Have we invested more in our symbols of technology than they can promise in satisfying our hunger for contentment?
History of Technology
Have we invested more in our symbols
of technology than they can promise in satisfying our hunger for contentment?
The history of tool use and technological innovation is a global enterprise reflecting an expression of everything that is human. Since the dawn of fire and art in the dusk of some previous ice age the human dream of control over the unpredictable events that torment our material lives has moved apace. Having transformed the dreams and the dreamer our inventions today surround us with a human crafted world of bewildering electrical dimensions peopled by subtle mechanical contrivances and hordes of electronic slaves.
One goal of this course is to allow you to better
understand how the web of tools, tool use and tool making influences your life. We analyze how technology and techniques through our continuing use of implements and utensils, machines and media profoundly alters you and the world. Another goal of the class is to engage you in an ongoing conversation with me, your fellow students, and the people beyond the class as to the proper role of technology in our lives and our larger society.
And a final goal of the course is to introduce you to the means of information for determining, to your own satisfaction, the cost of, the meaning and the significance of technology in shaping our individual and collective identities as morally imaginative and spiritually diverse human citizens.
concept map is conceived | tools are defined | weekly development of concepts | web of technical relations emerges | weekly foci
Depending on the tools we use, each of us occupies one of more of these roles:
concept map is conceived | tools are defined | weekly development of concepts | web of technical relations emerges
a material or other creation that allows the user to overcome an immediate obstacle. Tools therefore make an opportunity out of a difficulty that arose from an existing state of affiars.
Four ways technology influences your life:
- web of tools
- tool use and
- tool making
- Technology as art
concept map is conceived | tools are defined | web of technical relations emerges
fire relates to axes, metal cooking, warmth and light,
fuel relates to sources of wealth,
food relates to survival,
artifacts -- are implements we use to accomplish tasks
tools are devices or implemensts that solve problems
All of the connections among artifacts, implements, materials and the means to handle problems weave us together into a related web.
The web is the material fabric of society held in place by technology.
concept map is conceived | tools are defined |weekly development of concepts | web of technical relations emerges
Critics and challenges of technical changes
Conflicts created by technical creations
Class by weekly focus:
Technology as a story of origins.
Week 1 • Week One: the story of Thamus.
Week 2 • Week Two: Pursell question and the story of Prometheus.
Week 3 • Week Three: China and the west. The story of Daedalus.
Week 4 • Week Four: Technological change to machinery from handicraft. The story of Faust.
Week 5
Week 6
Weeks 7-10 -- midterm debate
Week 11
Tools of Toil: what to read. Tools are historical building blocks of technology. Pursell | Pacey | Postman | Eberhart | Snow | Kaku
