Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen
Professor & Head of Chair in Philosophy
Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance
Tallinn University of Technology
ahti-veikko.pietarinen@helsinki.fi
Fall 2013
1
Methodology and epistemology of Science:





What is scientific method? What counts as scientific knowledge?
Does science discover truths? Are its discoveries certain?
How to choose between competing theories?
What is the relationship between theories, hypotheses, evidence
and experiments?
Metaphysics of Science:





Are all events, scientific phenomena etc. determined by causes?
What is a scientific law? Is there a purpose in nature?
Can other theories be reduced to some others (e.g., to physics)?
Are some theories more fundamental than others?
2

What does technology mean? What is its relation to
science?
 Can technology be defined? (Knowledge + material +
organisation + product?)
 Can science be divided into ’pure’ and ’applied’ parts?

How did technologies emerge?
 Do technologies necessarily grow out of scientific discoveries?
 Do some characteristics typify Western technologies?

What were/are the impacts of technology to nature,
environment, society, culture, politics, our long-term
future...?
3
”Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
–The U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
”The phonograph is not of any
commercial value.” – T. A. Edison,
c.1880
”Heavier than air flying machines are
impossible.” – Lord Kelvin, c.1895
”The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is
only a novelty-a fad.” – President of the Michigan
Bank, advicing Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in
the Ford Motor Company, 1903.
”I think there is a world market for
about five computers.” –T. J. Watson,
Chairman of the Board for IBM, 1943
”There is no reason for any individual to have a
computer in their home.” –President of Digital
Equipment Corporation, World Future Society
Conference, 1977
”By 1980 all power is likely to be costless”.
–H. Luce, founder of Time and Fortune
magazines, 1956
Is quite a different bag of issues to a scientist,
engineer, business executive, politician, attorney,
reporter, artist,...
 Not just hardware or inventions

 Technology is knowledge, expertise, ’soft tech’, solutions & services
Some attempted definitions (Misa 2009, p.8-, in Companion):
1. ”Things that fulfill our needs and desires or perform certain
functions”
2. ”Application of understanding of natural laws to the solution of
practical problems”
3. ”Information concerning processes and design”
4. ”Information needed to achieve a certain production outcome”
6

Not merely a socially neutral production factor
knowledge – technique – organisation – product



Knowledge transfer crucial to meaningful
technology
Knowledge is explicit and implicit/tacit; depends on
truths, beliefs, desires, goals,...)
Technology is contextual
7




Science (scientia) ”natural philosophy” until at least the
modern period; ”natural sciences” emerged only later
The Scientific Revolution (~1500-1700)
”Scientific method” properly articulated only in late 19th
century – but inseparable from the entire history of science
The term ”scientist” relatively new (Whewell, 1833)
 For Aristotle, science was the study
of drawing inferences, given the
premisses that are known
(syllogism & deduction; induction)
 Reason, argument and experiment
have always been important...
8
1.
Suppose (as Aristotle believed) that the heavier a body is, the
faster it falls to the ground and suppose we have two bodies, a
heavy one called M and a light one called m. Under our initial
assumption M will fall faster than m. Now suppose that M and
m are joined together thus M+m. Now what happens? Well
M+m is heavier than M so by our initial assumption it should
fall faster than M alone. But in the joined body M+m, m and M
will each tend to fall just as fast as before they were joined, so
m will act as a ‘brake’ on M and M+m will fall slower than M
alone. Hence it follows from our initial assumption that M+m
will fall both faster and slower than M alone. Since this is
absurd our initial assumption must be false.
9
2.
Either there is a Christian God or there isn’t. Suppose you
believe in His existence and live a Christian life. Then, if He does
exist you will enjoy eternal bliss and if He doesn’t exist you will
lose very little. But suppose you don’t believe in His existence
and don’t live a Christian life. If He doesn’t exist you will lose
nothing, but if He does exist you will suffer eternal damnation! !
So it is rational and prudent to believe in God’s existence and to
live a Christian life.
1.
2.
Galilei Galileo, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, 1638
Pascal’s Wager, 1661.
Question: Find strengths and weaknesses in these arguments!
10
All philosophers are strange
John is strange
Therefore, John is a philosopher
 6000 people died as a result of drinking last year.
4000 people died as a result of driving last year.
500 people died as a result of drink driving last year.
Therefore, Drink driving is safer than either drinking or driving alone.
 Nothing is better than freedom.
On the other hand, Prison life is better than nothing.
Therefore, Prison life is better than freedom.
 To build a large thing, you need a plan.
To make a plan, you need a written language.
Neolithic British had no written language.
Therefore, Aliens from outer space built Stonehenge.

11
12
13
14
Name of
Product
From
Invention to
Application
From
Name of Product Invention to
Application
Duration
Steamer
1680~1780
100
Aircraft
1897~1911
14
Electromotor
1829~1886
57
Television
1922~1934
12
Telephone
1820~1876
56
Atom bomb
1939~1945
6
Wireless
Communication
1867~1902
35
Transistor
1948~1953
5
Vacuum tube
1882~1915
33
Integrated circuit
1958~1961
3
Electric Vehicle
1868~1895
27
Laser
1960
1
Duration
15

The term ”technology” quite young
Bigelow, Elements of Technology, 1829:
“Under this title it is attempted to include . . . an account . . . of the
principles, processes, and nomenclatures of the more conspicuous arts,
particularly those which involve applications of science, and which may be
considered useful, by promoting the benefit of society, together with the
emolument of those who pursue them.”
(Before this the word rather was the ’techniques’)
“Technology, in the present century and almost under our eyes . . . has
advanced with greater strides than any other agent of civilization, and has
done more than any science to enlarge the boundaries of profitable
knowledge, to extend the dominion of mankind over nature, to economize
and utilize both labor and time, and thus to add indefinitely to the effective
and available length of human existence.”

The founding of the MIT (1861), the polytechnics etc.
16

How does technology bring about changes
in history?
1.
2.
Does technology develop autonomously?
Is it a key factor for
societal and cultural
developments?
17

How we form conceptions
 To acquire information we need reasoning, a way to move from what
we know to something not yet known
 The formation and fixation of beliefs (conceptions) is interaction
between two states of mind, doubt and belief
 Mind responds to the irritation caused by the action of thought,
which gives rise to doubt. Doubt stimulates inquiry (research) until its
cessation by forming a conception.

How we revise beliefs
1.
2.
3.
4.
Method of Tenacity (We don’t! Just live a happy life...)
Method of Authority (Institutionalised revision)
a priori –method (Revise according to what is ’reasonable’)
The Scientific Method.
18
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Fallibilism: Most of our ideas are likely to turn out false, but
we cannot be absolutely sure of any one of those that are
not.
The Final Opinion: Science can reach truth as the final belief
agreed upon by all scientists.
‘In the Long Run’: If inquiry were to be pursued indefinitely
long, then the final opinion would be reached.
Scientific Attitude: No sham reasoning, fake reasoning.
Structure of Scientific Inquiry: Abduction, deduction,
induction.
The Economy of Research: Prefer simple, explanatory and
productive hypotheses.
19
1.
2.
3.
Deduction:
M is P
S is M
S is (necessarily) P
Induction:
S1, S2, S3,... are M
S1, S2, S3,... are P
Any M is (probably) P
Abduction:
M is P1, P2, P3,...
S is P1, P2, P3,...
S is (plausibly) M
All the beans in this bag are white
These beans in my hand are from this bag
These beans in my hand are white.
These beans in my hand are from this bag
These beans in my hand are white
All the beans in this bag are white.
All the beans in this bag are white
These beans in my hand are white
These beans in my hand are from this bag.
20
1.
2.
3.
The surprising fact, C, is observed
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true.

Abduction seeks a hypothesis to account for facts by
guessing
“Oftenest even a well-prepared mind guesses wrong. But the
modicum of success of our guesses far exceeds that of random
luck, and seems born of attunement to nature by instincts
developed or inherent, especially insofar as best guesses are
optimally plausible and simple in the sense of the ‘facile and
natural’, as by Galileo’s natural light of reason.” (Peirce)
21
“There are a lot of facts to be known in order to
be a professional anything — lawyer, doctor,
engineer, accountant, teacher. But with science
there is one important difference. The facts serve
mainly to access the ignorance… Scientists don’t
concentrate on what they know, which is
considerable but minuscule, but rather on what
they don’t know…. Science traffics in ignorance,
cultivates it, and is driven by it. Mucking about in
the unknown is an adventure; doing it for a living
is something most scientists consider a
privilege.”
“Working scientists don’t get bogged down in the factual
swamp because they don’t care all that much for facts.
It’s not that they discount or ignore them, but rather
that they don’t see them as an end in themselves. They
don’t stop at the facts; they begin there, right beyond
the facts, where the facts run out. Facts are selected,
by a process that is a kind of controlled neglect, for the
questions they create, for the ignorance they point to.”
“Being a scientist requires having faith in uncertainty,
finding pleasure in mystery, and learning to cultivate
doubt. There is no surer way to screw up an
experiment than to be certain of its outcome.”
“We must teach students how to think in questions, how
to manage ignorance.”
Hypothetico-Deductive Model of Science
24
Often expressed as the process by which scientists decide, based
on observations and experiments, that some theory, principle or
law is true (”All A’s are B’s”).

The Problem of Induction
 How to generalise from finite information?
 Is it a threat to scientific knowledge (scepticism)?

Possible reply: Falsificationism (Sir Karl Popper)
 Science does not in fact rest on induction
 First: come up with a hypothesis or a theory, and then see if it stands up to a
test:
▪ If tests prove negative, theory is falsified
▪ If tests fit the theory, continue to uphold it as undefeated.
 Scientific inference is refutation: Some A is not B → not: All A’s are B’s.
25

1.
Some questions about falsificationism:
If scientific theories are conjectural hypotheses that cannot be
proved by observation and evidence, what makes science better or
more trustworthy than, say, superstition or religious beliefs?
 Popper: Theories are falsifiable:
▪ They are formulated in precise terms, give definite predictions
▪ In contrast, nothing can refute something like astrology or folk beliefs.
 Falsifiability distinguishes science from non-science
(Popper’s answer to the problem of demarcation):
▪ In science you should be able to say beforehand, what observational
discoveries would make you to change your mind about your theory if
such evidence were to arise in the future (fallibilism: we might be
mistaken about out knowledge ’one by one’, but no scepticism follows)
▪ If no possible, conceivable observation can adjust our thinking, we are
not doing science but are dogmatists about our beliefs.
26
Falsificationism does not solve (it rather evades) the ’problem of
induction’
2.


What shows that a scientific theory is right?
What is the rational basis for believing that the predictions that a theory
makes are right? What is the role of past evidence?
We don’t believe in new theories immediately, they start out as
hypotheses.

Do we need to try to solve it?

Yes: Bayesianism
1.
▪
▪
2.

Beliefs come in degrees in which we take something to be probable (these tend to
be subjective probabilities)
Pr( E / H )
Pr( H / E)  Pr( H) 
(Bayes Formula)
Pr( E)
No: Induction is a natural form of reasoning – accept abduction and
induction as the facts of the power of the mind to perform such feats.
Amounts to rational belief revision
Why do rational thinkers expect future to be like the past?
27
”Day by day, nothing
seems to change. But
soon, everything’s
different.”
28

Science is all about exploiting uncertainties
1. Improve the payoff, not knowledge
(‘High risk-high gain’; research is a fat tail
phenomenon)
▪
▪
▪
▪
‘Cheap’ science should be funded first
Reduce the cost per testing a hypothesis
(fallibilism → minimizing the losses)
Higher expected return from a series of small trials than
from a large single trial (non-linearity, convexity)
Simplicity counts
“How to take the step from stone axe to hand axe...”
2.
Get rid of restrictive planning





Need for exit strategies
Follow the unforeseen; stretch your mental
models, invent new concepts
Centralized decisions tend to fail
Lots of attempts needed before success (Angry
Birds was Rovio’s 56th game)
Invest on people, not on procuring ‘strategies’ or
‘research plans’
3.
Theory/science not a necessary condition for
practical/technological development

4.
“telling (angry) birds how to fly”
Knowing well what doesn’t work

The dilemma of “positive bias”: where to publish
the negative results?
“How not to become successful in life”
“How I failed to make my first million”

Theorem: Reductio ad absurdum (RAA)
is not a good method of proof.
Proof: by Reductio ad absurdum.
1. Suppose RAA were a good method of proof.
2. Then this argument would be good.
3. But this argument is no good.
Therefore, RAA is not a good method of proof.
http://consc.net/misc/proofs.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4yBvvGi_2A
http://inquiry.mcdaniel.edu/videos/CrossfireIntelligentDesign.swf
http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/worst.html
33
“10 Unsolved Mysteries”, Scientific American 10/2011
1. How Did Life Begin?
2. How Do Molecules Form?
3. How Does the Environment Influence Our Genes?
4. How Does the Brain Think and Form Memories?
5. How Many Elements Exist?
6. Can Computers Be Made Out of Carbon?
7. How Do We Tap More Solar Energy?
8. What Is the Best Way to Make Biofuels?
9. Can We Devise New Ways to Create Drugs?
10. Can We Continuously Monitor Our Own Chemistry?
34
”Technoscience”: Scientific & technological progress no
longer due to separate enterprises
 Is there any ”applied science” at all?

 Perhaps technology is older than science
 Science has become ”instrumentally embodied”, instruments are
not merely tools but parts of the the theories & necessary
conditions for the experiments & influencing the interpretations
 Maybe science has no ”foundations” – but – this need not imply
recourse to the ’postmodern’

Now: Sociology of Science (STS, social constructionism) vs.
practice-oriented Philosophy of Science
Hacking, Ian (1983). Representing and Intervening (Cambridge
UP); (2000)The Social Construction of What? (Harvard UP)
35
36
“Anyone who believes that the laws
of physics are mere social
conventions is invited to try
transgressing those conventions
from the windows of my
apartment. I live on the 21st floor.”

Alan Sokal, 1996: ”Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward the
Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”, Social Text.
 The point was not only to show problems with the journal’s peer review
practices, but to defend the standards of scientific & philosophical work from
the threats of “postmodern literary intellectuals pontificating on science and
its philosophy and making a complete bungle of both.”

Check out Sokal’s new book: Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy
and Culture, Oxford University Press, 2009.
 Explains the original ’joke’ sentence by sentence
 Contains an ”Afterword” that was rejected by the Social Text “on the grounds
that it did not meet their intellectual standards”.
37

How do we know about unobservable things?
(Electromagnetic waves, viruses, electrons, quarks,...)
Realists take observable facts sufficient to indirectly infer the
existence of unobservable things.
1.


In addition to making predictions, theories explain phenomena
’No miracles’-argument: realism the only philosophy that doesn’t make
progress of science a miracle.
Instrumentalists take theories about unobservables to be
useful tools for computation and prediction but not about
truth.
2.


Scientists postulate all kinds of things but need not believe in them.
’Pessimistic meta-induction’: most past theories turned out false – why
should I believe science at all?
38
39
The philosophical basis of the ‘interplay model’:
1.
External influences on a practice are results of the
interaction between practices. This interaction is
seldom a one-way influence; the practices involved
are changed in the interaction.
2.
There are no hierarchically dominant practices in a
strict sense.
3.
Innovation in practices does not derive from scientific
discovery, as it were in a linear sequence.
(Gremmen 2009, in Companion, p.76)
40
“The world is full of wonderful products and services that
occasionally disappoint and even harm us. This book explores
the reasons these failures occur, examining them from
technological, human, and organizational perspectives. Using
more than 40 recent catastrophic events to illustrate its points,
the book discusses structural and machine failure, but also the
often-overlooked failure of people and of systems related to
information technology, healthcare, and security. Faulty
technology played a surprisingly small part in many of the
scrutinized disasters, but cognitive factors and
organizational dynamics, including ethics, are major
contributors to most unexpected and catastrophic failures.”
41

Governments, large companies, science policy units,
all interested in:
 How to make technological advancements?
 What research to support?
 Which methods can secure scientific & technological
progress?
But:
 Is technology product of applying science in problem-solving
contexts?
 Is there a direct pattern from basic reseach to successful
introduction and solving of practical issues?
42
43

Technical inventions seem to be products of a variety of
circumstances
 Not directly dependent on the ’truth’ of scientific theories
 Selection processes for introducing new technologies not based on
purely technical success (need consider manufacturing, economic,
marketing, consumerist, social, ethical & legal factors)
 Markets behave irrationally
 Unintended consequences
Technological change not an instrumentally rational procedure
 Technologies not value-free artefacts
 ’Science, Technology & Society’ interdisciplinary studies
involving historians, economists, sociologists, engineers,
philosophers,...

44

Substantive view sees technologies as autonomous
cultural forces
 How cultures and humans change is more significant than the
ostesible goals of technology
(’the instrumentalisation of things has become the
instrumentalisation of man’)

Governments & development agencies wrongly believe
that the lack of development/innovation is due to lack of
resources to acquire/create technologies
 The problem is technology transfer
 Innovations cannot be forced, need seredipity, unplanning
 The way to advance technology is not only to advance science
as such, but to deepen our understanding of the contexts into
which techniques are introduced
45

Technology is not ”applied sciences”: Modern science &
technology mutually interdependent (the interplay model)
(telescopes, microscopes, steam engines… no immediate scientific concern)



Premodern and modern techniques and practices define the
inquiry
Practitioners ”know how” something works in the context of
the products
Pragmatism (Peirce, Dewey, James):




Action, practice, productiveness precedes the theoretical
Technology is an activity, it cannot be exported (Dewey)
There is nothing ’essential’ about technology
The meaning is in the consequences, not in the things
46

Engineering science vs. ’ordinary’ science?
1. ’make things work’ vs. ’seek for the truth’ ?
▪ Pragmatism: truth is what ’works’; what has pragmatic,
practical, experiental effects (importance of modelling,
design)
2. Study the nature and behaviour of human products
(artifacts) vs. study the natural phenomena?
▪ Determinism/naturalism: also human products are natural,
governed by laws
▪ Constructivism/critical theories: also ’natural’ phenomena is
a human product
47
The nature of artifacts
1.

Homo faber: Artifacts depend on human manipulation;
contrast with objects of nature
Abiotic – or not?

▪

Domestication; GM; Bioinformatics; Nanotechnology
Materiality? Usability?
Artifact only if its ”author accepts it as satisfying some sortal description
[for technological artifacts: ”material means y to achieve practical end x”]
included in his productive intention” (Hilpinen 2004)


Unintended by-products are not artifacts but artifices (”scrap”)
Artifacts → Tools → Instruments (Dipert 1993)


”Artifacts are intentionally modified tools whose properties were intended by an
agent to be recognised at a later time as having been modified for some use.”
48
49
2.
Knowledge of artifacts in technology
 Descriptive knowledge of the science of the behaviour of
artifacts (e.g., laws of analytic mechanics governing
snooker balls)
 Normative knowledge of the use and application of
artifacts (”These tools are good for X”) – the design aspect
→ The descriptive knowledge of science becomes
transformed into something inventional
50

Engineering design
“is the process of devising a system, component, or
process to meet desired needs. It is a decision-making
process (often iterative), in which the basic science
and mathematics and engineering sciences are
applied to convert resources optimally to meet a stated objective.”
(Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, ABET)

Conversion from functions to structures – but exactly how?
 Use science & reasoning from means to ends; or maybe like abduction?



Not only instrumental task but social, economic, political,...
How to bring in the environment (the know-how transfer)?
How to measure the success of the design? The list of criteria
may change during the design process ,or be part of it.
51
52
53
54
55
56
An expert is a man who has
made all the mistakes which
can be made in a very narrow
field.” – Niels Bohr

Design is a creative process
 How to create new possibilities (means) for new technical artifacts
 How many? How to select among them those to develop?

Engineering knowledge involves:
Basic design concepts (fundamental components); criteria & specs;
theoretical tools (computation); quantitative data; practical/economic
considerations; design instruments (Vincenti 1990).
Faulkner (1994): knowledge of the world; of design practices; of the system
of R&D; of final products; and of finding something new (innovations).

In contrast to science, many of these involve prescriptive & normative kinds of knowledge
And the major failures are typically caused by design failures...
http://engineeringfailures.org/
57

Life: Information processes and neg-entropy
 Self-sustainability, growth, replication, adaptation
 Communication,
signalling
58
What have been the major contributions to the rapid socioeconomic development in the West?
A proposal (not mine!):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Institutions, the Rule of Law
Property Rights, Patents, Standardisations
Modern Medicine
Work Ethics (now obsolete?!)
Competition & Consumerism, mass-production & the mass people
(fading?)
The Scientific/Industrial Revolution
Discuss!
59


Compass, gunpowder, paper, printing were Chinese inventions,
but did they revolutionize the society as in the West?
What is characteristically Western in the development of
technology?






Mechanisation: materials → production → consumers
Large-scale capitalisation & finance & banking
Trust in science; Investment in R&D
‘Destructive’ applications & testing
Were in conflict with non-imperialistic Confucian values?
Preconditions for full-fledged scientific/industrial revolution?
 Innovations in methods of communication
 16th century book printing with diagrams & illustrations
 Spread of analytic geometry…
60
”Victory is in sight.”
- General Harkins, Commander of U.S.
forces in South Vietnam, 1963
”One day it will be written: this was
America’s finest hour.”
- President Nixon, 1973
(On April 1975, after the last US troops
were evacuated from Vietnam, South
Vietnam surrended unconditionally to
North Vietnam. 58.209 Americans
were killed.)
”The worst has passed.”
– Wall Street, Oct 24, 1929
”This is the time to buy
stocks.”
– New York Herald Tribune,
Oct 30, 1929
”A severe depression like
that of 1920-21
is outside the range of
probability”
–Harvard Economic
Society, Nov 16, 1929
61


What is information?
The evolution of ICT:
Recording technologies (prehistory→ 19th century→)
1.
1.
2.
3.
Communicational functions (1837→)
2.
1.
2.
Telegraphs
Cinema, radio, telephone, television (mass media)
Processual (elaborative) functions (1950→)
3.
1.
2.
3.

Writing systems, written records, non-biological memory
Mechanical reproduction (printing)
Universal language projects (17th century→)
Computation, the computer
the Internet
Mobile communication, ubiquitous computation ,…
Intelligent/Big data, Information repositories, preservation…
62
63
What is computation?
Digital construction of the
‘real world’
 Transformation of all information into the global
infosphere (Floridi 2009, in Companion):


 The whole system of media containing all the data, text,
multimedia, images, art, sounds, memories, etc. that have
ever been there, without any limitation
 Future ICT not about controlling the extant mechanisms but
about the creation and generation of new virtual models
 Imaging & simulation technologies

The problem of deep-time information preservation
64
The Two Cultures?
The Maastricht Treaty:
“The absence of certainties, given the current state of
scientific and technological knowledge, must not delay the
adoption of effective and proportionate preventive
measures aimed at forestalling a risk of grave and
irreversible damage to the environment at an economically
acceptable cost.”
Principle 15 of the 1992 Rio Declaration:
“Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage,
lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason
for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent
environmental degradation.”
66
Implications:
1. to understand it we need to understand the nature
of (i) potential for irreversible harm (‘risks’) and (ii)
scientific uncertainties
2. is a normative principle (favours environmental and
human health factors over others)
3. refers to reasons for action, is not a guide or a recipe
for what action to take
4. applies in all contexts (technology, policy making,
governance, international law, trade,…)
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
Risk analysis and technological assessment
 Basic problem: the lack of knowledge about the effects of
technology
 Too often treated separately

What is risk?
1.
2.
3.
Something unwelcome may or may not occur:
“Smoking is a big health risk”
Probability of unwelcome event: (decision-making under
uncertainty or under risk, gambling):
“How likely it is that an expensive treatment will fail”
Severity measure (expectation value) obtained by multiplying the
probability of unwelcome event with a measure of its disvalue
(risk analysis):
“Is nuclear energy ‘better’ than fossil fuels”
Risk: there is something we know about what we do not know
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The classical distinction between risk and uncertainty
(Keynes 1907): ”Risk is measurable uncertainty”.
Given any two alternative events, A and B, and given the
evidence (conditional probabilities), either
•
A is more likely/probable than B
•
B is more likely/probable A
•
A and B are equi-probable, or
•
A and B are incomparable (= uncertainty).
The problem of uncertainty concerns the mixture of the
inferential and the representational aspects of events and
abilities.

Either there is a Christian God or there isn’t. Suppose
you believe in His existence and live a Christian life.
Then, if He does exist you will enjoy eternal bliss and
if He doesn’t exist you will lose very little. But suppose
you don’t believe in His existence and don’t live a
Christian life. If He doesn’t exist you will lose nothing,
but if He does exist you will suffer eternal damnation!
So it is rational and prudent to believe in God’s
existence and to live a Christian life.
Or is it?
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”I will never marry again.”
–Barbara Hutton, after her 2nd divorce,
1941
”I will never marry again.”
–Barbara Hutton, after 3rd divorce,
1945
”This is positively my final marriage.”
–Barbara Hutton, after marrying her
6th husband, 1955
”He has all my previous husbands’ best
qualities and none of the bad qualities.”
–Barbara Hutton, after marrying her
7th husband (Prince of Vietnam), 1964
(In 1966, she filed for divorce.)
Risk (something undesirable) ≠ uncertainty (value-free)
 Risks are both fact- and value-laden (objective and
subjective)

 “Landmines tend to mutilate”

Are our daily risks getting higher or lower?
 Life expectancy is growing, but on the other hand there are
new possibilities of large-scale global risks

Is technology assessment an optimisation problem?
 In new and emerging technology assessment (such as in
NBIC-technologies), risk analysis happens under
fundamental uncertainty: we do not even know the possible
effects, let alone their probabilities (the ‘tuxedo fallacy’)
72
The Tuxedo Fallacy
“There are known knowns; there
← Instrumental rationality;
are things we know we know. optimization; min-max principle
We also know there are known
unknowns; that is to say, we know ← Instrumental rationality; risk
there are some things we do not analysis; conditional probabilities
know. But there are also
unknown unknowns – the ones we ← Procedural rationality; no
don’t know we don’t know.”
risk; no probabilities
– D. Rumsfeld, the former US
Secretary of Defence, 2001
Fundamental Uncertainty – the Unknown Unknowns
Fundamental Uncertainty – the Unknown Unknowns
1. Non-measurable or unknown probabilities
2. Limited or no foresight
3. Open-ended, non-instrumental rationality:
Bounded/procedural rationality in decision making (rational
action + configurations of habits and practices)
4. Non-optimizing behaviour (satisficing, ’good enough’; practical
reasoning, focal points, salience)
5. Non-well-structured problem spaces; non-deterministic neural
structures
6. Dispensing with methodological individualism
7. Moving away from situational reasoning (deduction/induction)
to discovery, innovation, argumentation (abduction); the space
of problem contexts no longer invariant

We cannot predict future technologies
Fundamental uncertainty in the behaviour of
technologies; e.g. the list of device failures can never
be known to be completed
2. Behaviour of users unpredictable
1.
‘The Volvo Effect’
3.
The emergence of new social, cultural and economic
patterns inherently unpredictable
Telephone, mobile comm., social networking
4. Technology part of complex systems that behave
chaotically
Markets, societies, ecosystems,...
77
Safety engineering:
1.
1.
2.
3.
+
-
Scenario and contingency planning
Participatory TA (scientists, politicians, NGOs, unions, journalists,
developers, the public)
2.
3.
1.
2.

Primary prevention (hazard elimination)
Multiple safety barriers
Safety factors, safety reserve
Cope with uncertainties and not only calculable risks
May become a safety risk itself…
Risk communication
Hypothetical retrospection & convergence seminars
→ Issues of risks and uncertainties of technological future
inseparable from social, personal and cultural issues; risk one
factor among many others in technology governance
78
79

How to make morally right decisions concerning
the unknown unknowns?
 If nothing is known of the consequences of our
actions, are we freed from moral considerations?

Hypothetical retrospection: decisions evaluated
assuming one possible future has materialized
 Evaluation based on present values and on
information available when the action was taken
 Decision rule: choose an alternative that emerges as
morally acceptable from all such hypothetical
retrospections
 Involves systematic search for future viewpoints

Static or evolving conception of
human civilisation?
 Post-/Trans-humanism, superintelligence
 Singularity Hypothesis
• The simulation argument: either
•
1. nearly all human-level civilizations go
extinct before becoming posthuman, or
2. any posthuman civilization is extremely
unlikely to run a significant number of
simulations of their evolutionary history, or
3. we are almost certainly living in a
computer simulation (Boström 2009)
Find errors in this argument!
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
Achieve universal primary education.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
4. Reduce child mortality.
5. Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality
rate.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability.
8. Develop a global partnership for development.
1.
2.
82
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU
83
Hist. & Phil. Tech.:
 History and Technology (Taylor & Francis)
 Philosophy & Technology (Springer)
 Information Sciences (Elsevier)
 Science, Technology and Human Values (Sage)
 Techne: Society for Philosphy and Technology (Virginia Tech UP)
 Technology and Culture (Johns Hopkins UP)
Hist. & Phil. Science:
 ISIS (U. Chicago Press)
 History of Science
 Science in Context (Cambridge UP)
 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A,B,C (Elsevier)
 Philosophy of Science (Phi.Science Association)
 Int. Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Taylor & Francis)
84







Faulkner, W. (1994). “Conceptualizing Knowledge Used in Innovation: A
Second Look at the Science–Technology Distinction and Industrial
Innovation,” Science, Technology and Human Values, 19(4): 425–58.
Hacking, Ian (1983). Representing and Intervening , Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hacking, Ian (2000). The Social Construction of What? , Harvard: Harvard
University Press.
Hilpinen, R. (1993). “Authors and Artifacts”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society, 93: 155–178.
Hilpinen, R. (2004). “Artifact,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall
2004 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, URL:
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2004/entries/artifact
Olsen, J. K. B., Pedersen, S. A. and Hendriks, V. F. (eds.), (2009). A Companion
to the Philosophy of Technology, Blackwell Companions to Philosophy,
Singapore: Blackwell Publishing.
Vincenti, W. G. (1990). What Engineers Know and How They Know It,
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
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