What is "technoscience"

n. The study of the technological and social context of science.

In common usage, "technoscience" is a compound noun that refers to the entire longstanding global human activity of technology combined with the relatively recent scientific method that occurred primarily in Europe during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries. Technoscience thus comprises the history of human application of technology and modern scientific methods, ranging from the early development of basic technologies for hunting, agriculture or husbandry, e.g. the well, the bow, the plow, the harness, all the way through atomic applications, biotechnology, robotics and computer sciences. This more common and comprehensive usage of the term "technoscience" can be found in general textbooks and lectures concerning the history of science.

An alternate, more narrow usage occurs in some philosophic science and technology studies. In this usage, technoscience refers specifically to the technological and social context of science. Technoscience recognises that scientific knowledge is not only socially coded and historically situated but sustained and made durable by material (non-human) networks. Technoscience states that the fields of science and technology are linked and grow together, and scientific knowledge requires an infrastructure of technology in order to remain stationary or move forward.

The latter, philosophic use of the term technoscience was popularized by French philosopher Gaston Bachelard in 1953. It was popularized in the French-speaking world by Belgian philosopher Gilbert Hottois in the late 1970s/early 1980s, and entered academic usage in English in the early 2000s.