Technology: critical history of a concept

In modern life, technology is everywhere. Yet as a concept, technology is a mess. In popular discourse, technology is little more than the latest digital innovations.

Scholars do little better, offering up competing definitions that include everything from steelmaking to singing.

Eric Schatzberg explains why technology is so difficult to define by examining its 3000 year history, one shaped by persistent tensions between scholars and technical practitioners.

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, scholars have tended to hold technicians in low esteem, defining technical practices as mere means toward ends defined by others.

Technicians, in contrast, have repeatedly pushed back against this characterisation, insisting on the dignity, creativity, and cultural worth of their work.