From Skills to Technology
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from There are various types of knowledge.
The Encyclopedia, compiled by Denis Diderot (1713-1784) and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783) between 1751 and 1772, is one of the most important books in human history, providing a dramatic record of the transition from skills to technology. The book aimed to systematically summarize all knowledge related to skills, and to enable people to become skilled workers without becoming apprentices.
The authors were information specialists, possessing analytical, mathematical, and logical abilities, such as Voltaire and Rousseau.
The idea of the Encyclopedia was that the achievements in the material world, such as tools, processes, and products, were created by knowledge and its systematic application.
The Encyclopedia argued that the principles that produce results in one skill also produce results in other skills. This idea was considered heretical by intellectuals and craftsmen of the time.
Actually, there was not a single school in the 18th century dedicated to creating new knowledge. The same was true for the Encyclopedia. No one discussed the application of science to tools, processes, or products, in other words, to technology. It wasn't until 1830, when the German chemist Justus von Liebig (1803-1873) applied scientific knowledge to invent artificial fertilizers and a method for preserving animal protein, that such thinking became a reality. However, historically, the early technical schools and the Encyclopedia were probably more important than Liebig's achievements. The skills that had developed over thousands of years as secret knowledge, or technē, were finally collected, systematized, and made public. Technical schools and the Encyclopedia replaced experience with knowledge, apprenticeship with textbooks, and secret knowledge with methodology. This was the essence of what we would later call the Industrial Revolution, the transformation of society and civilization on a global scale through technology. This change in the meaning of knowledge was what made capitalism inevitable and dominant in the future.