The last few chapters have focused on different aspects of an ontology of technology. The aim of this chapter is to bring these different strands together and to indicate some of the advantages of the resulting conception of technology.

In Chapter 2 the argument was made for a multipart definition of technology, which covered not only the more traditional, etymologically more consistent idea of technology as a study, but also accommodated the changes to the term's usage that led to it becoming a keyword in social theory. In short, technology can refer to a study, or the ideational or material results of such study, with popularity in the term rising as the latter component came to be emphasised. To employ such a multipart definition, however, may serve to detract attention from the real ‘action’ that gives rise to technological artefacts. Rather than the study of or results of study, the main point of interest is the action of making or facilitating the coming into being of technological artefacts and their use. Thus, an ontology of technology needs to be focused squarely upon those activities that give rise to technological artefacts. Accordingly, in the account above, a central feature identified is the process whereby causal factors can be isolated and recombined in order to produce material artefacts to be used for practical purposes, where being used for practical purposes here involves harnessing the capabilities or capacities of such artefacts in order to extend human capabilities.

In order to illustrate these ideas, and suggest that they accommodate many important contributions from the philosophy of technology, I shall focus in this chapter upon the work of Andrew Feenberg and in particular on his ideas about instrumentalisation. Adopting such a focus here is helpful for at least two reasons. First, Feenberg's work very usefully situates (and in places helps to make sense of) some of the ideas from the philosophy of technology in which I am most interested. Secondly, given how similar some of Feenberg's ideas turn out to be to those developed above, underlining the differences between Feenberg's position and that adopted here not only serves to clarify the argument being made but indicates the kinds of directions into which it might usefully be extended.