Philosophical Analysis of the Laws of the Existence of Technology: Foreign Experience

The article is a continuation of the philosophical consideration of the laws of the existence of technology. In the previous article, an attempt was made to briefly analyze the domestic developments of the laws of the technical phenomenon in order to identify a common approach to understanding the stable cause-and-effect relationships by which technology is supposed to exist. As a result, the author forwards a hypothesis that the laws of technology are closely related to its source, it is by them that the essence of technology is determined: its form, capabilities, mode of existence, etc. He also makes two assumptions: nature and man can be such sources and, in this regard, notes the ancient developments of the essence of the technique of the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle. Plato, as you know, defended the natural origin of technology, objective, and Aristotle – human, subjective. The author concludes that the question of the source of the phenomenon of technology is still probably unresolved. In this article, he makes an attempt to briefly consider the foreign experience of analyzing the laws of technology, in order to identify its features and results. First of all, the supposed peculiarity of the approach of Western analysts is noted – its empirical nature. This refers to their attempt to identify the empirical laws of technology, in contrast to domestic scientists who gravitated to the theoretical formulations of these laws. The article does not aim to establish the success or failure of theoretical or empirical approaches to the analysis of technology, but only attempts to show the possibilities of empirical consideration of its laws of technology, which Western scientists and engineers adhere to and develop. Computer technology was taken as an example of such an analysis, because it is supposed to be the most developed, and therefore the most advanced type of modern technology. At the same time, the author considers the period from the beginning of the 50s of the XX century to 2007 - the time of the supposed greatest interest in the study of the laws of computer technology. Based on the conducted brief analysis, a conclusion is made about the probable cognitive possibilities and results of the Western empirical approach.