Ursula Franklin
![Franklin in 2006 during the launch of ''The Ursula Franklin Reader'' at [[Massey College]] in Toronto](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Ursula_Franklin_at_book_launch_crop.jpg)
For Franklin, technology was much more than machines, gadgets or electronic transmitters. It was a comprehensive ''system'' that includes methods, procedures, organization, "and most of all, a mindset". She distinguished between ''holistic'' technologies used by craft workers or artisans and ''prescriptive'' ones associated with a division of labour in large-scale production. Holistic technologies allow artisans to control their own work from start to finish. Prescriptive technologies organize work as a sequence of steps requiring supervision by bosses or managers. Franklin argued that the dominance of prescriptive technologies in modern society discourages critical thinking and promotes "a culture of compliance".
For some, Franklin belongs in the intellectual tradition of Harold Innis and Jacques Ellul who warn about technology's tendency to suppress freedom and endanger civilization. Franklin herself acknowledged her debt to Ellul as well as to several other thinkers including Lewis Mumford, C. B. Macpherson, E. F. Schumacher, and Vandana Shiva. She recognized that this list had few women. In addition to the philosophy of technology, she believed that science was "severely impoverished because women are discouraged from taking part in the exploration of knowledge". Provided by Wikipedia
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Published: 2014.