ABSTRACT
Although it may be useful for certain classi cation purposes – especially in prehistory – to identify ‘technology’ with ‘tools’, from any explanatory point of view technology is much more than this. At the very minimum, technology not only consists of the artefacts which are employed as tools, but also includes the sum total of the kinds of knowledge which make possible the invention, making and use of tools. But this is not all. ‘Knowledge’ does not exist except in a certain social context. Technology is coterminous with the various networks of social relationships which allow for the transmission of technical knowledge and provide the necessary conditions for cooperation between individuals in technical activity. But one cannot stop even at this point, because the objectives
of technical production are themselves shaped by the social context. Technology, in the widest sense, is those forms of social relationships which make it socially necessary to produce, distribute and consume goods and services using ‘technical’ processes.
