论技术与现代性的割裂与融通

Technology and Modernity:From Separation to Integration

在当代技术哲学研究中,"技术与现代性"是一个重要前沿性学术主题。技术与现代性之间存在密切联系,技术使现代性成为可能,塑造并推动着现代性前进;现代性则提供了理解技术的基本理论框架,对现代技术的认识与反思不能脱离其现代性背景。然而,分别以二者为研究对象的技术研究和现代性理论目前却处于割裂状态,主要表现在:现代性理论对技术做了宏观、抽象的本质主义处理,在现代性的制度和文化两重维度中,技术被视作使社会制度框架或者文化认识运作和变化的隐性背景和工具,而没有被置于作现代性主要角色的应有位置。以微观案例分析为导向的当代技术研究则忽视了技术发展的宏观社会结构和现代性文化背景,不足以揭示技术发展动力问题。技术与现代性之间的融通需要跨越宏观和微观、结构和行动者之间的鸿沟。

＂Technology and modernity＂ is an important issue in contemporary philosophy ot technology, Technology and modernity are closely related to each other： technology makes modernity possible, shaping and driving the advance of modernity; modernity provides an indispensible theoretical framework for understanding modern technology. However, technology studies and modernity theory are currently separated from one anoth- er. In the modernity theories, technology is treated in a macro, abstract and essentialist way. In the institu- tional and cultural dimensions of modernity, technology （which should have been placed in the right position as a main aspect of modernity） is only regarded as the framework of the social system or as the hidden back- ground and tool for the operation and transformation of cultural understandings. The contemporary technology studies, which are dominated by micro-case analyses, ignore the macro social structure and cultural back- ground of modernity, failing to reveal the driving force of technological development. Therefore, the integration of technology and modernity depends on bridging the gaps between macro and micro dimensions and between the structure and actors.