CHAPTER 4

The Human Person Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology

A. TECHNOLOGY AS A WAY OF REVEALING

The Question Concerning Technology

● is an essay written by a German Philosopher Martin Heidegger.

● It addresses modern technology and its essence as an instrumental way of
revealing the world.

Martin Heidegger

● He views technology as machines and technical procedures.

● Modern technology is conceived as means to achieve ends because he thinks
that through the essence of technology as a way in which humans encounter
entities
● The essence of technology concerns causality.
● His understanding of technology was based on its essence.

Four Essence of Technology

1. It is not something we make; it is a mode of being, or of revealing.

● This means that technological things have their own way of presenting
themselves and the world in which they operate.
2. Technology even holds sway over beings that we do not normally think of as
technological, such as gods and history.
3. It is primarily a matter of modern and industrial technology.
● It means that it is less concerned with the ancient and old tools and
techniques that antedate modernity;
● It is revealed in factories and industrial processes, not in hammers and
plows.
4. Technology is not simply the practical application of natural science.
● Modern natural science can understand nature in the characteristically
scientific manner only because nature has already, in advance.

Two Characteristics of Modern Technology as a Revealing Process

1. The mode of revealing modern technology is challenging.

● Things are revealed or brought forth by challenging or demanding them.
 ● It is putting to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy that
can be extracted and stored.
● The mining technology today is a good example for this mode of revealing
things.
● “Challenging” as a mode of revealing nature could be sharply contrasted
“Physis” which is the arising of something from itself, a bringing-forth or
poieses.
● The revelation has its own autonomy and, at best, man can only witness.
This is a natural way of revealing.
➢ The mode of revealing in modern technology brought about new world ordering.
This kind of ordering is best described as “artificial” in contrast to “natural
ordering.
● It sees nature as an object of manipulation and not anymore as an
autonomous reality demanding respect and admiration.

2. The second characteristic of modern technology as a revealing process is that

the challenging that brings forth the energy of nature is an “expediting”.
● It means to hasten the movement of something.
● Expediting is also a process of revealing inasmuch as it “unlocks” and
“exposes” something.
● Things that are revealed in an expedited manner are brought forth as
resources that must be used efficiently.
● In mining for example, man digs coal not simply to know what coals are.
Yes, man “exposes” these coals but not simply to know them. They
uncover them because he wants to use them. Coals are mined from track
loads of land so as to use their energy.
➢ This is the characteristic of the things revealed in modern technology. They are
there “for” something.
➢ Heidegger uses a technical word to name the things that are revealed in modern
technology as “standing in reserve”.
● Things as standing in reserve are not “objects”. Objects on the other hand,
are things that “stand against us” as things with autonomy. They are
revealed mainly in human thinking and do not allow further manipulations.
● Things as standing in reserve, on the other hand, are called to come forth
in challenging and expediting.
● Nothing anymore “stands against us” as objects of autonomy and wonder.
Even nature is now revealed as standing in reserve and not anymore
objects of autonomy.
 ➢ Unlike the modern technologies, the old technology still respects nature as an
object of autonomy.
➢ The modern and the old technologies are of different modes of revealing, the
former artificial and the latter natural.
➢ Conversely, the technology of building a wooden bridge reveals the river not as a
key link in completing the bridge, it rather respects it as a part of nature, a
“landscape” using Heidegger’s own term, that is somewhat permanent and stand
against us as another entity.
➢ We move “around” it so to say and we only see what we can do to overcome its
dominating presence, in other words, we do not manipulate it, but rather, we act
according to its rules.

Enframing

● For Heidegger, enframing is the “essence” of modern technology.

● Enframing simply means putting into the frame of modern technology everything
in nature.
● This “frame” of modern technology is the network or interlocking things standing
in reserve.
● It is the world centered on man’s caprices and demands. It is a world of
manipulation and demystification. In here nothing is mysterious anymore.

What was Heidegger afraid of?

● The process of truth will revert back into the realm of erring. It must be
remembered that for truth to be, it must retain its sense of mystery. Truth is for
the most part untruth. To disregard this essentially limited process of revelation is
also to disregard the entirety of its essence.
● We cannot have absolute knowledge of reality, more so, we cannot have full
dominion over it. As they say, we are only “guardians” of creation. To disregard
this nature of reality is also putting ourselves into the brink of danger.
● Because of man’s arrogance, nature is on the verge of destruction. He thinks he
knows how nature works and tends to hasten or “expedite” its processes. He
demands too much from it and in turn disrupts its natural flow.
● Nature is beyond our control. Its truth is beyond our grips. For all we know, it is
the one that controls us. If we ever try to dominate it, nature will surely revolt
against us in a very humbling manner.
B. HUMAN FLOURISHING

Human Flourishing

● It is said to be the best translation for the Greek word “Eudaimonia”

● Also known as personal flourishing
● It involves the rational use of one’s individual potentialities, including talents,
abilities and virtues in the pursuit of his freely and rationally chosen values and
goals. An action is considered to be proper if it leads to the flourishing of the
person performing the action.
● A moral accomplishment and a fulfillment of human capacities, and it is one
through being the other. Self-actualization is moral growth and vice-versa.
● Human flourishing is real and highly personal by nature, consists in the fulfillment
of both a man’s human nature and unique potentialities, and is concerned with
choices and actions that necessarily deal with the particular and the contingent.
One man’s self –realization is not the same as another’s.
● Human flourishing becomes an actuality when one uses his practical reason to
consider his unique needs, circumstances and capabilities, and so on, to
determine which concrete instantiations of human values and virtues will
comprise his well-being.
● The idea of human flourishing is inclusive and can encompass a wide variety of
constitutive ends such as knowledge, the development of character traits,
productive work, religious pursuits, community building, love, charitable activities,
allegiance to persons and causes, self-efficacy, material well-being, pleasurable
sensations, etc.

Eudaimonia

-For Plato and Aristotle, it is a situation achieved through virtue, knowledge, and
excellence and it is not only good fortune and material prosperity.

Confucian Humanism

-Learning to be human is central

-Its “creative transformation” of the self through “ever-expanding network of

relationships encompassing the family, community, nation, world and beyond”.

-It is inseparable from self-awareness and self-cultivation.

-“Self”- far from being an isolated individual is a center of relationships

 ➔ Plato contends that the soul, or mind, has three motivating parts:
-Rational
-Spirited or Emotional
-Appetitive

Aristotle Views

● In the Nicomachean Ethics, he states that Eudaimonia is constituted not by

honor, or wealth power, but by rational activity in accordance with excellence in
the virtues of character including courage, honesty, pride, friendliness and
wittiness, the intellectual virtues notably rationality and judgment, as well as
mutually beneficial friendships and scientific knowledge, particularly of things that
are fundamental and unchanging.
● All humans seek to flourish. It’s the proper and desired end of all of our
actions.
○ Flourishing is a functional definition. To understand something’s function,
you have to understand its nature.
● An individual cannot truly flourish if he is not flourishing in one of the four
aspects of human nature.
○ Physical - As physical beings, we require nourishment, exercise, rest and
all the other things that it takes to keep our bodies functioning properly.
○ Emotional - As emotional beings, we have wants, desires, urges and
reactions. We perceive something in the world that we want and we have
the power of volition to get it; likewise, we have the power to avoid the
things we don’t want.
○ Social - As social beings, we must live and function in particular societies.
Our social nature stacks on top of our emotional nature, such that we have
wants and needs that we would not have were we not social creatures.
○ Rational - As rational beings, we are creative, expressive, knowledge
seeking and able to obey reason. We might not always obey reason and
we may sometimes not want to exercise our minds, but a large part of our
existence relates to our being rational animals.

How to flourish?

● To flourish, a man must pursue goals that are both rational for him individually
and also as a human being. Whereas the former will vary depending upon one’s
 particular circumstances, the latter are common to man’s distinctive nature – man
has the unique capacity to live rationally.
● The use of reason is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for human
flourishing.
● Living rationally ( i.e., consciously ) means dealing with the world conceptually.
● Living consciously implies respect for the facts of reality. The principle of living
consciously is not affected by the degree of one’s intelligence not the extent of
one’s knowledge; rather, it is the acceptance of use of one’s reason in the
recognition and perception of reality and in his choice of values and actions to
the best of his ability, whatever that ability may be.
● To pursue rational goals through rational means is the only way to cope
successfully with reality and achieve one’s goals. Although rationality is not
● always rewarded, the fact remains that it is through the use of one’s mind that a
man not only discovers the values required for personal flourishing, he attains
them.
● Values can be achieved in reality if a man recognizes and adheres to the reality
of his unique personal endowments and contingent circumstances. Human
flourishing is positively related to a rational man’s attempts to externalize his
values and actualize his internal views of how things ought to be in the outside
world.