HUMAN FLOURISHING

Science and technology

Sessions 7 & 8
 Lesson Objectives
• Explain modern technology and its role in human flourishing
• Discuss the Question Concerning Technology.
• Understand the relationship of science and technology in human
flourishing
What is human flourishing in science and
technology?
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.
Flourishing, or happiness is 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.
• defined as an endeavor to
achieve self-actualization and
fulfillment within the context
of a larger community of
individuals.
• This also means access to the
pleasant life, the engaged or
good life and the meaningful
life.
What is the role of technology in
human flourishing?

Technology changes us—and the

world around us—in countless
ways. It eases our labor, cures
diseases, provides abundant food
and clean water, enables
communication and travel across
the globe, and expands our
knowledge of the natural world
and the cosmos.
The study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as
existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind and language

A. Philosophy of Technology

B. Philosophy of Science
How is philosophy and science
related?
1. Natural Philosophy
BRANCHES OF
• the philosophical study of nature and the
PHILOSOPHY
physical universe that was dominant before the
development of modern science.

2. Moral Philosophy
• is the rational study of the meaning and
justification of moral claims.

3. Metaphysical philosophy
• examines the fundamental nature of reality,
including the relationship between mind and
matter, between substance and attribute, and
between potentiality and actuality.
 Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
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

The question concerning technology

HEIDEGGER’S VIEW ON
TECHNOLOGY!
Heidegger is concerned
with questioning the essence
of technology and in particular,
modern technology, which he
understands as something different to
older, pre-industrialised forms of
technology
 Essence of Technology

FREE RELATIONSHIP

What is meant by this according to Martin Heidegger?

• Let us not think of it the way we think of it currently, which is

(instrumentum) a tools or aids.

• When we discover technology’s essence we discover the

commonality that all technologies share.
 TECHNOLOGY

Intrumental Anthropological

• Technology is a means • Technology is a human

to an end activity
What is technology according • Technology, according to
to Heidegger? Heidegger must be understood as
“a way of revealing”

• “Revealing” is one of the terms

Heidegger developed himself in
order to make it possible to think
what, according to him, is not
thought anymore

“alétheuein”
 Technology: • Technology is a way of bringing
As a Mode of Revealing forth, a making of something.

• By considering technology as a
mode of revealing, then truth is
brought forth.

A technological view of the

world of Martin Heidegger
 How can technology be a
way of revealing?
• What does this have to do with
technology?

• What does Heidegger mean

when he says that technology is
“a way of revealing”?
 Causality
wherever there is an effect,
there is a cause
1. The Material
2. The Form
3. The Effect
4. The End

• These are four aspects of

causality, of being responsible for
bringing something into
appearance.
 4 CAUSA OF ARISTOTLE

1. Causa materialis/material cause

2. Causa formalis/formal cause
3. Causa efficiens/efficient cause
4. Causa finalis/final cause

Bringing forth (Poiesis)

Aletheia (Truth)