Science, Technology and Society Midterm
Destiny is
The Human Person flourishing in terms of Science
and Technology
At the end of this unit, the students are expected to:
1. Explain modern technology and its role in human
flourishing
2. Discuss the Question Concerning Technology.
3. Understand the relationship of science and technology
in human flourishing.
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.
Branches of Philosophy
1. Natural Philosophy- explores the big questions of
“life, the universe and everything” and involves
understanding how the universe works, but also
thinking about the philosophical ramifications of these
great theories.
2. Moral Philosophy- contemplates what is right and
wrong. It explores the nature of morality and examines
how people should live their lives in relation to others.
3. Metaphysical philosophy- examines the fundamental
nature of reality, including the relationship between
mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and
between potentiality and actuality.
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.
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
 Human Flourishing The Good Life

At the end of this unit, the students are expected to: At the end of this unit, the students are expected to:

1. Identify different concepts of human flourishing. 1. Define the good life.

2. Relate human flourishing to the progress of science
and technology.
3. Critique human flourishing vis-a vis the progress of
science and technology.
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.
2. Understand the concept of the good life.
3. Examine shared concerns that make-up the good
life.
A PUZZLING PROBLEM
• People want to be healthy but many consume
junk food
• People want to be happy but many do things
that make themselves miserable

(Seligman, Steen, Park and Peterson, 2005), stated that
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.
According to Aristotle, there is an end of all the actions
that we perform which we desire for itself. Flourishing
is the greatest good of human endeavors and that
toward which all actions aim. The good is what is good
for purposeful and goal-directed entities. He presented
the various popular conceptions of the best life for
human beings; (1) a philosophical life, (2).life of
pleasure and (3) a life of political activity.
Eudamonia means good spirit is a property of one’s life
when considered as a whole. It is formally egoistic in
that a person’s normative reason for choosing particular
actions stems from the idea that he must pursue his own
good or flourishing. It also implies a divine state of
being that humanity is able to strive toward and
possibly reach.
• Most things that taste good are probably bad
for you.
• Most things that give you thrill are probably
bad for you too.
What is the good life?
• People have different ideas of what
constitutes the good life.
• Wrong pursuits may lead to tragic
consequences.
• Correct pursuits may lead to flourishing.
ARISTOTLE (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.

Happiness is “doing well” and” living well”. It is a Nicomachean Ethics and Modern
pleasant state of mind. Concepts

Eudaimonia- Eu-good, daimon- spirit= good

Verbally there is a very general agreement; for both the
life
general run of men and people of superior refinement
say that is ( Eudaimonia), and identify living well and Good life- happiness and virtue
faring well with being happy; but with regard to what (
Eudaimonia) is they differ, and the many do not give Virtue- intellectual and moral
the same account as the wise… (Nicomachean Ethics The 4 Pillar of the Good life
1095a17).
• Health, wealth, love and happiness
Epicurus identifies that the eudaimon life is the
life of pleasure maintains that life of pleasure THE HAPPINESS PURSUIT
coincides with the life of virtue. He understands • Everybody wants more happiness and
Eudaimonia as a more or less continuous experience success.
of pleasure and, also freedom from pain and distress. • It’s good to know how to optimize happiness
and success.
Virtue is only instrumentally related to happiness.
• There is a wide agreement that happiness is
Socrates believed that virtues such as self- the greatest human good.
control, justice, courage, wisdom, piety and related
qualities of mind and soul are absolutely crucial if a RISK FACTORS
• The happiness pursuit becomes one’s
person is to lead a good and happy life. Virtues
ultimate purpose in life.
guarantee a happy life Eudaimonia
• The happiness pursuit is not guided by a
For Plato, Eudaimonia depends on virtue (arête) philosophy of life informed by general
which is depicted as the most crucial and the principles of meaning, spirituality and virtue.
dominant constituent of euddaimonia.
Golden Rule
Pyrrho, founder of Pyrrhonism, a school of
philosophical skepticism that places the attainment of • Confucius: What you do not want done to
yourself, do not do to others.
ataraxia (a state of equanimity) as a way to achieve
• Aristotle: We should behave to others as we
Eudaimonia. Pyrrhonist practice is for the purpose of
wish others to behave to us.
achieving epoch. • Buddhism: Hurt not others with that which
pains thyself.
• Christianity: Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you.
 ➢ They make personal happiness and success by not allowing ourselves to be controlled by
their ultimate end of life without moral our desire for pleasure, or our fear of pain.
compass and without the desire to pursue
inner goodness. THEISM
Disillusion- King Solomon realized the • The belief in the existence of the Supreme
vanity of success long, long ago: The world Being or Deities
will never be enough: “The eye is not
satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with • Describes the classical conception of God.
hearing” ( Eccl.1:8)
➢ It takes more and more to reach the same • The ultimate basis of happiness is the
level of happiness- addiction, money etc. communication with God
➢ Nothing in this world can fill the spiritual
• Monotheism- Christianity, Judaism, Islam,
vacuum within us.
Sikhism, Zoroastrianism
➢ Dreams are often broken when reality
strikes.

FATE AND CIRCUMSTANCE

➢ Bad things happen to good people
➢ Reversal of fortune
➢ For some people, most days are bad days.
(poverty)

Living an authentic life means living with deep

acceptance on the facticity of death resulting to a life
lived-Heidegger

The unexamined life is not worth living for-Socrates

The Holistic Approach

good people, good community and world peace=

good life

MATERIALISM

A form of philosophical monism which holds that

matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and Humanism
that all things, including mental aspects and
• A school of thought espouses the freedom of
consciousness are results of material interactions.
man to carve his own destiny and to legislate
❑ The first materialists were the atomists in his own laws, free from the shackles of a
Ancient Greece. God that monitors and controls.

❑ Democritus and Leucippus led a school
whose primary belief is that the world is
made up of and is controlled by the tiny
invisible units in the world called atomos or
seeds.
❑ Atomos simply comes together randomly to
form the things in the world.
• Is a philosophical and ethical stance that
emphasizes the value and agency of human
beings, individually and collectively.
• Refers to nontheistic life stance centered on
human agency and looking to science rather
than revelation from a supernatural source to
understand the world.

Classification of Materialism The Good Life is a Balance Life

1. Naïve materialism ✓ A single-minded pursuit is not always

2. Dialectical materialism beneficial.
3. Metaphysical materialism
✓ Active engagement needs to be balanced by
Hedonism rest.

Is a school of thought that argues that the
pursuit of pleasure and intrinsic goods are
the primary or most important goals of
human life.
➢ A hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure
(pleasure minus pain) but when having
finally gained that pleasure, happiness
remains stationary.
➢ “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow
we die.”
Stoicism
▪ Another school of thought led by Epicurus.
▪ The stoics espoused the idea that to generate
happiness, one must learn to distance oneself
and be apathetic.
✓ Exclusive love needs to be balanced by
greater love.
✓ Achievement needs to be balanced by
acceptance.
✓ Self-transcendence needs to be balanced by
fair treatment.
No one can deny the fact that science and
technology has a profound impact on how
modern man thinks and appreciates matter. It
can be concretely seen in the present
conditions of man in the society. The desire
to feel satisfaction of research and
development through genetic engineering,
cloning and the likes opened endless doors
for skeptics.

▪ The path to happiness for humans is found in

accepting this moment as it presents itself,