ABSTRACT
Technology assessment has developed in a practice-driven, trial-and-error approach based on plausibility arguments and empirical experience from learning by doing. This chapter explores the specific nature of the assessment process applied and performed in technology assessment. A major step in exploring its identity across the diversity of its practices is the determination of its cognitive interest as a point of departure for the entire theorizing process. Investigating the procedural dimension of the assessment process, together with substantial requirements derived from TA’s cognitive interest, leads to the determination of the conceptual dimensions of anticipation, inclusion, and system thinking. A definition of technology assessment in a much more specific way compared to previous attempts will be proposed. This will be followed by reflections on the objects of assessment (ontology) and the status of the knowledge about these objects (micro-epistemology). The assessment process itself will be investigated with respect to requirements to be fulfilled in light of the cognitive interest of technology assessment and regarding stages of particular significance (macro-epistemology). The call to ensure objectivity and avoid arbitrariness leads finally to embedding technology assessment into the approach of Social Epistemology.
