Technology and Nature
Résumé
It is generally taken as obvious that artificial objects are fabricated, and that the technical process of producing artificial entities is a fabrication. The paradigm of fabrication may serve as a reference for a whole series of technical activities: the production of objects and tools, the construction of buildings, of infrastructures, the synthesis of substances which do not exist in nature. It is the art of making; it applies equally to the art of the craftsman (unique creations) and to industrial fabrication (the serial production of a number of identical objects). We aim to show that besides fabrication, there is another model of technical action, that may variously be called "steering," "stewardship" or "husbandry" but for which we will use here the more generic term of "piloting." It resides on using natural forces or living beings, or on orienting natural processes in order to obtain desired results. These are the multiple ways of adjusting to nature as could be done with a partner. These are not the arts of making but of doing-with, of inducing things to happen. To such a model belong agriculture and animal-raising, all the arts of controlled fermentation, as well as therapy. It is not a question of successive periods in the history of technology: these two models are neither mutually exclusive nor do they follow one after the other. A certain number of recent technologies (nanotechnologies, biotechnologies), which are generally considered as fabrications, can equally well be considered under the heading of piloting. We will attempt to show that the latter characterization is actually preferable; the advantage being that far from separating technologies and nature and making them independent realities, it makes it possible to understand how technologies can act in and with nature. This chapter has been written in French for this volume and translated by John Stewart, University of Technology Compiegne.