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Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought - Hardcover

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9780262230780: Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought

Synopsis

The truth of the matter is that our deficiency does not lie in the want of well-verified "facts." What we lack is our bearings. The contemporary experience of things technological has repeatedly confounded our vision, our expectations, and our capacity to make intelligent judgments. Categories, arguments, conclusions, and choices that would have been entirely obvious in earlier times are obvious no longer. Patterns of perceptive thinking that were entirely reliable in the past now lead us systematically astray. Many of our standard conceptions of technology reveal a disorientation that borders on dissociation from reality. And as long as we lack the ability to make our situation intelligible, all of the "data" in the world will make no difference. ;From the Introduction

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About the Author

Langdon Winner is the Thomas Phelan Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Review

"Readers interested in technology, politics, and social change will find Autonomous Technology a useful guide and a thoughtful inquiry into the relationship between technology and society. In it, Winner outlines the paradoxes of technological development, the images of alienation and liberation evoked by machines, and he assesses the historical conditions underlying the exponential growth of technology. Winner brings together the ideas of several gifted observers of industrial society, among them Karl Marx, Lewis Mumford, Jacques Ellul, Herbert Marcuse, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Hannah Arendt, pointing up the importance (and shortcomings) of their thinking on technological and technocratic development. In asking the question, What have we created?, Winner evokes the myths of Frankenstein and Prometheus to illustrate the possibility that we may all face a permanent bondage to our own inventions. To answer the question, What is to be done about what we have created?, Winner explores the possibilities offered by epistemological luddism. "The author, an assistant professor of political science, has read the many artists and social scientists concerned with the consequences of uncontrolled technological development. But his inspiration is also fed by the anti-technological reactions he witnessed in the early sixties..... The book is extremely well documented and written." Sociology



"This study of the idea of technology out of control makes an important contribution to our understanding of the problems of civilization. The basic argument is not that some persons or groups promote technology against the public interest (true though that is), or even that our technology develops in its own way in spite of all our efforts to control it (also true in some respects). Rather, Winner is concerned with a more subtle effect: the artifacts that we have invented to satisfy our material wants have now developed, in size and complexity, to the point of delimiting or even determining our conception of the wants themselves. In that way, we as a civilization are losing mastery over our own tools.... "As a source for readings and reflections on this problem, the book is rich and rewarding.... If it has a practical lesson, it is that of awareness: only by recognizing the boundaries of our socially constructed scientific-technological reality can we transcend them in imagination and then achieve effective human action." Jerome R. Ravetz Science

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9780262730495: Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought

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ISBN 10:  0262730499 ISBN 13:  9780262730495
Publisher: MIT Press, 1978
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ISBN 10: 026223078X ISBN 13: 9780262230780
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Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Missing dust jacket; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1.3. Seller Inventory # G026223078XI4N01

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hardcover. Condition: Good. Hardcover with dust jacket. DJ has mild edge wear and chipping as well as sun fading along the spine, but remains in overall good condition and is now housed in a protective mylar cover. Book is bound in black cloth over boards with silver lettering down the spine. Covers are crisp and clean. Corners are square. Binding is tight and secure. Sparse pencil annotations throughout, thought they do not effect readability. Pages have a very mild tine, but are otherwise crisp and clean. 386 pages. The MIT Press. No publication date on the title page. Copyright page dated 1977. A good copy. We ship everyday from a real neighborhood bookstore. This description is written by an actual person, who is holding the book in front of them to make sure it?s properly described. Please contact us with questions or if you would like to see photographs. Seller Inventory # F-13731

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Hardcover. Condition: Fair. Dust Jacket Condition: Dj+. Fair. Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought (0), Vol. 0 by Langdon Winner. The MIT Press, 1977. 396pp. Language: English. Note: Extensive markup of the text. Binding is strong. No loose, torn or missing pages. Seller Inventory # 00016625

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Winner, Langdon:
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gebundene Ausgabe. Condition: Gut. 386 Seiten Das hier angebotene Buch stammt aus einer teilaufgelösten Bibliothek und kann die entsprechenden Kennzeichnungen aufweisen (Rückenschild, Instituts-Stempel.); der Buchzustand ist ansonsten ordentlich und dem Alter entsprechend gut. In ENGLISCHER Sprache. Sprache: Englisch Gewicht in Gramm: 555. Seller Inventory # 2222586

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Hardcover. Condition: new. Excellent Condition.Excels in customer satisfaction, prompt replies, and quality checks. Seller Inventory # Scanned026223078X

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