Abstract

There has developed since around the end of the Second World War, a body of writing that has become known as the Philosophy of Technology. This writing now includes work by those who can be identified as "seminal thinkers," as well as developments of their original ideas, and fresh work and commentary on specific issues, to produce what is now a quite wide ranging body of literature. This chapter is primarily a descriptive one that summarizes the general field with an eye to its significance for teaching and teachers, highlighting some perennial issues in educational thought and practice that the literature of Philosophy of Technology invites us to revisit. We are, however, also invited to reconsider a perennial debate in education, one that originates in the dialogues between Socrates and the Sophists of Classical Greece and which can be understood in terms of many of the themes of Philosophy of Technology, and of this, volume. Moreover, it suggests why that debate must be re-engaged in societies governed by advanced technology, and how the activity of teaching and the role of the teacher as a "reflective practitioner" are critical factors in that re-engagement. Thus, description provides the background for both analytic and critical dimensions of the Chapter