Course syllabus

Course-PM

TEK226 Technology and society lp2 HT19 (7.5 hp)

Course is offered by the division of Science, Technology and Society, at the department of Technology Management and Economics.

Contact details

Examiner and teacher: Karl Palmås, associate professor, karl.palmas@chalmers.se

Teachers: Karl de Fine Licht, senior lecturer, karl.definelicht@chalmers.se, and Nicholas Surber, doctoral student, nicholas.surber@chalmers.se.

Course aims

The course invites the student to transpose knowledge of key technological fields into the domain of society. Thus, it seeks to deepen the conceptual understanding of central technologies, while simultaneously developing the student's ability to analyse societal processes. The course also endeavours to expand the student's awareness of how the engineering and natural sciences are conceptually and historically intertwined with the social sciences and humanities.

Course content

The course will start from the students' already existing knowledge of different technologies, and then relate these to theories about society. The class sessions are thus structured on the basis of technological concepts, specifically

• mechanics and mechanism
• motors and heat engines
• cybernetics
• algorithms and artificial intelligence
• computer simulation

and their respective relation to different theories about society.

Learning objectives

- Describe theories of how societies function.
- Describe the function of different technologies, and separate these functions from their technical context.
- Identify conceptual symmetries between the function of different technologies, on the one hand, and theories about how society functions, on the other.
- Reconstruct the interconnection between the emergence of technologies and the emergence of theories of society.
- Evaluate and critique the proposition that society can be understood as a machine.

Link to the syllabus on Studieportalen: Study plan

Schedule

Thursday 7 November, 13.15-16.00    Introduction: JUDGEMENT AND WISDOM IN ENGINEERING
Room: SB-H2                                   

Tuesday 12 November, 13.15-15.00    Group exercise: “LET NO ONE IGNORANT OF GEOMETRY ENTER”
Room: SB-Multisal                           

Thursday 14 November, 13.15-16.00  Class session: “LET NO ONE IGNORANT OF GEOMETRY ENTER”
Room: SB-H2                                   

Tuesday 19 November, 13.15-15.00    Group exercise: THE MECHANICS OF HUMAN NATURE
Room: SB-Multisal                           

Thursday 21 November, 13.15-16.00  Class session: THE MECHANICS OF HUMAN NATURE
Room: SB-H2                                   

Tuesday 26 November, 13.15-15.00    Group exercise: THE MOTOR OF HISTORY
Room: SB-L208, SB-M500               

Thursday 28 November, 13.15-16.00  Class session: THE MOTOR OF HISTORY
Room: SB-H2                                   

Tuesday 3 December, 13.15-15.00      Group exercise: CYBERNETIC CONTROL
Room: SB-Multisal                           

Thursday 5 December, 13.15-16.00    Class session: CYBERNETIC CONTROL
Room: SB-H2                                   

Tuesday 10 December, 13.15-15.00    Group exercise: ALGORITHMS AND INTELLIGENCE
Room: SB-Multisal                           

Thursday 12 December, 13.15-16.00   Class session: ALGORITHMS AND INTELLIGENCE
Room: SB-H2                                   

Thursday 19 December, 13.15-15.00    Wrap-up: THE MAP AND THE TERRITORY
Room: SB-H2                                   

TimeEdit

Course literature

All readings for the course will be supplied by the tutor as extracts posted on Canvas. Each of the key readings are introductions from “classics”, and will be presented and contextualized by the tutor during the class sessions. There are also additional readings, which will be discussed in class, but are not mandatory. Students are however encouraged to acquaint themselves with the readings before the session. The main readings are the following (in the order that they are presented in the course):

Introduction: JUDGEMENT AND WISDOM IN ENGINEERING

Atkinson, Helen (2016) "The beginnings of wisdom: Challenges in engineering education", Engineering.

Weekly cycle 1:  “LET NO ONE IGNORANT OF GEOMETRY ENTER”

Plato (2007) The Republic. London: Penguin Classics.

Weekly cycle 2: THE MECHANICS OF HUMAN NATURE

Hobbes, Thomas (2017 {1651}) Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil. London: Penguin Classics.

Weekly cycle 3: THE MOTOR OF HISTORY

Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich (2015 {1848}) The Communist Manifesto. London: Penguin Classics.

Tocqueville, Alexis (2000 {1840}) Democracy in America (Book 1). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Weekly cycle 4: CYBERNETIC CONTROL

Wiener, Norbert (1989 {1950}) The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society. London: Free Association Books.

Weekly cycle 5: ALGORITHMS AND INTELLIGENCE

Simon, Herbert (1999 {1969}) The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.

Wrap up: THE MAP AND THE TERRITORY

Baudrillard, Jean (1994 {1981}) Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor, MI.: University of Michigan Press.

Course design

The weekly cycle: Study questions, group exercises, class sessions

This course encourages the students to approach ideas from the world of engineering, and transpose them onto theories about society. The idea is to start from concepts that the students are familiar with, and then strive to stretch this knowledge and imagination into the world of social theory. Students will be encouraged to first reflect individually on specific themes, then share their reflections with a small group of other students, and finally discuss them in class. This implies that the students will go through a three-step process that repeats five times, on a weekly basis.

• First, they will be given study questions relating to a specific theme, and be encouraged to digitally submit their notes regarding these questions on the Tuesday of each week.
• These notes will then be shared and discussed with other students, in group exercises, which are scheduled on Tuesdays.
• The themes will then be further discussed in the class sessions, held on Thursdays by the tutor. During these sessions, the tutor will also introduce the key reading for the week.

The first weekly cycle starts on Tuesday the 12^th of November. On this day, the students submit answers to study questions, and the first group exercise will be held. The first class session will be held on Thursday 14^th of November (see schedule for details).

The study questions – and the form in which to hand in the notes – are posted on Canvas. This will be done after the Thursday sessions, with the first series of questions posted after the course introduction on Thursday 7 November.

Report

During the course, students are expected to form groups and write a short report about the problems and ideas discussed in class. The reports are to be written by self-formed groups of 4-5 students, and should be between 1000 and 2000 words. Reports are due 18 December, the day before the final session of the course. This is done via uploading digital versions (preferably formatted as pdf-files) of the text onto Canvas.

Mid-term exam

The course features a mid-term exam, structured as a multiple choice survey and organized through the Canvas platform. The exam will cover all the material discussed in previous class sessions, as well as in the introduction session. (Note: The readings will be covered to the extent that they have been discussed in class – sections not discussed in class will not feature in the exam.) In order to participate, the student needs to physically attend the session on Tuesday, 26 November, 13.15 in SB-L208/SB-M500.

Changes made since the last occasion

The course is broadly based on last year's course, but there are a couple of changes: The modules have been swapped around, and some new additional readings have been added. Moreover, the previous "group discussion" sessions (the Tuesday sessions) have been re-designed into "group exercises". This implies that these sessions will not only be about discussion, but have a range of formats.

Examination and evaluation

The students will be assigned individual grades, on the basis of

• class participation,
• a mid-term exam,
• the merits of the above-mentioned report

Grading details

The grading is structured in the following way: A student can attain a maximum score of 100 points.

For each of the five weekly cycles described above, students are encouraged to prepare a 100 – 300 word note before the session. Students who prepare and submit such a note – and attend the subsequent group exercise in order to share and discuss their answers, and attend the class session – will be awarded 8 points for that particular session. The maximum score for class participation, then, is 40 points. Note: Preparing notes, and participating in group exercises, and in class sessions is not mandatory. Moreover, students who wish to prepare notes and attend sessions do not have to do it for all of the five weekly cycles listed above.

The mid-term exam is awarded a maximum of 20 points.

The report is awarded with a maximum of 40 points. The report is assessed on the basis of content (do the propositions and arguments reflect the issues discussed during the course?) and form (are propositions and arguments clearly and succinctly communicated?).

The points are added up into a total score. Scoring 40 – 59 points yields grade 3, scoring 60 – 79 points yields grade 4, and 80 – 100 points yields grade 5.