The 19th century saw the emergence of the main philosophical currents that preceded the formation of the Vienna Circle, also called "logical positivism", as well as two other major interpretations of scientific knowledge: one, which places the validity of knowledge in the mechanisms of reason, although still affected by certain concessions to metaphysics; the other, which places this validity in the data of the senses and experience. The French encyclopedists took the ideas of empiricism, which emerged as a reaction to rationalism; and it was inductive empiricism, much more than deductive rationalism, which showed the greatest technological contributions. However, it is throughout the twentieth century, where research and technical applications of scientific knowledge, some acquired from previous centuries, as well as others discovered, have developed at such a dizzying pace that they have radically changed the life of the human race and its society, hence the birth of technologyand its impact on the man of the XXI century.