LA CONSOLACION COLLEGE

F. Pimentel Avenue,
Daet, Camarines Norte

Group 1 : MAÑAGO, GARFIN, ASIS Date: March 18,

2021
Topic : Technology as a Way of Revealing
Course Title : GE211 – Science Technology and Society

Technology as a Way of Revealing

 The Question of Technology by Martin Heidegger

o The essence of a thing is considered to be what the thing is
o Technology is a means to an end
o Technology is a human activity
o The manufacture and utilization of equipment, tools, and machines, and the needs and
ends they serve.
o Contrivance – instrumentum
o Correct, but necessarily true
 Experience and understanding of what is correct can lead us to what is true
 Heidegger – technology as a mode of revealing.
o Shows much more about the human person and the world.
o The truth is then brought forth.
 Greek concepts
o Aletheia – unhideness or disclosure
o Poiesis – bringing forth
 Aristotle – making or producing something for a purpose.
o Techne – skill, art, or craft
 Means of bringing forth something.
 Technology as poetry
o More reflective and sensitive way looking at the world
o Not an easy perspective to take in this era.
 Instant knowledge is demanded and split-second updates are norm.
 Pursuit of fame and fortune is unceasingly bannered in social media.
Technology as Poiesis
 Modern technology is very aggressive in its activity
 Modern technology demands resources from nature that are forcibly extracted for human
consumption and storage.
 With modern technology, revealing never comes to an end
 We no longer need to work with the rhythms of nature since we have learned to control it.
o Order, extract, process, make ready for consumption, and store what we have forced it to
reveal.
 Modern technology – age of switches, standing, reserve, and stockpiling for its own sake.

Questioning as the Piety of Thought

 Piety means obedience and submission
o Submission to our thoughts and reflections
o It is when we start questioning that we submit
 Questioning leads one to search for his/her place in the universe and in the grand-scale of
things

Enframing Way of Revealing in Modern Technology

 Enframing that challenges forth and sets upon nature is a way of looking at reality
 Nature put in a box so that it can be better understood and controlled according to people’s
desires
 Poiesis – concealed in enframing as nature is viewed as an orderable and calculate system of
information.
 Calculative thinking – one orders and puts a system to nature so it can be understood better
and controlled.
o People want control and are afraid of unpredictability, so calculative thinking is more
often used.
 Meditative thinking – one lets nature reveal itself to him/her without forcing it.
 Enframing is done because people want security
o Even if the ordering is violent

Human person Swallowed by Technology

 If we allow ourselves to get swallowed by modern technology, we lose essence of who we
are as being in this world
 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.
 “Where danger is, grows the saving power also”
o Expressed by Holderin, a poet.
o Saving power – essence of technology as technology
o Essence – the way in which things are, as that which endures.
 “Essence of technology is nothing technogical”
o Heidegger, 1977
 Problems brought about by humans’ dependence on technology cannot be simply resolved by
refusing technology altogether

Art as Way of Enframing

 Enframing tends to block poiesis
 In modern technology, the way of revealing has become challenging
 Heidegger proposes art as a 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.
o From calculative thinking to Mediative thinking.
 Nature is the most poetic.
 In the nuclear age, we view nature as a problem to be solved.
 Mediative thinking provides a way for us to remain rooted in the essence of who we are
o Ground us so as to not let our technological devices affect our real core and warp our
nature.
 Aristotle’s conception of the four causes as explained by Heidegger
o Causa materialis – the material
o Causa formalis – the form
o Causa finalis – the end
o Causa efficiens – brings about the effect.