Arun Tripathi

In the last three decades, a cultural perspective has been used to understand scientific knowledge and technology. This relatively new perspective has introduced literature on the ethical dimension to the development of technology, which are embedded in techniques, tools and artifacts. Today, more than ever, there is an urgent need to comprehend the global ramifications of modernization. In this paper, we make an attempt to look at science and technology based on culture, wisdom, ecology and ethical values. We move towards reviewing and consolidating significant literature on philosophy of technology and culture within contemporary times. Furthermore, this article touches upon the transformative power of technologies in relation to modernity.

Technology is inextricably woven into the social and cultural fabric of different cultures. Tool use technologies, created and used by our pre-sapiens relatives, preceded us by more than a million years. There are no human cultures that are pre-technological. All humans have a material culture with complexly patterned praxes involving artifacts; we have only recently begun to appreciate the completely of even what may be called technologically mediated cultures. Technologies either magnify or amplify human experiences and can change the ways we live. This non-neutral, transformative power of humans enhanced by technologies is essential feature of the human–technology relations. Technologies are the extension of our bodies. The technological form of life is part and parcel of culture, just as culture in the human sense inevitably implies technologies. Every technology, as a word, has a signifier and a meaning. The signifier can be seen as the hardware of the technology, while the meaning can be conceived of as the uses and the functions that the technology performs. However, a technology, like many words, tends to be ambiguous, that is its meaning is mutable. As a consequence, in order to make sense, a technology calls for a cultural context where to be embedded. In this essay, I will demonstrate how this relationship can be articulated and their main theoretical implications for the study of new technologies give rise to ethics.

In the last three decades, a cultural perspective has been used to understand scientific knowledge and technology. This relatively new perspective has introduced literature on the ethical dimension to the development of technology, which are embedded in techniques, tools and artifacts. Today, more than ever, there is an urgent need to comprehend the global ramifications of modernization. In this paper, we make an attempt to look at science and technology based on culture, wisdom, ecology and ethical values. We move towards reviewing and consolidating significant literature on philosophy of technology and culture within contemporary times. Furthermore, this article touches upon the transformative power of technologies in relation to modernity.