CHAPTERS 7&8

Human Flourishing in
Science and Technology
Chapter Outline:
1. Understand Human Flourishing
2. Selected Views on Technology
3. Martin Heidegger on Science & Technology
4. The Society in the Face of Science and Technology
Flourishing
a state where people
experience positive
emotions, positive
psychological functioning
and positive social
functioning, most of the
time," living "within an
optimal range of human
functioning."
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.
Human Flourishing
involves the rational
use of one's
individual human
potentialities,
including talents,
abilities, and virtues
in the pursuit of his
freely and rationally
chosen values and
goals.
Human civilizations and the development of
science and technology.
n Human person as n bearer –a
both the bearer and person or thing
beneficiary of that carries or
science and holds
technology. something.
n beneficiary
n Human flourishes and finds meaning
in the world that he/she builds.
n Human may unconsciously acquire,
consume or destroy what the world
has to offer.
Science and Technology
n must be treated as part of human life
that needs reflective and meditative
thinking.
Reflective Thinking
Meditative Thinking
n kind of thinking
that thinks the
truth of being,
that belongs to
being and listens
to it.
Eudaimonia
n Greek words “eu” – “good” and “daemon” –
“spirit”
n A state of having a good indwelling spirit or
being in a contented state.
n Right actions that result in the well-being of
an individual
Science and Technology
n must be
examined for
their greater
impact on
humanity as a
whole.
SELECTED VIEWS ON TECHNOLOGY
ARISTOTELIANISM
n Views technology as basically a means
to an end
n Organizing of techniques in order to meet
the demand that is posed by humans
n Technology will be judge as either good
or bad based on the value given to the
product based on its use and effect to the
society
TECHNOLOGICAL PESSIMISM
n Extremely supported by French
philosopher Jacques Ellul
n Technology is progressive and beneficial
in many ways, it is also doubtful in many
ways
n A mean to an end but with this view, it
has become a way of life
Ellul’s pessimistic arguments are:

1. Technological progress has a price,

2. creates more problems,
3. creates damaging effects, and
4. creates unpredictable devastating
effects.
TECHNOLOGICAL OPTIMISM
n Strongly supported by technologists and
engineers and people who believe that
technology can alleviate all the difficulties
and provide solutions for problems with
technology still the solution
EXISTENTIALSM
n The main concern to this view is the
existence or the mode of being someone
or something which is governed by the
norm of authenticity
n Supported by Martin Heidegger
TECHNOLOGY AS A MODE OF REVEALING
MARTIN HEIDEGGER
n a German philosopher
and a seminal thinker in
the Continental tradition
of philosophy.
n widely acknowledged to
be one of the most
original and important
philosophers of the 20th
century.
HEIDEGGER’S VIEW ON
TECHNOLOGY.
n He strongly opposes the view that
technology is “a means to an end” or “a
human activity.”

n These two approaches, which he calls,

respectively, the “instrumental” and
“anthropological” definitions, are indeed
“correct”, but do not go deep enough; as
he says, they are not yet “true.”
n Heidegger 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.

n Since the essence of a tree is not itself a

tree, he points out, so the essence of
technology is not anything technological.
 Aristotle’s Four Causes
1. causa materialis - material cause
2. causa formalis - formal cause
3. causa finalis - final purpose
4. causa eficiens - effective cause, maker
 Bringing-Forth
Occasion - to make present (not the same as
to cause)

Poiesis - bringing-forth, root word of poetry

“Technology and art both bringing-forth”

 Revealing
Aletheia - revealing, unveiling, truth

Technology is a way of revealing

“Technology comes to presence in the

realm where revealing and
unconcealment take place”
 Challenging
Herausfordern - challenging
• Type of revealing
• inherent of modern technology, demand that
nature supply energy

Hydroelectric plant -
challenging to unlock
power in nature
Windmill - old technology
does not challenge
What, then, is technology, if it is
neither a means to an end nor a
human activity?
n Technology, according to Heidegger
must be understood as “a way of
revealing” (Heidegger 1977, 12).
n Revealing is his translation of the
Greek word alètheuein, which means
‘to discover’ – to uncover what was
covered over. Related to this verb is
the independent noun alètheia, which
is usually translated as “truth,” though
Heidegger insists that a more
adequate translation would be “un-
concealment.”
How can technology be ‘a way
of revealing’?
1.What does this have to do
with technology?

2.What does Heidegger mean

when he says that technology
is “a way of revealing”?
n everything we perceive or think of or
interact with “emerges out of concealment
into unconcealment,

n by entering into a particular relation with

reality, reality is ‘revealed’ in a specific
way.
n technology is the way of revealing
that characterizes our time.

n technology embodies a specific way

of revealing the world, a revealing in
which humans take power over
reality.
n While the ancient Greeks experienced the
‘making’ of something as ‘helping
something to come into being’ – as
Heidegger explains that modern
technology is rather a ‘forcing into being’.

n Technology reveals the world as raw

material, available for production and
manipulation.
WHY IS TECHNOLOGY NOT A
HUMAN ACTIVITY?
n According to Heidegger, there is
something wrong with the modern,
technological culture we live in today. In
our ‘age of technology’ reality can only be
present as a raw material (as a ‘standing
reserve’). This state of affairs has not
been brought about by humans; the
technological way of revealing was not
chosen by humans.
n Rather, our understanding of the world -
our understanding of ‘being’, of what it
means ‘to be’ - develops through the ages.
In our time ‘being’ has the character of a
technological ‘framework’, from which
humans approach the world in a
controlling and dominating way.
n Every attempt to climb out of
technology throws us back in. The
only way out for Heidegger is “the will
not to will”.
n We need to open up the possibility of
relying on technologies while not
becoming enslaved to them and
seeing them as manifestations of an
understanding of being.
References:
n https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/philosophy-
of-technology/0/steps/26314
n Heidegger, Martin. “The question concerning
technology (W. Lovitt, Trans.) The question
concerning technology: and other essays (pp. 3-
35).” (1977).
n Seubold, Günter. Heideggers Analyse der
neuzeitlichen Technik. Freiburg-München: Alber,
1986.