‘Seeing’ and ‘interpreting’ the human-technology phenomenon

Abstract

This chapter formulates and addresses the dual challenge of how to understand Technology, and how this might inform the development of Technology Education for the future. Philosophy, in its role as critical toolbox, offers hermeneutics as a device for technological interpretation and meaning-making. By setting up a series of binaries, a hermeneutic approach can be used not only to explore Technology holistically and analytically, but also to look to cultural, historical and political relationships. The idea of binarial hermeneutics enables Technology’s complexity to become manageable through a focus on issues, which include: local and global, traditional and emergent, product and process, technical and designerly, and academic and practical. These binaries are not ‘either-or’ but ‘at-once-both’, enabling analysis along a spectrum. Such a binarial approach offers a way of interrogating the rich and complex areas of Technology Education in order to develop informed ways forward.