|
Preface by Guangbi Dong
In this break through book Professor Zhouying Jin supports returning to Plato’s definition of technology, while emphasizing the rationality and importance of knowing and developing soft technology. The ancient Greek Philosopher, Plato (427 B.C.–347 B.C.), split technology into two different categories: the technology of acquisition and the technology of manufacture. The former includes acquiring knowledge, learning and profit, and techniques of the agon (an ancient Greek festival featuring sports, musical and theatrical competitions) and hunting, while the latter includes farming, ancient medical practices (involving leeches), architecture, and manufacture of tools and crafts.
Through analyzing modern technological systems and studying thousands of years of technology history, Professor Jin suggests that we should return to Plato’s understanding and classification of technology. Referring to the rebirth of Plato’s theories as “soft science,” Professor Jin develops Plato’s two notions of technology into “soft technology” and “hard technology.” Operational activities applied to natural objects and artificial objects are categorized as hard technology, whereas the operational activities of human behavior and psychology are classified as soft technology. According to its field of application, soft technology is divided into commercial technology, social technology, cultural technology, as well as the technology of feeling and experience. As a techno-economist, Professor Jin’s main academic goal, in general, is to establish a framework for a technological innovation system.
The distinction between soft technology and hard technology is analogous to the distinction between primary and secondary materiality in philosophical theory. This distinction, which was first proposed by the Greek philosopher, Democritus (463B.C.–370B.C.), was later revived, affirmed, and elaborated by the English scientist, Robert Boyle (1672–1691), and the English philosopher, John Locke (1632–1704). It served as an epistemological foundation for the emergence of modern science.
Dividing technology as a whole into soft and hard categories is also analogous to dividing computer technology into the categories of software and hardware. Computers with the same hardware but different software have quite different functions; likewise, people with similar “hardware” (i.e., bodies) but different “software” (i.e., psyches) tend to behave quite differently and to serve different life-purposes. The now orthodox distinction between computer software and computer hardware presages Professor Jin’s distinction between soft technology and hard technology. Our analogy with the distinction between primary and secondary objects (in the tradition of Democritus, Boyle and Locke) may be further extended. Accordingly, from a phenomenological perspective, we may say that hard technology is the “primary” manifestation of technology, while soft technology is the “secondary” manifestation of technology. As scientific research moves from the “primary” to the “secondary,” technology will also move from the “primary” to the “secondary.”
Additionally—and here is one of Professor Jin’s profound insights—when science and its related technology have developed to a higher stage of maturity, the polarity between soft technology and hard technology will reverse, just as the polarity between software and hardware has already reversed in the computer industry. We are fast approaching the stage where soft technology will rise to the primary position and hard technology will occupy the secondary position in technological development.
Modern research on technological phenomena has shown that the development of technology is based upon a macro-cultural system. In his book, The Culture of Science (1949), L. A. White, a scholar of human culture, divides the macro-cultural system, in contrast with nature, into three subsystems: technology, institutions, and concepts. The history and evolution of this worldwide development of macro-culture reveals that the age in which technology dominated culture has subsided. We are presently in an age of transition, moving from an institution-dominated stage to a concept-dominated stage. As a subsystem of the culture system, technology also has its own inner structure. If classified according to the range of its functions, it consists of three subsystems: natural science technology, social science technology, and thinking technology. The entire development and history of technology shows that the evolution of technology has experienced a multiplicity of stages: from a stage dominated by natural technology to a stage dominated by social technology; and now, we are experiencing a transition to a stage dominated by thinking technology. If viewed as technological evolution against a macro-cultural background, the historical significance of Professor Jin’s soft-technology study becomes even clearer. The soft technology that she emphasizes is mainly derived from the operational norms of institutions and concepts.
Although Professor Jin provides a detailed and elaborate study of the characteristics and classifications of soft technology, the difference between soft technology and hard technology is not always as clear-cut as that between computer software and computer hardware. Elaborating the distinction will probably be one of the major challenges facing this new field of study, soft-technology. There may be some theoretical difficulties in integrating new classifications of technology with previous notions of technology extant in human science and culture. Of course, these difficulties will not lessen the importance of the concept of soft technology, which not only provides a new sphere and direction for the study of technological phenomena, but also offers a new basis and technological framework for understanding the economy.
Professor Jin’s work is replete with insights about soft technology derived from both science and from enlightened observation of normal daily phenomena; and this feeds the enthusiasm of others who have taken an interest in studying this emerging field. Professor Jin not only traces the history of soft-technology, but also outlines a blueprint for its future development. Anyone who reads this book will feel her persistence and sincere concern for the welfare of Chinese science and technology. Her hope for China’s future rests upon a belief that scientific and technological creativity is the province not only of the scientific elite; but that every citizen is a potential contributor, whose talents may be brought in to play through the development of soft technology. While Professor Jin writes from the vantage point of China, her observations and ideas are eminently applicable to the global society and global economy that are developing as we move in to the new Millennium. Professor Jin writes as a both scholar-citizen of China and as a scholar-citizen of the wider world in which all of us live.
Guangbi Dong
North District, Shuangyushu, Beijing
August 28, 2001
Introduction
Soft technology — the primary subject of this book — is not new. For thousands of years human beings have been creating soft technology, as well as using it, and benefiting from it. However, because of the great impact of industrialization and the brilliant achievements of natural science and technology, soft technology has been overshadowed by hard technology. As a consequence soft technology has rarely, if ever, been developed consciously as a form of technology. This failure to appreciate the true nature of technology, incorporating what I have labeled as soft technology, has prevented us from properly grasping the essence of the process of technological innovation. It has also distracted us from dealing properly with the relationship between technological innovation and institutional innovation.
Through exploring the concept of soft technology in this book I stress the importance of innovation and technological competitiveness for closing the gap between developed and developing countries. The book also contains discussion about how qualified soft technology workers may be trained, and about how soft technology — or “soft-tech” — industries may be developed. Meanwhile, I challenge developing countries to shift away from the strategy of “catching up and then surpassing” developed countries by investing most funds, human resources, and energy in to hard technology, towards a strategy of consciously developing soft technology. I also stress that leaders in developing countries need to understand, and create, the new rules of game. Developing countries need to stay alert to new advances in hard technology and soft technology in developed countries and to avoid blindly following old thinking patterns and criteria when choosing new development strategies, routes, and industry structures. In order to catch up and ultimately surpass developed countries, developing countries need to bring their own new advantages into play, and follow their own route to success.
Soft technology is crucial to the sustainable economic and social development of all nations and all communities. As a citizen and scholar of China, however, I have written this book with an eye trained on the special circumstances of China’s economy and technology. China’s social and economic development has now come to a critical stage; and for its development process to be sustained the nation’s economic structure must face further adjustments and reforms. In the face of economic and technological globalization, a broad-based technological innovation system must be established in order to facilitate overall innovation, boost strategic adjustment, and improve comprehensive national power and international competitiveness.
Research on the new paradigm of technology — soft technology — has just begun, and this book is just an elementary contribution to the field. Many problems and issues addressed in this book will require further study; so the weaknesses of this book, of which there are no doubt many, are open to the criticisms and comments of its readers. I sincerely hope that entrepreneurs, scholars, social activists, government officials, managers, and administrators (no matter what rank) who are concerned with creativity, innovation, and business startups, can participate jointly in both the research and the practice of soft technology.
Zhouying Jin
August 20, 2001
Prof. Zhouying Jin is a Professor and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Quantitative-Economics and Technical-Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), and Director of the Center for Technology Innovation and Strategy Studies (CTISS), of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).
《Soft Technology-- The Essence and Space of Innovation》
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Evolution of Notion of Technology
1. Traditional Understanding of “Technology”
2. A Fresh Understanding of Technology
---Recognition of Another Paradigm of Technology from Practice: Soft Technology
3. The Need to Renew the Notion of Technology
---A New Understanding of Knowledge and the Need of New Paradigm of Technology for Economic & Social Development: Soft Technology
4. The History of Commercial Technology: A Brief Analysis
5. A Retrospective of Social Technology Development in the 20th Century
Chapter 2: The Characteristics and Classification of Soft Technology
1. What is Soft Technology?
2. The Characteristics of Soft Technology
3. Soft Technology Trends
4. The Classification of Soft Technology
Chapter 3: Soft Technology and Innovation
1. Soft Technology and Technological Innovation
2. Soft Technology and Institutional Innovation
3. Soft Technology and Innovational System
4. Soft Technology and the Strategic Adjustment of Chinese Enterprises
Chapter 4: Soft Technology Industries
---Industrial Innovation of Soft Technology
1. The Third Industrial Revolution and the Contribution of Soft Technology
2. The Economic Era of Intelligent Service and Service Innovation
3. Soft Technology Industry and the Industrial Structure
4. The Characteristics of the Soft Technology Industry
5. Intelligent Service Industry in the Narrow Sense
6. Social Industry
7. Culture Industry
Chapter 5: What is Technological Competitiveness?
---What is the Essential Gap between Developed & Developing Countries?
1. Knowledge and Technology are Merely Potential Sources of Competitiveness
2. From Where Does Technological Competitiveness Come?
3. The Way to Improve Technological Competitiveness for China
Chapter 6: Soft Technology Talents and the Education Revolution
Chapter 7: Soft Technology and the 4th Generation of Technology Foresight
1. The Evolution and Development of Technology Foresight
2. The Third Generation of Technology Foresight and the Technological Driving Force
3. The Fourth Generation of Technology Foresight and Soft Technology
4. Technology Foresight in Developing Countries
Postscript
Bibliography
|
