(Axiology of technoscience: A critical review of Javier Echevería´s proposal)

Abstract

In this paper we propose a critical review of Javier Echeverría’s proposal for an axiology of technoscience. Although we share with the author the idea that the techno-scientific practice is loaded with values and that they mobilize diverse processes of evaluation in conflict by the plurality of values of the agents involved, we consider, however, from a political perspective that the proposal for a formal or analytical and empirical axiology is unsatisfactory. First, because the political aspects in Echeverría’s thesis are considered as only one subsystem of values involved in the evaluation processes without taking into account dominant ideological-political positions and we think they are at the basis of technoscience itself. Secondly, as a consequence of the above mentioned, it is not taken into account that the development of technology has been directly related to its dominant political economic context.
In order to show these criticisms and theoretical inadequacies, we will present a schematic outlline of the central points of the Echeverria proposal and its formalized system, and then we will discuss its contradictory aspects and the insufficiency of its contributions from the perspective of a praxiological turn, which proposes to analyze the scientific practice. To illustrate this criticism, we will contrast the author’s thesis and his proposals for peaceful and democratic solutions with that of other critical authors of technology (Langdon Winner and Andrew Feenberg), who have approached from a “political turn” the analysis of Technological and scientific practice.
These discussions will show that new political perspectives of scientific technological practice are necessary that take into account the dominant ideological positions to be able to explain and propose systems of evaluation or transformation effective in the field of technoscience.