Demarcation and categorization of technologies: a philosophical and methodological approach

Abstract

In philosophical and methodological scientific research at the field of philosophy of technol­ogy, it is necessary to correctly name and distinguish technological spheres, simple and complex technologies, and techniques. The spontaneously established practice of naming technologies and techniques does not always meet the objectives of scientific research, be­cause it is not fully rigorous and based on uniform, reasonable and sustainable technological categories. This problem is particularly acute in the field of technologies that go beyond the boundaries of human proportionality and are not directly observed, in particular, in socio-humanitarian technologies. The article describes a possible methodological approach to solving this problem through the allocation of basic technological categories on the example of material technology, known from the philosophical writings of Aristotle and Heidegger; describes such technological categories as “technological chain”, “material”, “goal”, “mas­ter”, “form”, “tool” and “method”; a four-part technological categorization is proposed, in­cluding an indication of the purpose, material, method, tool and allowing to define the tech­nology; the similarity of material technologies and non-material (socio-humanitarian) is stated; promising philosophical and methodological problems of “merging of the master and the tool”, “expansion of the technological subject” are indicated; the principal possibility of using the declared categorization is substantiated by examples in the field of both material technology and non-material; the necessity of “softening” terminological correction when using technological categories in the socio-humanitarian sphere is described; the range from “art” to “artificial” in technology is shown; possible directions for further research are set.