The Structure of Thinking in Technology

Inquiry into the philosophy of technology, due to the infancy of the subject, must start with some reflections on what technology itself is. There is at present a tendency to identify technology with a demiurge or our times, or perhaps even with a Moloch who will bring doom to mankind, that is, mankind as dreamt of by philosophers, not by organization men. In this setting technology assumes a role similar to that which was ascribed to history in the nineteenth century: the role of the final cause which shapes the destiny of mankind and, more specifically, which aims at the total subjugation of man to the machine or, in other words, at turning the human being into a technological component.