Technikdeterminismus und andere Irrtümer

What Engineers are Doing? As argued in Franz, Jürgen H.: Criticism of Technology and Science: An Issue of Philosophy (to be published) the possible answers to this question are typically connected with six errors: (i) Technology is purely an instrument to achieve or to satisfy customers aims. It does follow a simple end-mean relation. (ii) Actions of engineers and technicians are fully automatic and determined, because they are exclusively governed by the results of science, in particularly by the laws of nature discovered by science, e.g. physical laws. Hence, technology is nothing more than applied science. (iii) The field of technology is moral neutral or value neutral. (iv) The responsibility of the use of technical products is limited to the customer only. (v) Technological problems can always be solved by technology. (vi) Technology is the aggregate of all technological artefacts and the total of all technological actions performed by engineers and technicians. Analysing these errors the following result is obtained:
Philosophical reflection and criticism is unavoidable for technology and science.