Critical theory of technology:
an approach from engineering
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52712/issn.1850-0013-626Keywords:
critical theory of technology, technical code, engineering, designAbstract
A critical theory of technology was proposed by the American philosopher of technology Andrew Feenberg in his 1991 book Critical Theory of Technology. In the two decades since its first formulation, the theory was enriched with three other texts by the same author (Feenberg, 1995, 1999 and 2002) and by an important series of articles that explain it and put it in dialogue and discussion with other streams of thinking about technology. While the horizon that Professor Feenberg was aiming for is more ambitious than the mere description of the technological phenomenon, its proposal for a new formulation of socialism should always include technology as a central aspect. Thus, the “instrumentalization theory” bears a scope that not only includes the theory of democracy but also the design theory. On this last point, it is particularly relevant to study the relationship between engineering and the critical theory of technology. Elucidating a possible relationship and discussing its scope is the objective of this work.
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