Jackie Trono - Ellul On Technology's Invincibility

Whereas Heidegger is positive about the possibility of attaining a free relation to technology and thereby limiting its dominion over man, Ellul sees technology as completely autonomous. Ellul writes,

"technology ultimately depends on itself, it maps its own route, it is a prime and not a secondary factor, it must be regarded as an “organism” tending toward closure and self-determination: it is an end in itself. Autonomy is the very condition of technological development" (Ed. Robert C. Scharff & Val Dusek: Philosophy of Technology 386).

While Heidegger suggests that the continuance of technology is ultimately beyond human control but that it can be limited, Ellul seems to indicate that technology embodies indomitable proliferation.

Whereas the common conception entails that technology is applied science, Ellul would have us understand that science is theoretical technology. He writes,

"Technology is both ahead of and behind science, and it is also at the very heart of science; the latter projects itself into technology and is absorbed into it, and technology is formulated in scientific theory. All science, having become experimental, depends on technology, which alone permits reproducing phenomena technologically. Now, technology abstractly reproduces nature to permit scientific experimenting. Hence, the temptation to make nature conform to theoretical models, to reduce nature to techno-scientific artificiality" (Scharff 388).

According to Ellul, the technological reproduction of natural phenomena leads to the temptation to utilize science beyond its range. We suffer the consequences of attempting to make nature conform to our theoretical models rather than trying to conform our models to nature. This temptation to reduce nature to techno-scientific artificiality causes science to become powerful violence against nature, according to Ellul.

I wonder who is more correct, Heidegger with his positive view of limiting technology? Or Ellul with his resignation to the autonomy of technology?