A Managerial Philosophy of Technology: Technology and Humanity in Symbiosis [Hardcover]

Geoff Crocker has taken on the challenge of placing technology into a broad philosophical framework encompassing human beings in nature and the world of ideas and artifacts that human beings have created from nature. The first third of the book is a critical tour through modern philosophy as it bears on science and technology from the American empiricists through Marx, Heidegger and Habermas to the Christian viewpoint of Borgman, and many others. Geoff synthesizes and illuminates in a way that is delightful. The balance of the book is devoted to the elaboration of an entity-relationship model including Nature, Science, Technology, Society and Humanity, with the mediating entity of Productivity. (Recent climate science might cause Crocker to raise Ecology to the level of an entity in the next edition; he seems close to doing so now.) Using this framework, Crocker calibrates the major positive and negative influence of entity-on-entity in the "Comprehensive Network" and uses it as a guide to explain historical change and agenda-setting for scholarship, research and public policy. A Managerial Philosophy of Technology succeeds as a highly accessible panoptic of technology in human life. It is a framework for thinking, and provokes much thought. The next step for the reader is to ponder how to translate this framework into action in a way that is relevant to their lives. In the meantime, it is stimulating, educative and a great read

Geoff Crocker's A Managerial Philosophy of Technology is a highly readable text; in a straightforward style he introduces the reader to the literature of the philosophy of technology, offering a substantive critique and a credible new thesis. He also provides fascinating first-hand examples of the interaction of science, humanity and market (e.g. Russian manufacturing) as well as overview through eg tabulated analytics: fuel cell technologies (pp 99-100), productivity and social structures (p142), technology determination (pp 174-6).

Chapter 2 is a 35 page review of the field literature covering 1) definitions: Rationality, Human enhancement, Cyborg ontology, Instrumentalism 2) analytics: Determinism, Autonomy, Social constructivism, Technocracy, Utopia and dystopia 3) moderatons: Heidigger's saving power, Borgmann's faith, Feenberg's democratisation. I (new to the topic) found this chapter to be an easy to read introduction to the field and was very surprised to learn that philosophy of technology has only a small corpus of literature.

The model he proposes 'Comprehensive Systems Network Philosophy of Technology' in chapter 3 covers assumptions and contexts or 'entities' (nature, science, technology, productivity, the economy, society, ecology) with both top down and grassroots analyses. This chapter is extensive with lots of analysis and anecdote - very engaging.

Chapter 4 discusses responses to the offered model in terms of 'so what' implications for people, consumers, workers, voters, businesses, education, society and government. The basic theme is that the role of technology is poorly understood with the alarming implication that modern societies do not appreciate the way that humanity both creates and is being shaped by technology development mediated by markets and behind those, capital.

In keeping with the book's title the author offers both critique of present understandings and a new sophisticated alternative model together with specific application possibilities for technology businesses. Given that the well being of a growing world population depends upon rising productivity delivered by technological enhancements, this book makes clear that management of technology is a little understood but very significant challenge - in my view much more so than the short run challenges of economic management.