Tecnocracy, technology and democratization

• Grant number: 14/21912-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: February 01, 2015
• End date: January 17, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Epistemology
• Principal Investigator: Pablo Rubén Mariconda
• Grantee: Cristiano Cordeiro Cruz
• Supervisor: Andrew Lewis Feenberg
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada
• Associated to the scholarship: 13/18757-0 - Technology, Science, and Democracy, BP.DR

Abstract

The dissemination of technology is patent in almost every area of our lives. Equally, it is remarkable our dependence of it for living, as well as its influence in the structuration and meaning we give to our existences. The aforementioned dissemination provoked and still causes serious environmental unbalances, many of them irreparable. Thus, in order to widen our understanding about technology - a task of capital importance - we propose an analysis based on three different, but complementary and interdependent, lenses: ontological, epistemological, and ethical-political. We will test the hypothesis that technology be ontological ambivalent, having a plastic axiological nature, which would embody, promote, and/or be of service to distinct social values. In this case, every technical implementation would always bring with it the question about its legitimacy for the group which requests and/or where it will be introduced. (Legitimacy is measured with respect to the specific perspective of values a group has.) Concerning the technical development, legitimacy would uncover epistemic questions related to the knowledge required for the implementation of any kind of technical solutions, regardless of specific social values they would want to preserve or promote. With reference to our possibility of controlling technical development according to the (social) values we collectively embrace, legitimacy unveils ethical-political features, related to the limits of democracy and of the actual power/ autonomy society possess over its own development. Hence, when this doctoral project proposes to analyze technology according to these three sights, it not only intends to improve our understanding of its object of study, but also - and mainly - tries to capacitate us to act in a more effective and reasoned way for the democratization of technical development. (AU)