Revisiting Technology as Knowledge

Abstract

The idea that technology constitutes a form of knowledge is a long and commonly held notion in the aeld of science and technology studies. In fact, this has become such a common assumption that it no longer requires further description or deanition. But, as is true in many cases, as it became a trope, the phrase also lost, or at least muddied, some of its meaning. In Edwin Layton’s 1974 article establishing technology as a kind of knowledge, he argues that technology must be analyzed in a way that acknowledges that technology comprises more than mere artifacts (Layton 1974). Taking technology as knowledge effectively places technology into social and intellectual history, as well as into philosophy. It is also clear from Layton’s article, as well as his later work on the relationship of science and technology, that his notion of technology as knowledge also sets up a parallel between science—seen as a special kind of knowledge by many philosophers if few sociologists—and technology (Layton 1971, 1987). Technology is neither subsumed under science nor completely outside of it; communities of technologists and scientists constitute interdependent,

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