Man and Machine (the Problem of Sociology and the Metaphysics of Technology)

In 1933, the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948) published the essay ‘Chelovek i Mashina’ (‘Man and Machine’) in a Parisian journal for Russian exiles. While the article has seen numerous translations, so far an accurate and annotated version is lacking in English. While ‘Man and Machine’ is an important historical raisonné of thought about technology in its time, it is also one of the first critiques of the deep importance of technology for Soviet totalitarianism. Berdyaev believes that modern civilisation puts tools in in the place of their users and that, if we do not reassess our aims in life, the advances and comforts provided by technology will lead to our destruction as human beings. Berdyaev contrasts this situation with the eschatological views of Nikolai Fedorov and the ‘cosmists’ who neither rejected technology nor fell into submission before it. As a ‘Christian existentialist’, Berdyaev holds that the highest aims of humanity are those in which we realise our place as bearers of the image of God. Technology used to this end can lead us toward our self-realisation.