Meaning in Technology, A. Pacey

Pacey shows how music is the origin of technological virtuosity, as opposed to Pursell's arguments that the development of language in prehistoric culture was responsible for exaptation in tool use and technological virtuosity.

1. Music, Sources of Technology

2. Visual Thinking

3. Meaning in the Hands

4. Social Meanings

5. The Sense of Place

6. Exploration, Invention and the Remaking of Nature

7. Gender and Creativity

8. Knowledge Pregnant with Evil

9. People Centered Technology

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Periods in history by tool's used.

An exemplary observer & user of hand tools was:

Eratosthenes of Cyrene

276 BC - 194 BC

Eratosthenes was a Greek mathematician who is famous for his work on prime numbers and for measuring the diameter of the earth. His virtuosity lay in mathematics and formulating the size of the earth and its distances to the sun and moon.

More on his virtuosity

Tulips as tools?

Tools of Toil: what to read.

Tools are historical building blocks of technology.

Technology can be understood if tools have three facets.

Tools used in both Music and Architecture led to mechanization and automation.

Tools and the study of technology require us to reflect on the power of instruments,

The Syllabus | Technology class calendar |readings | Timeline

Week One: the story of Thamus

Week Two: Pursell question and the story of Prometheus