Questioning Technology with Jacques Ellul
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Twenty-first-century technology is an ever-expanding, powerful force in virtually every aspect of human life and every corner of the globe. So much of modern technology has resulted in positive improvements in communication, work, health, and other domains. Technology’s promises and possibilities for the future are often glowing. But it is one thing for technology to function as a tool serving human purpose and flourishing, and quite another for it to be granted the position of unquestioned master. All technologies deserve to be questioned: What are their costs, trade-offs, and potential or real negative impact? And how do we create limits and controls for technological invasion when these would be wise and necessary? Questioning Technology with Jacques Ellul addresses these questions in both the big picture and in their relevance to specific arenas, such as art, politics, work, and religion--with voices from not just the academy but also the workplace and society.
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- Highlight the dialectical nature of Jacques Ellul’s work.
- Bridges the gap between Ellul’s mid-20th-century writings and today’s world.
- Provides a multi-faceted exploration of Ellul’s thought rather than a single author’s interpretation.
- Revisiting Ellul from the Perspective of Philosophy of Technology - Carl Mitcham
- Ellul and the Post-Efficiency Landscape of Al - Jennifer Karns Alexander
- Ode to Joy: Technique’s Lure of Satiety, Nature’s Promise of Sufficiency - Justine McIntyre
- The True Is the Made and the Not Made - David Lovekin
- Ancient Chinese Technology: A Missing Piece in Ellul’s Technological Society - Yanyu Sun
- From the Iron Cage to the Technological Society: Weber and Ellul - Doug Hill
- From Technological Optimism to Exegesis: Ellul, Mumford, and Fuller - Almantas Samalavičius
- Beyond Ellul’s Technique: Science as Ultima Ratio According to Bernard Charbonneau - Christian Roy
- Tool and Technology: A Comparative Reading of Illich and Ellul on Technique - Patrick Chastenet
- Jacques Ellul and Arnold Gehlen on Nature, Technique, and Artificiality in the Re-Imaging of the Human - Ugochukwu Stophynus Anyanwu
- Technological Agency and Dialectical Freedom - Erik Nordenhaug
- Jacques Ellul’s Theology of Technique: An Introduction - Frédéric Rognon
- Ellul on Ethics: A Philosophical-Theological Critique - J. Daryl Charles
- Technological Morality Versus the Ethics of Freedom - Jacob Marques-Rollison
- Ellul’s Ethics of Non-Power in a Digital World of Technique and Productivity - Felicia Wu Song
- The End of Technicized Work - David W. Gill
- A Musician in a Technological Dystopia - T Bone Burnett
- Art and Artificial Intelligence - Samir Younés
- Ghost in the Machine - Brandon Dorn
- Organization as Technique - Daniel Cérézuelle
- The Technicization of Justice, Law, and Legal Practice - Kenneth Morris
- The Rise of Neoliberal Techniques in US Higher Education: An Ellulian Analysis - Peter K. Fallon
Part I: Foundations
Part II: Applications
We hear every day that tech is remaking every area of life. If you feel in your bones that the one thing lacking is clarity on how to live with this fact, this book is for you, whether you’re new to Jacques Ellul or have been reading him for years.
——Samuel Matlack, Managing Editor, The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society
Technologists usually have a vision and desire to produce something great. Some technologists, often because of their faith, have a nobler goal of producing something that advances God’s good creation. But even our best intentions are sometimes compromised. This same technology may have huge downsides that are not identified or may even be ignored. Jacques Ellul’s cautious words are often unknown or dismissed, thinking his analysis is not always rooted in a deep understanding of technology and is unjustifiably pessimistic. That would be a mistake. The essays in Questioning Technology with Jacques Ellul awaken an awareness of possible unintended consequences that may follow from some technology development. When I was director of technology for The Boeing Company, conversations with Ellul scholar David Gill led me to ask not only what a particular technology might do for us—but also what this might do to us.
——Albert Erisman, Director of Technology, Retired, The Boeing Company
In the din of technophiles and technophobes, this is a timely and needed collection in the spirit of Ellul’s imperative: to become aware of the deep structures of the contemporary world, and to proclaim freedom. Academics and practitioners provide original analyses of technique (not merely technologies) in our everyday life, from music to AI. These are invaluable for everyone interested in transcending the noise.
——George M. Thomas, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Arizona State University
Ellul saw it coming. We live in a critical moment, as AI amplifies the presuppositions of our technological society to irreversible inflection points. There has never been a better time to engage with Ellul’s ideas, through the diverse perspectives presented in this book.
——Christopher Lim, Founder, TheoTech
What happens when the technological tools that bless our world become master over us, and the many layers of mechanization outsource human functionality and the sacredness of life? Gill and Richmond’s collection of top-notch essays sheds light on today’s challenges, providing a path forward and hope for the future.
——Stephanie Bennett, Professor of Communication and Media Ecology, Palm Beach Atlantic University
As a practicing physician whose productivity is literally monitored minute by minute using sophisticated algorithms, I find Ellul’s trenchant critique of efficiency at any cost to be even more salient today than when I first encountered it forty years ago. And the variety of thoughtful engagements with The Technological Society you will find in these pages is, if anything, more relevant now than upon its publication in 1954.
——Mark Mayhle, MD
Considering the growing all-encompassing technological milieu and its entailments (the harm and destruction of nature, the rise of AI, the loss of privacy, automatism, and the like) this volume appears at just the right time in history. An exciting, stimulating, and challenging collection by scholars from around the globe, demonstrating the unimpeachable profundity, practical relevance, and urgency of Ellul’s sociology of technology.
——Jacob Van Vleet, Professor of Philosophy, Diablo Valley College
Questioning Technology with Jacques Ellul is a remarkable prophetic call to examine our uncritical embrace of technology/technique and its consequences. The editors and their colleagues’ engagement with and expansion of Ellul’s seminal writings are welcome and urgently needed. Well worth reading for any business leader, policymaker, or technology developer in the twenty-first century.
——Uli Chi, Founding Chair, Computer Human Interaction, LLC
This remarkable collection of essays demonstrates the continued relevance of Jacques Ellul’s work on technology. As the technological system and the political state tighten their grip on us, as freedom vanishes, Gill and Richmond provide us a great service.
——Richard Stivers, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Illinois State University
- Title: Questioning Technology with Jacques Ellul
- Authors: David W. Gill, Lisa Richmond
- Publisher: Pickwick Publications
- Print Publication Date: 2025
- Logos Release Date: 2025
- Pages: 550
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
- ISBNs: 9798385244454, 9798385244447, 9798385244430
- Resource ID: LLS:9798385244454
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-10-31T20:56:31Z