Heidegger's essay "A Question Concerning Techology" addresses exactly this. There are free translations online of varying quality. My favorite translation is in this collection:
The essence of technology is a process of enframing knowledge, natural resources and labor into a technological system.
Take a look at financial systems, which are a means to an end (production, exchange, etc) but have taken on a life of their own. The system is a mix of various technologies and artifacts: contracts, currencies, presses, credit cards, databases, cash registers, stock exchanges etc. Money frees and empowers us, but also confines us.
The ordering of money holds sway over other systems, such as barter systems, which presents a different mode of enframing economic activity.
What about technologies like open source licenses or programming languages?
The license ensures the work can be redistributed and modified. Is this a means to an end? Maybe. It seems more open-ended than that. It's not simply satisfying the need of an existing system.
The language emphasizes logics and techniques. Are formal languages a means to an end, or a mode of revealing and expressing logical structure?
http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Writings-Martin-Heidegger/dp/006...
The essence of technology is a process of enframing knowledge, natural resources and labor into a technological system.
Take a look at financial systems, which are a means to an end (production, exchange, etc) but have taken on a life of their own. The system is a mix of various technologies and artifacts: contracts, currencies, presses, credit cards, databases, cash registers, stock exchanges etc. Money frees and empowers us, but also confines us.
The ordering of money holds sway over other systems, such as barter systems, which presents a different mode of enframing economic activity.
What about technologies like open source licenses or programming languages?
The license ensures the work can be redistributed and modified. Is this a means to an end? Maybe. It seems more open-ended than that. It's not simply satisfying the need of an existing system.
The language emphasizes logics and techniques. Are formal languages a means to an end, or a mode of revealing and expressing logical structure?