SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY GE7 – Technology is a human activity.
STS
Learning outcomes:
At the end of this section, the students
should be able to:
1. Differentiate the essences of
technology and modern technology
2. Discuss and illustrate the dangers of
modern technology; and
3. Explain why art is the saving power
of modern technology
MODULE 2: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND
SOCIETY AND HUMAN CONDITION
This module introduces students to a number
of relevant and timely philosophical foundations
that will aid in examining the functions, roles, and
impacts of science and technology on society.
SECTION 1: TECHNOLOGY AS A WAY OF
REVEALING
Martin Heidegger‟s „The Question
Concerning Technology‟
WHO IS MARTIN HEIDEGGER?
Martin Heidegger (1889 – 1977) was a German
philosopher who was part of the Continental
tradition of philosophy.
• His work on philosophy focused on
ontology or the study of ‘being’ or
dasein in German.
• His philosophical works are often
described as complicated, partly due to
his use of complex compound German
words,
Seinvergessenheit (Forgetfulness of Being)
Bodenstandigkeit (Rootedness-in-Soil)
Wesensverfassung (Essential Constitution)
THE ESSENCE OF TECHNOLOGY
1. INSTRUMENTAL DEFINITION
Technology is a means to an end
2. ANTHROPOLOGICAL DEFINITION
It cannot be denied that science and
technology are responsible for the ways
society is continuously being modernized.
In order to spark the discussion on the role
of ethics and social morality in science and
technology, it is necessary to go back to
the very essence of technology, its
definition.
1. Technology is a means to an end.
(Instrumental)
• Technology is not an end in itself; it is
a means to an end.
• Technology is viewed as a tool
available to individuals, groups and
communities that desire to make an
impact to society.
• Technology is an instrument aimed at
getting things done.
2. Technology is a human activity.
(Anthropological)
• Technology can also be defined as a
human activity because to achieve an
end and to produce and use a means
to an end is, by itself, a human activity.
• The production or invention of
technological equipment, tools and
machines, the products and inventions,
the purpose of and functions they serve
are what define technology.
Both definitions are correct. However,
neither touches in the essence of
technology.
TECHNOLOGY AS A WAY OF
REVEALING
• He strongly opposes the view that
technology is “a means to an end” or
“a human activity.”
• Both definition are indeed “correct”,
but do not go deep enough; as he says,
they are not yet “true.”
Since the essence of a tree is not itself a
tree, he points out, so the essence of
technology is not anything
technological.
 What, then, is technology, if it is neither a
means to an end nor a human activity?
 Technology, according to Heidegger must be
understood as “a way of revealing”
(Heidegger 1977, 12).
Revealing is his translation of the Greek word
alètheuein, means „to discover‟ – to uncover
what was covered over.
Alètheia - This is usually translated as “truth,”
though Heidegger insists that a more adequate
translation would be “un-concealment.”
Heidegger envisioned technology as a way of
revealing – a mode of „bringing forth‟
• The bringing forth – poeisis – which
underlies causality is a bringing out of
concealment.
• Technology brings forth as well, and it is a
revealing.
• Poetry is technology. Poetry (derived from
the Greek poiesis, "making")
• This is seen in the way the Greeks
understood techne, which encompasses
not only craft, but other acts of the mind,
and poetry.
TECHNOLOGY AS POIESIS: DOES
MODERN TECHNOLOGY BRING FORTH OR
CHALLENGE FORTH?
Heidegger made a clear distinction between
technology and modern technology in that
the latter “challenges” nature.
HEIDEGGER’S VIEW ON TECHNOLOGY
 Technology as a Way of Revealing
• Heidegger stressed that the true can
only be pursued through the correct.
Simply what is correct leads to what is
true. In this sense, he envisioned
technology as a way of revealing – a
mode of bringing forth.
• Bringing forth can be understood
through the Ancient Greek philosophical
concept, Poiesis, which refers to the act
of bringing something out of
concealment. By bringing something out
of concealment, the truth of that
something is revealed.
• The truth is understood through
another Ancient Greek concept of
Aletheia, which is translated as
unclosedness, unconcealedness,
disclosure, or truth.
Technology is a form of poiesis- a
way of revealing that unconceals
aletheia or the truth.
• In philosophy, techne resembles the
term episteme that refer to the
human ability to make and perform.
Techne also encompasses
knowledge and understanding.
• In art, it refers to tangible and
intangible aspects of life.
• The Greek understood techne in the
way that it encompasses not only
craft, but other acts of the mind,
and poetry.
THE ESSENCE OF MODERN
TECHNOLOGY
Modern technology challenges nature by
extracting something from it and
transforming, storing, and distributing it.
• Technology’s way of revealing as a way
of bringing forth.
• Modern technology’s way of revealing
as a way of challenging forth.
• Too impatient/violent/urgent we might
note here that this violence applies as
much to the information-age as to the
machine-age
• Instead it is what Heidegger calls a
challenging forth into revealing.
Bringing forth – in which humans only give
form to what already exists without
disruption and control.
Challenging forth – where humans control
the productive process and according to
Heidegger, reduce it to something else,
often inferior to its true essence.
Example: a forest full of trees may be seen
by humans as a national park (Bringing
forth) or it can be seen as a commodity, as
a source of furniture or paper (Challenging
forth).
TECHNOLOGY AS POIESIS: DOES - tends to be more
MODERN TECHNOLOGY BRING FORTH OR commonlyutilized, primarily
CHALLENGE FORTH? because humans’ desire to
control due to their fear of
• Heidegger, in The Question Concerning
irregularity.
Technology, postulated that both
- Calculative thinking is the
primitive crafts and modern technology
moretechnical kind of human
are revealing. However, he explained
thought, in which people
that modern technology is revealing not
gather information and put it
in the sense of bringing forth.
together in order to put it to
• Revealing of modern technology is not a
some specific use.
bringing-forth, but a challenging-forth.
2. MEDITATIVE THINKING-
• Modern technology challenges nature by
humans allow nature to
extracting something from it and
reveal itself to them without
transforming, storing and distributing it. It
the use of force or violence.
makes people think how to do things
faster, more effectively, and with less
• Enframing, is a way of ordering
effort.
(or framing) nature to better
• Challenging forth reduces objects as
manipulate it. Enframing happens
standing-reserve or something to be
because of how humans desire
disposed of by those who enframe
for security, even it pulls all of
them- humans.
nature as a standing reserve and
• This is evident in the way people exploit
an instrument of technology, to be
natural resources with very little concern
exploited in the ordering of nature.
for the ecological consequences that
• The role of humans take as
come with it.
instruments of technology through
• In the information age- greater control of
enframing is called destining.
information to profit from its value gives
• In destining, humans are
rise to concerns about privacy and the
challenged forth by enframing to
protection of human rights.
reveal what is real. However, this
• Rise and depletion of petroleum as a
destining of humans to reveal
strategic resource
nature carries with it the danger of
• Introduction and use of synthetic dyes,
misconstruction or
artificial flavorings, and toxic materials
misinterpretation.
into the consumer stream that bring
THE DANGERS OF TECHNOLOGY
about adverse effects on human health.
• Use of ripening agents in agriculture that • Lie on how humans let themselves
poses threats to food safety and health be consumed by it. The responsibility
security. of humans is to recognize how they
become instruments of technology.
ENFRAMING AS MODERN
• According to Paulo Coelho, it is
TECHNOLOGY’S WAY OF
boastful for humans to think that
REVEALING
nature needs to be saved, whereas
• Heidegger distinguished the way of Mother Nature would remain even if
revealing of modern technology by human cease to exist.
considering it as a process of • As a mere tenant on Earth, people
enframing. must not allow themselves to be
• Enframing, according to Heidegger, consumed by technology lest they
is akin to two ways: lose the essence of who they are as
1. CALCULATIVE human beings. In this sense, humans
THINKINGhumans desire to put are in danger of becoming merely
an order to nature to better part of the standing reserve or,
understand and control it. alternatively, may find themselves in
nature.
 • Recognizing the dangers of technology
requires critical and reflective thinking
on it use. For instance,
• Social media has indeed connected
people in the most efficient and
convenient way imaginable, but it also
inadvertently gave rise to issues such as
invasion of privacy, online disinhibition,
and proliferation of fake news.
ART AS THE SAVING POWER
• Necessary reflection upon and
confrontation with technology are
required in order to proactively address
the dangers of technology.
• “But where danger is, grows the saving
power also” – Friedrich Holderlin (1977,
p.14)
• Heidegger proposed art as the saving
power and the way out enframing: “and
art was simply called techne. It was a
single, manifold revealing” (1977, p.18)
Art encourages human to think less from
calculative standpoint where nature is viewed
as an ordered system. Instead, it inspires
meditative thinking where nature is seen an art
and that without any force and violence.
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