Page 185 - Contribution To Phenomenology

178 ULLRICH MELLE

heat and waste material is the exact opposite of the natural systems
which are fit for survival."^*
But may not that which is ecologically unsustainable be technologicaUy
sustainable? Maybe it is the destiny of humankind and the telos of
human history to replace primal nature through a totally artificial,
self-supporting technosphere, so that the industrial system would be the
culmination and consummation of the history of our race. The human
potential could only be fully unfolded in a global industrial technosphere
and its ongoing expansion, the end of nature being the unavoidable
consequence of the full development of this human potential. But let us
look closer at this industrial system.
Science, technology and capitalism are the foundation and the
backbone of the industrial system. They are natural allies which need
each other. Modern science is dependent on scientific progress. The
development of new technologies requires huge capital investment; the
accumulation of capital requires a permanent increase of productivity
which is only possible through ongoing technological innovation. The
German sociologist Otto Ullrich has shown that science, technology and
capital not only need each other, but that a close structural affinity exists
between them. All three are based on a logic of power and domination.
Long before it became a productive force for the accumulation of capital,
modern science was driven by a power motive. It strove for control from
a distance over the complex natural processes through symbolic know-
ledge. The analytic-synthetic character of science produced a knowledge
of domination and manipulation. As Ullrich remarks: "The scientisation
of the world means that the world is taken apart and put together again
in such a way that all its angles are 'straightened', that all its spontaneity,
self-willedness and fortuity are eliminated, that all processes are
predictable and can be planned, monitored and controlled centrally."^'
Ullrich distinguishes two phases in the development of modern science.
In its first phase it was purely mathematical and abstract, completely
separated from experience. Scientists were trying to read the book of

^^ Christian Schutze, Das Grundgesetz vom Niedergang. Arbeit miniert die Welt
(C Hanser Verlag: Munchen/Wien, 1989), 96.
^' Otto Ullrich, "Counter-Movements and the Sciences: Theses supporting
Counter-Movements to the 'Scientisation of the World'," in: Counter-Movements in
the Sciences, Sociology of the Sciences, vol. III. Edited by Helga Nowotny and Hilary
Ross, (D. Reidel: Dordrecht, 1979), 130.