Interest in the history of technology development in our country is traditional and has deep roots. Back in the 19th century. Domestic scientists have published many studies in various branches of science. But at first these were studies by individual scientists, not coordinated on a national scale.

Since the beginning of the 20th century. a new stage began in the development of the history of technology as an independent scientific direction, in the formation of organizational forms of research activity. Courses on the history of technology began to be included in the curricula of secondary and higher technical educational institutions; Giving lectures on the history of various branches of technology at public universities, cultural centers, and museums became widely practiced. Many scientific congresses and conferences, and research in higher educational institutions of the country began to be devoted to the same topic.

The sharply increased interest in the past of technology and the history of its development predetermined organizational measures for the development of historical and technical research and the establishment of the history of technology as an independent science on a national scale. In 1922, the Academy of Sciences established "Commission on the History of Knowledge", which has published a number of books on technical and historical topics. Scientific and engineering societies began to organize groups of researchers on the history of technology, the first works of Yu.K. Milonova, V.V. Danilevsky, A.I. Sidorov and other scientists.

An additional impetus for the expansion of research, the establishment of the history of technology as a science and the organization of its teaching was given by the decisions of the November 1929 Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. “On the training of technical personnel”. They directly pointed out the need to introduce a course in the history of technology into the programs of technical educational institutions. From that time on, the subject of the history of technology began to be considered compulsory, programs began to be developed and special departments of the history of technology were organized. Research began to develop on the history of technology in the system of the USSR Academy of Sciences, within the framework of the Academy of Sciences created in 1932. Institute of the History of Science and Technology.

The next important stage was the organization in 1944. Commission on the History of Technology at the Department of Technical Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which included academicians A.A. Baykov, I.P. Bardin, G.M. Krzhizhanovsky and other prominent domestic scientists. The main attention of historians of technology in the post-war period was focused on the use of domestic scientific heritage and the intensification of research interrupted by the war. Increased attention to the history of the development of technology has led to a new formulation of the question of its teaching. As a result of a wide discussion of the problem, an important order of the Minister of Higher Education of the USSR was issued on January 14, 1948 “0 teaching the history of science and technology in higher educational institutions”. He once again confirmed the need for teaching the history of science and technology in universities and organizing relevant departments.

The history of technology departments that had been disbanded during the war began to be restored, their scientific and pedagogical activities were resumed, and the necessary programs, textbooks and teaching aids were created. And the results were immediate: interest in technical knowledge increased sharply, and the prestige of technical educational institutions rose.

At the beginning of the 50s. marks the peak of activity in historical and technical research and improvement of the teaching system. True, there were some “distortions”. Possessed by the spirit of patriotism, some historians of technology began to look for discoverers only in their own country, tendencies to promote the priority of “Soviet”, “socialist” science and technology emerged, and the principles of objectivity and internationalism were to a certain extent lost.

Since the mid-50s. There has been a decline in the activity of technical-historical research, a noticeable cooling in the promotion of knowledge of the history of technology, and the exclusion of this subject from university curricula. From 1956-58 The teaching of the history of technology in universities began to be curtailed altogether, and departments of the history of technology began to be closed or repurposed. The courses “History of the CPSU”, “Marxist-Leninist Philosophy” and others, bloated to the point of indecentness and fundamentally ideological, and supervised directly by the Central Committee of the CPSU, began to crowd out not only general engineering, but also core disciplines in technical universities.

As a result, the course on the history of technology was among those who were completely left out. Moreover, traditional sections devoted to the history of the development of relevant fields of technology began to disappear from textbooks on technical disciplines. Not only party and political guidelines played a negative role, but also objective reasons associated with the onset of the scientific and technological revolution, the development and dissemination of technocratic concepts.

The restructuring of the higher education system in recent years could not but affect the attitude towards the history of technology - the process of its return to the fold of technical education and the correction of historical injustice was outlined.

On the need to study the history of technology

Currently, human activity in the technical field is acquiring comprehensive significance, drawing into its orbit an increasing number of people called upon to solve certain technical issues. Technology is increasingly invading the life and everyday life of the entire population. It is precisely the technical and production needs of man that have at all times been the engines of scientific progress, putting forward ever new tasks for the fundamental, applied and natural sciences.

Studying the history of the development of technology makes it possible to trace the patterns of technical development, to identify how, in the process of improving production, man learned to know the laws of nature and master them, discover new aspects and properties of objects, and establish connections between technology, science and other areas of human activity.

Establishing the patterns of development of a particular branch of technology, assessing various ideas and inventions at different stages of this development - make it possible to develop a critical attitude towards modern technical achievements, their correct comprehension and understanding, make it possible among the many to single out the most promising and valuable for the future.

The experience of the past in the field of technology cannot be thrown into the “basket” of history as unnecessary rubbish; on the contrary, it must be used to the maximum, making it work for the future. By studying the development of any mechanism or machine in historical and chronological sequence, one can not only establish certain patterns and development trends, but also come across a technical idea that previously remained unrealized due to imperfect technology and lack of necessary materials , lack of demand at this level of development of society and other reasons. From the origin of the first ideas to the appearance of technical projects and from the development of the latter to their implementation, many years, centuries and even entire millennia can pass.

The most important task of any specialist is to master the huge stock of experience and knowledge accumulated by previous generations, and use them in relation to the needs of modern life. Without proper attention to the historical aspects of the development of technology and the dialectics of this development when preparing a specialist, his knowledge will be to a certain extent defective and passive.

Theoretical knowledge can be strong, active and conscious when it is combined with life experience and everyday skills, and thinking is developed not only from the technical, but also from the historical and cultural side, which makes a person not only useful, but and interesting for others. Any specialist should not be a technocrat, as the outstanding Russian historian V.O. emphasized. Klyuchevsky: “When determining the tasks and directions of our activities, each of us must be at least a little historian in order to become a conscious and conscientious citizen.”

The relevance of the history of technology as a pedagogical tool lies in the fact that any subject of study is inseparable from the history of its origin, which largely helps to comprehend its inner essence. Studying the history of the development of technology forces one to repeat forgotten facts and provisions from general technical and special courses, which contributes to better assimilation and deeper mastery of the entire complex of subjects.

Information of a historical nature given by the lecturer when reading technical disciplines is not only of great educational importance, but also contributes to their revitalization, emotional perception and better memorization, which, however, does not exclude the need for a special course in the history of technology in all educational institutions. institutions from school to university. This has been convincingly proven by such famous scientists and teachers as V.V. Da-nilevsky, B.C. Virginsky, I.Ya. Confederates, etc.

The course on the history of technology is a kind of bridge, connecting technical and humanitarian sciences, technology and history, constituting a dialectical unity. Its study largely contributes to the development of a promising trend of humanitarization of technical education and technization of the humanities, which can ultimately lead to the formation of a unified higher education - the prototype of the higher school of the future.

Controversial issues of priority have not always been resolved fairly in history; disputes and contentions often arose between inventors and applicants for inventions, falsifications and shameless plagiarism took place, international courts and meetings of conflict commissions took place. We must not forget about the need to respect the creative heritage of Russian scientists and technologists, and about intransigence towards attempts made in the West to belittle their contribution to world science and technology.

Of course, the history of technology should be dealt with primarily by technical specialists, for whom it is easier to delve into the historical aspect of a problem than for a historian to master all the intricacies of technical problems. Unlike “pure” historians, who in their research usually do not rise above the chronicle-factual level, specialists in various branches of technology are able to comprehensively reveal the technical essence of the collected material, carry out a detailed technical analysis and give an objective scientific assessment activities of pioneers of science and technology.

It is important not only to establish what, when, where and by whom was done, but also to answer the questions: why, why and how this or that technical tool was developed. The stereotype of the chronicle should be replaced by a deep analysis that reveals the technical essence, trends and patterns of development of the object under study. Nevertheless, we can state the usefulness and necessity of employing both philosophers and representatives of technical knowledge, as well as scientists who combine both principles, in this field of science.

Basic concepts and patterns of technology development

By modern definition, technique(from Greek techne- art, skill) is a set of means of human activity created to carry out production processes and serve the non-productive needs of society. It materializes the knowledge and production experience accumulated by humanity in the process of development of social production.

In a narrower and more collective sense, technology means machines, mechanisms, instruments, devices, tools of one or another branch of production. This term is also often used to collectively describe the skills and techniques used in any field of human activity, and is synonymous with skill.

Often the concept of technology and the objects of technical sciences also includes technology(from gr. technology + logos- word, doctrine) - a set of production processes in a certain branch of production, as well as a description of production methods. The fact is that technology and technology, figuratively speaking, are two wheels on a single axle of a cart, on which any production relies.

The object of the history of technology is, first of all, technology itself, therefore it can be defined as a science that studies the patterns of development of technology in the conditions of various socio-economic formations. By studying the structure and properties of technology, the history of technology has the character of a technical science, and by studying the process of development of technology and studying the influence of social conditions on its development, it has the character of a social science - this is the dualism of the history of technology as a science. Technology, being an element of the productive forces, is inextricably included in the method of production and production relations, therefore, reducing technology only to means of labor does not reveal the full content of this term.

Human technical activity is not isolated and highly specialized, because when developing any technical objects, it is necessary to take into account a whole range of not only technical, but also economic, environmental, aesthetic and other social requirements determined by the area of ​​material production where the technology is created , and the sphere of public life where it is used

The entire history of material production is at the same time the history of knowledge of all its aspects, for without appropriate knowledge it would be impossible to develop and improve the objects and means of labor, as well as the process of labor activity. As production develops, not only does technology change significantly, but also the position and role of science in social production is increasingly growing, which is increasingly merging with technology and becoming a leading factor.

System "man - technology" occupies a central place in the technological method of production, and their role and position in the production process depend on the nature and interrelations of the elements of this system. From this point of view, three stages can be distinguished in the development of technology: instrumentalization, mechanization and automation.

Technology and engineer

Technical activity arose in the process of anthroposociogenesis at the earliest stages of the formation of human society. The creation of technology is the result of solving a technical problem in the process of resolving technical contradictions.

In primitive society, due to the change in types of labor, technical activity did not yet have the independence that it began to acquire during the period of separation of crafts from agriculture and cattle breeding, when the main subject of technical activity began to form - the artisan. With the transition to a class society and civilization, differentiation and integration of labor, there was a further development of technical activity and the emergence of its sporadic forms in the form of urban crafts and the beginnings of engineering activity.

The development of manufactory led to the emergence of new forms of technical activity, the subjects of which, along with artisans, were also workers of manufactories. At the same time, the formation of technical sciences and engineering activities proceeded at a rapid pace.

The Industrial Revolution finally established the waged industrial worker as the main subject of technical activity. In the era of the onset of the scientific and technological revolution with the development of technical sciences and higher technical education, which led to the emergence of new forms of technical activity, the engineer and the worker became its main subjects.

The term " engineer"(fr. ingenieur from lat. ingenium- intelligence, ingenuity, innate abilities) appeared and became widespread in Western Europe in the XIII-XIV centuries. In the 17th century through French and German languages this word also penetrated into Russia. The history of engineering activity is closely connected with the history of civilization and the patterns of development of technology, the achievements of which were largely ensured by the labor and creativity of this category of technical workers.

First (pre-engineering) stage was a stage in the formation of engineering activity during the era of slavery, associated mainly with construction and architecture. It marked a sharp leap in the development of social forms of technical activity, the first key moment in its history. The most outstanding engineers of this era were people from the famous Alexandrian school: Heron of Alexandria, Ctesibius, Archimedes, as well as the Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, who wrote the work “Ten Books on Architecture”.

Second (pre-engineering) stage engineering activity began during the Renaissance and developed under the conditions of feudalism and the emergence of machine production. The main field of engineering activity continues to be construction, as well as the creation of military equipment (throwing, wall-breaking and other machines). And that is why in the “Encyclopedia” of Diderot and D'Alembert, an engineer is defined as a builder of military fortifications and machinery. The most outstanding engineer of the Renaissance was Leonardo da Vinci, an artist, architect, mechanic, experimenter and inventor, whose genius was supported by extensive technical knowledge.

The third stage of development of engineering activity took place during the era of the industrial revolution and the spread of working machines based on the steam engine.

Fourth stage represented the development of engineering activities based on a system of machines and technical sciences under the conditions of monopoly capitalism (imperialism). In the middle of the 19th century. the development of science, caused by the needs of material and technical production, led to the emergence of social institutions of technical sciences and scientifically based technical activities, which from that time began to be considered engineering

From this point of view, technical preparation of production becomes primarily engineering and, above all, design and technological, and an engineer is already mainly a mechanical engineer. K. Marx and F. Engels considered engineering activity to be a purely industrial branch associated with the conscious application of science, and engineers as scientifically educated workers.

Fifth stage— formation of a modern engineer in the era of scientific and technological revolution. In the second half of the 20th century. There is a qualitative leap in the development of the social function of science as a direct productive force. The bearers of this function are engineers, whose activity is the main channel for transforming science into a direct productive force.

According to modern definition, an engineer is a specialist in any field of technology with a higher technical education. Engineering developments absorb the bulk of the costs when creating new equipment, and the number of engineers, as a rule, significantly exceeds the number of scientists and continues to grow in the same proportion. When producing new unique technical objects, the labor costs of engineers are equal to, and often exceed, the labor costs of workers.

Thus, engineering activity is a developed form of technical activity, which gained relative independence and became a social institution as a result of the division of labor and the development of productive forces and production relations. Modern engineering activity is the most mature form of labor activity, directly aimed at solving technical problems and creating equipment. Technology is the one thing that unites all engineers, regardless of the sphere of social life in which their work is used.

Engineering activity cannot be identified with scientific activity, including in the field of technical sciences. If a scientist pursues cognitive goals, then an engineer is always faced with a specific practical task - to create a technical or technological object, and within a limited period of time and with minimal costs. Engineering activity makes sense only when its results have practical implementation; the engineer is responsible for technical solutions throughout the entire life of the technical object, right up to its replacement with a more progressive one.

Engineering activities- this is the technical application of science aimed at the production of technology and the satisfaction of social technical needs. However, the presence of fundamental differences between scientific and engineering activities does not mean that they cannot be combined. The work of outstanding figures in science and technology, such as Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, M.V. Lomonosov, I.V. Kurchatov, I.P. Bardin, S.P. Korolev et al. convincingly prove the necessity and possibility of a change in labor, a transition from scientific to engineering activities and vice versa.

By means of engineering labor scientific knowledge serves, the results of scientific activity are manifested in the form of ready-made calculation methods, formulas, dependencies, rules, standards and other means of preparing production. The results of engineering activities, in turn, are the means of labor of workers that mediate the engineer’s influence on technology.

Thus, engineering activity is a stable, relatively independent type of technical activity, which has qualitative certainty and differs from the material and production activities of workers, scientists and other specialists involved in the production and use of technology. The engineer acts as the main source of technical progress, evidenced by the ever-increasing share of engineering labor costs in the creation of modern technical objects.

The main engineering specialties are: research engineer, design engineer (designer) and process engineer. The first performs the functions of collecting and processing information, the second - preparing a working project, the third - its implementation. Technological engineers have a leading place not only in the structure of the engineering profession, but also in production, since they accumulate the results of the activities of all other engineers. This is a wide-profile profession, since the technologist has to perform not only his own functions, but also the functions of a designer, manufacturer and operator.

The professional path of a technical specialist does not coincide with an engineering one, although higher technical education is necessary for both the first and the second. In practice, the division into technical specialists and engineers is already clearly visible; only legal registration of this division is necessary. Technical universities have long been producing not engineers, but only providing higher technical education, creating the prerequisites for practical technical activity. Qualification is acquired in the process of engineering activity after a certain period of independent work activity in solving practical technical problems. Only after this can the formation of an engineer occur, or it may not take place.

Engineering education does not coincide with higher technical education, since the latter has already become mandatory for some groups of highly qualified workers. And not all specialists who have an engineering education and occupy engineering positions are actually engaged in engineering activities. Engineers are only those of them whose work and creativity are directly aimed at the creation and use of technology; outside technology, they are naturally deprived of the subject of their activity.

The influence of science and scientists on the development of technology

Throughout the history of human society, the role of science in the development of technology and technical progress has continuously increased.

Despite the fact that the emergence and development of the natural and exact sciences, and above all astronomy, mathematics and mechanics, was at all times determined by the needs of production, the connection of science with production and technology, respectively, during the craft period was one -lateral. The reverse influence of science on production technology was carried out sporadically, since technology itself in its development was based not on the conclusions obtained by science, but on the stock of empirical knowledge accumulated by that time. Therefore, science itself, divorced from practice and influenced by religious ideology, had a scholastic character.

During the period of manufacture, the flow of information from science and technology increased significantly, but the systematic application of science in production began only in the 18th century. with the beginning of the industrial revolution. Since that time, a rapid increase in the number of inventions and discoveries and the acceleration of their implementation into production began.

Technology is the main component of the “science - technology - production” system, which includes a number of interconnected links that form a single day, leading from fundamental natural science research through technical sciences and design developments to implementation in production. Developing on the basis of science, technology poses new tasks for science and improves the means of scientific activity. If in the past technology mainly represented empirical knowledge and experience accumulated in the means of labor, now it increasingly represents the direct materialization of scientific knowledge.

The role of innovators and inventors in the development of technology. The technical level of any state is largely determined by its inventive potential, which is formed under the influence of the scientific and technical environment in which engineering personnel are trained.

The history of technology is replete with many different, including ingenious, inventions and discoveries, which, according to legends, often repeated in literature, were carried out by chance, as a result of sudden insight.

In reality, only the very fact of the appearance of this or that event is accidental, which by that time had already been prepared by the entire previous course of development of technology, by the combination of labor and reason. No wonder the famous scientist and inventor T. Edison said: “Genius is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration.” Necessity, an urgent need for one or another technical improvement, makes its way through a mass of accidents, which sometimes gives rise to a naive belief in an omnipotent genius and the decisive role of chance.

The inventor must not only have diligence and optimism, but also be a dialectician and master the method of historical analysis in order to correctly place everything on the shelves of moral and intellectual values. The forgotten techniques, tools and technologies of our ancestors represent buried treasures that remain unclaimed. Therefore, many modern inventions are only a repetition of the forgotten experience of previous generations.

Engineering is not only work, but also knowledge, communication and creativity. The criterion of technical creativity in engineering activities is legally enshrined in the “Regulations on discoveries, inventions and rationalization proposals”, according to which an invention “is recognized as a new and significantly different technical solution to a problem in any field of the national economy, socio-cultural construction or defense of the country, which gives a positive effect."

Unlike invention, novelty rationalization(from Lat. rationalis- reasonable, rational; ratio- reason) of the proposal is local (local) in nature and is important only for one or a group of enterprises. In many cases, innovation proposals are outdated or “sheltered” inventions. Inventions are mainly the prerogative of engineering and technical workers, and rationalization proposals are the prerogative of advanced innovator workers.

We can rightfully be proud of the outstanding achievements of the technical thought of domestic scientists and engineers. Thanks to them, the concepts of multistage rockets were laid in our country, the first experimental rockets were created, the first artificial Earth satellite was launched, and our compatriot also became the first man in space. Since 1950, half of the transuranium elements have been discovered by domestic scientists; their contribution to the development of the theory of chain reactions, the theory of light and radio waves, the discovery of lasers, modern aerodynamics, ultra-high pressure and ultra-low temperatures, metallurgical technologies, etc. is undeniable.

Dyatchin N.I.

From the book “History of Technology Development”, 2001

Source: Report prepared as part of the course “Philosophy of Science and Technology in April 2010. The Bologna Process".

Introduction

In our time, it is impossible to imagine ourselves outside of technology as well as outside of science. Scientific and technological progress is perhaps the most characteristic dominant feature of Western civilization, if not its essence. However, if science has received fairly comprehensive coverage in many works of both scientists and philosophers, sociologists, cultural experts, etc., then technology still remains a “reserved zone”, despite all its significance for the destinies of mankind, it is not understood so much so that you can confidently look into the future and understand the present. That is why it is generally accepted that philosophy of technology, a relatively young field, is still in its infancy.

1. The emergence of philosophy of technology.

Technology has long attracted the attention of thinkers. Understanding technology as the art of producing things that embody human knowledge and imitate nature, Plato considered it obligatory for the construction of defensive walls, shipyards, temples and other structures. He paid special attention to the fact that technology should be based on knowledge. “We need such knowledge,” says Plato in his “Dialogues,” that would combine the ability to do something and the ability to use what has been done... After all, here the art of making and the art of application exist separately, although they relate to the same thing same subject." Aristotle wrote that “of existing objects, some exist by nature, others by virtue of other reasons.” This reason lies in labor, during which “in objects of art we process the material for a specific purpose, but in natural bodies it is available as something existing.” It is quite obvious that for Aristotle technology is the art of extracting from nature its potential possibilities for human existence. Of course, he further argues, in what is created with the help of art, i.e. There may be technical errors. But the use of art is an indispensable condition for creating a new thing. In this Aristotle saw the difference between man and other living beings.

There were attempts at philosophical understanding of technology in the Middle Ages, during the Renaissance and in modern times in the works of Leonardo da Vinci, G. Galileo, F. Bacon, Pascal and other thinkers. However, despite the solid stock of philosophical knowledge about technology, there has not yet been a philosophy of technology as a specific area of ​​philosophical knowledge. Noting this circumstance, N.A. Berdyaev wrote: “It is amazing that a philosophy of technology and machines has not yet been created, although many books have been written on this topic. Much has already been prepared for the creation of such a philosophy...”

The works of K. Marx played a major role in the development of the philosophy of technology. However, in fairness, we note that Marx had not yet defined the philosophy of technology as a special area of ​​philosophical knowledge, although he laid the methodological foundations for this. The birth of the philosophy of technology in the West is usually associated with the name of E. Kapp, who was the first to use the very concept of “philosophy of technology.”

In 1877, a book by Heidelberg University professor E. Kapp, “Basic Directions in the Philosophy of Technology,” appeared on the German book market. It is no coincidence that it was republished in Germany a hundred years later: the philosophy of technology began chronologically from it.

The basis of E. Kapp’s reasoning was his theory of “organ projection”, in which the concept of “natural soul” occupies a central place. This concept expresses the integrity of a living organism. The “natural soul” realizes the contradictions that arise between the organs of the body and their functions. The technique is the result of resolving these contradictions, the projection of anatomical and physiological characteristics the body of a human being into natural material.

Even after E. Kapp’s book, the pace of development of the philosophy of technology cannot be called rapid. Technical activity was regarded as an activity of an intellectually lower order, which did not deserve the serious attention of philosophers. The absence of a clearly expressed serious philosophical tradition, the analysis of specific rather than fundamental issues of the development of technology, the emphasis on the study of historical and social problems associated with technology, and not the technology itself - all this made it difficult for the time being to form a philosophy of technology.

As a new area of ​​philosophy, the philosophy of technology fully declared itself only in the 60-70s of our century in Germany. In the early 70s, a program for the philosophy of technology was formulated - a transition from abstract reasoning about technology to its interdisciplinary analysis as a complex phenomenon of modern human civilization. According to G. Ropol, technology “has become a worthy subject of private philosophical discipline, the importance of which for human self-understanding is difficult to overestimate.” However, the recognition of philosophy of technology as a specific field of philosophy was still far away.

It should be noted that in the formation of the philosophy of technology, along with professional philosophers, representatives of technical sciences and engineers played a huge role. Moreover, both in Germany and in Russia, engineers were the initiators of raising the question of the need and importance of the philosophy of technology and the formation of new research programs in this area. Mention should be made of the “Union of German Engineers”, created in 1855, the research program on the philosophy of technology of the Russian engineer P.K. Engelmeyer in 1929, and the “USA Office of Technology Assessment”, created in 1972.

Western philosophy of technology has quite clearly realized two problems: the insufficiency of scientific understanding of technology only as an instrumental means of society’s influence on nature and the contradiction between cultural and technical progress, the alienation of scientific and technical activity and its products from man and society.

2. The main periods of development of the philosophy of technology.

Despite its relatively recent existence - a little over a hundred years - the philosophy of technology has already gone through certain periods of its development, each of which has specific features.

The first such period can be attributed to the time when a circle of ideas was formed that were developed in the further evolution of the philosophy of technology. The works of E. Kapp, as well as the works of O. Spengler, F. Dessauer, N. Berdyaev, M. Heidegger, J. Elyul, K. Jaspers, E. Fromm and others belong to this period. What ideas did these philosophers put forward? , which were developed in the philosophy of technology?

The German philosopher O. Spengler, in the book “The Decline of Europe,” which was sensational in the West, and later in the book “Man and Technology,” despite all his pessimism and nihilism, expresses valuable ideas about his own laws of technology development. He clearly shows a tendency to analyze technology in connection with the world-historical development of man and culture. Against the background of the underestimation of the technology factor in social development that existed at that time, O. Spengler raised the question of the place and role of technology in history, the impact of technology on nature and society.

In contrast to E. Kapp and O. Spengler, who tried to understand technology as a tool of human activity, at this time opinions appeared that technology and its development are determined by God's providence, that man, in the process of his technical providence, realizes God's plan. Such thoughts were developed, in particular, by the neo-Thomist F. Dessauer. But even in these arguments, which were far from the truth, there were valuable ideas about the creative nature of technical activity. F. Dessauer's optimistic thoughts about the future of technology, which will bring harmony to the world, are interesting.

Despite individual attempts to attract the creator to understand the essence of technology, the dominant line of this period in the evolution of technology was the desire to comprehend it in connection with man. This desire was most clearly embodied in the philosophy of existentialism.

With its appearance, existentialism reflected the individual’s reaction to the painful process of the formation of a technogenic civilization with its “technicalization” of social relations and their bureaucratization. Existentialism argued that technology is not only entire industrial countries with smoky giant cities, but also the innermost life of a person.

In 1915, N.A. Berdyaev, in his article “Spirit and Machine,” made his first attempt to formulate the problem of the relationship between man and technology. In it, N.A. Berdyaev considers technology as a principle that liberates the “human spirit.” In the early 20s, in the book “The Meaning of History,” he again returned to this topic, writing about the turning point of technology in the fate of man. Technology, he argues, conquers not only nature, but also man. Finally, in 1933, he wrote the article “Man and Machine,” where he soberly assessed the crisis of man and humanity caused by the rapid development of technology, and considered technology as a factor determining human life. But is man capable of limiting the power of technology? N.A. Berdyaev does not answer this question.

The most significant attempt to analyze the phenomenon of technology from the point of view of existentialism is given by the classic of this philosophy M. Heidegger. Rejecting pessimistic judgments, M. Heidegger wrote that the current pessimism will pass along the path of the general spontaneous emergence of a new spiritual atmosphere. To understand the technique. He argued that it is necessary to turn to man, to make a “human dimension” of technical progress. Technology is not just a set of means, a tool that needs to be mastered. The essence of technology is the way in which a person considers the possibilities inherent in nature.

At the end of the 18th century, a great historical turning point occurred in the development of technology, which was facilitated by three factors: natural science, the spirit of invention and the organization of labor. Although technology alienated man from nature, it gave birth to a new closeness with it - it gave birth to the beauty of technical products, and expanded the real vision of the world.

K. Jaspers associated the development of technology with changes in labor: reducing costs and increasing the intensity of labor, the evolution of the very nature of labor in the process of which technical creativity is opposed to non-creativity. The main meaning of technology, according to K. Jaspers, is the transformation of man himself.

By the end of the first period of development of the philosophy of technology, thoughts about the position of technology in a totalized society become relevant, where the idea of ​​technocracy is born, and obstacles in the development of technology are recommended to be eliminated through targeted planning.

The second stage in the evolution of the philosophy of technology is characterized by the approval and development of the ideas that were presented above. However, the development of these ideas has its own peculiarity. This uniqueness lies in the fact that the analysis of technological progress is carried out through the prism of social relations, the development of society as a whole and its individual institutions in particular. A more in-depth and specific analysis of the relationship between technology and society is being implemented. The works of R. Dahrendorf, L. Mumford, Skolimowski, G. Marcuse, J. Habermas, members of the Union of German Engineers belong to this stage.

R. Dahrendorf in his short book “Sociology of Industry and Production” showed the dependence of the lives of people in an industrial society on technical development. His “industrial sociology” turned his attention to the study of the relationships between man and machine that arise in industrial society. The development of technology sets a new principle of social differentiation of society through a certain “qualification grid”. R. Dahrendorf does not study technology itself, its structure and essence. His passion for discovering the specifics of social relations arising in connection with the development and functioning of technology distracted R. Dahrendorf from the analysis of technology itself as a means of human activity.

L. Mumford in his work “Technology and Human Nature” characterizes the contemporary era as transitioning from the production of technology for domination over the forces of nature to the conquest of nature and the complete separation of man from this nature with the help of the created metatechnology. Therefore, L. Mumford concludes, it is necessary to understand the nature of man not as an animal producing tool, but as a self-improving being.

In the development of the philosophy of technology at this stage of its development, the “Union of German Engineers”, which has existed for more than a hundred years, played a significant role. In 1965, this Union formed the research group “Man and Technology,” which published a series of collections and organized discussions and conferences. In the 70s, the Mosel-Lenke group launched a critique of traditional views existing in the philosophy of technology. From their point of view, no one has done anything significant to understand technology. The thing is that technology is a complex social phenomenon; it has a multisystem nature and requires interdisciplinary research. Developing a program for such research, this group identified various aspects of the analysis of technology: cultural-historical, scientific research, socio-philosophical and others. The importance of systems engineering, computer science, and futurology for the philosophical understanding of scientific and technological progress was especially highlighted.

In the 70-80s, an “analytical philosophy of technology” appeared, which developed a project of “universal technology” as a science of technology. According to G. Ropol, the central concept of this science should be the concept of a socio-economic system, described in the language of information theory and functional laws. “Analytical philosophy of technology” sought to develop and construct comprehensive knowledge about technology and demanded a value-based approach to the problems of technology.

A. Huning's anthropology of technology made its contribution to the philosophy of technology, which claimed to carry out interpretations of knowledge about technology - to raise this knowledge to the level of its theoretical understanding through scientific concepts. Other functions of the anthropology of technology according to A. Huning are the function of integration - to unite knowledge about technology and the function of emancipation - to free human consciousness from a false understanding of technical progress. The main thing in the anthropology of technology is the requirement to make the philosophy of technology a means of forming and developing the self-awareness of scientists and engineers, to consider the progress of technology in the interaction of technology with man. The most important thing in this case is the study of the development of man himself.

In the philosophy of technology, towards the end of the second period of its development, attempts thus arise to overcome the limitations of a purely instrumental analysis of technology that existed in traditional philosophy of technology. There is a desire to consider technology not only in close connection with the development of man himself, but also to study technology against a broad socio-cultural background. This tendency makes its way into the third period of the evolution of the philosophy of technology.

Now technology begins to be considered in close connection with those new socio-economic and political processes that characterize the transition of society to a new type of civilization. Previously developed ideas about the essence of technology and its role in social development are applied to understanding new patterns of real processes of the “information age”, to describing the emerging “information society” and its future. It is now that the thesis is clearly formulated that further technological progress is impossible without radical social changes.

In the mid-60s, American philosophers and sociologists clearly saw that the United States was beginning to move towards a post-industrial society based on the primary development of information. With the advent of computerized cards and information, and based on it, new types of services have developed. Connecting home television receivers through networks of cables opens up a much more advanced possibility for exchanging information. The office of the future is quickly shaping its appearance with personal computer writing and communication with a personal computer file cabinet. Computers have become widely used in the learning process.

D. Bell in his book “The Social Framework of the Information Society” showed that in the new information society knowledge, and not labor, is the source of value. “In this sense,” he wrote, “just as labor and capital were the central variables in industrial society, so information and knowledge become the decisive variables of post-industrial society.” The computer becomes a tool for managing society. Information is power. Technical problems are intertwined with economic problems. Information and theoretical knowledge are strategic resources of post-industrial society.

In his concept of post-industrial society, the famous American sociologist E. Toffler wrote that the advent of this society is accompanied by a structural restructuring of the country’s economic life with great changes in social structures and values. Old forms of dehumanized labor are disappearing. Workers are becoming more independent, more inventive and are no longer an appendage of the machine, but require individual treatment at work. Technology determines the type of new, post-industrial society and a new type of culture.

Discussing the advent of the new information age, W. Drizard writes that the new technology has given people enormous information and communication services. But, he continues, new technology requires a new understanding of the connection of this technology with social needs and puts forward fundamental problems of the human personality and its values. However, there is a feeling that technology has crossed a certain threshold in its development, after which there is no way back. Building a triangle consisting of factors such as microelectronic technology, economics and politics, W. Drizard comes to the conclusion that fundamental political changes are necessary.

At the same time, in modern Western philosophy of technology there are also opponents to the recognition of a strictly determining connection between technical and social progress. Thus, the French sociologist A. Touraine, while recognizing the crisis of industrial society, still objects to the excessive exaggeration of the role of technology in society. From the point of view of A. Touraine, the future society can with good reason be called a programmable society. Such a society arises due to its self-improvement, is mobile and it would be more accurate to call it not a society, but a culture.

As we can see, the views of modern Western philosophers of technology contain a whole range of different statements about the relationship between technology and society. But what remains certain is that this problem has become the focus of their attention. At the same time, in all discussions of this kind, fear for the future of society and individuals becomes an increasingly important leitmotif.

However, Western philosophy of technology has quite clearly recognized two problems: the insufficiency of scientific understanding of technology only as an instrumental means of society’s influence on nature and the contradiction between cultural and technical progress, the alienation of scientific and technical activity and its products from man and society.

In the USSR, the philosophy of technology was very poorly represented. Despite the already mentioned works of N. Berdyaev, formulated by P.K. Engelmeyer back in 1929, the main provisions of the research program on the philosophy of technology, the latter at one time met with misunderstanding and even open opposition from “orthodox Marxists.” In the same magazine. where is P.K. Engelmeyer in the article “Do we need a philosophy of technology?” noted the importance of this section of philosophy B.V. Barkov in the article “Is it a matter of philosophy?” sharply criticized P.K. Engelmeer. “Philosophy of technology. as such, isolated from human society, from its class struggle, it does not and cannot be, he wrote. To talk about the philosophy of technology means to think idealistically. The philosophy of technology is not a materialistic, but an idealistic concept."

Actually, since then, in Soviet literature, the label of idealism was attached to the philosophy of technology for many years. A paradoxical situation was created: supporters of the materialist understanding of history ignored the most important material factor of social development - technology.

In recent decades, many domestic philosophers, sociologists and scientists have begun to pay increasing attention to the development of individual problems in the philosophy of technology. In this regard, characteristic works are devoted to philosophical and methodological problems of technical knowledge and technical sciences: the works of V.I. Belozertseva, O.M. Volosevich, B.I. Kozlov, V.D. Komarov, B.I. Ivanov, V.M. Figurovskaya, V.V. Cheshev, G.I. Shemenev and others. Selected works - V.I. Belozertseva, K. S. Pigrova, E. A. Shapovalova: dedicated to scientific and technical creativity and engineering activities.

However, over time, more and more often attempts were made, and quite fruitful ones, to philosophically comprehend scientific and technological progress, which is typical for the works of G.N. Volkov, V.G. Gorokhov, N.I. Dryakhlov, A.A. Zvorykin, B.M. .Kedrova, V.G. Marakhova, Y.S. Meleshchenko, G.M. Tavrizyan, S.V. Shukhardina and others. The development of the philosophy of technology was facilitated by the sector of the modern scientific and technological revolution of the IIET RAS created under the leadership of S.V. Shukhardina, and then the sector on the philosophy of technology at the Institute philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences under the leadership of V.G. Gorokhov, translations of works by Western European and American philosophers of technology, articles in the journal “Questions of Philosophy”. The works of R.F. Abdeev, A.I. Rakitov, G.L. Smolyan are devoted to understanding the current stage of scientific and technological progress, the role of information technology in the transition of society to post-industrial civilization. But even to this day, the level of development of philosophical problems of technology in our country does not correspond to the role that technology plays in life modern society, nor the world level of philosophical research of technology.

Conclusion

We discovered that anthropologism does not always entail an anti-technical attitude. It is useless to criticize technology or look for ways to slow down its development. It is necessary to detect distortions in the meaning of technology (K. Jaspers), that is, those cases of using tools and mechanisms when the latter do not lead to the achievement of human goals, cease to be intermediary links and become an end in themselves. This will allow us not to lose control over the development of technology.

On the eve of entering the third millennium, the people of the Earth have a huge amount of knowledge about the world and man, which is the result of the cognitive activity of all previous generations. Past generations also left us a technical and technological complex of influencing nature to ensure the life of the Earth's population. The modern generation has greatly increased and continues to increase the achievements of science and technology at an unprecedentedly accelerating pace. Using these achievements for the benefit of society, people and improving the natural environment of their existence is the strategic task of modern humanity. This problem can be solved not only by creating favorable political and economic conditions, but also through the spiritual development of society, scientific and philosophical understanding of the problems raised by the rapid development of science and technology.

Providing philosophical coverage of current problems of the development and functioning of technology, the social consequences of this development and functioning, the philosophy of technology acts as a compass for the rational scientific and technical activity of people.

Literature
1. Hegel G.V.F. Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences, vol. 1, Science of Logic. M., 1974.
2. New technocratic wave in the West. M., 1986.
3. Philosophy of technology in Germany. M., 1989.
4. Tavrizyan G.M. Technology, culture, people. M., 1989.
5. Philosophy of technology//Issue. Philosophy, 1989, No. 3.
6. Kant I. Critique of pure reason // Kant I. Op. in 6 volumes, vol.3. M., 1964.
7. Plato. Euthydemus // Plato. Collection op. in 4 volumes, vol.1. M., 1981.
8. Aristotle.Physics // Aristotle. Op. in 4 volumes, vol. 1, M., 1981.
9. Berdyaev N.A. Man and machine // Question. Philosophy, 1989, No. 2.
10. Blumenberg H. Lifeworld and technization from the point of view of phenomenology // Issue. Philosophy, 1993, No. 10.
11. Jaspers K. The meaning and purpose of history. M., 1991.
12. Computerization of society and the human factor. M., 1988.
13. Markov B.V. Is it about “philosophy”? // Engineering work, 1929, No. 2.
14. Kant I. “Towards Eternal Peace” // Op. in 6 volumes, vol. 5. M., 1966.
15. Quoted from: Smirnova G.E. Criticism of bourgeois philosophy of technology. L., 1976.
16. Negodaev I.A. Fundamentals of the philosophy of technology. Rostov-on-Don, 1995.
17. Thomson J. The Foreseen Future. M., 1958.
18. Neisbat J., Ebedin I. Restructuring of corporations // USA-EPI, 1987, No. 1.

© Kerentseva M.A., DonNTU 2010

According to Mumford Lewis Mumford, Lewis // Wikipedia. URL, the history of technology is divided into eotechnical, paleotechnical and neotechnical periods. The first period is the harmony of technology and nature, characteristic of the medieval era. The second period is the dominance of the steam engine, when technology enslaves man and nature. And finally, the third period, when technology turns towards man (the rise of household appliances) and nature (the use of electrical energy).

N.M. Al-Ani identifies 4 stages in the development of technology Al-Ani N.M. Philosophy of technology: essays on history and theory/textbook. ? St. Petersburg, 2004. ? 184 pp.:

1. The origin of technology;

2. Craft equipment;

3. Machinery;

4. Modern technology.

The Birth of Technology

At this stage, technology is purely random; primitive man did not know how to make tools, but used random natural objects as means to achieve his goals. The creative potential of the primitive savage was manifested and realized in the use of his natural organs, rather than in the creation and use of artificial ones. At the first historical stage of the formation and development of technology, the arsenal technical means was very modest, and the set of operations (skills and skills) for their manufacture and use was very simple and elementary, therefore almost all adult members of the primitive human collective had the ability to use and make tools. During this period, man did not yet recognize himself as a subject of his own technology, and, consequently, as a creator of technology. At the first historical stage of the existence of technology, the pace of its development was very low, therefore the stage of the origin and formation of technology was the longest and lasted for hundreds of thousands of years and ended only with the advent of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China Al-Ani N.M. Philosophy of technology: essays on history and theory/textbook. ? St. Petersburg, 2004. ? 184 pp..

In the ancient world, technology, technical knowledge and technical action were closely connected with magical action and a mythological worldview. Espinas said that the first machines in the ancient world were offered as gifts to the gods and dedicated to cults before they were used for useful purposes. The drill with a belt was apparently invented by the Hindus for kindling the sacred fire - an operation that was carried out extremely quickly, because it is still performed on certain holidays up to 360 times a day. The wheel was a great invention; it is very likely that it was formerly dedicated to the gods. Geiger believes that the most ancient prayer wheels, still used in Buddhist temples in Japan and Tibet, should be considered, which are partly wind wheels and partly hydraulic wheels... And Espinas argued that all technology in the ancient world was religious, traditional and local. The science of the ancient world was not only unspecialized and undisciplinary, but also inseparable from practice and technology. The most important step towards the development of Western civilization was the ancient revolution in science, which highlighted the theoretical form of knowledge and exploration of the world into an independent sphere of human activity.

technology craft engineering

State Committee of the Russian Federation

For higher education

Northwestern Correspondence Polytechnic Institute

Department of History of Technology Development

TEST

IN THE DISCIPLINE "HISTORY OF TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT"

Completed by: Petrova Valentina Vasilievna

Faculty: EM and AT

Course: first

Specialty: 0608

Code: 96-5284

Home address: St. Petersburg, st. ak. Baykova, 11, building 2, apt. 109.

Saint Petersburg

1. Communication routes of the ancient and ancient worlds. Channels. . . . . . . . . .3

2. Steel (1800-1900), bridge construction, transportation and the need for durable materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . .6

3. Passenger cars (1930-40s), turbojet engines. . . . . .

. . . . . 9

4. Cargo delivery; vans and trucks, road freight transportation... . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. 12

5. The first Russian car. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . 15

6. List of references. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .18

Communication routes of the ancient and ancient worlds. Channels.

The emergence of transport dates back to ancient times. In the conditions of a primitive economy, when only the rudiments of the social division of labor appear, the need for transport is small. The means of transport are primitive - well-trodden paths, packs, rollers for especially heavy loads, hollowed out tree trunks or rafts, and later shuttles. In the era of a slave economy built on the exploitation of slave labor, transport takes a step forward in its development. Slave states fought numerous wars to conquer other countries, receive tribute from them, and capture slaves. Military and administrative needs required the development of transport in China, the Persians, and the Roman Empire built a large number of paved roads for military purposes. The network of Roman military roads numbered tens of thousands of kilometers, the remains of which have survived to this day. Exchange and trade in slaves, bread, textiles, and spices gradually grew. City-states emerged on the Mediterranean Sea:
Phenicia, Carthage and others, in which trade played a large role.
Maritime shipping developed. Rowing and then sailing ships appeared.
Sea vessels, especially military ones, in the states of the ancient world - Greece,
Rome, Egypt - reached large sizes, in some cases they had thousands of slave rowers. Merchants preferred smaller sailing and sailing-rowing vessels that did not require such a large number of rowers and had relatively more space for placing cargo. To transport goods by land, slave porters served, packs or 2-4 wheeled carts were used. Under a slave-owning economy, transport had not yet become an independent branch of the economy. Means of transport, like other means of production, belonged to slave owners.
In the sphere of exchange, transport was merged with trade. Merchants were also owners of vehicles.

Channels - (from Latin) pipe, gutter - an artificial channel of the correct shape, arranged in an open excavation or in an embankment of soil.

Energy channels are divided into inlet channels, which supply water from the main water intake unit from the reservoir, and outlet channels, which divert water passed through the turbines into the river.

Irrigation canals are divided into main ones, which drop water from a reservoir to the irrigated land masses, distribution canals, through which water from the main canal is distributed between irrigated areas and supplied to irrigation canals, and irrigation canals themselves, which supply water from distribution canals directly to irrigated areas.

Water supply and irrigation canals are designed to supply water from a water supply source to cities, towns, enterprises, or to water areas for agricultural water supply.

Drainage or drainage channels collect water coming from the drainage or drainage network and are discharged into a water intake or lake.

Timber rafting canals are used to pass timber from logging sites to a timber rafting river or to a sawmill, sometimes bypassing hydraulic structures.

Fish channels are installed between fish ponds and the river to connect artificial spawning grounds to the river.

Shipping canals are divided into connecting, bypass and approach.
Connecting ones are arranged between navigable rivers, lakes and seas.
Bypass channels are used to bypass any obstacles on the main waterway (thresholds, waterfalls), lakes, which cannot be navigated by river vessels of weak construction not adapted for lake navigation. Bypass canals also include diversion navigable canals that straighten the shipping passage and side canals arranged in the valleys of small rivers if the winding beds of the latter are unsuitable for navigation. Approach canals on inland waterways are arranged for the approach of ships from a river, lake or transit shipping canal to an industrial enterprise or populated area. Marine access channels, usually representing an underwater excavation, provide passage for seagoing vessels in the waters of ports located at river mouths. Marine access channels are sometimes laid on land.

Steel, (1800-1900), bridge construction, transportation and the need for durable materials.

Industry of the 19th century is characterized by the rapid spread of steam engines, metalworking machines, textile machines, steel cannons, pumps, and lifts in mines.

There is a need for large quantities of cheap metal. In this regard, in the middle of the 19th century, new methods for the production of cast steel were created and rapidly developed - converter (91856) and open-hearth (1864) for processing large masses of steel by pressure, new machines were designed and built: a steam roller (1842) and a powerful rolling camp (1865)

It was necessary to develop the science of the composition and physical and chemical properties of metals, including steel. Back in the 18th century, separate but important discoveries were made. R. Reaumur wrote the work "The Art of Transforming Iron into Steel". He came to a valuable conclusion: iron, steel, cast iron differ in the amount of some impurity and by adding this impurity to iron, by carburizing or alloying with cast iron, Reaumur obtained steel. In 1814 K.
Careten proved that this impurity is carbon.

During the 19th century, polymorphic transformations of steel were discovered and basic methods for studying steel were created. Practical achievements in the 19th century boil down mainly to the fact that a rational basis was created for choosing the composition of alloys, as well as the mode of their forging and heat treatment. At the same time, several types of the first alloy steels appeared: tungsten tool steel (1860), chromium (1865), nickel (1880), manganese (1876)

Their initial study was carried out (1870 - 80), and the influence of nickel, manganese, silicon, as well as harmful impurities of sulfur and phosphorus on steel was determined in basic terms. This was preparation for the later widespread use of special alloy steels in industry, which began in the 80s of the 19th century.

In the USSR, road bridge construction has received significant development.
Many Soviet-designed road and city bridges are outstanding structures. These include, for example, large road bridges across the canal. Moscow, across the Oka River in Gorky, Moscow bridges, a bridge over the Angara River, wooden bridges with spans of more than 60 meters and others. In the field of road bridge construction, enormous successes were achieved during the Great Patriotic War and, in particular, in the field of new methods for assembling and installing spans.

Automotive production is complex mass production based on broad cooperation. Hundreds of factories from various industries participate in it - ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, electrical engineering, rubber, textile, paper, chemical, oil, light industry, forestry, general engineering, etc. The specification of materials required for the manufacture of a car totals more than 2 thousand. names.

A car consists of approximately 3,500 products of different types, of which up to 2,500 are usually produced by the main automobile plant, the rest of the products come from related factories. For individual automobile plants, this ratio varies significantly.

Organizing the mass production of cars requires the construction of large, complex enterprises, including a wide variety of types of industrial production. An automobile plant usually has: production of castings from gray and malleable cast iron, steel production, production of non-ferrous castings from copper, bronze, aluminum, zinc, lead and their alloys, forging, pressing, reinforcement, spring, body and woodworking production. All types of mechanical processing of products, assembly of components and cars, as well as tool, stamping and model production and large repair shops, a number of factory laboratories, testing stations and often their own race tracks.

Mass production of cars requires the use of the most productive equipment and highly efficient equipment.

The powerful growth of the automotive industry became possible only after the methods of continuous production were introduced into it. The automotive industry was one of the first to transfer its enterprises to continuous production.

Passenger cars (1930s, 1940s), turbojet engines.

In 1932, GAZ began producing one-and-a-half-ton trucks of the GAZ-AA brand and passenger cars of the GAZ-A brand; in 1933, it also began producing “Pickup” vehicles with a carrying capacity of 0.5 tons, buses, and more. During the Second Five-Year Plan, further expansion of the plant was carried out.
Work on the design of new types of cars has intensified. In 1936, production of passenger cars of the M-1 type began. This is a five-seater car of a simple and reliable design with a 50 horsepower engine.
It was produced by the plant until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
At the same time, during these same years, the plant mastered the production of dump trucks, gas generators, ambulance buses, etc. From the first days of the Great Patriotic War, the plant was adapted to serve the needs of the front. His team selflessly and flawlessly fulfilled orders
Soviet army. Without stopping the production of trucks, he mastered the production of other types of products.

In the post-war period, the plant team was tasked with switching to the production of new models of trucks and cars. GAZ-51 and GAZ-63 trucks and the Pobeda passenger car were approved for production. The GAZ-51 truck is a 2.5-ton vehicle with a 6-cylinder engine producing 70 hp. s., GAZ-63 is an off-road truck (it has a motor drive to the front and rear axles). Long-term tests of both types of trucks confirmed the high quality of construction, durability and ease of maintenance. The Pobeda passenger car is a five-seater comfortable car with an all-metal body, a 4-cylinder engine with a capacity of 50 hp. s., allowing you to reach speeds up to
110 kilometers per hour.

GAZ Moscow plant for the production of trucks, cars and buses, was reconstructed in 1929 - 31. In 1934 - 37, further reconstruction of the plant was carried out, ensuring an increase in vehicle production
ZIS-5 up to 90 thousand per year. In 1936 the plant began producing passenger cars
ZIS-101.

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the plant produced up to 20 types of different machines. In 1941, the plant's equipment was relocated from Moscow to the eastern regions of the country, and at the same time, mass production of military products was established in Moscow workshops.

In 1946, production of the ZIS-110 passenger car began. This is a comfortable seven-seater car with an 8-cylinder engine producing 140 hp. s., with a limousine body, equipped with a radio, heating, hydraulic window lifts and the latest modern devices. Maximum speed on the highway is 140 km/h. In 1947, the country received a multi-seat carriage-type bus ZIS-154. In 1948, for the first time in the history of the automotive industry, the plant team made the transition to mass production of a new model of the ZIS-150 truck without stopping current production.
The machine's load capacity is 4 tons. Motor power is 90 hp. With. With the production of the ZIS-150 truck and the all-terrain ZIS-151, the plant completed the development of the types of vehicles provided for by the plan for 1946-50.

In turbojet engines, all the useful work obtained as a result of a continuous thermodynamic cycle in it is spent on accelerating the flow flowing inside the engine and creating traction work. The operating principle of turbojet engines is the continuous implementation of the following processes: compression of atmospheric air in the input device and compressor, heating of this air in the combustion chamber by burning fuel, expansion of hot gases in the turbine and in the engine output device. Thrust occurs due to the force of the gas flow on the flow parts of the engine elements.
The resulting force from this action of gases - thrust is directed parallel to the axis of the engine in the direction opposite to the movement of the gas flow. Engine thrust is used for flight as the driving force of the aircraft.
Therefore, a jet engine is often called a direct reaction engine.

The main disadvantage of turbojet engines is their low operating efficiency at sub-sonic flight speeds of the aircraft. In this case, the turbojet engine performs the function of propulsion unsatisfactorily, since there are losses of traction work associated with the high speed of gas flow from the jet nozzle of the engine output device.

Cargo delivery; vans and trucks. Road freight transportation.

In October 1836, artillery lieutenant N.D. Lundyshev presented a project to establish a joint-stock company for transporting goods using steam cars. In those same years, numerous applications were submitted to introduce steam carriage flights along the St. Petersburg-Moscow highway. Merchants
Yakovlev and Stoke wanted to establish steam carriages on highways to transport passengers and goods. Like Guryev, many project authors understood that the development of a new type of transport was impossible without the construction of improved roads. So, in his project, retired captain captain D.
Pisarev (1835) proposed to build the Moscow-Voronezh and Moscow-Kursk highways and establish the movement of steam and horse-drawn stagecoaches along them. In 1838 engineer
I. Domanievsky asked for the privilege to widely introduce steam cars for use on ice rivers in winter.

A truck is a vehicle equipped with a body for transporting goods.
Car load capacity is often indicated by two numbers, in relation to two main types of roads: highways and dirt. Estimated standards for vehicle loading in operation are established depending on the type and condition of roads, the cargo being transported, the distance and conditions of transportation.

Different types of truck layouts are used depending on the purpose of the truck. A variety of truck layouts make it possible to compensate for some shortcomings.
For example: quite often there is a tendency to increase the load on the front axle (up to 33% of the total weight), due to the unloading of the rear axle. In this case, with double wheel ramps on the rear axle, the load on each ramp is the same and therefore all 6 tires wear out evenly. This ideal weight distribution along the axles with regard to tire wear can be achieved when the vehicle is configured in a cab-over-engine configuration. This arrangement allows you to minimize the length and dead weight of the vehicle, as well as achieve its best maneuverability.

Trucks are usually classified according to their carrying capacity, that is, according to the maximum payload for which the vehicle is designed for given operating conditions. The maximum payload established for a vehicle, taking into account its operation on paved roads, is called the rated load capacity. It is usually divided into masses:

1. Extra small up to 0.75 tons inclusive

2. Small from 0.75 to 2.5 tons inclusive

3. Average from 2.5 to 5 tons inclusive

4. Large from 5 to 10 tons inclusive

5. Extra large from 10 or more

Trucks are also used to transport troops, in which case they are equipped with benches.

Depending on the type of cargo transported, there are different types of bodies:

Pickups (light duty)

Dump trucks (for heavy bulk cargo)

Tank bodies (for liquid cargo)

Van bodies (equipped with special equipment, eg refrigerators).

A van is a closed body of a cargo or utility vehicle.
Vans are usually adapted for transporting goods. Cargo-passenger vans have 2 longitudinal or 2-3 transverse seats. Doors and unloading hatches are located on the sides or rear. Van frames are made of metal or wood and covered with sheet steel or wood.

Freight transportation - transportation of raw materials or products produced by industrial enterprises and agriculture, by transport, including road transport.

Cargo transportation is divided into transportation of category 1 cargo, which is of national importance, and category 2, cargo of local importance.

The first Russian car

Our compatriot Evgeniy Alekseevich Yakovlev (1857-1898) also occupies a place of honor among the inventors of automobiles. He began conducting experiments with internal combustion engines in 1884.

And in 1889, at his own risk, he organized mass production of kerosene and gas engines at a small plant he founded in St. Petersburg.

Engines designed by Yakovlev had many advanced design features for that time (electric ignition, removable cylinder head, pressure lubrication).

In 1893, they were exhibited at the World's Fair in Chicago and were awarded a prize. At this exhibition, one of the first mass-produced cars was presented - the German Benz Velo model. This unusual experiment was carried out by Yakovlev and Pyotr Aleksandrovich Frese, an engineer and owner of carriage workshops in St. Petersburg. The decision to jointly build such a machine was born quickly. However, it was possible to implement it only after 3 years. Yakovlev made the engine and transmission, Frese, to his order, made the chassis and body.

What was this car?

A four-stroke engine with one horizontal cylinder was located in the rear of the body and developed a power of 1.5 - 2 horsepower.

Water was used to cool the cylinder and the heat exchangers were two brass containers located along the sides at the rear of the car.
Ignition was electric (dry cell battery and patented spark plug), while many engines of those years used a glow tube. The carburetor was the simplest, the so-called Spanish type. Its body, in the form of a tall cylinder, was located in the rear left corner of the body.

As with all other Yakovlev engines, the released car had a mechanical drive, and the exhaust valve operated “automatically,” that is, from vacuum. The transmission consisted of rubber belts with pulleys, through which it was possible to obtain two gears in forward and idle. The gears were engaged by levers placed on the racks to the left and right of the steering button. There was no reverse gear.

The car had two brakes: a handbrake (from a lever located at the left side of the body), acted on a pair of rear wheels, pressed against them and thus braked the pads. It was this brake, in modern terminology, that was the working one, and the other, the foot brake, played an auxiliary role and “acted” on the air shaft of the transmission.

The chassis was a typical carriage design.
Wooden wheels, with wooden spokes, solid rubber
(pneumatic) tires 60 millimeters wide, wheel hubs without ball bearings, fully elliptical longitudinal springs, an unsprung subframe connecting the front and rear axles.

It was very original done on the car steering. If Benz used a device patented already in 1893, where between the axle and the transverse kingpin there was a rotating elastic link made of two small springs, then on the car of Yakovlev and Frez the front wheels turned together with the springs relative to the kingpins of the front axle.

To control the turn, a steering lever mounted on a column was installed in the middle of the cabin.

The car of Yakovlev and Frez had a mass of about three hundred kilograms, could reach a speed of about twenty versts/hour (21.3 km/h) and had fuel reserves for two hundred versts of travel.

Based on the surviving information, it was possible to restore the main parameters of the first Russian car:

Its base: 1370 mm.

Length: 2180 mm.

Width: 1530 mm.

Height: 1440 mm.

The first Russian car with an internal combustion engine was tested in May 1896, the finishing of the car was completed in June, and on the first of July it was exhibited at
All-Russian Automotive Art Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod.

Bibliography:

1. Vavilov S.I. - Ch. ed., "Great Soviet Encyclopedia",
State scientific publication "Great Soviet Encyclopedia", 2nd edition, vol. 1.

2. Vavilov S.I. - Ch. ed., "Great Soviet Encyclopedia",
State scientific publication "Great Soviet Encyclopedia", 2nd edition, vol. 13.

3. Vavilov S.I. - Ch. ed., "Great Soviet Encyclopedia",
State scientific publication "Great Soviet Encyclopedia", 2nd edition, vol. 19.

4. Vavilov S.I. - Ch. ed., "Great Soviet Encyclopedia",
State scientific publication "Great Soviet Encyclopedia", 2nd edition, vol. 40.

5. Vavilov S.I. - Ch. ed., "Great Soviet Encyclopedia",
State scientific publication "Great Soviet Encyclopedia", 2nd edition, vol. 43.

6. Vavilov S.I. - Ch. ed., "Great Soviet Encyclopedia",
State scientific publication "Great Soviet Encyclopedia", 2nd edition, v. 45.

7. Vavilov S.I. - Ch. ed., "Great Soviet Encyclopedia",
State scientific publication "Great Soviet Encyclopedia", 2nd edition, vol. 48.

8. Garkavyi A.A. "Aircraft Engines", M. Ed.
"Mechanical Engineering", 1987

Technology (ancient Greek τεχνικός from τέχνη - art, skill, skill) is the general name for various devices, mechanisms and devices that do not exist in nature and are manufactured by man.

Technology, in a broad sense, arose along with the emergence of Homo sapiens and developed for a long time independently of science. In antiquity, the concept of “techne” embraced technology, technical knowledge, and art. In a narrow sense, technology arose during the Renaissance, when technical devices began to be calculated on the basis of scientific knowledge, when technical theory began to take shape.

The main purpose of technology is to relieve a person from performing physically difficult or routine (monotonous) work in order to provide him with more time for creative activities and make his daily life easier.

Technology is an independent world, reality. Technology is opposed to nature, art, language, everything living, and finally, man. But technology is associated with a certain way of human existence, in our time - the fate of civilization. The twentieth century became the century of technical science and philosophy of technology

Four main stages in the development of technology can be distinguished: the origin of technology, craft technology, machine technology and modern (information) technology.

On the first the technique was purely random, i.e. was, in the words of H. Ortega y Gasse, a “technique of chance.” Indeed, historically, the first means or tools were found by chance rather than deliberately invented. At the earliest stage of his existence, primitive man did not yet know how to make tools in the proper sense of the word. He then limited himself to using random natural objects as means to achieve his goals. At the first historical stage of the existence of technology, the pace of its development was extremely low. The stage of the origin and development of technology was the longest and lasted, apparently, hundreds of thousands of years

Techniques: Technical products are becoming relatively numerous and more diverse, and the technology for their manufacture is becoming quite complex. That is why not every person can, as it was before, make the tools necessary for his work himself. The very use of some particularly complex tools now requires appropriate, more or less serious, preparation. The craft itself now requires even more serious preparation and long-term training, i.e. the manufacture of the tools themselves and the production of utensils and services. He not only designs, i.e. ideally creates the subject of his activity, but also carries out his project himself, turning it into a material object.

new stage in the development of technology - machine technology. The basis of machine technology is already engineering activity, which, as a more developed form of technical activity, is oriented towards science, theoretical and applied natural science. That is why, in principle, it, as a historical alternative to craft technology, could not have emerged before natural science began to take shape and develop freely.

Among all the essential features of information technology as a new stage in the historical development of technology, which began to take shape around the middle of the 20th century, first of all, it is necessary to highlight the following: muscles and intelligence are replaced by natural forces, connections and processes; technology becomes “an organ of the human brain” and “the embodied power of knowledge” (K. Marx); the ever-increasing involvement of technology and science in economic turnover; information technology is characterized by a deeper differentiation of engineering activities; human participation and role in the technological and production process is minimized; Information technology reveals even more and more acutely the negative aspects of scientific and technological progress.

Mahdi identifies several stages in the development of technology:

1. Primitive - sticks & stones, when tools were not processed

2. craft - specialization and training

3. Machine technology

4. Second Industrial Revolution - machines produce machines

5. Information technology - production automation.

Rejecting the “instrumental approach” to understanding technology, O. Spengler considered it necessary to consider it nothing other than “life tactics.” Consequently, he interpreted the phenomenon of technology so broadly that he practically extended it to the entire animal kingdom. Technology, he said, “extends beyond man, back to the life of animals, namely all animals.” At the same time, Spengler's interpretation of technology turned out to be too narrow, since it completely excluded the creation of tools (tools) from the content of technology, thus reducing it only to the method of handling them.

In addition to the broad interpretation of technology, the opposite extreme is also found in the literature - a too narrow interpretation of this concept. The following definitions of the concept “technology” can serve as examples of such an interpretation: “technology is the production of excess”; “Technology is an activity aimed at benefit.”

The disadvantage of all the above interpretations of the concept of technology (both broad and narrow) is that they do not adequately, do not quite accurately express the content of this concept, highlighting and designating one or the other of its aspects. Therefore, we can say that all these interpretations are abstract and thus differ in their one-sidedness. Between the extremely broad and extremely narrow interpretations of technology, there are a number of “intermediate” definitions of this concept, among which the most acceptable is the understanding of technology as creation (including invention, design and construction) and the use of tools in the broadest sense of the word. This understanding of technology includes in its content, in our opinion, the following points: a) all technical means; b) explicit and implicit technical knowledge, i.e. the totality of all knowledge, skills, abilities, methods (methods), etc., necessary for creation.

Main historical stages of technology development:

Technology, as one of the essential aspects of culture, and, consequently, as one of the most important varieties of creative human activity, has gone through a long historical path in its development, which includes a number of stages, among which, in our opinion, we can distinguish four main ones, namely: the stage of the emergence of technology, craft technology, machine technology and modern (information) technology. Let us briefly look at the main characteristics of each of these stages.

On the first Of the indicated historical stages, technology was still of a purely random nature, i.e. was, in the words of H. Ortega y Gasse, a “technique of chance.” And in fact, historically, the first means or tools, as L. Geiger and L. Noiret emphasized, were found by chance and were not intentionally invented. Consequently, at the very early stage of his existence, primitive man did not yet know the making of tools in the proper sense of the word. He then limited himself to using random natural objects as means to achieve his goals. So, for example, an empty shell served him, as L. Geiger noted, as the first vessel used for drinking to replace the palms. From this we can conclude that the creative potential of the primitive savage was manifested and realized rather in the use of his natural organs (and, accordingly, natural, not yet hewn objects as their direct continuation), rather than in the creation and use of artificial ones. And only after a huge period of historical time, counting thousands of years, the use of randomly found natural objects as tools became such a constant, habitual, ingrained and automated act that the most ancient people, by analogy and by imitation, “learned to prepare tools for the purposeful use of them.” In this case, it is necessary to take into account two important circumstances, noted by L. Noiret: “1) The primitive instrument served to supplement, adapt and enhance the physiological activity in which it was, as it were, unconsciously involved. 2) Organic transformation, modification.

The most ancient man, working by trial and error, accidentally came across the desired solution, and therefore we can say that the new tool was more likely to “find” the person itself than he found him.

At the first historical stage of the formation and development of technology, the arsenal of technical means was very modest, and the set of operations (skills and skills) for their production and use was very simple and elementary. In view of this, all adult members of the primitive human collective actually possessed the ability not only to use, but also to make these simple and primitive tools. “The simplicity and scarcity of primitive technology lead to the fact,” notes J. Ortega y Gasset, “that the actions associated with it can be performed by all members of the community, i.e. everyone makes a fire, makes bows and arrows, etc. Technology is not distinguished from all kinds of activities... The only division, which occurs at a fairly early stage, is that men devote themselves to some technical activities, and women to others...”43. Consequently, we can say that historically the first division of “technical” labor (and, indeed, labor in general) had a natural rather than a social origin, i.e. its immediate basis was precisely the natural differences between man and woman.

At the initial stage of the existence of technology, man did not yet recognize himself as a subject of his own activity, and, consequently, as a creator of technology.

It should be especially emphasized that at the first historical stage of the existence of technology, where chance reigned supreme in the process of inventing a new weapon, the pace of its development was extremely low. That is why the stage of the origin and development of technology was the longest and lasted, apparently, for hundreds of thousands of years. It covered the entire prehistoric period of human existence and ended only with the emergence of ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China, where a new stage in the historical development of technology first began to take shape - the stage of the so-called craft technology.

At the second historical stage of development technology, technical products are becoming relatively numerous and much varied, and the technology for their production is becoming quite complex. That is why not every person can, as it was before, make the tools necessary for his work himself. Moreover, the very use of some particularly complex tools now requires appropriate, more or less serious, preparation. The craft itself now requires even more serious preparation and long-term training, i.e. the manufacture of the tools themselves and the production of utensils and services. He not only designs, i.e. ideally creates the subject of his activity, but also carries out his project himself, turning it into a material object.

In this regard, there is one of the most important features of the craft, which distinguishes it from other, more developed forms of technical activity, and lies in the fact that with it the tool of labor still acts as a simple addition or appendage to the person, who therefore continues to remain the main character or “ the driving force" (K. Marx) of the entire technical process. This “man-tool” relationship will change radically only later, with the so-called machine technology. Another significant difference between crafts as a special form of technical activity is that it is based not on science, not on theoretical calculations, but on traditional knowledge, on practical skills passed on from generation to generation (from father to son, etc.) skills. This means that the craft could only be mastered empirically, and that is why it remained at the mercy of tradition. This circumstance imposed strong restrictions on all inventive activity. As before, it was carried out mainly by the “trial and error” method, which, undoubtedly, was one of the reasons for the low rate of technical progress at the stage of craft technology. And although these rates accelerated significantly compared to the rate of development of the “technique of chance,” they nevertheless remained so slow that the second historical stage in the development of technology continued for thousands of years and, in historical terms, ended only with the advent of the Renaissance, or more precisely - with the beginning of the New Age in Europe.

Then craft technology historically exhausts its capabilities and gives way to new stage in the development of technology - machine technology. The basis of machine technology is already engineering activity, which, as a more developed form of technical activity, is oriented towards science, theoretical and applied natural science. That is why, in principle, it, as a historical alternative to craft technology, could not have emerged before natural science began to take shape and develop freely. Moreover, engineering activity, as well as natural science itself, were brought to life, ultimately, precisely by the needs for the development of productive forces, which society began to experience especially acutely in modern times, along with the end of the era of primitive accumulation of capital and the beginning of the era of bourgeois revolutions in Western European countries.

At the same time, however, we should not forget that engineering activity could not emerge from a “vacuum” and that, like any other phenomenon, it had to have its own prehistory. Therefore, the “sprouts” of this activity, its historical images or, more precisely, prototypes, can be found not only in the Renaissance, but also in antiquity. True, these prototypes then remained only something episodic, atypical, accidentally existing against the background of the undivided dominance of craft activity.

F. Bacon considered nature to be an object of knowledge, its study to be the task of knowledge, and human domination over it to be the goal of knowledge. As the true method of knowledge, and, consequently, the shortest path leading to the truth, in his main philosophical work “New Organon” (1620) he proclaims induction and, in connection with this, develops in detail the experimental-inductive methodology of scientific knowledge. The fact is that a person, according to his point of view, cannot directly contact and interact with nature except through his senses and with the help of his sensory activities, as a result of which he forms and accumulates his sensory experience. This is, in fact, why this experience is declared by F. Bacon to be the ultimate source of all knowledge, and therefore science must be, first of all, an experimental science.

However, a new type of knowledge - scientific and technical knowledge - received a more clear designation precisely in the work of I. Newton's older contemporary, the Dutch physicist and mathematician (one might say, engineer) Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695). Solving in the spirit of Galileo the problem of the relationship between a real (material) object and an abstract or ideal object, H. Huygens tried precisely from the correspondence between them to extract the possibility of artificial creation, i.e. designing some third, technical object. For example, when inventing his famous pendulum clock with a trigger mechanism (1657), he actually designed it based on the results of his theoretical and experimental studies of the movement of a mechanical (physical) pendulum. Therefore, we can say that H. Huygens, in his own way, already realized the dual nature of a technical object, which is at the same time a natural object, subject to natural laws, and a thing artificially created by man in order to satisfy certain practical needs.

And yet, it took more than a century of continuous evolution of production and the associated development of theoretical and practical natural scientific knowledge before the industrial revolution, which began in England in the 60s of the 18th century59 and then spread from there to the European continent and the USA, led to ultimately, to the need to form separate technical sciences. The most important milestone on the way to this last process, which began more or less intensively at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, was undoubtedly such a remarkable technical achievement as the invention by James Watt (1736-1819) of the steam engine and the universal heat engine, which played a decisive role role in the transition to machine technology, and, accordingly, to machine production.

The transition from manufacture to industrial production, which was marked, as K. Marx noted, by the transformation of the means of production from a tool into a machine60, led to the widespread introduction into production and use of machine technology in the production process. This, in turn, sharply increased the demand for engineering activities, which could no longer be satisfied randomly. The time of self-taught engineers is passing and there is an urgent need for scientific, methodological, professional training of engineers. This kind of educational system historically begins to be introduced with the founding in 1794 by the French mathematician and engineer Gaspard Monge (1746-1818) of the Paris Polytechnic School, the type of education in which, harmoniously combining scientific-theoretical and technical-practical training of students, then spreads throughout Europe and the USA. It is through this form of training that large-scale training of professional engineers begins, whose activities, as noted above, were one of the main conditions for the functioning and development of machine technology.

So, machine technology, as a higher stage in the historical development of technology, could not develop otherwise than on a strictly scientific basis, on the basis of theoretical and applied natural science. Another significant feature of machine technology, which distinguishes it from craft technology, is that the muscular power of man as the driving principle of the entire technical process is replaced by one of the forces of nature (for example, the power of an animal, wind, water, steam, electricity, etc. .). “As a machine, a means of labor acquires such a material form of existence,” says K. Marx, “which determines the replacement of human power with the forces of nature and empirical routine techniques - with the conscious application of natural science.”61

Consequently, in contrast to craft practice, where man, as already noted, continued to be the main character and, as a rule, the main driving force of the technical process, in machine technology the driving principle of this latter is the force of nature, already transformed into a machine. This means that the direct connection between man and the tool that took place in craft production is broken and the relations between them in industrial production become mediated by natural forces. As a result, the technical function itself and the purely executive function, which were previously combined and simultaneously performed by the same person (craftsman), now turn out to be separated. And in fact, these functions in machine technology are performed by different people: engineers (designers and constructors) and workers (performers).

The introduction of machines into capitalist production not only made human muscular strength in the production process unnecessary, which subsequently led to the widespread use of less paid child and female labor in this process, but also increased labor productivity many times over. As a result of this, hundreds of thousands of workers were forced out of production and found themselves thrown onto the streets. Consequently, with the advent of machines, the instrument of production, as K. Marx noted, “immediately becomes a competitor to the worker himself”62. That is why the workers first directed their anger and indignation against the machines, and not against their owners - the capitalists, and then a wave of riots against the machines swept across Western Europe, during which hundreds of machine tools and other machine mechanisms were publicly burned or otherwise destroyed, and which later received the name “Luddism” (named after the legendary apprentice Ludd, who was the first to allegedly destroy his machine).

The story of mass layoffs of workers in connection with the introduction of fundamentally new technical developments into production is repeated again several centuries later, with the difference that a new historical wave of such layoffs turned out to be associated with the automation of production, with which machine technology moved to a qualitatively different stage of its development. This stage is characterized by a number of significant features that make it possible, as it seems to us, to distinguish it as a separate historical stage in the development of technology in general, which could be called information technology.

Among all the essential features of information technology as a new stage in the historical development of technology, which began to take shape around the middle of the 20th century, first of all, it is necessary to highlight the following. Firstly, with information technology, not only a person’s muscular strength, but also his intellectual abilities are replaced by natural forces, connections and processes. It is this circumstance that becomes the most powerful factor in the further accelerated development of the modern scientific and technological revolution. Indeed, the phenomenal successes achieved over the past 50 years in the creation and practical use of artificial intelligence have not only made it possible to raise technology to previously unprecedented heights, but also opened up almost limitless opportunities for further accelerated technical progress.

Secondly, based on what has been said, we can assume that at the information stage of its historical development, technology becomes to a much greater extent “an organ of the human brain” and “the embodied power of knowledge” (K. Marx). This, in particular, finds its expression and confirmation in the transformation of knowledge (both technical and scientific) into the direct productive force of society and thus the formation of “Big Science” as a synthesis of science, technology and production itself.

Thirdly, in direct connection with this is such a feature of information technology as the ever-increasing involvement of technology and science in economic circulation, their increasing commercialization. This circumstance, of course, creates additional and essentially insurmountable (without changing the existing economic system) difficulties in the way of subordinating modern scientific and technological progress to the interests of the entire society, humanity as a whole.

Fourthly, information technology is further distinguished by a deeper differentiation of engineering activities, in the structure of which the boundaries between such elements as invention, design and construction are quite clearly defined. Each of these elements becomes a relatively autonomous sphere of technical activity. And here the point is not only in the simple division of functions or labor between the engineers themselves, but also in the fact that some aspects or functions of design, construction, and even the actual inventive activity are “transferred” to computers, that is, their execution is transferred from man to machine.

Fifthly, the participation and role of a person in the direct technological and production process (and especially the need for his executive functions in this process) are extremely minimized, which will entail such serious consequences as:

the extremely narrow specialization of a person employed in technology and production, and, consequently, his one-sided intellectual and spiritual development;

the transformation of the direct performer (professional worker) into an insignificant particle of the machine mechanism, in relation to which he feels even more like a simple appendage (“cog”) and, thus, feels more strongly his slavish dependence on technology as an important aspect of his alienation in general;

a significant increase in the ranks of the unemployed, which undoubtedly aggravates the social situation and significantly increases social tension and further aggravates the alienation of the human personality in modern society.

Sixth, information technology reveals even more and more acutely the negative aspects of scientific and technological progress. The fact is that the pace of technology development at the present stage of its existence is accelerating so much that the direction, and, therefore, the consequences of this development most often become unpredictable. In this regard, modern scientific and technological progress is generally becoming more threatening in relation to humans and, in general, to the existence of life on our planet. The matter here is further aggravated by the fact that scientific and technological development in the conditions of free capitalist entrepreneurship is actually not regulated by anything other than the market and, by and large, is not controlled by anyone. Therefore, we can definitely say that under the capitalist economic system there is actually a so-called technological imperative, according to which the production of everything that is technically possible to produce is allowed. And, perhaps, the only effective limitation imposed by this system on this imperative is the interests of business (the market) and the need of capital for development. scientific and technological progress at the present information stage of its development has already led to such serious and large-scale, threatening to become irreversible, negative changes in the human environment (environmental pollution, irreparable depletion of natural resources, etc.) that cannot be compared with the total negative impact on a given environment caused by human activity during all previous stages of technology development combined. And indeed, man’s attitude towards nature has never been so predatory, and therefore so destructive for this latter, as it became at the stage of information technology. In the light of these facts, we can state with certainty and responsibility that if humanity today does not find the courage to radically change the conditions of its existence and take strict control over its further scientific and technological development, then it, like all living things on our planet, will be destroyed. inevitable death awaits.