Society for Philosophy and Technology COLLINGRIDGE AND THE
CONTROL OF EDUCATIONAL COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY Marvin J. Croy,
University of North Carolina at Charlotte During the past
fifteen years, David Collingridge has made important
contributions to the understanding of technology and the
prospects for its effective control. Though philosophically
sophisticated, his views have been given more attention by
social and political scientists than by philosophers. In an
effort to explore the rationale and applicability of his views,
this article takes up three tasks. The first is to explicate
Collingridge's basic argument on the topic of controlling
technology. This argument is contained in his earliest works,
The Social Control of Technology (1980) and Critical Decision
Making (1982). The second task is to offer some critical
comments on the adequacy of Collingridge's case, and the third
is to apply the results of this analysis to a particular
development in instructional technology (the use of expert
systems and deci