The term technicism is parallel in construction to "scientism" and serves many of the same purposes, although it is less common. While closely associated with the process of "technicization," technicism, like all "isms," offers a special perspective on the world and its character. The belief in technology as central to the world can take different forms, but is most commonly manifest in what may be called ethical technicism.

Origins

In the Gorgias Plato (c. 428–347 B.C.E.) already identified the character of technicism, the belief in means as in some sense primary over ends. Gorgias, a sophist, has separated his rhetorical skills (technai) from any firm subordination to substantive social or cultural traditions, not to mention to the good. This is a position that Socrates (c. 470–399 B.C.E.) strongly criticizes, but according to Karl Polanyi (1886–1964), Lewis Mumford (1895–1990), and other historians, it is precisely such a project of...