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The problem of technology as valuation errors: The paradox of the means in Simmel and Scheler

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  • Gunderson, Ryan

Abstract

Georg Simmel and Max Scheler provide a framework for making judgements about the desirability of technological development and use, an evaluation absent from a largely relativistic contemporary sociology of technology. The appropriate role of technology in society is to aid in the attainment of ultimate values (ends). Both Simmel and Scheler framed the problem of technology as the elevation of technology to an ultimate value. The modern valuation of technology as an end is irrational because it is a reversal of the means-ends relationship and values the general development of technology instead of the potential benefits of particular technical developments. This inverted valuation is also detrimental to the cultivation of “subjective culture” and harmful to life. The importance of Simmel and Scheler for the contemporary sociology of technology is an illustration of what an evaluation of technology presupposes: claims about the general nature of modern technology as well as its essence. Although insightful, the cultural and phenomenological sociologies of technology found in Simmel and Scheler could be strengthened with structural analysis.

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  • Gunderson, Ryan, 2017. "The problem of technology as valuation errors: The paradox of the means in Simmel and Scheler," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 64-69.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:teinso:v:48:y:2017:i:c:p:64-69
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2016.12.005
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Li, Bocong, 2015. "Human nature, the means-ends relationship, and alienation: Themes for potential East–West collaboration," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 60-64.
    2. Gunderson, Ryan, 2016. "The sociology of technology before the turn to technology," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 40-48.
    3. Regina Roth, 2010. "Marx on technical change in the critical edition," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(5), pages 1223-1251.
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    Cited by:

    1. Üzelgün, Mehmet Ali & Pereira, João Rui, 2020. "Beyond the co-production of technology and society: The discursive treatment of technology with regard to near-term and long-term environmental goals," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    2. Gunderson, Ryan, 2020. "A materialist conception of the lifeworld: Enzo Paci's social phenomenology of technology and the environment," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).

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