Toward Democracy And Cultural Pluralism

Philosophy of technology has been entering into a new phase from 1970s till today. On the one hand, human society became more and more technologized, and various new technological phenomena appeared as results. Therefore, the philosophy of technology was impelled to research into more and more complicated objects, and its domain was also gradually enlarged. On the other hand, philosophers made study of technology and its impacts upon society, and furnished a variety of viewpoints to illustrate the reciprocal influence between technology and society on the basis of different schools of contemporary western philosophy. Fused with western philosophical tradition and methods of current sociological studies, phenomenological philosophy of technology, pragmatic philosophy of technology and social construction of technology came into being.As the topic of this paper, Andrew Feenberg's philosophy of technology formed in such a background. Feenberg's criticism of Frankford School obtained its characteristic critical theory of technology on the ground of Marcuse, Marx, Heidegger and SSK, and researched fruitfully into the philosophy of technology on the dimensions of history, society, politics and culture.Feenberg argues that, instrumental theory of technology and substantive theory of technology cross their paths on the following point: technology can not be changed; it has its own changeless essence and independent logic in its evolution, which can not be intervened and changed by human being. In this way both of the theories are not of historicism. Feenberg's technological view of historicism contends that technological progress is a contingent process that can take many possible paths, instead of a fixed one. For him, the neutrality and independence are nothing but illusions constructed by people, and the existing technology is contingent, representing the interest of class of technological hegemony. With the illustration of historical essence in technology, and bias of an unchangeable technology was broken, and technology was researched in social dimension, and its feature of social construction was thus disclosed.In reference to SSK's thoughts of social construction, Feenberg believes that technology contains two elements: technology itself and the society. Not only the empirical approaches in social science studies, but also hermeneutic approaches in humanity science studies, should be employed in the studies of these elements, in order to cast light on the essential meaning of the objects and activities of technology. As a social construction, technology can express its value and interest in hermeneutic approaches, and realize its multiple possibilities through transformation. Therefore Feenberg puts forward a brand-new view of thchnology: the theory of instrumentalization, which argues that technology should be analyzed on two levels. First, the object is alienated from its primary background in order that people can analyze and operate it. Second, design is put into combination with other existing facilities and systems, as well as sundry social restrictions, such as ethical and aesthetic principles. The second level is the process that the society constructs technology. No matter how abstract the raw materials on the first level are defined, they bear social contents like interest and value through the disposal on the second level. The social attributes of technology exhibit the construction process of technology, and show microcosmically the possibilities in transformation of technology.The political dimension in Feenberg's philosophy of technology refers to his research in technological politics. With his study in the political attributes of technology in the perspective of its structure and formation, Feenberg illuminates hegemony and interests embodied in existing technology, and expounds the democratic potentials in technology itself. He also takes democratic technology as one of his objectives. Feenberg accomplishes vindication and explanation for both theory and practice of democratic technology through theoretical vindication for democratic potentials in technology with the notion of "democratic rationalization" and the attributes of social construction in technology, as well as through the positive studies of activities of democratic technology in reality.The studies of social construction of technology, together with the fact that technology can be put into combination with multiple cultural contexts, hint that there are diverse choices for technological design. The diversity of technology intimates rationality of choice, which furnishes sundry possibilities for modernity. The current western modernity, with stress on efficiency and control, is not the only pattern; on the contrary, an optional modernity is possible on the basis of diverse development of technology. This optional modernity indicates that the hegemony of western modernity is not inevitable, but contingent historical product, and different states and peoples can create diverse technologies in their own cultural background. Diverse technologies produce modernity of different cultures, and offer optional modernity for various states that is different from the western modernity. The optional modernity not only gives rise to multiple possibilities of rationality, but also promotes the development and co-existence of diverse cultures.Based on the introduction of Feenberg's principal thoughts, the paper makes a comparison between his philosophy of technology and others', and discusses deficiencies in his theory of technology, as well as the direction of its future development.