Ulrich Wengenroth

Technology and science: priorities your choice!

Science, first and foremost, aims at the production of codified knowledge. It uses technologies, many forms of non-codified knowledge and a plethora of social processes in doing so. Science is “truth”-seeking, it is a sub-set of knowledge. The test of science is coherence of its propositions. “Science in other words, is a highly specialized language.” (John Dewey, 1927) In modern science there is no revelation or experience of “truth”; there needs to be inter-subjective, non-exclusive demonstration based on rules agreed upon beforehand.

Technology, first and foremost, aims at changing and/or generating operations in and by society. It uses many forms of codified as well as non-codified knowledge and a plethora of social processes in doing so. Technology is action-oriented. These intended actions can be both (human) activities and physical actions. The test of technology is the individual and/or social evaluation of perceived outcomes. These tests might well be subjective and exclusive. Technology is not inter-subjectively “true” but “working” for the individual and/or group (actively as well as passively). There are no rules beforehand unless technology is “scientifically” assessed.

Priorities as such do not exist. Priorities are being created to solve conflicts. Obviously, when the aim is changing and/or generating operations, as in engineering – being a sub-set of technology, priorities go to make something “work” whether or not it can be represented by codified knowledge. If, however, the aim is to produce codified knowledge on some aspect of technology as a contribution to change and/or generate operations, like in engineering science, priorities will go to coherence in the language of science – well knowing that this is quite insufficient to get something other than a proposition, say a washing machine, to “work”.

Priorities are being blurred when individuals try to achieve multiple outcomes, as we all do most of the time. It is only in scholarly work that we reduce the number of factors and actors to a caricature of the real world in order to be able to perform the useful language-game of science.