here of the expansion of attribution. Today not only the tools, but also the users become more competent. The speed of transformations of humans is unequally slower than that of tools (Gamm, Hetzel 2005). Competition in innovation means a trap of acceleration for those who are involved in it and also for the society, which is not able to keep up in the face of multiplicity of innovations. It makes the realization of culture of reflection on technology difficult and it cannot be done away with also through moratoriums. The means of choice is the intensification of discourse and the job of reflection. Technologicised research is project related and it is oriented no more towards common regularities, but towards situation-related and case-related decisions. Lifelong learning is an outcome and a re-orientation of education and training. Also the modified concepts of university and non-university training and higher education and improved scholastic information on technology and research in their social and cultural setting are part of a culture of technics. Democratic technics designing takes place through a decentralised joint effort of many actors and groups and not least of consumers and among them of those who re-use technics productively (not destructively like terrorists). Technics-designing in a situation characterized by insecurity and incompleteness of knowledge and temporariness of evaluations is dependent on social learning processes (reflected-experimental approach to future). Experts play here a central role (Irrgang 2007a). The deomocratization of technics-designing must enhance the competences of further layers of population in dealing with technics and not immediately its transparency and comprehensibility. The comprehensibility and transparency is the task field of experts, and also of those in the area of philosophy of technics. Expertise presupposes political technology. Expertise is the answer to the power aspect of technology and of technology between art and science. Scientific expertise need too much of time. But acceleration is a technological phenomenon, under which also the expertise suffers and which experts have to learn to deal with. But the methodological problem with which experts and the expertise struggle is that non-experts cannot correctly estimate who is an expert and who is not. I mean by expertise initially a form of judgment in the sense of a competence of reflection and argumentation. In this context, one can speak of ethical expertise. The expert must be able to justify and prove himself through the method and argumentation. There is also an interdisciplinary competence as expertise. Expertise is the outcome of scientifically worked out art and not of classical science. The professional expert like a doctor or an engineer has to be differentiated here from the general experts (interdisciplinary, ethics, justification). The power of our machines and inventions along with their unforeseen consequences has increased dramatically in the 20th century. Modern technology is fundamentally different from the earlier forms of technics. The main reason for that is

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their complexity. Complexity creates insecurities and restricts what we know about a technology or what we can rationally reflect upon and its development into the future (Pool 1997; Irrgang 2008). Hundred years back Americans considered technology fundamentally as a good thing. Today there are countries where caution plays a central role and makes the basic attitude towards technology. In some countries this caution and the suspicion of technology have gone so far that certain technological developments had to be stopped, for example, gene technology and nuclear technology. The process of invention itself is led by beliefs and practices which earlier originated through years of experience with trial and error and which are resistant to radically new ideas, which open technologically completely new ways. To be able to get out of control is a characteristic of complex technology. That something is out of control interests us only as far as we expect that there must be a control in the first place with respect to this development. Modern science has apparently brought about a growth of possibilities of control. In the conventional perspective the works of technology are more than safe. What man has created, he can also control. This is a common sense view: control is overall seen part of the idea of construction of technical creation. Tools depend totally on the will of the users (Winner 1992). The thesis of controllability in the area of the technical forms the basis of wishful thinking. The possibility of heavy collapses in highly technologized systems cannot be underestimated. The problems of use and control lie on this plane. What we find in highly technologized structures is not the passivity of a tool that waits to be used, but a technical ensemble, which demands routinized and trained conduct and action (Winner 1992) and which must be equally acquired in the course of handling. The technical medium has changed and it is no more a tool. But the fundamental structure of technical action remains the same. Human failures and technical misfunctions mesh together. But it is extremely difficult and requires fine experience to interrupt the chain of events which is about to trigger a potential misfunction. In many areas the great trust in technology seems to have been misled in a tragic form. One can call this a fatal trust in technics. What is important for the evaluation of a new technics is hence the philosophy and test of safety of a technical structure. We need technics with an inherently safe construction (Chiles 2001). The rarity of structural faults in the technical construction led to the assumption that engineering and technical construction do not imply any huge risk even in very risky undertakings (Petrowski 1992). If today still some structure of technical kind shows faults and lead to accidents, it is essentially because technological limits are still overcome, also in the newly industrialized world. 50 to 90% of all structural technical faults are assessed as the consequence of the attempt to overcome the factor of quantity. Another important factor is the faulty material. The paradox of technical construction is that the successful structural technical concepts can lead to faults, while colossal mistakes are ultimately very important for carrying forward the development of innovative technics and inspiring technical structures. Faults are inherent in all useful technical constructions because of the conflicts between the demands of the user, which are often unknown and the construction for a use, which is often arbitrarily accepted (Petrowski 1992).

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The point of departure is the paradoxes of ways of behavior of technical objects. Most of the unintended consequences are unpleasant, since the pleasant ones are mostly surprising. We discover besides that the pleasant positive effects only after the negative experiences. New technologies are valuable, only when we are able to display new use habits with them. A feedback effect is not the same as an act of revenge. If, for example, the treatment of cancer leads to another deadly cancer, then there is an act of revenge in a strict sense. Safety is another gateway for revenge effects. Alarm systems lead to many false alarms and revenge effects appear, when we institutionalize technologies (Tenner 1996). "Revenge" effects happen because new structures, tasks and organizations must react with real men in real situations in a manner which cannot be foreseen. Also the nature “bites back”. Tool systems can hit back in a certain manner. Parts of machines which interact with each other in undesired and unforeseen manner can lead to such revenge effects. What is important is to take into account the use or the management. System effects and effects of handling can interact. In the 19th century there was a technical promethesian Titanism and a summit of technical optimism. In fact, one had to learn from accidents in every age. Too much of a trust in technics and in own capabilities leads inevitably to faults. Safe technics is not possible because of the users of technics. The modern concept of side effects originated in the 19th century (Tenner 1996). Many areas of technical development have limits of intensification. The ambivalence and the potential catastrophic character of technology have to be stressed. The sinking of Titanic led to the introduction of Search and Rescue Service (SAR). The automobile and its consequences for the safety technics have also to be thought about. Besides, horses and carriages were also dangerous. The reduction of feedback effects demands high level of technical intelligence. Technological optimism means in practice the ability to recognize bad surprises early and in fact so early that one can do something against it (Tenner 1996). Tenner describes a fundamental pattern in the logic of technical failure. There are still other. This pattern is of special interest to the extent that construction, production and use mesh together, since the situation of action cannot be monitored and mistakes can easily emerge. Technological and scientific innovation is inevitably accompanied by safety. It can lead to false evaluations (Rescher 1983). In view of the spread of the ideology of technological change and technological progress those who suffer from innovations also have to be taken into account. Innovations have opened up an area of utopian kind of freedom. Also, the ideal planning, which had to happen through market and the technological laws had to lead to a situation where creative thinkers and the free floating capital came together to create a new world which was superfluous of technical possibilities and energy. The unthinkable utopia of a technics without innovations was ignored. Technology is connected to change in its innermost essence (Williams 2002). The increasing complexity of technics has always made the wish for simpler and more user-friendly technics louder. One can notice everywhere the limits of man with regard to technics, like how the catastrophes show it. Computers and smart devices can be found more and more in the private household. An economic success exists only in the usability for everyone. After functionality and less value

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exhausted, the focus shifted to the design of “joy of use”. The simple usability of an instrument becomes always more important. It passed from hardware to software development. In this context one speaks of the software crisis and standardization as a response. It is about the designing of user interface. The consequence was the re-valuation of useware-development. What is central in this context is the manmachine interaction. The user with his skills, limits and wishes had to be popular. It is high time that man understood himself as the measure of things in the design of technics (Zühlke 2005, 7–12). The programming of a world pocket-timer turned out to be an undertaking, which demanded several hours. The seemingly simple re-programming of time in an external timer which regulates the heating and ventilation system in a house and the integration of a new television into the existing structure, all these can turn out to be an extremely unpleasant task. One can only conclude from all these that the industry clearly supposes each customer to be an absolute high-tech freak. Quite often is an innovation offered, which has many advantages, but is initially not very usable for a broad section of customers and is mostly too expensive. The requirements of the broad section crystallise then from the experiences of a few specialists. One sees this in the development of photography: initially one had to go to the photograph each time, who had to change plates and he had to know that too. The automatic lighting simplified very much the operation. Cameras became cheap, but bad. Two target groups merged: the relatively small group of technics- and photography enthusiasts, for whom the more complex reflex cameras were developed and the other group which just wanted to click good photos without wanting to reflect on it. The first autofocus camera was developed in 1978 and digital photography was developed in 1991. The development of the household technics also happened in the same way. The examination of usability for customer satisfaction plays always a bigger role. A centrally controlled house management is being offered increasingly. The user must also be included in the development process where “the” user doesn’t exist. Video recorder and DVD-player are the least user friendly. The user instruction is often lacking. All age classes have clearly problems with badly designed equipments. It is often through trial and error process that the process of use is learned, wherein the use of switches, especially for switching the timer on is necessary (Zühlke 2005, 15–28). Similar problems emerged during the use of high-tech cars with on board computers, i.e. computers for the selection of routes and in future also with internet cars. There are many new functionalities which a great section of us doesn’t need at all and which are sold to us all as progress. BMW developed an on board computer with 700 functionalities, which is too many for a driver during the journey. The weak point of modern cars is on board electronics. Different ideas about the driver are set as the basis here. Besides, one can imagine that the driver is distracted by emails in the car. Today more and more trials in the development of vehicles are substituted by simulations. Human models for the construction of cars are for example, RAMSIS. A cognitive human model, a cognitive dummy, for the construction of cars could actually be demanded. It is about understanding in detail the processes in the brain. The resources which are getting meager must be used better.

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The state must prepare the resources cost-optimally in the best possible manner. The user fees are always increased to maintain the infrastructure. It applies also for the transport logistics. The driver’s seat of a truck changes more and more into a work place which demands more and more from the driver. It becomes the office of an organization. Customers are offered what makes their life and work easier and these functionalities need to be automatized to the extent that they are hidden as much as possible like the ABS control aid (Zühlke 2005, 30–41). The exchange of computers in networks is also equally problematic. The openness of internet led to more and more incompatibilities. The problem of variety and the brand width of demands emerged with the problem of compatibility and marketization. In 1985 the turn to the normal PC was accomplished with Apple-Macintosh. This happened through the change of user-model of technics-freak into the user who would like to complete his tasks with the equipment in the easiest possible manner. Often he was offered a cudgel of technology which he couldn’t use (Zühlke 2005, 44–50). A similar problem is that of the ticket machine. The designing of such machines is difficult. A European cannot use a ticket machine at a Japanese underground station. Also the packet picking station of the German Postal Service was not suitable for all. For example, children could not reach the packets in the upper shelf. Before industrialisation man was the measure of things also in the field of technics with his senses and technical possibilities. This became different with industrialisation and automatisation of skills. Man became adapted to machines. Computers and the control of arrangements also belong to this area (Zühlke 2005, 52–58). Only the Germans read the user manual. Most of the customers in other countries ask friends and acquaintances. It is called learning through imitation. It would be best, if one doesn’t require any instructions. This would also amount to adaption of technics to man (Zühlke 2005, 73–75). Many border values are based on the human capacity to assimilate information. The fixed skills of humans and the limits associated with them have to be recognized. The human brain is designed extremely well to comprehend new objects. The developers tend often to overestimate the skills of humans. One consequence of this approach in technics is the presumptuous man. It becomes the performance parameter of the human brain, for example, as far as the assimilation of information is concerned. Passwords are often not noticeable, irrespective of whether it is about logging into a computer, entering buildings or other services. It is the learned pattern of action and the significance of mental models. Man expects a feedback (Zühlke 2005, 79–103). Human failure is increasingly a failure of man-machine interaction. The automatisation encompasses many routine functions. The increase in flight safety despite the reduced personal in the cockpit is an aspect. Today a pilot doesn’t notice anymore many raw data on board, since many routine calculations have been taken over by the computer. The new systems are at least in the introductory phase so error prone that they produce hundreds of false alarms. It leads pilots again to rather attribute the absurd readings to a computer fault than to a real problem. The euphoria over automatisation in the 80s has died away a little. After some bigger disasters

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in the 80’s and 90’s one had to recognize that humans cannot be replaced by automats. Mistakes must be tolerated by machines in a certain measure. Intransperency is a typical phenomenon of modern technical systems. Transparency as much as possible and the reduction of complexity increase the user friendliness of technical systems (Zühlke 2005, 104–111). The power of emotions for the human users of technics has to be taken into account. There is no human-oriented technics which can be constructed without adequately taking into account the emotions (Zühlke 2005, 119f). The product design is important for the accomplishment of an innovation. The accomplishment of an innovation is carried out by the following groups in the corresponding 1) innovators, 2) early users (early enthusiasts), 3) early majority, 4) late majority and 5) waverers. The phases 1 and 2 make 1/6th of the market. Products must be marketed today in a very much differentiated manner. Waverers are often the low wage receivers who constantly know the limits of their purchasing power. The loss of purchasing power happens also with higher income. But it doesn’t seem to be very limiting, certainly as far as the introduction of innovations and their use are concerned. But more and more other marketing strategies are demanded (German p.239), which don’t give priority to the use aspect. The appeal to emotionality becomes always more important. When the functionality of products is more similar, the man-machine interface becomes more important (Zühlke 2005, 129–142). What matters in the post PC era is the achievement of persuasive ubiquitous computing. Computers are in this context the helpful cobolds in the everyday life. A clear identification of supposedly biometrical kind will come along. A functional mobile phone (smartphone) is already possible today and is being introduced. The problem area is the mobile energy supply for these mobile equipments. Besides, it requires more and more standardized interfaces. The standards of big manufacturers are more and more set de facto. There emerges as a result a second problem of the operatability of all these systems. The use is based on redundancy. The point of departure for an acceptable robot technology is the smart recognition of the common speech. The problem field of data protection and data safety is also with regard to the modern use of technics in many forms related. Besides, there are questions of right and the problem area of marketing in the sense of the sale of technics to the customers who have already almost everything. How can the both of the first two user groups be won? Intelligent household equipments and home network are demanded. We will order many things online and will not go into shops to see whether there is still anything else. New advertising strategies are required. Will we end up in a technological disaster and be swamped with our own technologies? Probably not. The customer must learn to ask, what he really needs and the manufacturers must learn from that and develop technics for humans. Technics, which functions unobtrusively and supports humans is what is demanded today (Zühlke 2005, 145– 160). Simple operatability and user-friendly equipments are the goal of software ergonomy. The operating levels must be able to be differentiated clearly. It must be differentiated here between 1) simple user, 2) experienced user, 3) specialist or mechanic. In the 50’s till the 70’s hardware engineering predominated and in the 80’s

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followed the software crisis and the change to software problematic. There is no comprehensible structuring, proven method of development and no process of quality ensuring in this area. Today one can speak of a crisis of operation. The manufacturers have never known user-friendliness. There lacks in great measure also the user investigations. Development processes bring about costs and hence many things are not investigated. With regard to userware it is a matter of designing the operating system (Zühlke 2005, 161–173). The innovation and usability of equipments are oriented still towards the first user and buyer groups. One tries also in between to create a kind of hypnosis through aggressive advertising which suggests to the customer that he must immediately hop into the train, if he wouldn’t like to be one of those unfortunate old reactionaries. The innovators and the first users love the hype. The joy of use is related to simple use and ultimately also to human friendly technics (Zühlke 2005, 174–177). .

7. CONCLUSION: HERMENEUTICS OF TECHNICS, CULTURE OF REFLECTION ON TECHNOLOGY AND VISIONS OF TECHNOLOGY The technological utopianism has its effect in the American culture as an uncritical belief in the ability of technology to solve all problems. Ecological problems, malfunctions in nuclear plants, atom proliferation and other problems have intensified doubts in the paradigm of progress. The Gulf War woke up again on ground of the demonstration of military technological prowess the sleeping spirit of technological utopianism. The efforts of the US after the Second World War to modernise and reshape the lesser technologically developed societies according to its own model had the opposite effects. It must be taken into account here that the progress especially has social integration as the starting-point. America’s resettlement mentality, which theoretically has in mind the often meagre beginnings to build upon it the promise of wealth has found expression in technology. America is an open system and has hence developed and maintained a technological utopia where it has progressed from the potential to the real utopia and has thus become the ideology. This utopia meets the earth created by engineers. The gap and the division between this phantasised world and the real word cannot certainly be overlooked (Segal 1994, 1–8). The study of American history has shown that in the US nature and technology are often portrayed as antagonistic. The nature is considered as an enemy and victim of technics. The Americans are striving for a garden landscape. The opposition between machine and garden can be assessed as the fundamental feature of American culture. The urban interpretation of garden landscape gained acceptance in the 20th century. There developed an urban and suburban landscape. The city-structure of big cities changed ultimately the garden model (Segal 1994, 13–23). The automobile and the suburban idea developed in the US since 1900. There exists indeed also a critic of the automobile, but the automobile is considered initially the example of the characteristic American manner of displaying their attitude towards technological development. What Segal means by adjustment is the partial and gradual acceptance of technological change, irrespective of whether it is running good or not. Characteristic of the US is a complex, conservative basic feature in the interpretation of progress on the basis of technology. Technological progress helps the Americans to shape the most varying transition in the society without the fundamental change. These are accepted by the Americans with respect to their fundamental institutions and values. There has been a protest against the negative, economical and social outcomes of the technological change, for example, in the automobile age. Especially the Japanese challenge of the traditional American supremacy in the car

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industry worldwide chips away at the American image. A new technological level is reached here (Segal 1994, 29–35). The Persian Gulf War in 1991 awakened the technological utopism from slumber everywhere in America and also the impression that the entire world could be changed with the American computerised weapon systems. This attitude has fundamentally changed the basic structure of the American attitude to technology. The basis for the first modernity was a scientifically defined concept of rationality and national governmental organisations. The second modernity is charecterised by globalisation and individualisation, deindustrialisation, flexible underemployment and ecological crisis. It emerged because of the side-effects which were revolutionising modernity. The responses of the first modernity were more and better technics, science, social differentiation and economic growth which is certainly no more effective after a change of époque (Beck/Bonß 2001, 20–25). The response of the second modernity is hesitation towards technics and a new, old hope of the natural. We are not on the way into the second modernity, instead we find ourselves in the middle of the third modernity founded by the effects of deindustrilaisation and technologisation including information and biotechnology. According to the cultural evolutionary model of the development of technics (Irrgang 2002a), the transition from the industrial and postindustrial to technological modernity in the 70s and 80s of the 20th century is important. After the production orientation of the first technical modernity and the deindustrialisation of the second technical modernity follows the application oriented third technological modernity which leaves more and more their modern preconditions and becomes hypermodernity. Some believe in postmodernity or fear posthumanisms. But it is not a new naturalness that becomes the scale for the hypermodern technology, rather the technological feasibility becomes the dynamising motor of a transclassical ethics, at least as far as certain contents of values like individuality, personality, autonomy and human dignity are concerned (Irrgang 2007a). A theory of structuring, whose individual elements were developed here especially for the relationship between economy and technics, is necessary for this transition. The hope that the non-intended consequences of technics and technology change almost automatically into reflective modernity will become disillusioned. The dissolution of national states and the building of new cultural spaces which are no more defined by linguistic borders, are characteristic of the constitution of the third modernity. Pre-dominant technological structures and their use potentials raise anew the question of power and ethically compatible dealing with them. There will be spaces of new or at least comparable technological competence, technological practice and economical-political power. It is a matter of levelling the technical and cultural niveaus in these cultural spaces as spaces of common technological and cultural niveaus. One cannot come to terms with these processes with the categories of sociology alone. What is laid as a basis hence in a philosophical sense is a universal-historical horizon without any thesis of finality or ultimate justification and supported instead by a biological-evolutionary paradigm (Irrgang 2001b; Irrgang 2002a; Irrgang 2007d). What has to be developed are forms of globalisation and postcolonialism which overcome eurocentrism without downplaying the strengths in the process of

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European integration and which in multiple forms can be seen as a model for other processes of integration. From the perspective of a universal-historical horizon it must hence be differentiated between the first modernity from 1760 till 1880, the second modernity between 1880 and 1970 and a third modernity which begins from the 1970s. Also the fetischisation of the theme of technical risks – the practice of emission outside Germany has shown this – has led to a completely wrong concept of reflective modernisation at least in Germany and German sociology, in which a modernity-phobic attitude towards modernisation has become prominent. The method of evaluation of technological progress in many technological areas will include a combination of scientific theory, engineering principles, technical thumb rules, laws, court decisions, generally accepted moral regulations and administrative instructions as well as the professional engineering standards and the accepted technics of different disciplines to form an adequate framework of description for technical development (Bugliarello/Doner 1983, 240; Irrgang 2007a). With regard to the description of technological revolutions some of the factors will be of greater or lesser significance. The category of side effects will have to be formulated anew in view of the potentials of technical problem solving. The inventing team will refer back in this context to the normal technological problem solving process untill new anomalies appear and a new circle of innovation is stimulated (Bugliarello/Doner 1983, 249). A great number of decisions on the designing of technics run problem free, efficient and unobtrusive: only relatively less questions of design make technicsdesigning appear as a controversial conflict ridden affair. The big, inhomogenous group of technics designers has to be structured in such a manner, that the principal differences relevant for ethical questions can be recognised. The individuals designing technics have received normally no professional training in ethics. Approaches on business ethics find more inroads into business practices in industrial nations. But the application of ethical reflection on the entrepreneurial designing of technics is still in the initial stages. The practitioners designing technics remain outside the university system with their need to receive ethical aid in concrete individual cases or also continually. Most of those who are involved in technics designing lack the information on the respective other side, because of which the possible technical consultation is prevented in advance. On the other hand, the possibilities of contact are rather frighteningly, highly expensive. There lacks on the one hand an overview of the available supply, particularly of demand and on the other hand a mechanism to bring together supply and demand. Ethical points of view are an integral component of the new discussion on modernisation. A technical vision must not be confused with prognosis. It may not show what will happen in future, but it tries to structure the individual areas of technology, the validation of technology and its network, not least under the influence of a successful technical, or rather technological practice. But a praxis is dependent on the knowledge about its structural conditions and its background justifications. Welfare and utility were the legitimising horizons for technical or technological praxis for a long time. Today at least to an extent, a successful life and a successful human praxis, be it now moral, pragmatic, strategic or instrumental, are judged according

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to other points of view than solely according to their efficient success. This is a point of departure for a better human practice and is simultaneously a challenge for a technics which believes that the fulfillment of a technics-function has already been achieved. I would not like to deny now that success and failure of technical praxis are among the central indicators for the evaluation of technical and technological praxis. Technical points of view alone are certainly not adequate, but also culturalcivilisational models with a moral component like sustainability or long term responsibility become part of a culture of technology-reflection which has to be stimulated to reflect the questions of acceptance between the involved technicians, engineers and the economically engaged on the one side and specialists on the other for the acceptance of technologies. Communication, mobility and wanting to know about information must be brought together with the paradigms of ecological, civilisational and communicative embedment in order to be able to ultimately resolve the questions of acceptability of technological praxis. These must be worked upon and examined transdisciplinarily. The technological culture has a vision of human progress as the point of departure and equates technology with applied science. Technologies influence the way and manner in which we think. But there are conflicting visions of technology exactly like ambivalent feelings. Optimists and pessimists have to be distinguished with regard to technical progress, where both overdramatise. The optimists consider technical resources as value neutral. The vision seems to agree with our experience. The optimists establish a technological priesthood. The optimists have a purely instrumental approach to technics. The pessimism in contrast, especially Ellul’s position, evokes enslavement through technics. Technics governs itself. The natural is good, but the artificial is bad. The importance of pill for the sexual revolution had been neither intended nor expected. Modern technologies have become a kind of ecosystem where it must be regarded that the technological solution which was created once, can build its own life. The modern technology is totally linked to each other. As soon as the technological mutual effects exist, the possibilities of action are restricted. The realisation of human goals is indeed limited, but it doesn’t mean that the network of technical systems is immune to human intervention. Undetected mutual effects and links in the context of technics lead to unforeseen problems (Tiles/Oberdieck 1995, 10–25). The evaluation of the efficiency of technics amounts to a cost-benefit analysis. How technological systems, characterised by their efficiency, receive a certain autonomy and power remains certainly totally mysterious. This applies overall for the view that technology is autonomous. Both optimism and pessimism require a critical correction. Impotence as well as omnipotence are part of the dichotomic visions. Hence the question arises, whether the development of technology is a rational and objective process (Tiles/Oberdiek 1995, 27–29). The search for a middle way leads to the insight that facts are made and thus do not represent any basis of evaluation. The process of value and evaluation has to be developed. The ambiguity in the concept of value has to be pointed out. Value doesn’t mean any purely subjective desire, but a kind of obligation independent of subjective desires. It is then a fundamental good, a valuable practice and a quality of personal identity. Evaluation has

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to seen hence as a kind of perception or to be precise substantiation of obligations. One can certainly also ask the question who is interested in evaluations. This helps, for example the resolution of conflicts. Requirements generate value and this is the subjective side. Obligations generate also values, but they describe the objective side. Michael Polanyi has described the interplay of facts and values. A technology reflects normally the plans and ideas of some individuals, institutions or even classes. Technology embodies values (Tiles/Oberdiek 1995, 32–59). With regard to the formation of models one can talk of a utopian temptation. Here arises the question, in what dimension and on which paths is the evaluation of technological outcomes in a position to shape the future through a critical and conservative following of the existing visions and the attempt to philosophically and ethically substantiate it (Grin/Grunwald 2000, 10–12). Visions themselves must be understood from the perspective of the context and their basic pre-conditions. Modern societies have a growing need of a responsible long term orientation of technological, environmental and scientific policies. Acceptance is dependant on the rapidly changing detection of risks before and after big accidents, where the same kind of cases of damage doesn’t increase the real risk of technics. On the contrary, one can state that the safety of a technics is increased through the improvement of this technics after serious accidents. The consideration of real acceptance is principally rather anti innovative (Grin/Grunwald 2000, 107–109). Acceptability can be appraised on the basis of pragmatic rationality (Grin/Grunwald 2000, 113). The rationality of the new model of designing of technical actions are measured no longer according to the redeemable assertion of having everything in control and safe, but by being open through competences of reflection. The future of our technical developments must be a trial accompanied by reflection, since we are normally not in a position to calculate it in a safe and detailed manner. Technics-designing under the conditions of a radical openness is the model for technical development despite all these determining factors. The daring character in the technical development remains intact. The hermeneutics of technics can prove itself here. Visions for the design of technical development imply a rethinking about the future. It is about scientifically founded, constructive and critically reflected visions. The contribution of the philosophy of technics towards the testing of designing of future for technical development is neither science fiction nor a non-critical projection of contemporary technical skills into the future with a shot of utopism regarding the technically possible. The ambivalence of technics is in many cases not the character of technics, but an outcome of its (more or less successful) embeddedness in the social and cultural circumstances. The status of technics and its maintenance, the safety of technics, which has to be guaranteed and the humanisation, or rather the shaping of technics into responsible paradigms have their price. An overdriven safety mania of a society hinders a part of new key technologies. Nuclear technology and the green gene technology in Germany are examples. The mutual adaptation of technology and a culturally moulded social field of application is one of the central tasks of technics-designing. This can be successful, but it also fails often. Hermeneutics of technics provides assistance in this regard.

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