ABSTRACT
A cursory review of the literature in the history and philosophy of technology reveals a plethora of approaches to the definition of its subject matter, not unlike that in anthropology surrounding the definition of culture. There seems to be no way to prevent the concept of technology from spilling over from a narrow focus on tools and techniques to embrace the entire field of human endeavour. The organisation of the labour-process in manufacture is thus an organisation at once of specialised bodies and of trained minds, and rests on technical knowledge and skills possessed by the workers themselves. Mitcham distinguishes between technology-as-objects, technology-as-process, technology-as-knowledge and technology-as-volition, linking them together in the form of a diagram. The prescriptions embodied in the machine, derived through the application of scientific law, are of course technological. A complete machine, according to Karl Marx, ‘consists of three essentially distinct parts, the motor machine, the transmitting mechanism, and the mechanical tool or working machine’.
