Technology to be Causa Sui[1], or not to be

            For this reflection, I am going to employ Heideggerian taxonomy which was given in his essay, titled with the question of concerning technology. In his text, the concept of causality was unfolded and discussed in terms of its relations with technology. He classified this relations and facts as causa materialis, causa formalis, causa finalis and causa efficiens. The reasons why I have decided to employ Heidegger’s discussions are related with the unclear nature of Boyle & Cook (2004) and Conole & Dyke (2004). These four categories have been employed for expanding my theoretical and empirical understandings of technology.

            To comprehend the nature and nurture of technology, the four main categories should be explicitly stated, rearticulated and formalized in terms of the advent and use of technology. The first category, causa materialis, can be defined as ontological sphere of technology. In this category, the learning & research, collaboration, communications system can be defined by underlying the fixed relations between people and object (interaction), people as developers and learners (construction), people as transformer and performer (representation) and people as scholar (rationalization). Even though they seem relatively different, each of these people and relations have their own domains as time, nature, nurture and practice. Boyle & Cook (2004), Conole & Dyke (2004a, 2004) did not discuss and explain these domains and relations that technology has recently formed them and lasted forming their nature and nurture in terms of Zeitgeist.

            The second one is causa formalis which can be discussed and explained by using the concept of epistemology. For example, in this category, like Heidegger, I claim that the concepts of “accessibility” and “accordance” are two important and positive concepts that I am going to unfold them. In my opinion, “accessibility” should care and regard democracy, equity, liberty and collaboration as primary concern and reality. In other words, the technology enable us to reach it in a democratic, equal, liberal and collaborative way. I believe that the more shared information and news means, the more open society could be set up. In this sense, the old discussions between nature and nurture start to emerge and become available to be solved and discussed. Nature of technology defines and are defined by the nurture of technology and society.

            The third category is causa finalis which can be explained by methodology. “How valid” as question is related not only with the end, but also with the process? The question of how the truth claims are reached, articulated and comprehended could be explained by understanding the methods and methodology. In this part, the perceptions, receptions, presentations and representation of technology become the methodological issue since how valid it is.

            The last one is defined as causa efficiens. In this category, I can make a list as such that how valuable, affordable, applicable, accessible the technology is reconstructed and reorganized in terms of its temporal conditions. The questions raised by Boyle and Cook could be intensively discussed and evaluated by underlying the paradigms that intend to define its place and its domains in our everyday life. Its efficiency is more related with the paradigms that try to thematize, conceptualize and theorize it in terms of its abstraction and construction in culture, society and system.

            These four categories could be transcended and revised in terms of our upcoming readings and discussions.

  

  

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[1] It means a self-caused cause (cause of itself).