STS Course

S&T and the Human Condition

(Week 5-6)
STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(Human Flourishing as Reflected in Progress and Development)

1. Analyze the human condition in order to deeply reflect and

express philosophical ramifications that are meaningful to
the student as a part of society.
2. Critique human flourishing vis-à-vis the progress of S&T as
you define the meaning of a good life
3. Examine shared concerns that make up the good life in
order to come up with innovative, creative solutions to
contemporary issues guided by ethical standards
STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:

q A. Human Flourishing and the Good Life: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

q B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology

Aristotle Martin Heidegger C.S. Lewis Jason Hickel

STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(A. Human Flourishing and the Good Life: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics)
In Psychology, happiness is a
mental or emotional state of
well-being which can be define
by, among others, positive or
plea s a n t e m o t i o n s r a n g i n g
from contentment to intense joy.
To behaviorists, happiness is a
To neurologist, happiness is
cocktail of emotions we
the experience of a flood of
experience when we do
hormones released in the brain
something goo or positive.
as a reward for behavior that
prolongs survival.
STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(A. Human Flourishing and the Good Life: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics)

qAccording to Aristotle, Happiness is the ultimate

end of human action.
qHappiness defines a good life.
STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(Human Flourishing as Reflected in Progress and Development)
Courtesy: National Geographic Youtube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlRwJkun2WY

Courtesy: NowThis World Youtube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEKQYYhp3eE

Factors such as per capita gross domestic

product, healthy years of life expectancy, trust
and perceived freedom to make life choices
were all considered.
STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(Human Flourishing as Reflected in Progress and Development)

According to the “World of Happiness report 2018,” the Philippines is ranked number 70 for
overall happiness within the country (United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions
network)
STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(Human Flourishing as Reflected in Progress and Development)

Ten unhappiest nations

1) Burundi
2) Central African Republic
3) South Sudan
4) Tanzania
5) Yemen
6) Rwanda
7) Syria
8) Liberia
9) Haiti
10)Malawi
STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(A. Human Flourishing and the Good Life: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics)

q I s t h e m o st s i g n i f i ca nt t h i n ke r a n d t h e m o st
accomplished individual who has ever lived.

q The teacher of those who know, defended reason,

invented logic, focused on reality, and emphasized the
importance of life on earth, in which enabled science
and technology to develop and flourish.
Aristotle
(384-322 B.C)

Source: http://www.quebecoislibre.org/031122-11.html Retrieved: October 6, 2020

STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(A. Human Flourishing and the Good Life: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics)

q Human flourishing (also known as personal flourishing),

involves the rational use of one’s individual human potentials,
including talents, abilities and virtues in the pursuit of his freely
and rationally chosen values and goals.

q Human flourishing is a moral accomplishment and fulfillment of

Aristotle human capacities, and it is one through being the other. Self-
(384-322 B.C) actualization is a mora growth and vice-versa.

Source: http://www.quebecoislibre.org/031122-11.html Retrieved: October 6, 2020

STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(A. Human Flourishing and the Good Life: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics)

q Human flourishing becomes an actuality when one uses his

practical reason to consider his unique needs, circumstances,
capabilities, and so on, to determine which concrete
instantiations of human values and virtues will comprise his
well-being.

q to flourishing, a man must pursue goals that are both rational

Aristotle
(384-322 B.C) for him individually and also as a human being.

Source: http://www.quebecoislibre.org/031122-11.html Retrieved: October 6, 2020

STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(A. Human Flourishing and the Good Life: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics)

q Virtues are the means to values which enable us to achieve

human flourishing and happiness .

q Self-direction (i.e autonomy) involves the use of one’s reason

and is central and necessary for possibility of attaining human
flourishing, self-esteem, and happiness.
Aristotle
(384-322 B.C)

Source: http://www.quebecoislibre.org/031122-11.html Retrieved: October 6, 2020

STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(A. Human Flourishing and the Good Life: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics)

“Virtue,then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral. Intellectual

virtue in the main owes its birth and growth to teaching (for which
reason it requires experience and time), while Moral virtue comes
about as a result of habit.” (Nicomachean Ethics 2:1)

Aristotle
(384-322 B.C)

Source: http://www.quebecoislibre.org/031122-11.html Retrieved: October 6, 2020

STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(Human Flourishing as Reflected in Progress and Development)
STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology)

q a German Philosopher
q “Father of Existential Phenomenology”
q Author of “Sein Und Zeit” or “Being and Time”

Martin Heidegger
(1889-1976)
STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology)

Heidegger begins the question by noting that

“We ask the question concerning technology
when we ask what it is”. This stems from
following an ancient doctrine to which “the
essence of a thing is considered to be what
the thing is”
Martin Heidegger
(1889-1976)
STS Course
S&T and the Human Condition:
(B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology)

• Technology as a Mode of Revealing

• Technology as Poeisis: Applicable to Modern Technology?
• Questioning as the Piety of Thought
• Enframing: Way of Revealing in Modern Technology
• Human Person Swallowed by Technology
Martin Heidegger
(1889-1976)
STS Course

Common Understanding of technology

• Means to an end
• Product of human activity
• Practical application of science
STS Course
Technology is instrumental and anthropological:

Correct but not true. We pursue the true

through the correct.

of what is correct
leads us to what is true.
STS Course
Technology as Poeisis: Applicable to Modern Technology?

Technology is a way of , making something.

Ancient Greek concepts:

• Poiesis – bringing forth
• Aletheia – truth, disclosure, unconcealedness
• Techne – skill, art, or craft

Technology is a poiesis that discloses or

reveals the truth.
STS Course
Questioning as the Piety of Thought

A process of knowing the truth of who we

are as beings in this world.
STS Course
Enframing: Way of Revealing in Modern Technology

Is this idea of technology

applicable to modern technology?
STS Course
Enframing: Way of Revealing in Modern Technology
STS Course
Enframing: Way of Revealing in Modern Technology

Enframing
qWay of revealing in modern technology
qEarth as gas station
qConceals poeisis (bringing forth)
qBetter understood and controlled

Meditative thinking – let nature reveal itself without forcing it.

Calculative thinking -views nature as calculable and orderable
system of information
STS Course
Enframing: Way of Revealing in Modern Technology

Modern technology views

Earth as a huge gas station,
a representative of the
extraction, drilling and
rape of Mother nature.
STS Course
Technology as Poeisis: Applicable to Modern Technology?

For example:
steel is produced to be used in such things as the production of
automobiles, and, although steel is not the automobile,
it is, nevertheless, affected by the “coming into being” of the
automobile.

Therefore, since humans can also be subsumed (included) into

the process of “enframing” as a unit of labour, technology not
only has the potential to affect the human condition, but,
perhaps, the essence of what it means to be human.
STS Course
Human Person Swallowed by Technology

The human person swallowed by

technology
STS Course
Human Person Swallowed by Technology
STS Course
Human Person Swallowed by Technology

Examples:
• some people have stopped looking for cars before
crossing a street which shows how dependent humans
are to the tiny computers, that such a basic things is
now ignored to the point it literally kills.

• humans losing touch with reality is when children

stay inside to play video games rather than going
outside (the lack of discipline from parents does not
help the situation either).

• many parents are engulfed in their work or phones

that they spoil their children, encouraging the anti-
social behavior who then teach their children the
exact same habits. This snowball effect will bring
society to its knees and to an extent be the death of
https://hackernoon.com/technology-will-eat-us-whole-208e87a93dfd

society.
STS Course
B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
(CS Lewis: The Magician Twin’s: Science, Scientism, and Society)

THE MAGICIAN’S TWIN is a must-see

trilogy of short programs by the Discovery
Institute applying some brilliant insights and
arguments from C.S. Lewis to expose the fallacies
of scientism evolution a n d t o
and
promote the reasonableness of Intelligent
Design . Based on a book of essays, THE
C.S. Lewis MAGICIAN’S TWIN is a very good series, done on
1898-1963 a small budget that shows real science
points to the God of the Universe.
https://www.movieguide.org/reviews/the-magicians-twin.html
STS Course
B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
(CS Lewis: The Magician Twin’s: Science, Scientism, and Society)

1. What is scientism and scientocracy?

2. How is science comparable to magic?
3. Why is science more dangerous than magic?
4. What is the presented essence of modernity
and its consequence?
5. What do we need for the sciences to be good?
STS Course
B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
(CS Lewis: The Magician Twin’s: Science, Scientism, and Society)

qThe belief or ideology that science is the best or only test for truth of any kind.
qScience as power where science becomes the dictator of the culture.

-The practice of basing public policies on science.

-A government of the people, but informed by scientists.
STS Course
B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
(CS Lewis: The Magician Twin’s: Science, Scientism, and Society)

C.S. Lewis and the Case

Against Scientism,
explores Lewis’s
prophetic concerns about
the misuse of science to
“abolish” man and to
undermine personal Courtesy: The Magician's Twin: C.S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPeyJvXU68k
freedoms and human dignity.
STS Course
B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
(Human Flourishing as reflected in progress and development)

Jason Hickel
STS Course
B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
(Human Flourishing as reflected in progress and development)
STS Course
B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
(Human Flourishing as reflected in progress and development)

q Growth
q More growth – according to Orthodox
economists

Scientists are now telling us that we’re blowing past

planetary boundaries at breakneck speed.
STS Course
B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
(Human Flourishing as reflected in progress and development)

q Growth
q More growth – according to Orthodox
economists

Scientists are now telling us that we’re blowing past

planetary boundaries at breakneck speed.
STS Course
B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
(Human Flourishing as reflected in progress and development)

Economist Peter Edward argues that instead of pushing

poorer countries to “catch up” with rich ones, we
should be thinking of ways to get rich countries to
“catch down” t o m o re a p p ro p r i a t e l e v e l s o f
development.
STS Course
B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
(Human Flourishing as reflected in progress and development)

Higher life
Rich countries Excess income
expectancies?
and consumption
Higher literacy
rates?
Higher
happiness
indicators?

Image retrieved from: http://cdn2.insidermonkey.com/blog/wp-

content/uploads/2015/05/featured2.jpg
STS Course
B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
(Human Flourishing as reflected in progress and development)
STS Course
B. Human Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
(Human Flourishing as reflected in progress and development)

Requires reaching a higher level of understanding and

consciousness about what we’re doing here and why.
STS Course

THANK YOU