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 betterunderstand 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 this class is to engage you in an ongoing conversation with me, your fellow students, and the people beyond the class about 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.
Better students will want to understand that technology is more than an array of
inventions, gadgets and devices to solve problems. To do really excellent (A- and A work) you will need to read critically, compare all the authors, understand the importance of triangles and the tetrad symbolizing technology; its overt power and unseen influences.
You will need to be alert and ask questions based on difficult sections of the readings in class. You will need to understand the concept of dimensions, the ideas concerning the origins of words and how we use language to interpret the natural world so that you recognize the capacity of related tools and thier techniques to alter the experiences we have of existence.
concept map is conceived | tools are defined | weekly development of concepts | web of technical relations emerges | weekly foci
The above paragraph is interpreted on these pages.
Concept map for understanding Pacey's approach to the history of tool use.
Depending on the tools we use, each of us occupies one of more of these roles: technical, organizational, or cultural.
The three aspects of tools and technology.
An example of the limitations of fMRI technology.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging.Technical 
Cultural Organizational
concept map is conceived | tools are defined | weekly development of concepts | web of technical relations emerges
Any tool is 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– refers to the unseen influences of technology.
- tool use– refers to how some periods quicken the way tools change us.
- tool making– always this involves a relation among many tools, and
- technology as art – reminds us that three factors inhere in tools.
Flying buttresses in Notre Dame cathedral, Paris.
Pursell | Pacey | Pacey–Meaning | Postman-Technopoly | Eberhart | Snow | Kaku-Visions | Bronowski
concept map is conceived | tools are defined | web of technical relations emerges
fire relates to axes, metal cooking, warmth & 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.
Vocabulary of key terms:
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
Pursell | Tenner | Pacey–World| Pacey–Meaning | Postman | Eberhart | Snow | Kaku
Class by weekly focus:
Technology as a story of origins.
Week 1 • Week One: the story of Thamus. –the focus of the course. The story of Daedalus.
Week 2 • Week Two: Pursell question and the Greek mythological story of Prometheus.
Week 3 • Week Three: Mechanization's Chinese origins & the Arab conveyance to the west.
Week 4 • Week Four: Techniques change to machinery from handicraft. The story of Faust.
Week 5 • Week Five: If technology does not drive social history, then what does?
Week 6 • Week Six: A base of mechanization from convergence of telegraph & railways.
Weeks 7-10 -- midterm debate over the meaning of Charles Percy Snow's The Two Cultures, 1956.
Week 11 • Week Eleven: A new industrial order emerges from electicity and automation.
Week 12 • Week Twelve: Automation of contemporary eletronics and their origins.
Tools of Toil: what to read. Tools are historical building blocks of technology. Pursell | Tenner | Pacey–World| Pacey–Meaning | Postman | Eberhart | Snow | Kaku
Tool
use
