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The Essence of Technology Is by No Means Anything Technological.
The Essence of Technology Is by No Means Anything Technological.
Part 1
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A. The Human Person Flourishing in Terms of Science and Technology
“The essence of technology is by no means anything technological.”
- Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
- German philosopher and a seminal thinker in the Continental tradition of philosophy
- best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism
- Born: 26 September 1889, Messkirch, Germany
- Died: 26 May 1976, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
- Spouse: Elfride Petri (m. 1917–1976)
- Influenced by: Friedrich Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant, MORE
- Education: University of Freiburg (1914–1916), Berthold-Gymnasium (1906–1909)
- Children: Hermann Heidegger, Jörg Heidegger
Human Flourishing - an effort to achieve self-actualization and fulfillment within the
context of a larger community of individuals, each with the right to pursue his or her
own such efforts.
- encompasses the uniqueness, dignity, diversity, freedom, happiness, and holistic well-
being of the individual within the larger family, community, and population.
- achieving human flourishing is a life-long existential journey of hopes, achievements,
regrets, losses, illness, sufferings, and coping
KARL MARX
- revolutionary socialist, posits that in our daily lives we take decisions that have
unintended consequences, which then combine to create large-scale social forces that
may have an utterly unpredicted effort.
- states that humans are naturally social beings, and therefore, society is the essential
“unity of man in nature.”
- The decisions we make as a society should take into account the nature of social
relations and the potential consequences
ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.)
- the fountain head behind every achievement of science, technology, political theory,
and aesthetics, especially romantic art in today’s world.
- He explains that the purpose of life is earthly happiness or flourishing that can be
achieved via reason and the acquisition of virtue.
- Human beings have a natural desire and capacity to know and understand the truth, to
pursue moral excellence, and to instantiate their ideals in the world through action.
Technology is therefore no mere means. It is a way of revealing. If we need to this, then
another whole realm for the essence of technology will open itself up to us. It is the realm of
revealing, that is the truth
- Martin Heidegger
The Question Concerning Technology
- Essay written by Martin Heidegger which addresses modern technology and its essence
as an instrumental way of revealing the world.
Heidegger’s understanding of technology was based on its essence.
1. The essence of technology is not something we make; it is a mode of being or revealing.
2. Technology even holds sway over beings that we do not normally think of as
technological, such as gods and history.
3. It is primarily a matter of modern and industrial technology.
4. Modern natural science can understand nature in the characteristically scientific manner
only.
Two characteristics of Modern Technology as a Revealing Process
1. CHALLENGING
Mode of revealing nature could be sharply contrasted to “Physis”, which is the
arising of something from itself, a bringing forth or poieses.
The revelation has its own autonomy, and at best, man can only witness.
New world ordering - best described as “artificial” in contrast to “natural
ordering”
- sees as nature as an object of manipulation and not anymore as an
autonomous reality demanding respect and admiration
2. EXPEDITING
to hasten the movement of something
process of revealing in as much as it “unlocks” and “exposes” something
En-framing - the “essence” of modern technology
- putting into the frame of modern technology everything in nature
“Frame” of modern technology – the network or interlocking things standing in reserve
- world centered on man’s caprices and demands
‘’Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the
darkness of destructive selfishness.”
◦ Nonrivalry goods – any product or service that does not reduce availability as
people consume it.