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Title:: Technological Determinism：Its Historical Development andContemporary Interpretation

Keywords:: technological determinism; social change; essentialism; asymmetry; interpretation model

Abstract:: Along with the development of industrial society and rationalism ideology，the classical sociologyof technology，with the theory of technological determinism as its hard core，originated in the context ofmodernity，and built a theoretical framework of social change from the perspective of modern technology.There exists a dualist logical tension between the historical interpretations of the Technological DeterminismTheory. The perspective of the co-construction between modernity and technology reveals the asymmetrybetween the critiques of its social aspect and technological aspect after the Empirical Turn. Having originated inEurope，developed in the United States and spread into the world，the Technological Determinism Theory canbe considered the combination of the Enlightenment idea of social progress，and the essentialist understandingof modern technology. The deep reflection on the explanation models behind the relationship betweentechnology and society will be the only way for resolving the dilemma of technological determinism.