标签：Mumford

Lecture Notes on the General History of Science 2: The Prehistory of Science

History of Science & Technology2015.03.12
Lecture Notes on the General History of Science 2: The Prehistory of Science
In the last class we mentioned the historiography of the history of science, including different historiographical strategies such as intellectual history and social history. We cannot take science as a ready-made, fixed standard and sit in judgment on history from the lofty vantage point of modern people. We need historical consciousness, and we should try to return to historical contexts in order to understand how things developed. The concept of “science” itself is not ready-made and fixed either; in different perspectives and different contexts, it has different meanings. Every historiographical strategy for the history of science embodies some understanding of what science is. For example, intellectual history tends to see…
history of science philosophy of science course civilization
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2015年3月12日
An Outline of the General History of Technology

History of Science & Scholarship2014.11.21
An Outline of the General History of Technology
Outline of a General History of Technology Hu Yilin I. A Survey of Western Studies in the History of Technology In the English-speaking world, the history of technology as an established academic discipline roughly began in the 1950s. Its landmark was the publication of the monumental Oxford History of Technology (volumes 1 through 5 were published from 1954 to 1958, the final two volumes in 1978, and the general index for volume 8 was completed in 1984). Another milestone was the founding of the American Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) in 1958 and the launch of its journal Technology and Culture in 1959. From roughly the late 1950s…
culture technology media phenomenology
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2014年11月21日
A Civilizational History of Technology—Using Mumford as an Example

History of Science & Scholarship2013.03.10
A Civilizational History of Technology—Using Mumford as an Example
Discussion section note: Good spring to Professor Wu and to all the students: I’m terribly sorry to have fallen back into my habitual procrastination again…… Mumford is the first figure I plan to deal with in the body of my doctoral dissertation, after the introduction. Because there is an overall writing plan in the background, some basic introduction to media ecology should already have been laid out in the introduction, while other parts will have to wait until later, when I discuss McLuhan and others in more detail. As a result, this section ended up being quite short after I trimmed away the beginning and the ending; of course, that…
technology media history of technology human nature
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2013年3月10日
The “Natural Selection” of Technology—A Critique of Levinson’s Theory of Media Evolution

History of Science & Scholarship2012.03.13
The “Natural Selection” of Technology—A Critique of Levinson’s Theory of Media Evolution
The “Natural Selection” of Technology — A Critique of Levinson’s Media Evolution Theory Hu Yilin© (Department of Philosophy, Peking University, Beijing 100871) Abstract: Levinson inherits the tradition of media ecology, but only superficially. He believes that traditional critics of technology merely focus on technology’s drawbacks and do not evaluate technology from an evolutionary perspective. Levinson thinks that the drawbacks inherent in technology in its infancy will be eliminated or remedied in the course of evolution. But Levinson’s evolutionism faces three problems: Who is doing the selecting? By what criterion is selection made? How are the results of selection evaluated? Levinson’s answers to these three questions are all “nature—human nature,”…
technology media value human nature
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2012年3月13日
On the Final Essay Question in the General History of Science Course: “The Key Machine of the Industrial Age Was Not the Steam Engine but the Clock”

AI & the Future of Technology2011.12.23
On the Final Essay Question in the General History of Science Course: “The Key Machine of the Industrial Age Was Not the Steam Engine but the Clock”
This time, since the usual workload was increased substantially, the final exam was relatively easier. Apart from the traditional term-definition questions—which have been raised to 14—there was only one essay question. Counted toward the total score, the essay question was worth the equivalent of 12 points, so one might roughly say it was the fourth short paper. 2. Essay question (30 points): citations must be proper (if you cite at all); plagiarism is forbidden. Why is it said that “the key machine of the industrial age was not the steam engine but the clock” (Mumford)? This final short paper also required proper citation, but after all, since this was an…
technology Introduction to Philosophy of Technology Wu Guosheng McLuhan
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2011年12月23日
[U.S.] Lin Wengang, ed.: Media Ecology

AI & the Future of Technology2007.12.04
[U.S.] Lin Wengang, ed.: Media Ecology
[U.S.] Lin Wengang, ed., *Media Ecology: Intellectual Development and Multiple Perspectives*, translated by He Daokuan, Peking University Press, October 2007, 45 yuan This is another book in the Media Ecology translation series, a collection of essays on the development of media ecology. The core of the collection consists of several introductions to figures of major significance in the “intellectual development” of media ecology. The first figure is Mumford, the second is Ellul—there are two essays introducing Ellul, the second of which focuses specifically on his theological perspective. The third figure is Innis; the fourth is McLuhan; the fifth is Neil Postman, and here almost all of Postman’s important works are…
book reading notes media McLuhan
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2007年12月4日
Useless Technology? — Reflections on Mumford’s Philosophy of Technology

AI & the Future of Technology2007.04.05
Useless Technology? — Reflections on Mumford’s Philosophy of Technology
Today’s introduction to philosophy of technology class talked about Mumford, and his views are very interesting. Mumford criticized the traditional account of human origins that says “man is the maker of tools,” replacing it with “man is the maker of symbols/meanings.” He upheld an idealist view of human nature, believing that human needs are first and foremost not material but spiritual. He thought that Maslow’s sequence—from the needs of survival, material provision, and food and clothing, all the way up to the needs for safety, aesthetics, and self-actualization—was exactly backwards: humans first have a need for self-actualization, and within any material need there already permeates a prior spiritual need. Mumford…
philosophy culture technology Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
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2007年4月5日