Eighteenth-century technological advance was a multiplicity-struggle, not enlightenment progress

Evidence

First of all, we have the plural, polymorphous, multiple, and dispersed existence of different knowledges, which existed with their differences—differences defined by geographical regions, by the size of the workshops or factories, and so on. The differences among them—I am speaking of technological expertise, remember—were defined by local categories, education, and the wealth of their possessors. And these knowledges were struggling against one another, with one another, in a society where knowing the secret behind technological knowledge was a source of wealth, and in which the mutual independence of these knowledges also made individuals independent. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 195 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

In serious, critical intellectual work, there are no “absolute beginnings” and few unbroken continuities. Neither the endless unwinding of “tradition,” so beloved in the History of Ideas, nor the absolutism of the “epistemological rupture,” punctuating Thought into its “false” and “correct” parts, once favored by the Althussereans, will do. What we find, instead, is an untidy but characteristic unevenness of development. What is important are the significant breaks —where old lines of thought are disrupted, older constellations displaced, and elements, old and new, are regrouped around a different set of premises and themes. Changes in a problematic do significantly transform the nature of the questions asked, the forms in which they are proposed, and the manner in which they can be adequately answered. Such shifts in perspective reflect, not only the results of an internal intellectual labor, but the manner in which real historical developments and transformations are appropriated in thought and provide Thought, not with its guarantee of “correctness” but with its fundamental orientations, its conditions of existence. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 180 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Technology never advances towards anything because it is pushed from behind. The technician does not know why he is working, and generally he does not much care… . There is no call towards a goal; there is constraint by an engine placed in the back and not tolerating any halt for the machine… . The interdependence of technological elements makes possible a very large number of “solutions” for which there are no problems. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 394 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The word science narrowed its meaning after the industrial revolution; Eighteenth-century technical knowledge was a scattered patchwork of rival secret knowledges — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 195; Technological innovation is pushed from behind, not pulled toward a goal — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 394 (+1 more)

Related

• Eighteenth-century technical knowledge was a scattered patchwork of rival secret knowledges (similarity 0.91)
• The word science narrowed its meaning after the industrial revolution (similarity 0.85)
• Technological innovation is pushed from behind, not pulled toward a goal (similarity 0.79)
• Science in the singular did not exist before the eighteenth century. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Eighteenth-century technical knowledge was a scattered patchwork of rival secret knowledges #exemplifies (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 195
• Intellectual change proceeds through uneven breaks rather than tradition or rupture #qualifies (0.78) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 180
• Technological innovation is pushed from behind, not pulled toward a goal #qualifies (0.75) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 394