Human Flourishing

in Science and Technology

 Martin Heidegger
• He was part of the
Continental tradition of
philosophy
• His work in philosophy
focused on ontology or
the study of “being” or
dasein in German
 The Essence of Technology
1. Technology is as a means to an end (instrumental)
2. Technology is a human activity (anthropological)

• What is the essence of technology?

 Causality
• Technology brings about change causally
• The cause is what is responsible for the effect, and
the effect is indebted to the cause
• According to Aristotle, there are four ways in
which this relation holds
The Four Causes: Didactic Illustration
 The Four Causes
• causa materialis --- hyle -- the “material”
• causa formalis --- eidos – the form or shape
• Causa finalis -- telos – that for which it is
for
• causa efficiens
Technology as a Way of Revealing
• Poeisis – the act of bringing something out
of concealment
• Aletheia- unclosedness, unconcealedness,
disclosure or truth
Technology is a form of poeisis- a way of
revealing that unconceals aletheia or the truth
 Modern Technology
• Both primitive crafts and modern
technology are revealing
• But the revealing of modern technology is
not a bringing-forth, but a challenging-forth
• It challenges nature, by extracting
something from it and transforming it,
storing it up, distributing it, etc.
 The Standing-Reserve
• Modern technology takes all of nature to
stand in reserve for its exploitation
• Man is challenged to do this, and as such he
becomes part of the standing reserve
• Man becomes the instrument of technology,
to be exploited in the ordering of nature
 Enframing
• Enframing is a way of ordering (framing) nature
to better manipulate it
• Enframing is the essence of technology
 Destining
• Men are sent upon the way of revealing the
actual as a standing-reserve
• So enframing, and hence technology, is a
“destining”
• The destining of man to reveal nature
carries with it the danger of misconstrual
 The Danger
• Man is in danger of becoming merely part of the
standing-reserve
• He may find only himself in nature
• He may think that the ordering of the world
through technology is the fundamental mode of
revealing
• So the real threat of technology comes from its
essence, not its activities or products
 The Saving Power
• The poet Hölderlin writes that the saving
power grows where danger is
• The saving would allow a bringing-forth
that is not a challenging-forth (things would
reveal themselves not just as standing-
reserve)
• Both technology and bringing-forth grow
out of “granting,” which allows revealing
“The essence of technology is by no means
anything technological.”
- Martin Heidegger (1977)