Article
ID: CBB568468603

Agency (2016)

unapi
Clocks and Watches Technology Information technology Nature Steam engines; steam turbines Measurement

In support of Frans van Lunteren’s project for big-picture history organized around “mediating machines,” these comments stress “mediation” as active agency in the world rather than as mere metaphor, on the view that this active agency underlies the potency of technologies as mediators, both between different domains of knowledge and between theories and things. Similarly important for this power is the diversity of the particular constructions that constitute mediators like “balances” or “engines.” Diversity of meaning and action gives them their cultural reach, from mechanical contrivance to natural process to political ideology. An interesting question remains about how many mediating machines will suffice for the big picture of modernity over four centuries. Statistics, for example, might be a crucial addition. Another question concerns how to characterize the knowledge regime of a mediating machine. Van Lunteren chooses “information” for the computer. He might also have chosen “complexity,” with different import for the character of postmodernity.

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Authors & Contributors
Lunteren, Frans van
Worthen, Shana Sandlin
Stephens, Carlene E.
Steele, John M.
Santos López, Pascual
Pratt, Derek
Journals
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Technikgeschichte: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Technik und Industrie
International Journal for the History of Engineering and Technology
British Journal for the History of Science
Arbor: Ciencia, Pensamiento y Cultura
Publishers
University of North Carolina Press
Stanford University Press
Landmark Publishing
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
University of Toronto
Concepts
Technology
Clocks and Watches
Steam engines; steam turbines
Measurement
Time measuring instruments
Nature
People
Newcomen, Thomas
Huygens, Constantijn
Huygens, Christiaan
Harrison, John
Balzac, Honoré de
Time Periods
19th century
Ancient
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
17th century
Places
Middle and Near East
Mesopotamia
Americas
United States
Switzerland
Great Britain
Institutions
Newcomen Society for the Study of the History of Engineering and Technology
Scientific Instrument Society
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