STAS MID LESSON 1
believed that this kind of confusing and there are
THE HUMAN PERSON FLOURISHING
IN TERMS OF SCIENCE AND
SELECTED VIEWS ON TECHNOLOGY
ARISTOTELIANISM
 This views technology as basically a means to
an end.
 To Aristotle, technology is the organizing of
techniques in order to meet the demand that is
being posed by humans. This may seem0 that
technology is primarily concerned with the
product.
TECHNOLOGICAL PESSIMISM
Jacques Ellul (1912-1994)
 French philosopher
 Holds that technology is progressive and
beneficial in many ways, it is also doubtful in
many ways.
 Technological optimism believes that technology
is the answer to all man’s problems.
According to Ellul’s pessimistic arguments are:
1. technological progress has a price
2. technological progress creates more problems
3. technological progress creates damaging effects
4. technological progress creates unpredictable
devastating effects
TECHNOLOGICAL PESSIMISM
 This view is strongly supported by technologists
and engineers and also by ordinary people who
believe that technology can alleviate all the
difficulties and provide solutions for problems
that may come.
 The extreme version of this philosophy is
technocratism which holds technology as the
supreme authority on everything.
 Technology is beneficial in many ways but can
also be harmful in many ways.
EXISTENTIALISM
 The main concern of this view is the existence or
the mode of being of someone or something
which is governed by the norm of authenticity.
 This view basically investigate the meaning of
existence or being and is always faced with the
selection must make with which the existent will
commit himself to.
 Martin Heidegger, a philosopher is one of the
most known supporters of this philosophy.
MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1889-1996) ON SCIENCE
AND TECHNOLOGY
 A well-known German philosopher examined
the two usual definitions of technology: means
to an end and a human activity, because he
questions to it that we easily overlook.
 He called it the instrumental and anthropological
definition of technology or simply means by
which the human ends are realized.
THE INSTRUMENTAL DEFINITION OF
TECHNOLOGY
 According to Heidegger, the instrumental
definition of technology encourages us to view
technology from different periods of time as not
having fundamental differences.
 He explained while technology is geared
towards meeting a human need, still there is a
difference between older handicraft technologies
with modern technology. The instrumental
definition of technology
 As it is, “a sawmill on a secluded valley of the
Black Forest is a primitive means compared with
hydroelectric plant on the Rhine River”-
Heidegger 1977
 Heidegger also argued that “technology is by no
means technological” and should not be seen as
merely neutral.
ARISTOTLE’S FOUR CAUSES
 Heidegger further studied Aristotle’s Four
Causes and illustrated it using a silver chalice
which he said owes its make up from the four
causes:
1. Causa Materialis or the Material Cause (-silver)
2. Causa Formalis or the Formal Cause (-form or
shape)
3. Cuasa Finalis or the Final Cause (-the purpose)
4. Causa Efficiens or the Efficient Cause (-agent:
silversmith) Aristotle’s four causes
HEIDEGGER’S TECHNOLOGY AS A WAY OF
REVEALING
 Heidegger believed that the genuine substance or
the real essence of technology is found in
enframing. To further illustrate this, he gave
some examples through contrasting ancient and
modern technology.
1. he talked about the ancient windmill
2. he talked about peasant planting seeds only
3. he talked about wooden bridge that is built to
join riverbanks.
THE MODE OF REVEALING IN MODERN
TECHNOLOGY
 Unlock and Expose: It carries the idea that
nature will not reveal itself unless challenge is
set upon it.
 the hydroelectric plant causes the Rhine to
produce hydraulic pressure which in turn causes
the turbines to work that eventually electricity is
produced. ENFRAMING
 Gathering of the setting-upon challenges to
bring the concealed to unconcealment.
  Also shows the essence of modern technology.
 Basically putting in order whatever is presented
to the man who sets upon the unconcealed but it
is a two-way relationship:
 man cannot set himself upon unconcealment
without unconcealment’s call and the
unconcealed will not go into unconcealment
without the man responding to its call.
THE DANGER OF THE NONSTOP REVEALING
 Revealing opens up a relationship between man
and the world but an opening up of something
means a closing down of something which
means as something is revealed, another is
concealed.- ( the rise of a cause-effect
understanding of reality closes off an
understanding of God as something mysterious
and holy)
 Another danger is when man falls into a
misinterpretation of that which is presented to
him. That is when he sees himself in the object
before him rather than seeing the object itself.
THE SOCIETY IN THE FACE OF SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
 When one looks around him now, he will see
that man tends to find his happiness in the works
of modern technology.
 Heidegger argued that this can be prevented if
man will not allow himself to be overwhelmed
with the enframing that he was set upon, but he
pause for a while and reflect on the value of
what is presented anthropological.
PHILOSOPHY- The study of general and fundamental
problems concerning matters such as existence,
knowledge, values, reason, mind and language.
Branches of Philosophy
1. Natural Philosophy
2. Moral Philosophy
3. Metaphysical philosophy
MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1889-1976)
 German philosopher whose work is associated
with phenomology 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
1. Heidegger begins by portraying his investigation
of technology as the building of a path.
2. He examines the common understanding of
technology as a neutral instrument under the
control of humans.
He proposes to get to the true sense via the
correct sense
3. He analyses the notion of instrumentality to
reach the truth or the essence of technology- it is
traced to causality.
4. 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; technology sets-upon
(positions and orders) the yields of nature so that
they are available and of humans, becoming part
of the standing reserve.
5. He discusses the relation of modern science to
the essence of technology-
He claims for the sciences the aggressive
approach to nature that goes well with
technology, but poorly with science.
6. 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.
7. There is a twofold danger to destiny.
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.
The other is the danger that the disclosure of the
enframing forecloses every other dispensation
and conceals that too is a disclosure.
8. Still the enframing is a disclosure. It involves
human being, therefore harbors the possibility of
saving power.
Doctrine of causality
1. Causa materialis- the material, the matter out
of which an object is made.
2. Causa formalis-the form, the shape into which
the material enters.
3. Causa efficiens- which brings about the effect
that is finished
4. Causa finalis- end
Bringing Forth- making something
 The bringing forth-poesis-which underlies
causality is a bringing out of concealment.
 The revealing is what the Greeks call truth-
Aletheia- means unhiddedness or disclosure.
  Technology brings forth as well , and it is a
revealing.
 This is seen in the way the Greeks understood
techne, which encompasses not only craft, but
other acts of the mind and poetry.
 Heidegger characterizes modern technology as a
challenging forth- very aggressive in its activity.
 With modern technology, revealing never comes
to an end.
 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.

Example:
1. Volcanic eruption- challenging forth
2. Coral bleaching-challenging forth
3. Planting trees- bringing forth
4. Mining- challenging forth
5. Farming- bringing forth
Questioning as the Piety of Thought

 Piety means obedience and submission.

 One builds a way towards knowing the truth
who he/ she is as a being in this world.
 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; 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)
 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.

1. Technology as a Mode of Revealing

2. Technology as Poesis: Applicable to Modern
Technology
3. Questioning as the Piety of Thought
4. Enframing: A way of Revealing in Modern
Technology
5. Human Person Swallowed by Technology
6. Art as a Way out of Enframing