Philosophy and technoscience           

Interview to the Director of the Center of Study

of Technique, of Knowledge and of Practice

at Université de Paris 1 Panthéon - Sorbonne,

Professor Alain Gras

Interviewer : Dear Prof Alain Gras, as director of C.E.T.CO.PRA., we would love to exploit this chance to better know the center that you direct. Can you describe its structure and its aims ? 

Answer : Our Center is named after Centre d’Etude des Techniques, des Connaissances et des Pratiques (Center of Study of Technique, of Knowledge and of Practices). Our aim is to understand the meaning of technique by beginning from the subjects who use it, but linking the micro of the individual perception to the macro of the whole of the system (technical macro-system / MST). This Center is an access team, recognized by the Ministry of National Education, in order to welcome the doctoral students, besides the researchers. Our reflection owes much the philosophy of technique, but our approach is socio-anthropologic.

I : Has the center a long history or tradition ? Can you mention it ?

A : The Center has been established in 1989, when we were interested in the problem of the technologic innovation in the great technical systems and in a specific case, the introduction of Airbus A-320. We have acted our methodology by flying in the cockpits with the pilots, or by following the ground crew and we could observe behaviors that the classic ergonomics would never have seen.  

The philosophic matter that we analyze concerns the role of the body in the automatisms and, from there, the whole of our critics of virtual comes out, as well as of the ideology of power, of the autonomy of technique etc., as Heidegger, Jonas or Ellul do (in Italy, e.g. Severino or Galimberti)

I : Which are the connections to other similar national and/or international structures ?

A : About the topic concerning the technical macro-systems, we are linked to the Wissenschaftzentrum in Berlin where Bernward Joerges has been one of the first to analyze the MST, about the philosophy of technique to UCLA in San Diego and  Andrew Feenberg, about the risks to UCLA in Berkeley, about the High Reliability Organization (Gene Rochlin, Todd La Porte) and about technique in general, and more precisely aeronautics, to the University of Linköping in Sweden (Boel Berner, Joahn Sanne).

We have a project of master in politics of science and technique in common with the University of L’Aquila, (Michela Nacci) and about the problem of traineeship to Bruno Maggi at the University of Bologna. I underline that two of our doctoral students are Italian, and one of them is in co-sponsorship.

I : Which are the opportunities that the center offers to who is interested in doing scientific research ?

A : The Centre welcomes the doctoral students, who can enter highly technical organizations after and need an exterior look. They can also become consultants and, of course, researchers and teachers in public organizations.

I : Which are the fields of study which the center focuses its resources on and which activity is developed there ?

A : The Center belongs to the Doctoral School of Philosophy and courses on the biologic evolutionism, on Wittgenstein, on art or politics are taught too.

About us, we prefer the philosophic and socio-anthropologic reflection by an immersion on the ground. Some researchers can have benefit of contracts.

I : Which are the possible plans ? What will be the future of the center ? 

A : We develop the reflection about the technique of virtual, about the critics of traineeship by simulator, but also about technical macro-systems, the new types of social control by technique, the links between war and politics of science and of technique.

I : How do you see the future of scientific research in your country and related to the one in other nations ?

A : France has CNRS which helps researchers, but, at the same time, bureaucratizes the research and freezes it.  Moreover, Europe of Brussels is a huge “machine” which makes all the projects pass through forms whose norms come from the exact sciences and whose values are Anglo-Saxons. I see badly the future of the scientific research in the field of social sciences in France.

I : Who wishes to get further details on the center, who to contact ?

A : CETCOPRA, Université de Paris 1, 17, rue de la Sorbonne, 75005-Paris

33-(0)140462837 (fax and tel), email: cetco@univ-paris1.fr

I : Dear professor Gras, we thank you for your courtesy. We invite you for an interesting and possible future meeting in Italy. We hope that you will enjoy our hospitality a day.

A : Thanks for getting this information. I think that it is very important, nonetheless the power of technoscience, to develop the relationships among Latin and Mediterranean countries. Our Mediterranean identity should unify us into a look of tolerance and alarm against the technologic escape to head which holds no values.

Prof. Alain Gras

is director of

C.E.T.CO.PRA. and

he teaches Sociology

at the Université de Paris 1 Panthéon – Sorbonne

Interviewer : Massimo Vittorio

26/02/03

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