Associated Theorists
Clarence Edwin Ayres (May 6, 1891 – July 24, 1972)
"A major contributor to the original Institutional Economics, gave technology pride of place as the cause of economic change and thought the technological process to be the one cross cultural aspect of human endeavour that could be used to define progress" (Mayhew, 2010) |
John Dewey
(October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952)
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychological and educational theorist, and public intellectual...his main interest was in German idealist philosophy. He subsequently wrote on Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, and Herbart, and retained a holistic perspective even after he abandoned idealism for experiential naturalism (Barone, 2012). |
Karl Marx
|
Marshall McLuhan
(July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980)
The medium is the message Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian communications theorist. McLuhan became a scholar of Medieval and Renaissance literature and taught at various universities around the US and Canada. |
William Fielding Ogburn
(June 29, 1886 – April 27, 1959)
Perhaps Ogburn's most enduring intellectual legacy is the theory of social change he offered in 1922 (Ogburn, 1922). He suggested that technology is the primary engine of progress, but tempered by social responses to it. Thus, his theory is often considered a case of Technological determinism, but is really more than that. Ogburn posited four stages of technical development: invention, accumulation, diffusion and adjustment" (William Fielding Ogburn, n.d.) |
Thorstein Veblen(July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929)
Thought to have coined the term Technological Determinism "Technology marches in seven-league boots from one ruthless, revolutionary conquest to another, tearing down old factories and industries, flinging up new processes with terrifying rapidity." (Beard, 1927) |