The position of philosophy in a technogenic society is considered and, as a way out of the crisis, the priority development of the philosophy of technology is proposed. It is shown that in the modern era, the difference in philosophical approaches to technology is based on different directions of anthropology; a methodological reconstruction of these approaches is necessary because a technological turn in philosophy is inevitable in a techno-genetic society.
engineering, technogenic society, philosophy of technology, anthropology, modernity, technology
Introduction. The crisis of modern philosophy and technogenic society
Modern society is called technogenic by philosophers, since technology today mediates all aspects of a person's life, regulating all types of his activities - from production to communication. "The mode of existence of modern society with a significant degree of certainty can be characterized as technological," notes, in particular, B.G. Yudin. "We are getting more and more accustomed to perceiving the world around us ... and often ourselves as a field for the implementation of a wide variety of technological influences." A modern man, in his words, is obedient to "an activity, or technological, setting associated with the desire to somehow streamline, organize and even put at the service of his interests the chaos of the" natural" [14, p.56]. The technogenic society is dominated by a "scientific and engineering" (according to VM Rozin) worldview, which understands everything that exists as an "object of technical action and manipulation", and any processes - as something that can be calculated and predicted, what can be controlled [12, p. 20]. The requirements of order, management, benefit, efficiency - the main ones for the technical mind [9] - have spread to all areas of culture. The hardest part is in this world of philosophy, the practical use of which raises reasonable doubts.
Technogenic society, as V.A. Lektorsky notes, "is becoming more and more pragmatically oriented", therefore "philosophy as a specific type of abstract thinking cannot play an important cultural role" [5, p.140]. In addition to the "eternal" questions, modern philosophers pose, according to A.A. Huseynov, another one: "Why and who needs philosophy, besides the philosophers themselves"? Today, "not only the economy, but the whole society has become a market one", therefore the analysis of its position is disappointing: "Philosophy, in order to be recognized in modern society, must say what and on what basis it sells, how much is what it sells, and the main thing is who will buy her "products" and why ". Philosophy, like other forms of culture, "must offer itself as a service": today it "cannot reproduce itself otherwise than in the form of a useful (read: paid) business" [3, p.8-9]. Therefore, philosophers are increasingly forced to discuss the practical question: how to get their science "out of the crisis and intellectual backwater" [3, p.9].
But not only philosophy is in crisis in a technogenic society. Both nature and humanity are undergoing processes that cannot be called otherwise than global problems of our time. According to V.A. Lektorsky, "in our time we can talk about the crisis of civilization and man", because on the way of unlimited technical progress, "in the current stream of diverse changes, a threat to the very existence of man has arisen - it is not without reason that much is said today about the possibility of a "posthuman future"[5, p. 142-143]. Not only philosophers state that the stake "on achieving a perfect state of man and society through scientific and technical successes, rationally substantiated transformation of the external conditions of life, this venture turned out to be a mistake" [3, p. 8]. Wouldn't philosophy help at least understand why this happened: why did the creations of human thought turn against their creators and what was supposed to strengthen civilization puts it in danger of destruction? After all, it is the philosophers, according to T.I. Oizerman, who always talked about "to what extent humanity is able to understand itself, manage its own development, become the master of its own destiny, master the objective, to a large extent spontaneous consequences of its cognitive and creative activity" [7, p.200]. According to A.A. Huseynov, philosophy "must appear to society... in full consciousness of its exclusive responsibility", remembering that it "is responsible not just for the truth, but for such a truth, which is at the same time a duty, denotes a worthy path of life" [3, p. 9]. In other words, philosophy should point not only to the reasons for the current state of affairs, but also to possible ways out of the civilization crisis. But is modern philosophy capable of this? Are there any gaps in it that hinder the philosophical analysis of the modern era - technogenic and thus so unlike those that were before?
Purpose of the study. Philosophy of technology as a criticism of technical reason
There is a philosophical discipline that studies technology as a factor in social and cultural change. This is the philosophy of technology; Mikhailovsky notes that it is it that "makes it possible to develop all the main problems of modern philosophy in a systematic aspect - from ontology and anthropology (the ontological status of technical artifacts; the position of a person in the world), gnoseology (the status of know-how within knowledge) and epistemology ( the subject and methods of technical (engineering) sciences) to the philosophy of culture (design in the system of culture, the theory of cultural types) and ethics and axiology (the problem of "technical evil", the social assessment of technology)"[6, p. 226-227]. Almost all the traditional problems of philosophy require revision as applied to the conditions of a technogenic society, and the philosophy of technology sets itself this task.
Outside of philosophy, it is believed that a conscious human impact on all parameters of technical reality is possible, and the discrepancy between the technical design and the practical effect (for example, man-made disasters) is considered as human mistakes. Therefore, the conclusion is made about the need for more careful calculations of environmental risk and more persistent advocacy of the greening of industry. Unfortunately, the effect of these sermons is small; environmental problems continue to threaten the future of humanity, and a non-philosophical attitude towards technology fluctuates between two extremes - the praise of technological progress and its denunciation. Both of these extremes are not suitable to become a theoretical basis for the implemented programs of activity. The lack of reflection in the discourses used in the discussion of technogenic problems leads to contradictory conclusions regarding the current situation of mankind, as well as to opposite practical recipes for resolving global problems of our time.
The main issue of the philosophy of technology is to identify its reverse effect on a person: according to V.V. Cheshev, "the interpenetration of the technosphere and the social environment... led to the formulation of the problem of "technology-human" at a higher philosophical and sociological level, requiring an appeal to the essence of technology and essence of a person"[13, p. 110]. The philosophy of technology, therefore, should carry out a "worldview discussion of the nature of technology and its role in society" [13, p. 105], studying "functions, means, goals, interpretations, operational rules and values, as well as their relationship with national cultural traditions and features of the era "[6, p.227]. Human thinking and value orientations adapt to life and functioning in the technical world. Technical rationality connects into a single whole the practical plans for the development of the world, the analysis of their activity conditions, the creation and regulation of social practices. As a result, the "technical mind" - the result of the comprehension and algorithmization of technical activity - considers everything in the surrounding world as objects of the goal-setting human will subordinate to objective laws, the transformation of which is carried out through the planning and implementation of technological chains. It manifests itself in the unity of the practices necessary for the functioning of technology [9].
Therefore, the philosophy of technology today sees in the object of its research not a human tool, but a complex, socially conditioned phenomenon: according to V.G. Gorokhov, the technical system is considered as a man-machine, connecting machine components (which are means of activity) and human (performers or subjects of activity - implementation, management, maintenance) [2, p.43-44]. The concept of "technology" in modern society is applicable to "any kind of human activity" [1, p. 123]. As a result, today for the philosophy of technology "the most promising direction is anthropological research, in the light of which an active-cultural explanation of the nature of technology and the technical knowledge accompanying its development is given" [13, p.115].
So, the traditional ideas about technology as an object generated by human activity and controlled by it cannot explain either the occurrence of negative consequences of human technological activity, or the impotence of human thought to neutralize these consequences on a global scale. The naturalistic or instrumental representation of technology based on "common sense" (as an instrument of human activity, created by him and obedient to him) is outdated. The usual methods of categorizing technology require further development, therefore, the philosophy of technology develops and offers a number of new approaches as a theoretical basis for practical programs.
Materials and methods. Philosophical approaches to the analysis of technology: methodological reconstruction.
The problematization of technology occurs in connection with the desire of people to control it, lowering the determinism of their lives by external forces. To explain the connection between technology and man, numerous philosophical approaches have been proposed - systems of views expressing a certain way of seeing and based on their own basic concepts (reflecting the main aspects of the subject of research). The lack of complete reducibility of a theoretical model to empirical material in any field of research makes the multiplicity of these models inevitable. Depending on the properties attributed to the technique and the goals of study, these approaches offer various forms of its comprehension and practical development. All these approaches, performing a methodological function in relation to empirical research, try to explain the facts and, by including them in the system of theoretical knowledge, to reveal the essential connections and relationships between them, predicting the directions of development of technology and technogenic society. Each approach uses its own categorical apparatus to describe (explain, predict, etc.) the technique and, with its help, logically deduce statements of different levels of generalization intended for building models and forecasts. Since all approaches have a certain area of applicability and reveal the real characteristics of technology, there can be no question of rejecting their diversity for the sake of one, "only correct" approach. The multifactorial nature of the explanation of modern processes is inevitable, therefore the technique is analyzed using a set of philosophical approaches, which can be expanded on the basis of new ideas.
At the existing level of philosophical knowledge, these concepts are not systematized and not coordinated; implied assumptions are not formulated openly, the main problems and premises of the study, the factors taken into account, the meaning of the terms used are not always clearly stated. The lack of reflection in the discourses used in the discussion of technology leads to the fact that it occurs at an uncritical level. The correctness of the study depends not only on the detailed development of these approaches (to achieve their logical consistency and compliance with empirical data), but also on their correct use, that is, understanding what tasks can be solved based on specific assumptions, and when a change of discourse is required. Therefore, the greatest methodological benefit will be brought by the analysis of these approaches using logical reconstruction: the allocation of philosophical concepts (including the articulation of unconscious ideas), their comparison and analysis of the methodological foundations (identification of the principles underlying them).
An implicit background of traditional concepts was the idea that the basis of technical reality is the mental impulses of people, leading to the implementation of certain behavioral attitudes and setting the main parameters of their technical activity (personal or determined by mass consciousness). In accordance with the intellectual and spiritual context of the industrial era (in which the philosophy of technology was born), the main reason for its functioning was considered to be the intervention of a person seeking to harmonize his existence. But technologies tend to become autonomous: having begun to function to maintain their own ever-increasing complexity, they lose the meanings that originally gave rise to them. Therefore, researchers working on the basis of traditional approaches set the goal of restoring people's control over technology and, after trying to implement various strategies, come to the conclusion that it is impossible to achieve this goal and the inevitable degradation of nature and man. Apparently, the traditional methods of analyzing technology have been exhausted, within the framework of the discourses used in this case, its further analysis is impossible: therefore, their social projects are contradictory.
It is possible to develop other approaches to the study of technology based on different theoretical and methodological principles. These approaches - not displacing, but complementing the traditional ones - will make it possible, on the basis of new models of technology, to reveal its previously unnoticed patterns and propose new global programs. Unconventional approaches will be based on the rejection of the naturalistic interpretation of technology. It is necessary to build a new picture of the world, in which the traditional concepts of nature, technology, and humanity are rethought. On this basis, new types of social action will be proposed.
Results and discussion. Anthropology of technology as a metaphilosophy of technology
The greatest potential for research is possessed by: a socio-natural approach that analyzes nature and human society (generating technology) as steps on a single evolutionary ladder that have common laws of functioning; communicative approach, considering socio-cultural and technical practices as generated by the communication environment; an evolutionary approach that studies natural and technical systems, without taking into account the subjective factor in the development of technology, as successive stages of evolution.
The socio-natural approach considers the development of technology as the adaptation of mankind to the objective laws of the external environment (natural and social). It is argued that the technosphere, created as a result of technical mediation of an ever larger area of human life, as it becomes more complex, naturally leaves the control of mankind. Applying this approach to the analysis of technology, it is possible to solve the following tasks: identification of the complex nature of man-made impacts on the socio-cultural area; determination of the forms of the technogenic environment corresponding to different periods of socio-natural development; analysis of civilizational crises as conflicts between regularity and spontaneity of technical activity caused by their ontological duality [4].
The communicative approach considers social and technical practices on a single basis - as intersubjective communicative practices with a different ratio of material and symbolic components. This explains the property of the technogenic environment not to succumb to arbitrary change and, allowing a certain (enriching the accepted form of communication) degree of controllability, to break out of obedience when attempting to violate this form. Applying this approach to the analysis of technology, it is possible to solve the following tasks: identification of various forms of human determination - technical and non-technical; comparison of the strategies of human life in a technogenic environment - adaptation to it and its changes; consideration of the correspondence of social norms and ideals to different stages of technical development, their ability to accelerate or slow it down [10].
The evolutionary approach considers the modern era as a stage of global evolution, which consists in the concentration of evolutionary potential at the level of technical reality due to the involution of the previous levels - biological and social. The elimination of the subjective factor in the development of technology is carried out through the consideration of humanity as a subsystem of the developing Universe, and technology as the next stage of its development. Applying this approach to the analysis of technology, it is possible to solve the following tasks: identification of the boundary parameters of technical systems by analogy with biological ones; diagnostics of the proposed social strategies against the background of global evolutionary processes; analysis of socio-cultural unification in the context of changes in the stability of the social environment [8].
Having stated various approaches in the philosophy of technology and showing the incompatibility of their basic provisions, these differences should be derived from deeper foundations - anthropological. Since technology is a creation of man, and modern man is increasingly an object of technology, their consideration is interrelated. The principles of anthropology, formulated over thousands of years of discussions, penetrating into the field of philosophy of technology, give rise to various ideas about the regularity and validity of the transformation of nature, about the goal of technical progress, about the admissibility of the transformation of man himself to adapt to the technical environment, etc. The incompatibility of philosophical approaches to the study of technology is inevitable, since there is no single idea of a person. A purely philosophical study of technology is impossible: the analysis of any problem that has a technogenic factor inevitably turns into a discussion about the essence of man, about the meaning of his activity. The formation of the anthropology of technology (as a philosophical direction that studies the relationship between man and technology, showing their mutual conditionality and creating new forms of their presentation) is a necessary stage in the development of modern philosophical knowledge. As a result, philosophers expand the concept of technology to the limits of human activity and show that with its help our society and our thinking were created. The multifactorial nature of understanding modern processes is inevitable, therefore the technique is analyzed using a set of philosophical approaches. As a result, developing a metaphilosophy of technology that unites all the diversity of these approaches and explains their mutual correspondence, we will analyze the anthropological foundations of technical activity and get an anthropology of technology that reveals man as the creator of technology.
Conclusion. Towards a technological turn
So, the development of new philosophical approaches to the analysis of technology and their metaphilosophical synthesis is a promising direction of philosophy, allowing it to return public attention to its developments. But in order to carry out this research program, philosophy itself will have to change and reveal new aspects.
We see how science is technologized in a technogenic society. For the modern type of scientific rationality, the concept of "technoscience" is proposed: its goal is not to understand the object of research, but to design it. The contemplative position of classical science is replaced by a new, activity-based paradigm: technoscience is not looking for a description of an independent reality, but a means of its recreation [11]. Shouldn't philosophy, while retaining its culture-forming features, supplement them with technological capabilities, mastering new methods and setting new goals? If by technology we mean any ways to improve human life, then philosophy is undoubtedly one of the technologies. Classical philosophy was directly viewed as a kind of logical conveyor leading from preconditions to practical conclusions: first, recipes for improving the inner world of a person, then - improving the outer world. In the XX century in non-classical philosophy there was a rejection of the activity orientation - a linguistic turn: the analysis of language becomes a means of solving philosophical problems. It was argued that all knowledge exists only when it is expressed through language; therefore, the understanding of reality depends on the language and the idea of it can be obtained only by examining the language. The abandonment of the traditional understanding of the tasks of philosophy took place gradually. At first, it was argued that traditional philosophical problems are a consequence of the misuse of language, therefore, the exact expression of our knowledge of the world is impossible without clearing the language of "pseudo-statements". Then the hypothesis of Sapir-Whorf was proclaimed that language forms a picture of the world for a person, and reality outside of language is inaccessible to us. Philosophy courses began to start not with ontology, but with semantics; the understanding of language as the ultimate ontological basis of thinking and activity led to the rejection of the concept of the truth of statements. Finally, the main function of language was recognized as a communicative one, and philosophy went into the analysis of "language games" and the subtleties of deconstruction. All these stages of the linguistic turn have further alienated philosophy from urgent modern problems and turned it into an intellectual game that is interesting and understandable to an extremely narrow circle. Shouldn't the philosophy of the XXI century take a new turn, returning to the actual problems of human life?
In this case, the general technologization of culture may turn out to be a useful counterbalance to the "weaving of words", recalling the many unsolved problems. The return to the original purpose of philosophy as a science of the right life can be called a technological turn. Instead of the skeptical smile of postmodernism, which fundamentally denies the concept of truth and personality, we have to return to simple but eternal questions listed by I. Kant: "What can I know? What can I do? What can I hope for? " These "naive" questions, from which philosophy began, have attracted the hearts and minds of people to it for centuries; the search for a worthy goal in life and morally correct means to achieve it is also a technology in the broad sense of the word that deserves attention.
The philosophy of technology here can turn out to be the forefront of the technological turn. Dealing with the analysis of ends and means, reflecting the real results of human activity and identifying the dangers standing in the way of civilization, the philosophy of technology cannot get away from reality and take global problems for language games. Seriousness will replace irony, choosing the right action will replace a plurality of discourses. The infinity of dialogue can take place when the participants are alive. Awareness of the possible absence of a common future is the best way to return to the search for an answer, and the experience of technical innovation will show how choices are made in the face of uncertainty. This is not the first time that people have to act in the unknown; science has already developed rules that allow, if it is impossible to accurately predict the results of our actions, to optimize the possible consequences. We can mention at least the minimax principle proposed by game theory - "choose such an action, the worst effect of which is better than the worst consequences of other options". Not being able to know the absolute truth, a person is forced to make a choice of a civilizational path: just as a technical decision is made despite the lack of consensus, in search of the best option available, philosophy as a whole will find a way to combine the pluralism of philosophical teachings with the definition of a single plan of activity. Otherwise, philosophy may perish - together with humanity, who did not dare to take responsibility for themselves and complete the search for truth by choosing a civilizational path and serving the main goal - survival and development.
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