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.
First outcome | Second outcome | Third outcome | Best outcome
One goal of this course is to allow you to explain in writing and verbally demonstrate three to five examples of how the system of related technologies, called a web of tools, through both tool use and tool making influences you. We analyze how technology and techniques through people's continuing use of implements and utensils, machines, and media profoundly alters your perception and the actual world. By the initial month of the course you should be able to identify two different examples of each of the three facets of technological systems and what each does.
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. At the end of the class you should be able to identify two or more ethical problems raised and not necessarily resolved by the use of technology.
And a final goal of the course is for you to read stories about inventions as basic 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. By the middle of the course identify three or more examples of technology shaping what we know, how we behave and a significant change in social routines.
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 the power of technology. You should be able to identify in writing and verbally, five to seven cases of technology's overt power and unseen influences during distinctly different historical periods.
You will need to be alert and ask questions based on difficult sections of the readings in class.
To do that 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.
We do so that you can recognize how the immense capacity of related tools and the techniques we use to employ technology has profoundly altered historical events and thus distorts the experiences you may have of our shared existence.
The above paragraph is interpreted on these pages.
concept map is conceived | tools are defined | weekly development of concepts | web of technical relations emerges | weekly foci
Concept map for understanding Pacey's approach to the history of tool use is like a web.
Depending on the tools we use, each of us occupies one of more of these roles: technical, organizational, or cultural.
By selecting a term on the diagram below track the content of the pages you visit with a one sentence or more summary.
The idea that users and inventors of technology are two very different experiences that divide a society into distinct groups is a major theme of
three of the authors in the class.
Another basic theme is that intricate though technology is there are three distinct ways to view and explain the power of tools to shape society over time.
First outcome | Second outcome | Third outcome | Best outcome
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
First outcome | Second outcome | Third outcome | Best outcome
Defining terms and identifying details.
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 affairs.
Four ways technology influences your life:
- web of tools – refers to the unseen influences of technology.
- tool use – means how we employ devices that in some periods quicken the way tools change us.
- tool making – always means that technology involves a relation among many tools, &
- technology as art – reminds us that materials can and do reveal that three factors inhere in tools.
Flying buttresses in Notre Dame cathedral, Paris.
concept map is conceived | tools are defined | web of technical relations emerges
First outcome | Second outcome | Third outcome | Best outcome
Selected sources by author's last names about historical information on past periods of technology and technological change: Pursell | Pacey | Pacey–Meaning | Postman-Technopoly | Eberhart | Snow | Kaku-Visions | Bronowski
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 implements 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
First outcome | Second outcome | Third outcome | Best outcome
Pursell | Pacey | Pacey–Meaning | Postman-Technopoly | Eberhart | Snow | Kaku-Visions | Bronowski
Critics and challenges of technical changes
Conflicts created by technical creations
Pursell | Postman | Snow | Boulding | Pacey–World | Head | Tenner | Pacey–Meaning | Eberhart | Kaku
Technology as a story of original inventions.
Week 2 • Week Two: the story of Thamus. –the focus of the course. The story of Daedalus. Story of discovery.
Week 3 • Week Three: Pursell question and the Greek mythological story of Prometheus. Story of limitations.
Week 4 • Week Four: Mechanization's Chinese origins & the Arab conveyance to the west. History of origins.
Week 5 • Week Five: Techniques change to machinery from handicraft. The story of Faust. History of warnings.
Week 6 • Week Six: If technology does not drive social history, then what does? History of disturbing questions.
Week 7 • Week Seven: A base of mechanization from convergence of telegraph & railways. History of systems of power.
Weeks 8-10 -- midterm debate over the meaning of Charles Percy Snow's The Two Cultures, 1956. Debate the facts!
Week 11 • Week Eleven: A new industrial order emerges from electricity and automation. History of electronics.
Week 12 • Week Twelve: Automation of contemporary electronics and their origins. Story of current discoveries.
Week 13 • Week Thirteen: Recap of the course and authors.
Tools of Toil: what to read. Tools are historical building blocks of technology. Pursell | Pacey–World | Postman | Head | Tenner |Pacey–meaning| Eberhart | Snow | Kaku | Boulding | Delillo | Kranzberg
| Postman–Tech | Postman–Television |
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Tool
use
