This is the article I presented at last week’s Wumen seminar. The article itself is very incomplete—not only has it not been finished in form, but the key problem is the lack of basic literature: in academia, the issues related to “technological revolution” seem to lack discussions worth citing. Of course, this gives reason to suspect that there may be problems with the very legitimacy of my topic; Teacher Wu also questioned it quite strongly. But I myself still think this question is legitimate, and that the concept of “technological revolution” is indeed worth probing in depth.
My article itself merely makes a superficial correspondence with Kuhn; this correspondence is successful, but I have not yet unfolded and clarified the meaning of these correspondences. I also give some hints in the text, which involve reexamining what technology actually is—and the relationship between science and technology. Teacher Wu insists on the “scientific monism” that science alone is fundamental, and therefore doubts extending theories of the history of science to the history of technology, whereas I think that science is a special case of technology, analogous to the uniqueness of any unique technology. In that case, the history of science should logically belong under the history of technology, and the theory of the history of technology can of course be extended to the history of science. Notice that the above two views are not contradictory: even if the history of science is a special case subordinate to the history of technology, then is the phenomenon of “scientific revolution” peculiar only to this special case, or does general history of technology also have similar phenomena? That still needs to be explored. So it is meaningful for me to make such a “correspondence,” because establishing this correspondence proves that the phenomenon of scientific revolution is not quite so special.
I had originally planned to revise this article some more before publishing it, but on reflection I’d better leave it as it is for now. Later on I will write an article to discuss the question of the “one and many” in the history of science and the history of technology; this is also the focus of disagreement between Teacher Wu and me. A point like this cannot be made properly in one or two articles, so let’s discuss it slowly~
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The Structure of the Technological Revolution
We are not unfamiliar with the term “technological revolution.” This term has roughly two uses. One refers to a global, epochal transformation, close to “industrial revolution” or “industrial transformation”: the First Industrial Revolution was a technological revolution, and what is now happening is the Third or Fourth Industrial Revolution, that is, the information technology revolution. Another use refers to major changes within a particular local field, such as a technological revolution in agriculture, a technological revolution in mining, a technological revolution in the fruit-juice processing industry, and so on.
Generally speaking, we can understand what this term means. Compared with expressions such as “technological improvement” or “technological change,” “technological revolution” obviously intends to express a more intense, more subversive kind of transformation.
But in the study of the history of technology, the connotation of the concept “technological revolution” has not yet been fully elucidated. What exactly is a technological revolution? How does one determine whether a technological revolution has taken place? And what significance does a technological revolution have for the history of technology or the history of human civilization? These questions still await further elaboration.
By contrast, the concept of “scientific revolution” has received far more development, especially Kuhn’s *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*, which linked the history of science with the philosophy of science. From then on, “scientific revolution” was not merely a question for the history of science, but also a question for the philosophy of science; the concept of “scientific revolution” concerns not only the understanding of specific scientific achievements, but also the understanding of what science actually is. In Kuhn’s view, science is not a set of propositions about truth that can be continuously accumulated, but rather the practical activity carried out by a scientific community under the guidance of a “paradigm.”
Then does the concept of “technological revolution” also concern not only evaluations of specific technological achievements, but also philosophical reflection on what technology actually is?
Kuhn’s *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions* and its concepts of “paradigm,” “incommensurability,” and so on did not merely influence the fields of the history of science and philosophy of science in the second half of the twentieth century; they also had broad influence in the history of religion, art history, anthropology, cultural studies, and so forth. So can Kuhn’s paradigm theory also be extended to the field of the history of technology? Do scientific revolution and technological revolution have similar structures and significance?
There are many reasons to prevent us from carrying out this analogy. Technology and science seem to differ in many ways. For example, science seems to be singular, with a clear direction, whereas technology is plural, with each technology having its own direction of development. Or again, science has a relatively clear theoretical system, whereas technology seems unrelated to theoretical knowledge. Yet again, science concerns right and wrong, whereas technology does not.
However, after a deeper examination of paradigm theory, all of the above separations are broken down. We discover that science also has plurality, and technology also has unity; the core of a paradigm is not explicit rules within a theoretical system, but pre-theoretical modes of practice; and the victory or defeat of old and new science before and after a scientific revolution does not lie in right or wrong.
The difference between science and technology may not be so great after all. If we regard modern science as a special case of one branch of technology, one of the consequences of modern technology, then the scientific revolution can be seen as a special case of the technological revolution. Thus, extending the theory of scientific revolution to technological revolution is precisely a kind of “generalization”—scientific revolution is a special instance of technological revolution.
We may as well begin with Kuhn’s doctrine and explore in what senses scientific revolution and technological revolution are interconnected.
Historiographical Revolution
At the beginning of *The Structure*, Kuhn already expressed his intention to change the image of science in people’s minds by retelling history: “If history were viewed as anything more than an annalistic or anecdotal repository, it could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed.”[1]
Kuhn pointed out that the difficulties and dissatisfaction encountered by traditional, linear-accumulative, Whiggish history of science led to a historiographical revolution in the field of the history of science, with the result that “the historian of science no longer seeks the everlasting contribution of an older science to our present superior position but tries instead to display the historical integrity of that science in its own time.”[2]
In the history of technology, the situation is similar. With the development of the history of technology as a discipline in the second half of the twentieth century, the linear-accumulative historical model gradually became outdated. Historians of technology no longer focus on the chronology of technological achievements, but instead try to return to historical context and examine technological change within the corresponding cultural environment.
Thus, the history of technology pays more attention not only to the invention and manufacturing process of technological artifacts themselves, but also to the interactive process between technological things and their social and cultural environments.
As Kuhn said, the shift from Whiggish narrative to contextualized narrative is not merely a change in narrative style, but also reflects a reunderstanding of the object being narrated: science is no longer treated as something self-subsistent, suspended outside the social and cultural environment, and scientific revolutions are no longer measured solely from within science itself. Correspondingly, technological revolution is no longer merely the business of the technological artifact itself, but must be examined holistically within its historical context.
For the history of science, the representative figure of the new historiographical mode is Koyré; for the history of technology, Mumford is an important pioneer.
Mumford criticized other historians of technology for often paying too much attention to the internal history of technology while neglecting the broader historical context. Even Marx, who earliest perceived the cultural significance of technology, overlooked culture’s作用 upon technology.[3] Mumford pointed out that the history of technology “should give a more complete picture, portraying how human nature and the technological environment have co-evolved.”[4]
Within this historical picture, the significance of technological change is reexamined. Mumford, in discussing the invention of machines, pointed out: “From the beginning, the most enduring conquests of the machine were not to be found in the tools and instruments themselves—they quickly became obsolete; nor in the produced goods—they quickly were consumed; but in the modes of living that were embodied within the machine or made possible by it.”[5] “The meaning of the machine is not restricted to its actual accomplishments, … technology has become a creative force … it quickly organizes a new environment and forms a kind of third realm between nature and the human arts; it is not merely a faster way of accomplishing old purposes, but an effective way of allowing new purposes to be expressed—in short, the machine advances a new mode of life.”[6]
In this historical view, the significance of technology is not confined to its own purpose. For example, the significance of the clock is not merely that it provides more accurate timekeeping, but that it establishes around the clock the idea of punctuality and a rigid rhythm of life; the significance of the factory assembly line is not merely that it provides related products faster and in greater quantity, but that it wholly transformed the social environment and way of life constituted by groups such as capitalists, workers, and consumers.
Kuhn pointed out: “Discoveries such as oxygen or X-rays are not just additions to the world of the scientists.”[7] Likewise, inventions such as the clock and the steam engine are not merely additions to the world of technology users. The history of technology is not only about recording the appearance of one new thing after another; it must also focus on the mutual influence between these new things and their corresponding historical contexts.
Just like scientific revolution theory, technological revolution must also be examined within this contextualized historical picture.
Normal Periods
Before examining scientific revolutions, Kuhn first defined the concept of “normal science”: only during normal periods is scientific development cumulative and governed by certain norms.
Kuhn pointed out that what guides the development of science in normal periods is not explicit rules, but a “paradigm.” “Rules derive from paradigms, but paradigms can guide research even in the absence of rules.”[8]
“Paradigm” in Kuhn has multiple meanings; in its most basic sense it refers to “universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners.”[9]
By using the term “paradigm,” Kuhn emphasized the “pre-rules” dimension of scientific activity. What determines whether a beginner is qualified to join a scientific community is not how many formulas or data he has memorized, but whether he can take his predecessors as models and carry out research practice by imitating them step by step.
Can the concept of “paradigm” also be used in the realm of technological activity? In a certain sense, technology is even more suitable for the concept of “paradigm” than science, because technological activity is closer from the outset to practical activity, and the transmission of technology often takes place more clearly through imitation of examples.
The paradigm Kuhn speaks of, like the concept of scientific revolution, can be broad or narrow in scope. Chemistry has its paradigms, and organic chemistry has its paradigms. Each specific scientific field has a certain community, and thus a certain paradigm.
As for technology, “paradigm” can also be broad or narrow; the scope of the “paradigm” depends on the scope of the corresponding “community.” Does technology, like science, also have communities organized around a certain technology? Of course it does. Just as communities of physicists, chemists, and so on are distinguished from one another through specific scientific fields, groups such as farmers, chefs, plumbers, blue-collar workers, literate people, internet users, smartphone users, programmers, and so on are organized into different technological communities, some looser, some more cohesive.
The significance of a scientific paradigm or a technological paradigm alike lies in providing participants with guidance on “how to do things.” Scientific paradigms often appear as canonical texts or textbooks, but this does not mean that the entire community must share one specific textbook, or that the writing of all textbooks must follow the same rules.
As Kuhn said, each community is not defined by a fixed set of rules, nor by some common “essence”; what sustains a community is what later Wittgenstein called “family resemblance.”[10] Defining the boundaries of a community is more of a sociological problem, and is difficult to adjudicate by objective standards.
Every technological artifact has its prototype. For instance, a typical pen is cylindrical, held in the hand with the tip pointing downward to write on paper. But these “prototypes” are not explicit rules or fixed essences; specific pens can vary enormously, and there is no single feature common to all of them. The technology of the pen is defined and recognized through prototypical writing activity, and is transmitted through learning and imitation among writers.
In any case, the members of a community always share to some degree a “common language” or similar habits of behavior, and can to some extent be distinguished from other groups.
Solving Puzzles
Kuhn pointed out that the function of a paradigm is not only to attract a group of people to imitate it, but also to indicate a direction for these participants, raising problems to be solved and corresponding criteria of evaluation. Normal scientific research carried out under a certain paradigm is what Kuhn calls “puzzle-solving.”
A “puzzle” is like a jigsaw puzzle: it is always a game guided by a certain “way of playing,” and solutions beyond the paradigm are not expected. The formation of a paradigm does not solve all problems; on the contrary, it begins to pose problems to us.
Kuhn said: “The criterion by which we judge a puzzle to be good is not whether its outcome is intrinsically interesting or important. On the contrary, genuinely urgent problems, such as the design of a cure for cancer or of a lasting peace, are not ordinarily puzzles at all, … But the assurance that there is a solution is what makes the game worth playing.”[11]
Technological paradigms also point the way for technological development. For example, the kitchen knife points us to the problem of cutting vegetables; only when cutting vegetables has become possible does the question of how to cut vegetables better become a problem. Then we can improve the technique of using the knife, or improve its manufacturing process or structural form, trying to make cutting vegetables more delicate, safer, less laborious, and so on. If there were no technology at all like the kitchen knife, then for primitive tribes who eat raw flesh and drink blood, there would simply be no problem of cutting vegetables, and they would even find it hard to understand the concept of “vegetables” as we use it.
Only after there are houses do the problems of making dwelling more comfortable arise; only after telephones do the problems of improving call quality and reducing noise arise; only after newspapers and radio do the problems of disseminating news more rapidly and widely arise; only after computers do the problems of making programs run more efficiently arise…
Rather than saying that each technology solves a set of problems, it is better to say that each technology provides a set of problems. Technology has never completely solved any problem. Each technology points toward a corresponding purpose, but its achievement of that purpose is always imperfect, always leaving people less than fully satisfied, and thus always leaving room for further technological development.
Like normal science, the requirements and rules posed by technological paradigms stimulate technological improvement. This is technological development during normal periods, a development that is cumulative and directional. For example, computer chips moving from 286 to 386, monitor resolution from 640×480 to 1024×768—these are all normal technological improvements. During normal periods, people can often judge quite clearly what counts as progress.
Anomaly and Crisis
But cumulative progress during normal periods is not always smooth sailing. Kuhn pointed out that scientific revolutions gradually brew in the anomalies and crises encountered by normal science.
An anomaly refers to the fact that “nature always in some way violates the expectations that paradigms, as indirects, laid down for normal science.”[12] That is to say, human inquiry encounters resistance from nature; “nature” does not always conform to human expectations.
There is no objective boundary between anomalies and puzzles. In fact, anomalies are first mostly regarded as puzzles awaiting conquest. Only when repeated efforts to conquer a certain puzzle within the normal paradigm keep failing do people begin to regard this phenomenon as a “new discovery” outside the normal paradigm.
And as more and more anomalous phenomena cannot be accommodated by the old paradigm, people increasingly lose confidence in solving these anomalous problems according to the directions indicated by the old paradigm; this forms a “crisis.” Some crises can ultimately be resolved through digging deeper into or improving the old paradigm, while at other times the crisis ultimately triggers a scientific revolution and can only be resolved under a new paradigm that eventually succeeds.
The theory of anomaly and crisis does not seem easy to introduce into the domain of the history of technology, because technology does not seem intended to explain natural phenomena. Yet in the sense that normal development encounters resistance from nature, technological development also runs into “accidents” and “bottlenecks.”
For example, ractopamine was originally developed as a drug for treating asthma, while its function of making pork leaner was accidental; likewise, the insecticidal properties and environmental harms of DDT were all new discoveries that deviated from the normal expectations of technological development. Under normal development, DDT-related technology as an insecticide was also continuously improving—for instance, how to reduce the cost of manufacturing DDT, how to spray it more efficiently, and so on. But once its unintended toxicity was discovered, and once more and more people realized that this problem could not be resolved through ordinary improvements (such as greater purification in preparation or changes in spraying technique), the normal development of DDT had to be interrupted, and it was eventually replaced by some new technology.
At other times, the ordinary development of technology runs up against resistance from the natural or social environment and comes to a halt. For example, once refracting telescopes developed to a certain point, the problems caused by chromatic dispersion could never really be improved away; the crucible method of iron smelting likewise found it hard to separate fuel from the iron. In the end, only a new technology could solve these problems. Trying to improve a refracting telescope in the old way—say, by improving the lens material—would hardly get you a reflecting telescope.
Sometimes the obstacles faced by an old technology are, in principle, capable of gradual improvement, but people may nonetheless lose patience with that and turn instead to demanding a new way of doing things. For example, the problem of manuscript copying errors everywhere could be improved by strengthening scribes’ training in copying and proofreading, but in the end more people would rather establish printing workshops than continue training scribes.
A new paradigm always raises new questions or sets new directions for development in ways the old paradigm can hardly accommodate; yet a new paradigm never appears out of thin air. It is always already brewing within the old paradigm. So it is with technological development: no new technology appears out of nowhere. Each new technology gives a new set of purposes or standards, opens up a new way of life, but these new things can always find continuity in their predecessors.
Revolution and Incommensurability
Kuhn calls the transformation between old and new paradigms a “scientific revolution.” His use of the word “revolution” is a conscious analogy to political revolution. He points out: “The aim of political revolutions is to alter political institutions in ways that those institutions themselves prohibit.”[13]
This is what is meant by “incommensurability,” because the standard for judging which solution is better is itself part of the paradigm. Between two different paradigms, there is no shared standard by which to measure the merits, faults, or correctness of the two.
For example, the Copernican system is to some extent simpler than the Ptolemaic system, and it solved the problem of planetary order, but it also brought new problems such as those of physics and stellar parallax. At the dawn of a new paradigm, the reasons people accept it are often not objectively rational; the new paradigm does not prevail because it is more “correct.” Its triumph is more a matter of social psychology.
New technology, of course, also does not prevail because it is “correct,” nor even because it is more “effective.” Whether one speaks of correct, effective, simple, advanced, or anything else, any standard of judgment is itself supplied by the corresponding paradigm. Only within the same paradigm can the merits and demerits of technology be measured. For example, the 586 chip was better than the 286 chip. But under different technological paradigms, there is no fixed basis for comparison. For instance, printed books are easier to standardize and more public than handwritten books, but handwritten books have more beautiful script and greater collectible value. Or take the classic Nokia phone and the iPhone: which is better? If we measure them by the old paradigm—on such standards as call clarity, signal stability, battery life, and other criteria once used to judge mobile phones—the iPhone is far behind. People accustomed to a lifestyle organized around old mobile phones initially find it hard to accept the iPhone. Only after becoming accustomed to the new way of life established by smartphones do people begin to understand the advantages of the iPhone. This is precisely the incommensurability of technological revolution: one cannot judge new technology by the standards used to measure old technology. Old and new technologies have different usage scenarios and construct different lifeworlds.
For example, a coup launched in the court may ultimately affect the history of all Britain, and even of Europe. Just like political revolutions, scientific or technological revolutions often begin in a particular small circle. The Copernican revolution, for instance, was initially confined to a tiny group of professional mathematicians, yet in the end it triggered a transformation of the entire scientific field and even of people’s worldview.
The same is true of technological revolution. A technological revolution may initially arise only in a narrow field dealing with some specific matter—for instance, the steam engine’s earliest applications were limited to improving mining efficiency, and trains were initially used only to haul coal or for entertainment. But revolutions in these fields eventually produced wide-ranging effects.
This is because no science or technology exists in isolation. Between a certain community and its social environment, between a certain way of life and other aspects of human life, there are always cross-linked ties. And reshaping the relations among these things is one of the important consequences of “revolution.” The Copernican revolution, for instance, severed the link between physics and ethics while establishing the link between physics and astronomy; the blast-furnace method of steelmaking dissolved the relation between the steel industry and charcoal, while establishing the relation between the steel industry and coal mining; the automobile linked the petroleum industry, manufacturing, and tourism, while cutting the connection between horse-keeping and travel…
Therefore scientific or technological revolution is not something accomplished in a single instant. More often, it is a gradually spreading process that sets the whole upon a hair.
In the course of revolution, there is often a chaotic landscape of old and new existing side by side: the faithful of the old paradigm try to hold fast to their positions, while the followers of the new paradigm do their utmost to proclaim a bright future. It is hard for the contending paradigms to find a neutral arbiter. Oral-culture people in Plato’s time would accuse writing of damaging memory; today’s elderly people likewise lament, to the point of deep distress, that the young are addicted to the internet.
Even by the standards of the new paradigm, when a new technology first emerges it is not necessarily superior to the old one. Is the automobile more convenient than the horse-drawn carriage? That depends not only on the nature of the automobile itself, but also on the corresponding environment. In a place with no gas stations, no parking spaces, where one can find carriage drivers but not chauffeurs, and where the roads are designed specifically for horse-drawn carriages, the automobile is probably not any more convenient than the carriage. No technology is an isolated device; behind it there is always an entire ecological chain of mutually linked relations. Steam engines, trains, electricity, and the like, when they first appeared in isolation as novelties, were nothing more than toys of unclear meaning.
So, before a new paradigm settles into place, why do its earliest followers choose to replace the old paradigm with the new one? Kuhn points out that this is like the phenomenon of religious conversion: the reasons may be the person’s temperament, nationality, mystical beliefs, and so on. As for new technology, those who first promote its development may be attracted by imagined bright prospects, or may simply want to make a venture investment, while the earliest users may only be drawn by fashion or fun.
Invisible Revolution
Although the impact brought by scientific revolution is so wide-ranging, Kuhn points out that the existence and significance of scientific revolution are systematically concealed.[14]
This is because a new paradigm assimilates the old one, “recasting prior theory and revaluating prior fact”[15]. The achievements of the new science, together with the achievements of old science retranslated into the language of the new science, sediment through textbooks and become authoritative, ready-made things, thereby causing people to forget their historicity.
Although there are no “textbooks” in the same sense, technological revolution likewise has a self-concealing character. We always grow up within a particular technological environment, and the ways we view and measure life and the world are shaped by the technological environment to which we have become accustomed. Thus we habitually look at older or newer technologies through the paradigm we ourselves take for granted. We can start from the overall connections of the lifeworld to measure the significance of each technological artifact; however, for old or new technologies that have not formed a close relation with my own life, we often can only measure them as some technical object familiar to me, or else understand them as an isolated implement.
For example, if we do not view the steam locomotive in a whole social and economic environment, but only regard it as a coal-hauling tool that replaces handcarts and horse carts in the mine, then it is hard to understand the significance of the train. If we measure cold weapons and firearms only from the perspective of killing tools, we will find that a broadsword can kill people, and a pistol can also kill people; it is merely a difference in killing efficiency. Then we fail to see the transformation of the entire mode of warfare, social classes, and cultural beliefs that came with firearms replacing cold weapons.
Revolution Is a Change in Worldview
Necessary Tension
[1] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 1【2】
[2] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 2【3】
[3] Mumford(1961): 230-236
[4] Mumford (2008)
[5] Mumford (2009a): 283
[6] Mumford (2009a): 282
[7] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 6【7】
[8] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 35【42】
[9] Kuhn (2004): 306
[10] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 37【45】
[11] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 30【37】
[12] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 44【52】
[13] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 80【93】
[14] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 114【135】
[15] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 6【7】
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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