STAS 111: SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY
March 7, 2023 | Week 7 | Eleonor Trinidad
HUMAN FLOURISHING IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
• Philosophy – The study of general and fundamental problems
concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values,
reason, mind and language.
o Branches of Philosophy
➔ Natural Philosophy
➔ Moral Philosophy
➔ Metaphysical philosophy
MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1889-1976)
• German philosopher whose work is associated with
phenomenology and existentialism.
• His ideas have exerted influence on the development of
contemporary European philosophy.
• His best-known work is Being and Time (1927). He gave a very
impressive analysis of human existence, the prominence of the
important themes of existentialism like care, anxiety, guilt and
above all death is brought out here.
• 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.”
• Heidegger examines two definitions of technology. Firstly, he
offers that “Technology is a means to an end” (Instrumental
definition). Secondly, he proposes that “Technology is a human
activity (Anthropological definition).
THE QUESTION CONCERNING TECHNOLOGY
• Heidegger begins by portraying his investigation of technology as
the building of a path.
• He examines the common understanding of technology as a
neutral instrument under the control of humans.
o He proposes to get to the true sense via the correct sense
• He analyses the notion of instrumentality to reach the truth or the
essence of technology – it is traced to causality.
• Technology is a very particular kind of revealing to, and the
description articulates the key terms of Heidegger’s philosophy of
technology: Modern technology challenges-forth nature to
yield treasures to humans and technology sets-upon (positions
and orders) the yields of nature so that they are available and of
humans, becoming part of the standing reserve.
• He discusses the relation of modern science to the essence of
technology
o He claims for the sciences the aggressive approach to
nature that goes well with technology, but poorly with
science.
• The enframing of technology is destiny.
• Destiny is neither an inevitable fate that descends on humanity
nor the result of human willing.
• Disclosure of destiny and human freedom are one and the same.
• There is a twofold danger to destiny.
o One is the danger that human being reduces itself to
standing reserve and in so appearing to have taken total
control encounters nothing any more.
o The other is the danger that the disclosure of the enframing
forecloses every other dispensation and conceals that too is
a disclosure.
• Still the enframing is a disclosure. It involves human being,
therefore harbors the possibility of saving power.
DOCTRINE OF CAUSALITY
• Causa materialis – the material, the matter out of which an
object is made.
• Causa formalis – the form, the shape into which the material
enters.
• Causa efficiens – which brings about the effect that is finished
• Causa finalis – end
SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY | HUMAN FLOURISHING IN SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
HUMAN FLOURISHING IN SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
• Bringing Forth – making something
o The bringing forth-poesis-which underlies causality is a
bringing out of concealment.
o The revealing is what the Greeks call truth-Aletheia- means
unhiddedness or disclosure.
o Technology brings forth as well, and it is a revealing.
o This is seen in the way the Greeks understood techne, which
encompasses not only craft, but other acts of the mind and
poetry.
o Heidegger characterizes modern technology as a
challenging forth- very aggressive in its activity.
o With modern technology, revealing never comes to an end.
o The revealing always happens on our own terms as
everything is on demand.
o He also described modern technology as the age of
switches, standing reserve and stockpiling for its own sake.
o Example:
➔ Volcanic eruption – challenging forth
➔ Coral bleaching – challenging forth
➔ Planting trees – bringing forth
➔ Mining – challenging forth
➔ Farming – bringing forth
QUESTIONING AS THE PIETY OF THOUGHT
• Piety – means obedience and submission.
o One builds a way towards knowing the truth who he/ she is
as a being in this world.
o Thus, we shall never experience our relationship to the
essence of technology so long as we merely represent and
pursue the technological, put up with it, or evade it.
Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology,
whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But we are
delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard
it as something neutral and for this conception of it, to which
today we particularly like to pay homage, makes us utterly
blind to the essence of technology (1977,p1)
o 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
➔ Meditative thinking – One lets nature reveal itself to
him/ her without forcing it.
➔ Technology as a Mode of Revealing
➔ Technology as Poesis: Applicable to Modern
Technology
➔ Questioning as the Piety of Thought
➔ Enframing: A way of Revealing in Modern Technology
➔ Human Person Swallowed by Technology
➔ Art as a Way out of Enframing
TERMINOLOGIES
• Aletheia – means unhiddenness or disclosure
• Poesis – is defined as bringing forth.
• Techne – is the root of technology
• Piety – is associated with being religious.
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