DAVID LOVEKIN

Sauk Valley College

JACQUES

ELLUL

AND

THE

LOGIC

OF

TECHNOLOGY

There is little question that the works of Jacques Ellul are among the most important in what has become a vast literature on the nature of technological society and the effects of technology on the life of man. In his introduction to his translation of Ellul's main work, The Technological Society,* John Wilkinson, after comparing Ellul's work first to Plato's Republic, remarks : "Even clearer is the similarity of the book to Hegel's Ph~inomenologie des Geistes, the last work of Western philosophy with which the present work bears comparison. The Technological Society is not a 'phenomenology of mind' but rather a 'phenomenology of the technical state of mind.' ''~ Wilkinson's remark suggests that ElluI's work, contrary to what most of his critics have thought, is in essence a philosophical work and, what is more, a philosophical work of the first order although its scope is limited to an analysis of technological consciousness and is not an analysis of consciousness per st. Ellul's analysis of technological consciousness shows that traditional material techniques evolve to an all-pervasive mode of consciousness seeking "efficient order" in all areas of human activity. The appearance of technical civilization reveals a world where man's view of himself, of the traditional objects of the natural world, and of supreme and absolute limits is radically altered. In recent years a substantial body of literature on the problem of technology has steadily accumulated, a An examination of this literature reveals that, often, one of three approaches is taken. It is maintained that : (1) technology is inherently evil and unnatural and is something which must be done away with at all costs; (2) technology is a positive movement enabling man to free himself from the problems of the world and to take his own destiny squarely in hand; (3) technology creates problems which may be solved by refining current technologies or by applying more human goals to technological development. Ellul's view takes none of the above perspectives. His account makes it c/ear that the goal of technology is the traditional goal of thought--the overcoming of the bifurcation between the world and my idea of it--, and because of this, technology must be viewed as a natural direction for thought. However, if Ellul is right, man is no longer in control of his 251

DAVID LOVEKIN destiny and the world as he was in the past. For Ellul it is a foolish dream to search for good and moral uses of technology because technology is use itself and is, therefore, impervious to moral criticism and to any direction that is transcendent of it. My concern in this paper is to examine Ellul's notion of the logic of technology in order to show that his unique vision yields a concept of technological man which is superior to the above positions. For Ellul, technology is not external to the culture in which it appears; rather, it becomes the intention, the consciousness, of the culture. It is, then, the logic of this form of consciousness which I will analyze, showing that it entails the reduction of traditionally conceived natural objects into processes, or technical phenomenon, and that it entails the creation of identities without differences. Further, I wish to go beyond Ellul by making what is implicit in his analysis explicit; I will suggest that a notion of the body is important in understanding this logic. In particular, it is the co-option of the body by technology which extends technological logic. Ellul's critics, few as they are, miss the above points. Briefly, I will consider a few representative criticisms to show that this is the case. For Alvin Toffler, Ellul is simply pessimistic and insensitive to the endlessly varied life technology has to offer; man simply must learn to choose more rapidly. It is also argued that man is not in danger of losing his sense of free choice. Quite to the contrary, man now has more choices than ever before.* Toffler does not see that, from Ellul's perspective, technology has become choice itself. For Samuel Florman, Ellul is simply wrong : agreeing in principle with Toffler that Ellul ignores the ever increasing amount of freedom gained by technology, Florman also argues that technology is not an external force in culture but that problems attributed to technology are simply a result of man's infinite capacity to desire? However, Ellul agrees that technology is not an external force, that many problems are a result of human desire, but desire in a specific form--technological desire. Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey, critics who take Ellul seriously as a philosopher, argue that Ellul does not clearly distinguish technique from technology, and, like Toffler and Florman, question the notion that technology is incompatible with free human choice, assuming, for example, that now modern man has more means of communication than ever before.6 Unlike Florman and Toffler, however, they see Ellul as maintaining that technology creates a system of internal relations such that all things acquire 252

JACQUES ELLUL AND THE LOGIC OF T E C H N O L O G Y their reality through these relations. 7 The question, then arises : Does man have an essence or nature over and above these relations to which he must be true ? To Mitcham and Mackey it seems that Ellul, on the one hand, wishes to view man as a being whose essence is acquired through its relations-something that technology certainly effects--, while on the other hand, Ellul wants to appeal to a transcendent nature that man owes to God. 8 While the relation of Ellul's "secular work" to his religious writings is an interesting subject, I will not pursue that question, holding that there is ample justification in The Technological Society for arguing that Ellul sees the question of man's nature to be importantly problematic. For Ellul, technology decides man's nature, indicating man's decision to void nontechnical perspectives taken on this vital issue. Finally, for Victor Ferkiss, technology creates no problems that man cannot handle if man will remember that technology can fail into bad hands. If we are careful and use available techniques wisely and self-consciously, however, many of the problems attributed to technology would not arise. 9 Ferkiss, however, is not aware that technology has a tendency to become consciousness itself, such that self-consciousness is no longer possible the way it is in non-technological cultures. In short, technology loses the ability to see itself against other possibIe ways of viewing the worId. Jacques Ellul has written four works which expressly analyze the effects of technique on the human condition : The Technological Society, Propaganda, 1'~ The Political Illusion, 11 and Autopsy of Revolution. ~2 In analysing the logic of technique as a phenomenon in the modern world, the last three works may be viewed as enIargements of subsidiary points in The Technological Society, and therefore it will be my main concern. Ellul begins his discussion of technique by observing that technique is part of the natural history of all cultures because "technique" refers to any method used to attain a particular end. *a But, in a technical civilization, which he regards as a unique form of culture, ends become means and means become ends, thereby calling into question traditional ends-means relationships. According to Ellul, there are two senses of "technique" : (1) Technique generically refers to any means used to attain an end; (2) Technique as a method of rational efficient ordering refers to a species of techniques of the technological society. It is important for Ellul's case that "technique" refers to the totality of methods rationally employed, seeking the end of absolute efficiency : in this way Ellul does not restrict "technique" to any particular technical 253

DAVID LOVEKIN application. As Ellul shoves, technique may appear in the form of labor management in industry, in the role of urban planning in city politics, in the guise of the "scientific method" in the laboratory, and in its most obvious manifestation the machine. In considering the latter form Ellul writes: "The machine is, solely, exclusively technique; it is pure technique, one might say. For wherever a technical factor exists, it results, almost inevitably, in mechanization: technique transforms everything it touches into a machine. ''1~ Ellul contends that technique, which he regards as a unique mode of consciousness, makes the machine possible, and while the machine aids in the perpetuation of that consciousness, it is not the cause of it; rather, it represents the ultimate ideal towards which all technique strives. I

For EIM all technical phenomena have seven common characteristics: (1) rationality, (2) artificiality, (3) automatism, (4) self-augmentation, (7) monism, (6) universalism, and (7) autonomy. 1" Rationality and artificiality are the two over-riding characteristics, while the other five are subordinate or specific manifestations of the former. Ellul describes technical rationality as consisting of two phases : " . . . first, the use of discourse in every operation; this excludes spontaneity, and personal creativity. Second, there is the reduction of method to its logical dimension alone. Every intervention of technique is, in effect, a reduction of facts, forces, phenomena, means, and instruments to the schema of logic. ''~ In effect Ellul is claiming that there must be a method for all activities and that that method must be capable of mathematical enumeration, reduceable, therefore, to an abstract logical schema. Techniques are always artificial because they are no longer spontaneous and because the natural world and man's relation to it becomes radically transformed as a result of technical intervention. To the technical mind, the world appears as the creation of a technique, or as a problem to be solved by technique : a dusty gravel road appears as a four-lane blacktop; a forest becomes a National Park; a children's ad hoc baseball game on a corner lot is a Little League Organization waiting to be born. In order to see the relationship between reason and artificiality more clearly, it is necessary to examine EIiut's distinction between technical operations and technical phenomena. "Technical operation" refers to all activities carried out in accordance with a specific method for the implementation of determined ends. =v Characterized by method, these activities 254

JACQUES ELLUL AND THE LOGIC OF TECHNOLOGY provide the continuity for all technical experiences from the rather simple task of chopping out a log canoe to the more complex programming of a computer, making us believe that primitive techniques differ only from modern techniques in degree as a result of scientific refinements, and hiding from us the fact that modern techniques are also different in kind, entailing a completely different orientation in the world, is Technical operations concern the worker's immediate relation to the task at hand. This relation is always a bodily relation which requires, at least in its initial phases, the use of hands, muscles, etc., in order to accomplish this task. A technical operation may require concentrated effort while it is being learned, but soon it becomes a spontaneous and natural routine, and it is from this point that we speak of technical operations. "Technical phenomena" appear when consciousness surveys and rationalizes what was once a spontaneous technical operation, seeking the "one best means" and the fixed end of efficiency)O Considering the intervention of reason first, a problem regarded as a technical phenomenon involves a mediated technical operation such that, from the standpoint of the worker, an immediate awareness of the task at hand, be it simple or complex, is logically negated, producing a concern for more efficient means. For primitive technical operations involving tools, the worker's body provides the locus for his awareness; the tool, such as an axe or a saw, is, in this case, an extension of his body. When technical reason intervenes, however, the worker becomes aware that there must be a better way to accomplish his task, and he is led to an improvement or to a transformation of the tool? ~ With the aid, say, of science and mathematics, a chain saw may result, an appearance of a technical phenomenon--a primative technical process objectified. Ellul seems to suggest, although he does not state it directly, that throughout the rise of technical phenomena, it is the body that must be overcome.21 With the chain saw, the tree is no longer the goal; rather, it is the saw itself which is my concern. I must be strong enough to support it; I must be wise enough to perpetuate its functions and understand its operation. My concern is no longer directly with the objects in the natural world but with the objects I have made as a result of my scientific and mathematical awareness. The second aspect of technical phenomena--consciousness--appears when the one best way is sought in all fields of endeavor. Ellul states : "It is no longer the best relative means which counts, as compared to other means also in use. The choice is less and less a subjective one among several means 255

DAVID LOVEKIN which are potentially applicable. It is really a question of finding the best means in the absolute sense, on the basis of numerical calculation. ''22 Thus we see that man's decision to master nature has taken a definite path resulting in a union of spiritual and material techniques. Technique becomes a decision to objectify reason itself; it is now, " . . . a means of apprehending reality, of action on the world, which allows us to neglect all individual differences, all subjectivity... Today man lives by virtue of his participation in a truth become objective. Technique is no more than a neutral bridge between reality and the abstract man". 2a Here EIIul discloses a crucial point in technological logic: technique cancels individual subjectivity and individual difference by objectifying that subjectivity and by turning the object for which it is a subject into an abstraction. Indivual subjectivity is embodied subjectivity. My idea of the world is never of the world as it is but is always of the world as I see it as a body located in a certain space at a specific time. My idea of the world, A, is never the same as A' in the world, a strict identity; the A' I apprehend is always an A' over there, while I am here. I apprehend A' now, not later and not in the future. For technique it is as if my body, itself an object, prevents my idea from being the world, providing as it does my most immediate environment and obstacle. With my body I am identical with other objects in the world, while being, at the same time, different. When this difference is effaced to achieve absolute objectivity with the world, abstract technical man appears. In short, technique erases the subjective factors of consciousness by which we as embodied consciousnesses relate to the world, to each other, and, most importantly, to ourselves. What is this new vision of ourselves that arises in a technological society ?24 With bodily processes turned into abstractions and with abstract thought processes treated as concrete realities, we find a brand new subjectivity, a unique being in the worId. We have been saying that the technical mind no longer lives in a traditional world of natural objects to be manipulated bodily, but it lives among embodied conceptions which it does not distinguish from natural objects. Because of this unique and new subjectivity, technique becomes automatic, self-augmenting, monistic, universal, and autonomous. These characteristics of modern technical phenomena exemplify the structure of the technical mind with its unique logic of pursuing identities without differences--a closed logic, viciously idealistic, wherein everything is internally and necessarily related to everything else due to the technical program of reducing all activities to a rational method. 256

JACQUES ELLUL AND THE LOGIC OF TECHNOLOGY II For the technical mind exhibiting the characteristic of automatism, all choices are technical choices; it, " . . . can only decide on the basis of maximum efficiency.''25 All things must be used to their ultimate capacity as use--a perpetual process--becomes the ultimate value, perhaps a result of traditional value objects losing their objectivity. Now, no object is inherently valuable or disvaluable, because "value" is conceived solely in terms of "usefulness." For example, machines which help to pursue destructive ends--machines, say, which produce weapons--become good by becoming useful. That is to say, a machine which simply produces, no matter what the object, constructive or destructive, is deemed good if it does so with maximum efficiency. Any other value judgement is irrelevent. However, the universally useful object is, by definition, an abstract object; that which is useful in all ways becomes useful in no way. The object that technical consciousness posits is relieved of its particularity with the universal objectivity of method and with the logic of calculation. The technical mind, thereby, becomes, " . . . a device for recording effects and results obtained by various techniques. ''26 The universal object of technique, determinable by mathematical measurement, is not universal to the degree that it transcends and, therefore, explains a given order, and yet it is no longer particular. As we have said, individual differences, a necessary element in particularity, are reduced to mathematical abstractions as "reality" is determined by the process of continual measurement. The point of Ellul's criticism is that man no longer chooses on the basis of his religious preferences, on the basis of his aesthetic insights, on the basis of philosophical reflection. For each one of these disciplines, not functioning as technique, a transcendental object which is an unachieved goal is presupposed, a goal completely foreign to technique. Rather, all that is not technique must become technique. Considering philosophy, Ellul states : "The principles established by Descartes were applied and resulted not only in a philosophy but in an intellectual technique. ''~ Descartes in the Discourse on M e t h o d suggests that in the intellectual process one should : (1) consider only that which is evidently true, (2) divide initial difficulties into parts, (3) move from simplified parts to complexities, and (4) achieve completeness through a process of continual review and enumeration. 2s If these rules were followed, or so Descartes thought, certainty could be ours, a certainty founded upon clear and distinct ideas achieved through reflection 257

DAVID LOVEKIN and introspection. This method leads, however, to a further sundering of mind and body, a union which could never be demonstrated with the certainty required by pure thought, and Descartes was led to conclude that nothing could be known with as much certainty as thought itself. 2~ The Cartesian intellectual technique, based on this assumption, is no longer confined to scientific and philosophical activities but is now the guide for nearly all activities in the technological life world. The body which provided Descartes with so much trouble has now been eliminated as a viable locus of our being, with the result that individual and relative choices are now made on the basis of mathematical calculation. Mathematical analysis is important to technique because it provides a purely formal truth which may be indifferently applied to any content. One is not burdened with the necessity of making value judgements, even though the value judgement that technique alone is suited for solving att problems is presupposed. This viciously circular, amoral method of calculation is aptly exemplified for Ellul by Adolph Hitler in Mein KamDf when he writes: "Unless the enemy learns to combat poison gas with poison gas, this tactic which is based on an accurate evaluation of human weakness, must lead almost mathematically to success. ''a~ The point is that only technical phenomena can compete with technical phenomena when traditionally conceived objects are transformed into abstract processes. ~1 Warfare, for example, has been traditionally limited to a bodily combat among warriors whose ultimate success depended upon individual strength, courage, and abilities with weapons which were extensions of their bodies. Modern warfare, however, has become a battle of almost purely technical phenomena: men die indirectly as they happen to get in the way of mathematically conceived and aimed devices. Hand to hand combat is a thing of the past. III As technical consciousness rationalizes technical operations, technical phenomena become self-augmenting such that (1) growth is irreversible and (2) growth assumes geometric rather than arithmetic proportions. As a culture becomes more and more infused with technical processes, it exhibits the qualities of a collective unconscious, encouraging the anonymous but steadfast involvement and the submersion of the individual in the technical process. As Ellul states, "The worker is asked not only to use the machine he operates, but also to find remedies a g a i n s t . . , faults in the machine, and 258

JACQUES ELLUL AND THE LOGIC OF TECHNOLOGY in addition to determine how its productivity might be improved. The result is the 'suggestion box' by means of which the workers may indicate their ideas and plans for improvement. ''a2 However, as the workers' ideas become as identical as possible to the machines' functions, his world is no longer his own. Technology, telling us that human beings are more important than ever before, fails to note that their importance is seen only in relation to technical performance. Further, Ellul reminds us: "Human beings, are, indeed, always necessary. But, literally, anyone can do the job provided he is trained to do it. Henceforth, men will be able to act only in virtue of their commonest and lowest nature and not in virtue of what they possess of superiority and individuality. T M By working at a job anyone can perform, given the proper training, the worker becomes anyo,~e, an abstract element in the overall means of production, a wholly replaceable part. As a further indication of the tendency of the technical mind to view the world as a single process--another factor of self-augmentation--, El!ul remarks that technical development in one area becomes a necessary direction for all areas, thereby increasing the complexity and proliferation of technical development. As El!ul says, "Thus, a purely mechanical discovery may have repercussions in the domain of social technique or in that of organizational techniques. For example, machines that use perforated cards affect statistics and the organization of certain business enterprises. ''a4 It should come as no surprise, then, to find a metal developed by the space program also being used in razor blades, to find the techniques of the assembly line employed by the university as professors are made "accountable" and as the computor grades their performance, and to encounter the scientific method in operation at McDonald's Hamburger stands as french fries are cooked uniformly with the aid of a computor. Technical consciousness is irreversible precisely because it is not conscious growth although it is, paradoxically, a result of technological consciousness; that is, it does not know itself to be a form of consciousness. For it to achieve self-consciousness it would have to distinguish itself from what it is riot, but for this mind the world is as it is conceived, lacking, as it does, a notion of a natural object, an object that is separate from itself. Technical growth is geometric rather than arithmetic, to consider the second aspect of self-augmentation next, because technique produces results that are neither calculable nor completely predictable even though technique, itself, depends upon calculation and prediction. Rather, technical devices 259

DAVID LOVEKIN proliferate ad infinitum, possessing as it were, their own necessity for being; the decision to produce a certain device is made in advance, following the law that that which can be made is made and that that which is possible is necessary, but the number of devices that will be made and their effects on the task to be performed, their effects on the performer, and the effects on those ot, tside of the process are largely unknown, an Further, non-technical objects such as tools and bodies are adaptable because their meaning transcends their use, but when such "useful objects" become "use itself" through the technical process, the number of technical phenomenon increases as each use the object might have is objectified. The clock and the technical phenomena of the mass media are particularly important in the process of self-augmentation and in the co-option of the individual's self-consciousness as it is revealed in bodily activity. The privately owned dock, first appearing in the sixteenth century, displaces psychological, lived time. a'GPersonal time is objectified and with it we have the creation of abstract, social time, time that is no longer determined by individual human needs but time that determines those needs. The camera and the tape recorder have made personal memory and experience irrelevant; the world is captured and, thereby, made rational with ontologically superior copies. In this way technical man loses touch with immediate reality as that reality becomes a media event--a world of images, a7 Good citizens watch the evening news to determine the world's events as if what happened to them was of no consequence. Personal opinion, thus, becomes mass opinion. as And as the inability to distinguish between the images of mass media, clearly technical phenomena, and the events to which they refer, is eroded, mass communication becomes no communication. In fact, our culture merely presents us with the appearance of communication, with sights and sounds but not with words, with language, for in true language, there is " . . . the necessity of tension at two levels : tension or contradiction is based on a similarity between the signifier and the thing signified (when that tension disappears, there is no more language--that is why, whatever one may think, imagined reproduction of reality is not language); the other aspect is the tension between two interlocutors : if a difference does not exist, if they are identical, there would be no language because it would have no content; if a common measure did not exist there would be no language because it would have no form. ''a9 As we have said earlier the logic of technique demands identity without difference, but such homogeneity heralds the 260

JACQUES ELLUL AND THE LOGIC OF TECHNOLOGY demise of language and communication, leaving the eulogies of disembodied opinion formed by the media, having no real content. At this point the public mind can offer no real resistance to technique--thereby, furthering the self-augmentation to technique and opening the door to monism, universalism, and autonomy. IV The closed world of technique illustrates what Ellul calls the characteristic of monism. All the elements of this world, the various techniques and the relations they form, " . . . are ontologically tied together; in it, use is separable from being. ''*~ This can be viewed in a number of ways. That which can be conceived will be applied--as evident in the self-augmenting character of technique--and this is true because theory is, now, inextricably tied to practice. Therefore, only that which can be applied will be conceived. Government grants, in the main, are only awarded to scientists who are working on theories that admit of immediately practical results. Further, use is not restricted by theory but has become an absolute, a moral commandment. It is, on this view, useless to condemn a technique because of its immoral uses or to suggest that it should be used in a more moral fashion. As Ellul says : "To say of such a technical means that a bad use has been made of it is f:o say that no use has been made of it, that it has not been made to yield what it could have yielded and ought to have yielded. ''*~ Using an example from Ellul, ~z a car may be a means for transportat.;on or a murder weapon. If we use it as a murder weapon, we are using it badly because it was not designed to kill people. This may be why an auto accident resulting in the death of a pedestrian is assumed to be, at worst, reckless homocide although it is likely to be judged manslaughter. The intent to kill for a murder charge would be difficult to prove because a means would have been used improperly. On the other hand, if one man shoots another, murder would be the assumed charge unless it could be proved that it was a crime of passion and that there was no premeditated intent to kill--all because a gun was designed to kill and because judgement is inherent in the technique. Further, if a poison gas storage depot suddenly exploded, the resuIting deaths would undoubtedly be termed "accidents," for, clearly, such depots were not "designed to explode." Because judgement is inherent in the technique, as we have seen above, it is hopeless to urge, from ElluI's point of view, that a controlling moral 261

DAVID LOVEKIN perspective should be restored. To consider two diverse examples--atomic research and police protection--we see that moral or immoral intentions become irrelevant, and that a Kantian Good Will is no longer possible from the standpoint of technique. Atomic research led inexorably to the atomic bomb which was exploded with scientific opinion divided as to whether or not the world would be destroyed as a result, but since the bomb was made, it had to be used. In like manner the "peaceful" uses of atomic energy may lead to equally gloomy prospects due to the danger of atomic waste accumulated by such as atomic power stations. With technique we must realize that there are no clear divisions between the possible and the actual. 43 Perhaps it cannot be emphasized enough that techniques are not inherently evil and that they are the result of the natural tendency of thought to know the world as it is. At best techniques are amoral, consisting as they do of means, but as means become ends and as our knowledge of the world becomes identified with the world as it is, the problems we have just been discussing arise. A possible object becomes actual as soon as we are able to produce it, and in this way the objects' reality is tied to the process of production, or in fact tied to any technical process. We have before us a coherence theory of truth in which the meaning of one thing is the meaning of anything else, but it is a coherence theory which has forsaken the problems raised by a correspondence theory of truth. Granted that all objects acquire meaning in contexts, but suppose the individual moments of the context to have no special reality in and of themselves taken as individual moments. For example, faith in the veracity of the media to bring us the news of the world has created the illusion that "truth is verbatim, T M It is for this reason that news broadcasts will often feature the author of a particular statement, no matter how trivial or how important, instead of presenting a broadcaster's summary of that statement. For the news to have true significance, however, like language itself, we must suppose there to be a tension between the image and the object, the word and that which it attempts to signify. The television broadcast only has meaning when it points beyond itself; for example, commercials acquire greater significance when we realize that not only are products being sold but that commercials themselves are being sold. (The commercial must be trusted before the product can be sold.)

262

JACQUES

ELLUL

AND THE LOGIC OF TECHNOLOGY

V Technical universalism refers to the tendency of technique to become universally adopted wherever it is introduced, indicating that technique is far from unnatural even though it is artificial. Productivity with technique is highly compelling, promising as it does to allow man to live in the world as it really is while hiding from him the fact that man has merely made his own world--which, upon analysis, is revealed to be like the natural world-far beyond his knowledge even though that knowledge often escapes him. In traditional societies techniques arc just another part of life, subject to the ends determined by that culture : if technique and technique alone is to determine those ends, then the family, the church, the intellectual, and the individual will have to abdicate their authorities. When this happens, technique becomes rigorously objective : "It effaces all individual, and even all collective modes of expression. Today man lives by virtue of his participation in a truth become objective.''4~ Technique has become universal on a national and international scale in that all nations adopt essentially technical ends. Clearly, Japan is a most obvious example of this phenomenon. The traditional Japanese society has all but disappeared--relegated to museums or Shrines that present Japanese culture as exotic curiosities to the Japanese themselves--in favor of Western technique. In fact technique has reduced the East-West oaltural dichotomy to myth. 4'6 It is true that technique may vary from culture to culture, relative to climate and natural resources for example, but the end of technique will be the same. ir Further, "And what differences there are will result from the cold calculation of some technician, instead of being the resu!t of the profound spiritual and material effort ~of generations of human beings. Instead of being the expression of man's essence, they will be the accidents of what is essential : technique. ''48 Ellul admits that man's essence cannot be regarded as something set over against the cultural milieu in which man finds himself, that it cannot be a thing-in-itself unaltered by the relations in which it appears. ~9 Rather, man's essence is that which appears as he confronts and attempts to overcome necessity; it is thwarted when he succumbs to it. 50 Thus, man's essence is importantly problematic; it is something which m u s t be worked out by man himself, or rather it is revealed when he attempts to do so. The varieties of culture may then be looked at as ,nan's attempts to find himself; the appearance of monolithic technical civilization suggests the abandonment os the project with the tacit pronounce263

DAVID LOVEKIN ment that man no longer has an essence which is, of course, to reduce essence to matters of technique. In this way we find that only individual essences have been denied, a result of the co-option of the body and the objectification of individual subjectivity : man now has an essence only to the degree that he becomes "mass man." VI Technique becomes autonomous, the final characteristic, when all goals become subservient to it, when all that is transcendent becomes immanent, and when "mystery" is reduced to the light of day. For Ellul a sense of mystery is essential to man's spiritual well-being : "Jung has shown that it is catastrophic to make superficially clear what is hidden in man's innermost depths. Man must make allowance for a background, a great deep above which lie his reason and his clear consciousness. The mystery of man perhaps creates the mystery of the world he inhabits. Or perhaps this mystery is a reality in itself. There is no way to decide between these two alternatives. But, one way or the other, mystery is a necessity of human life. T M That which is mysterious--the sacred--is that which man decides to respect. It is that which transcends the daily world giving it meaning, a context framing the here and now, foreshadowing that which may be or that which ought to be. 52 Whether man himself is the source of the dichotomy between ought and is, the known and the unknown, is not the problem for Ellul. Rather, it is a given against which man must operate. Technique, however, " . . . denies mystery a priori. The mysterious is merely that which has not yet been technicized.T M As we saw above, a notion of man's essence outside the reach of technique and mass society is ridiculed; in a similiar way, the concept of the mysterious is reduced to the mundane. "* It is not simply that technique, like science, sets out to know the world, to display essential mysteries to man. Rather transcendental mysteries are denied, on the one hand, so that the title may be confered on technique itself. Ellul states, " . . . technique desacralizes because it demonstrates (by evidence and not by reason, through use and not through books) that mystery does not exist. Science brings to the light of day everything man had believed sacred. Technique takes possession of it and enslaves it. The sacred cannot resist. Science penetrates to the great depths of the sea to photograph the unknown fish of the deep. Technique captures them, hauls them up to see if they are edible--but before they 264

JACQUES ELLUL AND THE LOGIC OF TECHNOLOGY arrive on deck they burst. ''~ Technique takes the notion of truth, and reduces it to a mere fact or to what Ellul above has called evidence. We have encountered facts of this kind before in reference to the tourist's camera as it photographs sheer thereness, a sense datum cut off from a transcendental context and yet meaningful only as part of the process of gathering evidence. Reason, on the other hand, relates particulars to their larger context, seeing them as bi-conditionally related and seeing the manifestation of particulars as revealing a higher context of wholes. When science as in Ellul's example, examines the fish, it does so as a particular revealing the characteristics of a certain genus and species. Technique, on the other side, views the fish as an object for its own use, as inseparable from its intention. It is part of a larger whole only to the extent that that whole is constituted by technique. At this point technique becomes the "sacred," a cornucopia of weary miracles : the endless miracles of television, of the radio, of the printing press, of the airpIane, etc. 5G Throughout EiIuI's discussion of the characteristics of technique, the logic that is revealed hinges u~on a dialectical tension that is annulled at various levels. First, the distinction between the natural object and that which apprehends the object is cancelled. Then, my notion of myself as that which is both object and subject is restructured in such a way that I am no longer a natural object among other natural objects. Rather it is my consciousness alone which makes me what I am. My body, the seat of objectivity, becomes an embarrassment. In an attempt to become the pure Cartesian Cogito, objects are reduced to rational processes which must be applied. Finally it is expected that other Cogitos will do the same. My experience of the object, of myself as subject and object, and of other objects which are also subjects, reveals, in the technical realm, the pursuit of identities without differences. The result is the appearance of "mass man" on a national and international scale. It would seem that man no longer needs to seek his own essence, to attempt to understand his place in the universe, and to speculate on the nature of that universe. Further, the tension between the known and the unknown, the idea and the object, myself and other selves, for instance, which would make such knowledge possible has been abrogated. As Ellul says, "Tension between groups composing the entire society is a condition for life itself, or life susceptible to creation and adaptation in that society. It is the point of departure for all culture.T M And further, "There is no necessdry dialectic. The possibility of this dialectical movement is the con265

DAVID LOVEKIN dition for life in societies. But this possibility is not always attained. One must not blindly believe that contradictions--still less the same contradictions-will arise under all circumstances. Man's dream including the socialist dream--is to suppress these contradictions, i.e., to arrive at entropy, at the equilibrium of death. T M Clearly, Ellul is opting for a dialectic that is not necessary in the sense traditionally ascribed, however accurately, to Marx and Hegel. Rather it is a dialectic revealing the tensions between the necessarily disparate parts of the culture, parts perhaps represented by the traditional disciplines comprising the humanities and the natural sciences, or perhaps between individuals with differing points of view. The free interplay between these tensions, understood as points of view, constitutes the healthy life of a culture. The end result of such a dialectic would be the unity of opposites rather than the dissolution of opposites in a unitary point of view, the point of view of technique, for instance. As we said at the beginning of this paper, Ellul's theory of technology does not maintain that technology is an unnatural development in the intellectual and cultural life of man. Technology does not represent the absence of thought thought gone bad, as it were; rather it represents a specific form of thought having its own logic. Further, in suggesting that it is a form of consciousness, Ellul's theory takes account of the often heard refrain: the current problems of our culture are not the results of technology but merely the results of present technologies used poorly--man becomes the problem. But if man is the problem, and if technology is a natural direction for man's consciousness, can we not affirm that technology may be the problem ? This view implies that technology is externally related to man, that it is like a suit of clothes that man can put on and take off. Underlying Ellul's theory, then, is the assumption that culture itself is the result of man's attempt to know himself, that it is in fact the result of consciousness as it relates to its object, and that it is not a role that man merely plays; or, if it be argued that it is a role, it is a role that has taken a substance of its own. Unfortunately Ellul never examines this underlying theme as carefully as he might. ~9 Because of this the following problem arises : is technology really a unique form of thought or is it merely the decision to apply all forms of thought ? This question need not deny what we have granted above, but it does suggest that an analysis of technical consciousness requires an analysis of consciousness per se. Clearly it is one thing to conceive of the Pythagorean Theorem and quite another thing to see all areas of the life266

JACQUES ELLUL AND THE LOGIC OF TECHNOLOGY world as potential problems to be solved by such a theorem, and yet, according to Ellul, this is what has happened. (To provide one small example, racial unrest in ghetto areas has been attacked on the "engineering front" by the building of Pythagorean high rises.) For the Greeks knowledge was a sacred task, a task which was not demeaned if it did not result in practical application. But if Ellul is right, it has now become a sacred task to apply all knowledge. One of the effects of this is that knowledge no longer knows itself. As Husserl came to see in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, (1) sciences tend to become scientisms, to degenerate into "technique," having merely material reality and losing contact with the transcendental; further, (2) sciences lose contact with their origins in the Lebenswelt, a world clearly having the body as its locus, and in this way they are desensitized. Science no longer sees itself as a creative activity and as one activity among others, each having its place in the LebensuMt. It is then philosophy's task to reveal these origins and to help knowledge become self-conscious.6'~Ellul has left us the task of discovering technology's relation to the life-world, to tacit metaphysical and epistemological positions as they are lived. In my paper, I have attempted to begin such an analysis using Ellui's description of technology as a beginning point. '61 In addition to a first intentional examination of the life-world, we also need a systematic critical epistemology like that offered by Ernst Cassirer) 2 Cassirer, like Ellul, saw that man had to be viewed in terms of his cultural activity, but unlike Ellul, Cassirer showed how man's cultural activity entailed a full-scale analysis of man's conscious activity and provided an analysis of cultural consciousness per st. Also, like Husserl, Cassirer viewed a crisis of culture as immanent whenever one symbolic form usurped the role of any of the others. 6a Central to this analysis is Cassirer's notion of the symbol, a phenomenon at once sensual and intellectual, which reveals the synthetic activity of consciousness as it structures its world in various symbolic forms. This activity manifests itself in myth, language and science. 64 Cassirer, further, suggests that there are other sub-forms such as art, history, and religion, and in the The Philosophy o/ Symbolic Forms, volume II, Cassirer speaks as if he regarded technology as a symbolic form. ~5 Cassirer, however, never clarified what he meant by such a form, apparently leaving the problem to future generations of philosophers of culture, and it is my belief that such a task is of the utmost importance in the midst of what would now seem to be a crisis of culture. 267'

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NOTES 1 Jacques Ellul, La Technique ou i'enjeu du si~cle (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 5954); Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, trans. John Wilkenson (New York: Knopf, :L964). All references will be to the English text, hereinafter cited as TS. TS, p. xii. 8 Carl Miteham and Robert Mackay, Bibliography of the Philosophy of Technology, (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, z973). 4 In Future Shock (New York : Random House, z970) p. a3~, Toffler states that Ellul's thought may be reduced to the following syllogism: "...science and technology have fostered standardization. Science and technology will advance, making the future even more standardized than the present. Ergo : Man will progressively lose his freedom of choice." Toffler rightly regards this as crude thinking, and fortunately it bears little resemblance to Ellul's thought. Toffler cannot see how Ellul does not regard the endless variety of products provided by advanced technology as a path towards free choice: an endless supply of cigarettes - - all brands imaginable - - , many styles of automobiles, eight different blends of Sunoco gasoline, etc. Further, Toffler states, "This is the point that our social critics - - most of whom are technologically naive - - fail to u n d e r s t a n d : it is only primitive technology that imposes standardization. Automation, in contrast, frees the path to endless, blinding, mind-numbing diversity." Ibld., p. 236. But this is Ellui's exact point : freedom is only offered to us from the hands of technology. n o r m a n in " I n Praise of Technology," Harpers (Nov. :L975) p. 68, states : " O u r contemporary problem is distressingly obvious. We have too many people wanting too many things. This is not caused by technology; it is a consequence of the type of creature man is." Florman correctly wants to make technique a natural extension of man's quest for knowledge, and EIIul wo~Id not deny this, but Florman does not see that the technical quest resulting in technical phenomenon provides a restructuring of our concept of the natural. Man has always desired things - - and this is for Florman a sufficient condition for technique - - but as Ellul has shown, man has not always desired technical things resulting in technical phenomenon. The problem i s : why does m o d e m desire seek fulfillment in the technical sphere. Clearly primitive farmers do not find satisfaction with the John Deere tractor without technical reorientaton, as may be evidenced by the number that go to rust in the fields of many underdeveloped countries. Clearly there is no necessary connection between the desire to cut down trees and the development of the chain saw; what Florman ignores is that technical desires resulting in technical phenomena are different in degree and kind from other desires which may only employ simple techniques. It is this difference which Ellul uniquely apprehends. 6 Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey, "Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society, "Philosophy Todccy,'" XV, no. z (Summer, ~975). For example, note the following regarding the problem of separating technique or technical operations from technology or technical phenomenon: "'Ellul's description would imply that rationality is something which develops independently of technical activity and then at some point is applied to it. Yet is it not equally possible that the rationality involved in the technical phenomenon is the outgrowth of the technical operation itself rather than something brought in, as it were, from outside ?". Ibld., p. ~12. I will try to show, however, that this is Ellul's position. They also consider the following question: " I t may be doubted, for example, whether primitive man actually had any more real choice among different techniques for achieving an end that sic modern man does. In corresponding with friends, for instance, surely he did not have as many as we have - letter, air mail or surface, telegram, telephone, etc." Ibid., p. 55. This question ignores the fact that technology separates man in such a way that these technologies become "necessary." In short it shows the difficulty m o d e m man has in choosing non-technological solutions for technological problems, a factor we will later show in conjunction with the self-augmentation of techniques. 7 Ibid., pp. ~I6 and 5x7. Especially note : "But when Ellul argues that modern technology is something new because of its relations with contemporary society, he is ultimateiy implying that the being of a thing is acquired through its relations rather than that a certain set of re-

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J A C Q U E S ELLUL A N D THE L O G I C OF T E C H N O L O G Y lations is d e t e r m i n e d b y a particular type of being.'" Ibid., p. x~6. 8 Ibld., pp. 117-119. 0 Victor Ferkiss, Technological Man; The Myth and the Reality. (New York ; M e n t o r Books, I97o) PP. 35-76, 37. Ferkiss correctly feels that there is a d a n g e r in defining technology such that all activities are construed as technological, b u t h e does not see that this is w h a t Ellul h a s avoided. Ibid., p. 37. lo Jacques Ellul, Propagandes ( P a r i s : A r m a n d Colin, I962); Jacques Ellul, Propaganda; The Foundation of Man's Attitudes, trans. K o n r a d Kellen a n d J. Lerner (New York : Knopf, 1967). 11 Jacques Ellul, L'Illusion politique ( P a r i s : Robert Laffont, 1965); Jacques Ellul, The Political Illusion, trans. K o n r a d KelIen (New Y o r k : Knopf, 1967). All references will be to the English text, h e r e i n a f t e r cited as PI. 12 Jacques Ellul, Autopsie de la Revolution ( P a r i s : C a l m a n n - L e v y , I 9 6 9 ) : Jacques Ellul, Autopsy of Revolution, trans. P a t r i c i a W o l f (New York : Knopf, :[97~). 1.8 TS, p. x 9. 14 TSt p. 4. 15 T5, pp. 77-I47. It would not seem that Ellul r e g a r d s these characteristics as exhaustive; in fact he is r a t h e r cavalier about n a m i n g them. See Jacques Ellul, " T h e Technological O r d e r , " Philosophy and Technology, ed. M i t c h a m and M a c k e y ( N e w York : The Free Press, 1972) p. 85. H e r e he lists a s o m e w h a t d i f f e r e n t set. H e does, however, refer the r e a d e r to his larger work, the TS, and therefore r e g a r d s his w o r k there as m o r e definitive. It m a y be helpful, however, to v i e w this list as open-ended a n d to p a y attention to the principles Ellul is t r y i n g to advance. 16 TS, p. 79. For an especially interesting and m o r e specialized study of this particuIar phenom e n o n see Siegfied G i e d i o n ' s Mechanization Takes Command ( N e w York : O x f o r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, I948), a s t u d y f r o m which Ellul often draws. Giedion traces the " r a t i o n a l i z a t i o n " of such processes as the bodily m o v e m e n t of factory w o r k e r s by F r a n k B. Gilbreth and of such objects as the Yale Lock and the B a r b e r ' s Chair.

17 TS, p. :[9. 18 TS, pp. :[9-2o. 79 TS, pp. 2o-21. 20 The t r a n s f o r m a t i o n of the tool restructures the w o r k e r ' s apprehension of necessity, s a y the necessity of b e i n g strong, etc. Consider the f o l l o w i n g : " T h i s f o r m u l a that tools m u s t obey their users is true of the tool which puts m a n squarely in contact w i t h a reality which will b e a r no excuses, in contact w i t h m a t t e r to be m a s t e r e d , and the only w a y to u s e it is to obey it. O b e d i e n c e to the plow and the plane w a s indeed the only m e a n s of d o m i n a t i n g earth a n d wood. But the f o r m u l a is not true for our techniques. H e who serves these techniques enters a n o t h e r r e a l m of necessity. T h i s n e w necessity is not natural necessity; natural necessity, in fact, no longer e x i s t s . " T5, 146. T h i s is not to imply that technology is u n n a t u r a l ; r a t h e r it is to s u g g e s t that a notion of " n e c e s s i t y " and of " n a t u r a l " h a s shifted to the technological. 21 The above f r o m TS, p. I46, would s u g g e s t this interpretation. Further, chapter V of TS, entitled " H u m a n T e c h n i q u e s , " specifically discusses the reorientation of m a n ' s spatial realm, including the r e a l m of the body. Finally, " P o l i t i c s in the W o r l d of I m a g e s , " chapter III of PI focuses on the effects of the loss of m a n ' s existential sense of i m m e d i a c y - - a sense m a d e possible by the body - - in the political realm. T h a t which was dealt w i t h directly in m a n ' s daily life is n o w reduced to an " i m a g e , " m a k i n g political choice impossible. The n a t u r e of this i m a g e is the subject of Propaganda. 22 TS, p. 2I. 28 TS, p. 131. 24 See Friedick D e s s a u e r , " T e c h n o l o g y in its Proper S p h e r e , " Philosophy and Technology, ed. M i t c h a m and M a c k e y , pp. 317-334. Following K a n t ' s notion of three realms available to three types of knowledge, i.e., science to pure reason, ethics to practical reason, and aesthetics to j u d g m e n t , D e s s a u e r a r g u e s that technology reveals to m a n a f o u r t h realm, the realm of the pure thing-in-itself. Here m a n goes beyond natural law to a h i g h e r law, to the things themselves, which are only reflected in the natural laws of science; at the point of creation the

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r e a l m of o u g h t coincides w i t h the r e a l m of is; and finally, the technologist achieves w h a t the artist n e v e r c a n - - a w o r k i n g object, an object that is not just the expression of fancy because of its participation in this " h i g h e r l a w . " In the three realms noted by K a n t absolute subject/object u n i t y is never achieved, b u t in D e s s a u e r ' s " f o u r t h r e a l m " this ideal is apparently achieved 9 D e s s a u e r contends that the technologist m a k e s that which was not, e.g., the m a c h i n e , come into being, a b e i n g a r o u n d w h i c h all comes to be ordered. N o t h i n g can resist. Also see Joseph W e i z e n b a u m , Computer Power and Human Reason (San Francisco : W . H . F r e e m a n a n d Co., x976 ) p. 252. W e i z e n b a u m v i e w s the technical problem solving m e n t a l ity in the following w a y : " I n s t e a d , the simplest criteria are u s e d to detect differences, to search for the m e a n s to reduce these differences, a n d finally to apply operations to "present objects' in order to t r a n s f o r m t h e m into ' d e s i r e d objects.' " 25 TS, p. 85. :26 TS, p. 8o. 27 TS, p. 45. 28 In the Philosophical Works of Descartes, trans, a n d ed. b y H a l d a n e and Ross (New York : Dover, 1955), PP. 87-95. See also D.P. V e r e n e ' s " V i c o ' s Science of I m a g i n a t i v e U n i v e r s a l s and the P h i l o s o p h y of Symbolic F o r m s , " in Vico's Science of Humanity, eds. Tagliacozzo and V e r e n e ( B a l t i m o r e : T h e J o h n s H o p k i n s Press, z976) in which Verene s u g g e s t s that the four step C a r t e s i a n m e t h o d of the Discourse m a y well provide a vital clue in u n d e r s t a n d i n g the technological m i n d . 29 Meditations, in The Philosophical Works of Descartes, trans 9 and ed. H a l d a n e and Ross, p. z57. 30 TS, p. 86. 31 Evaluation of such p h e n o m e n a is strictly b a s e d on n u m e r i c a l or statistical evidence. A s a corollary it follows that evidence which is incapable of b e i n g represented by statistical m e t h o d s cannot play a n y part in a purely technical evaluation - - in fact it does not even exist for the technical m i n d . 32 TS, p. 86. 33 TS, p. 93. 34 7"5, pp. 90-9~. 35 EspecialIy note : " S i n c e the scientist m u s t u s e the m a t e r i a l s he h a s at hand; and since a l m o s t n o t h i n g is k n o w n about the relationship of m a n to the automobile, the telephone, or the radio, and absolutely n o t h i n g about the relationship of m a n to the Appara? or about the sociological effects of other aspects of technique, the scientists m o v e unconsciously tow a r d the sphere of w h a t is k n o w n scientifically, and tries to limit the whole question to that 9 TS, p. ~7. s6 TS, p. 59. 37 PI, p. :r~5. 38 PI, p. :ta4. 39 PI, p. 215. 40 TS, p. 95. 41 TS, p. 97. 42 TS, p. 96. 43 TS, p. 99. 44 For example, there w a s great reluctance to judge N i x o n ' s involve'~2ent in W - * e r g a t e until the f a m o u s tapes could be heard. A n d , ironically, it is likely that Nixon w a s driven to tape h i m s e l f by this v e r y c a m e logic, convinced as he w a s that he was m a k i n g history at every m o m e n t of his presidential career. H e was, in fact, m a k i n g tapes which have become history. Brock B r o w e r in " A Short H i s t o r y of T a p e A b u s e " Esquire (August, ~974) PP. 47-49, 138, h a s apprehended this p h e n o m e n o n quite well. H e s u g g e s t s that technology enters into reporting in such a w a y as to violate a n inalienable right, " . . . t h e right of a n y h u m a n being.., to h a v e his o w n words f a d e f r o m his o w n l i p s . " Ibid., p. 49. A n d further, " O t h e r w i s e , if the technology keeps i m p r o v i n g , we could end up living out our days inside an aural prison. Putatively o v e r h e a r d f r o m the cradle to the g r a v e , a n d held to e v e r y t h i n g we say, for l i f e . " Ibid., p. 49. Because the politician n o w lives in such a universe, he often speakr insignificantly in public,

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saying things to which he may be held with little difficulty. ~5 TS, p. x3I. 4~ Consider the following from Mao Tse Tung, Selected Works of Mao Tse Tung, ed. Bruno Shaw (New York : Harper Colophon Books, I97 o) p. 88 : "This process, the practice of changing the world, which is determined in accordance with scientific knowledge has already reached a historic moment in the world of China, a great moment unprecedented in human history, that is, the moment for completely banishing darkness from the world and from China and for changing the world into a world of light such as never previously existed.'" From a social perspective it is the light of reason that reveals the following: " I n given conditions, having and not having, acquiring and losing, are interconnected; there is identity of the two sides (...). There is a bridge leading from private property to public property, which in philosophy is called identity or transformation into each other, or interpenetration..." (Ibidq p. 96). From the standpoint of logic the bourgeois and the proletariat entail each other, each being necessary for the other's point of view. In order to own and possess there must be that which I possess, hut to maintain that logical identity is also to posit, from the Hegelian point of view, difference or non-identity in the same relation. For Hegel there is a necessary tension between being-in-itself and being-for-itself accounting for the non-identity of any idea and its object, a union which is only tenuously and dialectically present in the notion. From Mao's point of view, a Neo-Marxist point of view, this tension must be annuled : "'If a man wants to succeed in his work, that is, to achieve the anticipated results, he must bring his ideas into correspondence with the laws of the objective external world; if they do not correspond, he will fail in his practice..." (Ibid., p. 87). Here, as with any technical logic, theory is reduced to practice, the subjective is reduced to tire objective, and the objective i s transformed into the entire technical process. The uniquenness of a culture vanishes with the differences of the individual comprising the culture. 47 TS, p. I3o. 48 TS, p. x3x. 40 See TS, p. 393 and especially the following : "'I do not believe there are many proponents left of the idea that man is something in himself, that he has an essence independent of his milieu. But there is a broad middle ground between the indifference to technique affected by the philosophical dualists who would maintain such a position and the indifference that the technical sycophants affect," 5 o TS, pp. 392-393. 51 TS, p. 142. Also see D.P. Verene's "Technology and M y t h : an Hegelian View of Contemporary Culture," XVth World Congress of Philosophy, Varna, Bulgaria, (Sept. x973) in which Verene suggests that technological culture has abandoned what Hegel took to be the activities of Absolute Mind, i.e., art, religion, and philosophy. These activities, according to Hegel's scheme, provide the vitality and direction for the political and social mind. In the absence of these forms of the transcendental, technology has turned to myth, myth as it was understood by Giambattista Vico and Ernst Cassirer. As Verene says, "Myth, unlike art, religion, or philosophy, as a form of consciousness is not inherently judgmental or perspectival. The power of myth is the power to make significant that which already exists. When coupled with technique it offers a feeling of significance and vision which technical life requires to make its advance meaningful." p. 8. Also see Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man : Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston : Beacon Crest, 1964), pp. ~9-I43. 52 TS, p. ~4a. 5a TS, p. z42. 54 As EIIul says, "Man... therefore transfers his sense of the sacred to the very thing which has destroyed its former object : to technique itself. In the world in which we live, technique has become the essential mystery, taking widely diverse forms according the place and race." Th, p. 143. 55 TS, p. :t42. ~0 TS, p. ~43. ~7 PI, p, zz6. 58 PI, p. 216.

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50 Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey suggest the need for a more thorough epistemological analysis , which would treat subject-object relationships, although it is doubtful that they see that one is already to be found impllcity in Ellul's treatment of technology. See Mitcham and Mackey, "Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society," p. zi6. 60 The Crisis o~ European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. David Cart (Evanston : Northwestern University Press, I97o ) pp. 21-59 , and particularly pp. 51-52 and p. 56. 61 I am not claiming that phenomenology, as Husserl conceived it, is the next goal, nor am I claiming that my analysis is in line with Hussefl's, but I am claiming that it is necessary for philosophy to speak in what I wish to call a first intentional mode. Philosophy usually examines thought in a second intentional way, i.e., it evaluates the thought of one or more of the particular sciences, often using the language of that science. Agreeing with Husserl, however, I think it is important that philosophy concern itsef with the realm where ideas are lived - - the life-world - - and that its investigations need not be couched in scientific language, employing the presuppositions of one or more of these sciences. Rather, philosophy should be free to use any language that it finds suitable to the task, and I believe that such philosophers as Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Schutz, Sartre, and Jaspers have done this. s2 The major portion of Cassirer's system is contained in the following works : The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, trans. Ralph Manheim, 3 vols. (New Haven : Yale University Press, 1953, I955, I957); Substance and Function, authorized trans. William Curtis Swabey and Marie Collins Swabey (Chicago : Open Court Pub. Co. 1923); and An Essay on Man, (New Haven : Yale University Press, x96o), pp. 182-217. 68 The Logic of the Humanities, trans. Clarence Howe Smith (New Haven : Yale University Press, x96o), pp. zSz-zl 7. 64 Each volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms deals primarily with each one of these forms. Volume I deals with language, volume II treats myth, and volume III examines science, a task which Cassirer began in Substance and Function. For critical literature on Cassirer see D.P. Verene, "'Ernst C a s s i r e r : A Bibliography,'" Bulletin of Bibliography, z4 (197z); and "Ernst Cassirer : Critical Work ~964-i97o, '" Bulletin of Bibliography~ z9 (~97z). e~ The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, vol. II, pp. xiv-xv.

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