HUMAN

FLOURISHING
IN SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
 from Latin, florere
to bloom, blossom, flower

flourish
flourishing
TO GROW OR DEVELOP SUCCESSFULLY

a state where people experience positive emotions,

psychological and social functioning, most of the time, living
"within an optimal range of human functioning."

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Human Flourishing
in Science & Technology
» The progress of human civilizations throughout history
mirrors the development of science and technology.

» The human person, as both the bearer and the

beneficiary of science and technology, flourishes and
finds meaning in the world that he builds.

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MARTIN HEIDEGGER
● a German philosopher
and a seminal thinker in
the Continental tradition
of philosophy.

● widely acknowledged to
be one of the most
original and important
philosophers of the 20th
century.

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 ● The manufacture and utilization of
equipment, tools, and machines, and the
needs and ends they serve, all belong to
what technology is.
● The whole complex of these contrivances
is technology.
● Technology itself is a contrivance.

CONTRIVANCE
- the use of skill to bring something
about or create something.
- in Latin, it is called instrumentum.

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The Question Concerning Technology by Martin Heidegger
He OPPOSES the view that:

TECHNOLOGY
“means to an end” “human activity”
a thing that is not valued or refers to how tools,
important in itself but is equipment, and facilities
useful in achieving an were used by humans.
aim/goal.

INSTRUMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL
DEFINITION DEFINITION

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● These two definitions, are HEIDEGGER’S
indeed “correct”, but do not go
deep enough, as he says, they
are not yet “true.”
VIEW
● He points out, technological
objects are means for ends,
and are built and operated by
human beings, but the essence
of technology is something
else entirely.

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WHAT THEN, IS
TECHNOLOGY,
IF IT IS NEITHER A
MEANS TO AN END
NOR A HUMAN ACTIVITY?8
TECHNOLOGYAS A
MODE OF
REVEALING
“TRUTH”
 HOW CAN TECHNOLOGY
BE A WAY OF REVEALING?

► everything we perceive or think of or interact

with “emerges out of concealment into
unconcealment,
► by entering into a particular relation with
reality, reality is ‘revealed’ in a specific way.

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 HOW CAN TECHNOLOGY BE
A WAY OF REVEALING?
► technology is the way of revealing that
characterizes our time.
► technology embodies a specific way of
revealing the world, a revealing in which
humans take power over reality.
► technology reveals the world as raw material,
available for production and manipulation.
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 Technology
► mode of
understanding
► develops beyond
human control
● means to an end ► the ultimate danger to
● human activity our existence

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ANCIENT GREEK CONCEPTS
► aletheia – unhiddenness or disclosure
► poiesis – the activity in which a person brings
something into being that did not exist before. (For
Aristotle, it means making or producing something for a purpose.)

► techne – skill, art, or craft

In Heidegger’s work, technology is a poiesis that
discloses or reveals the truth.
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Technology as a Poiesis
MODERN TECHNOLOGY
• demands resources from
nature that are forcibly
extracted for human
consumption and storage.
• Revealing never comes to an
end. Revealing always
happen on our own terms as
everything is on demand.
making something for a purpose
• We no longer need to
work with the rhythms of
nature since we have learned
to control it.
• We order, extract, process,
make ready for consumption,
and store what we have forced
it to reveal.
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 QUESTIONING AS THE
PIETY OF THOUGHT
• Piety means obedience and submission.
- Submission to our thoughts and reflections.
- It is when we start questioning that we submit
ourselves to our thoughts.
• Questioning leads one to search for his/her place in
the universe and in the grand-scale of things.
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ENFRAMING
a way of revealing in modern technology
• It is as if nature is put in a box or in a frame so that it
can be better understood & controlled according to
people’s desires.
• Poiesis is concealed in Enframing as nature is viewed
as an orderable and calculable system of
information.
• Modern technology isolates nature and treat it as a
“Standing Reserve”, resource for later utility.
ENFRAMING
a way of revealing in modern technology

• Enframing blocks the truth and destining force us to

create order out of nature which we believe is the
truth.
• This is the danger, not of technology, which itself
cannot be dangerous, but rather of the destining of
revealing itself.
CALCULATIVE THINKING
• one orders and puts a system to
nature so it can be understood
better and controlled.
• It is the more active aspect of
human thought, concerned more
with the doing of a thing than of
considering the possible
consequences.
MEDITATIVE THINKING
• one lets nature reveal itself
to him/her without forcing it.
• It tells us why we should do
or should not do a thing,
beyond the simple
calculative process of
actually doing it.
HUMAN PERSON SWALLOWED
BY TECHNOLOGY
• If we allow ourselves to
get swallowed by
modern technology, we
lose essence of who
we are as beings in this
world.

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 HUMAN PERSON SWALLOWED
BY TECHNOLOGY

• If we cannot let go of the conveniences and profits brought about

by processes and industries that pollute the environment and cause
climate change, then technology has consumed our humanity.
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HUMAN PERSON SWALLOWED BY TECHNOLOGY

• Heidegger expressed that the various problems brought

about by human’s dependence on technology cannot be
simply resolved by refusing technology altogether.
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 ART AS A WAY OUT OF ENFRAMING
● Enframing tends to block Poiesis.
● In modern technology, the way of revealing
has become challenging.
● Heidegger proposes art as a way out of Enframing.
● Art allows us to see the poetic in nature in reality.
From calculative thinking to meditative thinking.
○ Arts are not merely representations of things
○ New artwork = changes meaning of what it is to
exist is inherently changed. 23
HUMAN
FLOURISHING
IN SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY