Scientific, Technological, and Cultural Progress

Abstract

This paper consists of four parts. The first one is introductory and the second historical in its character. Both are relatively short. Perhaps the most topical is the third part in which several approaches towards different kinds of progress have been exposed. The subject of the analysis is first scientific or cognitive progress, and next technological and social as well as other kinds which are appropriate for different domains of the humanities including philosophy.The analysis proceeds in comparative rather than in absolute terms. In the fourth, i.e.last part of this essay some philosophical, esp. ontological and methodological implications of the progressiveness in science, technology and in humanities are discussed. As an effect of these discussions it becomes evident that in contrast with the neutrality of scientific progress, what is taken to constitue technological and other kinds of nonscientific progress also depends on moral values, since their utilities with their weights (in terms of decision theory) reflect ethically relevant social valuations.