Volume 2, Issue 2, Fall 2010
Troy R. E. Paddock
Pages 9-27
Bridges
Technology and the Social
Central to Martin Heidegger’s critique of modern technology is the transformation of “things” into “objects.” This article will apply some of the insights gained by Actor-Network-Theory to the several bridges in Budapest, with a special focus on the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, in order to argue that modern technology and the creations of that technology can also be “things” in the Heideggerian sense of the term. The result is a view of bridges that is firmly grounded in the physical and geographic impact that bridges can have on space and place. The use of ANT also reveals that Heidegger and one of his main critics, Bruno Latour, are
not as far apart in their thought as the latter might contend.