French Philosophy of Technology by Sacha Loeve Xavier Guchet & Bernadette Bensaude Vincent

Author:Sacha Loeve, Xavier Guchet & Bernadette Bensaude Vincent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

In addition, however “independent” it may be, a fabricated object never functions all on its own, it requires what we may term an associated environment: in order for a train to roll, it requires rails, and these must be adapted to the topography of the place where the railway-line has been built. Similarly, a large number of technical objects that we use daily (domestic electrical appliances, telephones, computers…) only function because of technical mega-systems which aliment them in electricity, or which transmit electro-magnetic waves. Thus fabrication requires conjoint operations of abstraction (from the natural conditions in which the object will be introduced), standardization (so that it can be used across a broad range of contexts), and inter-operability (for it to be compatible with other technical objects and with its “associated milieu”). Now the varied contexts of use of a technical object are not without importance: the success of Peugeot motors in North Africa was due to their high performance in arid climates. There are many anecdotes which illustrate how technical objects have found uses which were in no way foreseen by those who conceived them. For example, certain scissors made in France in the eighteenth century were composed of steel so poorly tempered that they were hardly able to cut; in spite (or because) of this they sold very well in Turkey where their buyers used them to snuff candles (Clicquot de Blervache and Vincent de Gournay 1758: 94). The use and the context (both natural and social) in which they intervene are thus decisive elements in the forms of existence of any technical object.

Always under the threat of failure, the arts of doing-with can also have unintended effects on their natural environment. However, in contrast to objects produced in the mode of fabrication, objects in the doing-with mode systematically involve taking full account of the context (i.e. the complex natural environment and the equally complex social environment) in which they are inscribed, as a clear condition for having any chance at all of succeeding. Thus they structurally presuppose interventions which take into account the evolution of the piloted system in its relation to its context, whether this evolution is unfavorable (thus requiring corrective action) or, as sometimes happens, fortuitously favorable (in which case it is important to take advantage of the situation). This holds even when the action is controlled at a distance, as is the case for example in contemporary long-distance sailing races: piloting (here in the literal sense of steering a course) remains a form of intervention where knowledge of the context is decisive. This can be seen as a limiting case where the attempt to “fabricate” the course from a terrestrial control post still cannot avoid taking into account the local data in all their singularity.

Piloting is an approach which is attentive, empirical and precautionary, so sensitive to the context of production that it must always be adapted to local conditions and can hardly be reproduced identically. In agriculture, when one does not try and force

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