Abstract

This paper traces the genealogies of technology as common logics in society. While any obvious form of discrimination will usually be criticised in a modern society with democratic values, formal bias, rooted in the institutions of society can only be discovered in a larger context, one that requires revealing the substantive, often forgotten historic context. This paper sets out to show how technology is inherently social, how the historic and contemporary social contexts exert a significant influence over the attitude towards technology, and it reflects on some consequences: throughout history, philosophies of technology served social elites. What is considered knowledge and truth and thus the social reality of the time is connected to power from its very origin through a web of social forces, making technologies inherently bias. In modern times, rationality is biasing knowledge and criticising technological rationality becomes a critique of the entire social value system and its political structure. Latest philosophies of technologies start to escape this automatism while remaining critical. While technology critique remains social critique in an economic context, the latest philosophies of technology develop their theories on a micro level offering lay pockets of criticism.