STAS 111 MIDTERM NOTES

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values,
reason, mind and language.
- It is an activity people undertake when they seek to understand fundamental truths about themselves, the world in which
they live, and their relationships to the world and each other.
Branch of Philosophy
1. Natural Philosophy
2. Moral Philosophy
3. Metaphysical philosophy (Metaphysics)
Aristotelianism is a view on technology which centers in the mode of being of someone/something which is governed by
the norm of authenticity. Also, for Aristotle technology is the organizing of techniques in order to meet the demand that is
being posed by humans.
Aristotelianism is a perspective on technology as a means to an end.
Technological Pessimism a belief that the technology has created more problems that it should solve for humanity.
Jacques Ellul is the major proponent of Technological Pessimism.
According to him, "the more dependent we become on technology, the more it
conforms our behavior to its requirements rather than vice versa."
Jacques Ellul’s four laws of technological progress
1. all technical progress has its price.
2. at each stage it raises more and greater problems than it solves.
3. its harmful effects are inseparable from its beneficial effects.
4. it has a great number of unforeseen effects.
Technological Optimism is a view on holding technology as supreme authority.
Martin Heidegger examined the two usual definitions of technology - Technology as a revealing way: means to an end and
a human activity
He begins “The Question Concerning Technology” by examining the relationship between human and technology, a
relationship Heidegger calls a free relationship. If this relationship is free, it opens our human existence to the essence of
technology”. This essence of technology, however, has nothing to do with technology. Rather, as Heidegger suggests, ‘The
essence of a thing is considered to be what the thing is.”
Martin Heidegger is an amoralist; believes that flourishing could be attained by pursuing individual excellence and
development.
Aristotle’s four causes (Doctrine of causality)
1. Causa Materialis or the Material Cause -material
2. Causa Formalis or the Formal Cause -form or shape
3. Causa Efficiens or the Efficient Cause –agent; predecessor circumstance that brought the thing about
4. Causa Finalis or the Final Cause -end or purpose
Bringing-Forth - It is the proper attitude and use of technology concerning nature
Poesis - The utilization of technology brought something into existence that did not exist before.
Piety means obedience and submission and is associated with being religious.
Aesthetics - critically probes the conception and recognition of fairness
The revealing is what the Greeks call truth-Aletheia- means unhiddenness or disclosure.
Technology brings forth as well, and it is a revealing.
Heidegger characterizes modern technology as a challenging forth- very aggressive in its activity. With modern technology,
revealing never comes to an end.
For Heidegger: technology is compliant, technology is a medium to a terminal result.
The revealing always happens on our own terms as everything is on demand.
He also described modern technology as the age of switches, standing reserve and stockpiling for its own sake.
Enframing - Gathering of the setting-upon challenges to bring the concealed to unconcealment. Basically putting in order
whatever is presented to the man who sets upon the unconcealed
Enframing according to Heidegger - It allows the man to truly understand sustainability.
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Enframing - way of revealing in modern technology:
 Calculative thinking - One orders and puts a system to nature so it can be understood better and controlled; It is
the more technical kind of human understanding, in which people infer information and establish it together to put it
to some particular use.
 Meditative thinking - One lets nature reveal itself to him/ her without forcing it.
Unlock and Expose carries the idea that nature will not reveal itself unless challenge is set upon it.
Morality is the principle concerning between good and bad behavior or right versus wrong.
Ethics describes the investigation and analysis of moral principles and dilemmas.
Smith (2012) shared that, we cannot turn to science to define or describe human being.
Human being is endowed with innate abilities and characteristics that let him sustain his function and to survive in the given
environment.
According to Heiddeger “What is human being?” is the fundamental question of philosophy.
Dasein which literally means “being there” focuses on the “mode of existence” or the “who” of “Dasein”.
Human flourishing is 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.
Human flourishing requires the development of attributes and social and personal levels that exhibit character strengths
and virtues that are commonly agreed across different cultures.
Eudaimonia –Greek word that signifies a transcendent disposition of existence that humanity can endeavor toward and
likely relinquish. Also refers to a state of having good indwelling spirit of being in a contented state of being healthy, happy
and prosperous.
Eudaimonia is used to refer to the right actions as those that result in the well-being of an individual.
Aristotle’s teachings suggest that each man’s life has a purpose and that the function of one’s life is to attain that purpose.
Socrates - He considered that true happiness is promoted by doing what is right
- The unexamined life is not worth living for.
Aristotle – happiness is the highest desire and ambition of all human beings.
Popular conceptions of the best life for human beings: (1) philosophical life, (2) life of pleasure and (3) life of political
activity
Daemon is a Greek term which literally means spirit.
Epicureanism is a philosophy that holds into, anything that is taken in excess has bad effects.
Asceticism is the practice of denial of physical or psychological in order to attain spiritual goal or ideal.
Epicurus - balance and temperature were created space for happiness; real source to experience it. Epicurus -
contradicted the metaphysical philosophers.
Socrates believed that virtues such as self-control, justice, courage, wisdom, piety and related qualities of mind and soul
are absolutely crucial if a person is to lead a good and happy life.
Plato, Eudaimonia depends on virtue which is depicted as the most crucial and the dominant constituent of eudaimonia.
- He believed a happy person is one who has principles and sticks to them. He or she uses and practices these principles to
become a better person and a better member of society.
Pyrrho, founder of Pyrrhonism, a school of philosophical skepticism that places the attainment of ataraxia (a state of
equanimity) as a way to achieve Eudaimonia.
Friedrich Nietzsche known for his criticisms on psychological analyses that resulted to opposing ideas on the people’s
received ideas.
Friedrich Nietzsche viewed happiness in a different way. For him happiness is an “ideal state of laziness”. Laziness for him
is described as to not have any worries or distress in life.
Flourishing can either be based on the state of mind (e.g mental habit) or a kind of value (e.g. insights, outlook).
It accepts that man’s ultimate desire of living is to flourish and to experience a life of well-being (life that goes well for him).
- It is the terminal purpose of individual subsistence.
Wrong pursuits may lead to tragic consequences.
Correct pursuits may lead to flourishing.
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Nicomachean Ethics 2:2 - All human activities aim at some good. Every art and human inquiry, and similarly every action
and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has been rightly declared as that at which all
things aim.
Good life - happiness and virtue
Virtue - intellectual and moral; It is a fundamental moral concept that characterizes a person's readiness and ability to
consciously and firmly follow goodness.
Excess virtues - These are actions that show high moral standards that are acquired by an individual through growth and
education.
Martin (2012) “Happiness as loving one's life and valuing it in ways manifested by sufficient enjoyment and robust sense of
meaning. Achieving happiness and man's own desire and needs commonly gives essence for living a good life. In particular,
moral decency and goodness, authenticity, mental health, self-fulfillments, and meaningfulness describes it”
Dotson - Every human being aspires to live a good life. Conversely, man's idea of “good life” differs in many dimensions.
The 4 Pillar of the Good life: health, wealth, love and happiness
Traer explained that the adjectives good and right are related in meaning, but are not synonyms. It makes no sense to
speak of a “right person” when we mean a “good person; or the right action as a meaning for good action.
Right Action compels fulfilling duties and upholding rights. Taking the right action means correctly applying a norm,
premise, presupposition, rule, standard, or law. This explains that the term “right” reasons are being used to justify the
principle and its application.
Morals refer to an individual’s own principles regarding right and wrong.
Aristotle -The understandability of the good is based on the idea of what is good for the specific entity under consideration.
1. Happiness is the ultimate end of human action.
2. Good life as a life of relationships.
3. Essence of happiness is to achieve well-being and experience good life.
Being good entails nurturing character and fostering relationship
Ethician's view - good is that which is suitable to and proper for human nature. Whenever it is not proper for human nature,
it is bad and must avoided
Timbreza as elucidated by Gripaldo - human being is endowed with his own rational mind and free will.
Socrates - The unexamined life is not worth living for, the idea of worthwhile living should be filtered with experience and
vice versa.
Martin Heidegger - dealt more on how we live an “authentic life” rather dealing with the “good life”
Living an authentic life means living with deep acceptance on the facticity of “death” and resulting to a “life lived according
to what it has clearly decided as its meaning and purpose”
Idea of Good Life: attaining pleasure (hedonism); peace of mind through minimizing desires and passions (stoicism) and
based on professing moderate pleasure, which for them, “anything that is taken in excess is bad” (epicureanism)
Stoicism - The path to happiness for humans is found in accepting this moment as it presents itself, by not allowing
ourselves to be controlled by our desire for pleasure, or our fear of pain.
Materialism – It holds that the only thing that can be proven to exist matters. All things are composed of material, and all
phenomena are the result of material interactions, with no accounting of spirit or consciousness.
- a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things,
including mental aspects and consciousness are results of material interactions.
Humanism - a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and
collectively; nontheistic life stance centered on human agency and looking to science rather than revelation from a
supernatural source to understand the world.
Theism – belief in the existence of the supreme being or deities
Peity - willingness beyond a sense of duty so that we desire to worship and to serve technology.
Humanity - virtue associated with basic ethics of altruism derived from human condition; latin word “humanitas” which
means “human nature, kindness”; the human race, which includes everybody on earth; also a word for the qualities that
make us human, such as that ability to love and have
compassion, be creative and not be a robot or alien.
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Post-humanity - concept of the advance level of technological or economic development that would involve a radical
change in the human condition.
- It confirmed itself as a trademark for a form of human permanence radically reconstructed by the numerous exceptional
medical procedures and by the application of biotechnology and nanotechnology for human augmentation.
Plateau - concept wherein the human civilization may reach a level of technological advancement beyond which no
further advancement is feasible.
- Technological sophistication will eventually reach its maximum peak that there will be no possible progress that will
transpire.
Factors that Defined the Limits of Technology:
1. The law of physics
2. The law of software
3. The challenge of algorithm
4. The difficulty of distribution
5. The problem of design
6. The problem of functionality
7. The importance of the organization
8. The impact of economics
9. The influence of politics
Ethical Dilemmas
1. Real-Time Satellite Surveillance Video
2. Astronaut Bioethics (of Colonizing Mars)
3. Wearable Technology
4. State-Sponsored Hacktivism and ‘Soft War’
5. Enhance Pathogens
6. Non-Lethal Weapons (Laser blinding weapon, Pain ray, Laser missile)
7. Robot Swarms
8. Artificial Life-Forms
9. Resilient Social-Ecological Systems
10. Brain-to-Brain Interfaces
Soft war is a concept used to explain rights and duties of is urgent even terrorists during armed
struggle.
Francis Fukuyama: Three (3) possible scenarios for the near future
1. genetically enhanced intelligence
2. advance in stem cell research
3. widespread use of psychotropic drugs like Prozac and Ritalin
21st Century Technologies
1. Genetic engineering is the process by which an organisms’ genetic material is altered or manipulated so that the
organism will have specific characteristics.
- It may involve adding a gene from one species to an organism from a different species to produce a desired trait.
2. Robotics an interdisciplinary research area at the interface of computer science and
engineering. It involves the conception, design, manufacture and operation of robots.
Types of Robots:
a. Pre-Programmed Robots (operate in a controlled environment where they do simple, monotonous tasks)
b. Humanoid robots (robots that look like and/ or mimic human behavior- Sophia)
c. Autonomous Robots (operate independently of human operators
d. Tele operated Robots (mechanical bots controlled by humans)
e. Augmenting Robots (either enhance current human capabilities or replace the capabilities a human may have lost)
The main objective of the new sustainable development goal in the article, forget developing poor countries, it's time to
de-develop rich countries is to eradicate robotics by 2030.
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3. Nanotechnology is the study and manipulation of atomic or molecular scale to improve or even revolutionize many
technology and industry sectors.
4. Artificial Intelligence refers to “machines” that respond to stimulation consistent with traditional responds from human,
given the capacity for contemplation, judgement and intention.
- the attempt to replicate or simulate human intelligence in machines.
- the simulation of human aptitude in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. The term
may also be applied to any machine that exhibits traits associated with a human mind such as learning and problem-solving.
Alan Turing - He established the fundamental goal and vision of artificial intelligence.
Norvig and Russell - Artificial Intelligence in four approaches: thinking rationally, thinking humanly, acting rationally and
acting humanly.
William Gibson - ‘the future is here”- it’s just not evenly distributed”.
Potential Risks to Society
1. Devaluation of humanity
2. Decrease in demand of human labor
3. High costs of creation
4. Ethical issues
5. Social isolation
6. Environmental Problems
List of Emerging Technologies that will shape our Future
1. Electric/ self-driving cars
2. Robot butlers
3. Flying cars
4. Space tourism
5. Colonization of other planets
6. Wearable screens
7. 3D printed Food and Metal
8. 5G-6G connectivity
9. Re-engineering and Recycling
10. High-rise farms
11. Lab-grown meats
12. Robot soldiers
13. Roads over rivers and seas
14. Holography
15. Body implants prosthesis