The Idea of Technological Progress and Its Problems

Recently the problem of scientific progress has been one of the most widely discussed topics among historians and philosophers of science. But little has been said on the problem of technological progress. I suggest that theories of technological progress can be divided, first, into cognitive and non-cognitive; then cognitive can be subdivided into cumulative and problem-solving; non-cognitive can be divided into material well-being and moral and spiritual well-being. After examining different versions of the cumulative theory, I conclude that technology is not intrinsically cumulative; whether technology is cumulatively progressive is a matter of goals extrinsic to technology. I argue that Laudan\u27s recent problem-solving theory of scientific progress seems to fIt technology exceptionally well; but this notion of progress turns out to be rather emaciated. The material well-being model of technological progress is the position that technology can endow human life with new inventions and riches. This model raises many thorny problems concerning what constitutes man\u27s material well-being. Finally, the moral and spiritual well-being model states that technology can improve man\u27s ability to achieve moral and spiritual goals; but what these goals are varies widely from position to position. My general conclusion is that technology does not, with two exceptions which are minimal, contain any intrinsic direction toward betterment. I then briefly note some implications of this conclusion

HANS REICHENBACH\u27S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND EPISTEMOLOGY: A STUDY OF THEIR INTERRELATIONSHIP

Reichenbach views scientific knowledge as the paradigm for constructing a general theory of knowledge. This dissertation is an analysis of how Reichenbach\u27s epistemology is modeled on his analysis of science (i.e., his philosophy of science). In his analysis of science, Reichenbach\u27s works are concerned with three major topics: space, time and induction. The dissertation attempts to show that his analyses of these topics follow a consistent pattern