Human Flourishing in Science and Technology

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SCIETY
General Education – 104
HUMAN FLOURISHING IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Flourishing
 A state where people experience positive emotions, positive psychological

functioning and positive social functioning, most of the time,” living “within an
optimal range of human functioning.”
Human Flourishing
 An effort to achieve self-actualization and fulfillment within the context of a larger

community of individuals, each with the right to pursue his or her own such
efforts.
 Involves the rational use of one’s individual human potentialities, including
talents, abilities, and virtues in the pursuit of his freely and rationally chosen
values and goals.
Human civilizations and the development of science and technology.
 Human person as both the bearer and beneficiary of science and technology.
 Bearer – a person or thing that carries or holds something.
 beneficiary
 human flourishes and finds meaning in the world that he/she builds
 human may unconsciously acquire, consume or destroy what the world has to
offer
Science and Technology
 must be treated as part of human life that needs reflective and meditative
thinking
Reflective Thinking
 feedback
 input
 comments
 reviews
 success
Meditative Thinking
 kind of thinking that thinks the truth of being, that belongs to being and listens to
it.
 Must be examined for their greater impact on humanity as a whole
Technology as a Mode of Revealing
Martin Heidegger
 A German philosopher and a seminal thinker in the Continental tradition of

philosophy.
 Widely acknowledged to be one of the most original and important philosophers
of the 20th century
Heidegger’s View on Technology
 He strongly opposes the view that technology is “a means to an end” or “a

human activity.”
 These two approaches, which he calls, respectively, the “instrumental” and
“anthropological” definitions, are indeed “correct”, but do not go deep enough; as
he says, they are not yet “true.”
 Heidegger points out, technological objects are means for ends, and are built and
opereated by human beings, but the essence of technology is something else
entirely.
 Since the essence of a tree is not itself a tree, he points out, so the essence of
technology is not anything technological.
What, then, is technological, if it is neither a means to an end nor a human

activity?
 Technology, according to Heidegger must be understood as “a way of revealing”

(Heidegger 1977, 12).
 Revealing is his translation of the Greek work aletheuein, which means ‘to
discover’ – to uncover what was covered over. Related to this verb is the
independent noun aletheia, which is usually translated as “truth,” though
Heidegger insists that a more adequate translation would be “un-concealment.”
What is reality?
 According to Heidegger, it is not given the same way in all times and all cultures
(Seubold 1986, 35-6)
 Not something absolute that human beings can ever know once and for all.
 Is relative in the most literal sense of the word – it exists only in relations.
 Inaccessible for human beings. As soon as we perceive or try to understand it, it
is not ‘in itself’ anymore, but ‘reality for us.’
How can technology be ‘a way of revealing?

1. What does this have to do with technology?
2. What does Heidegger mean when he says that technology is “a way of
revealing”?
 Everything we perceive or think of or interact with “emerges out of concealment

into un-concealment,
 By entering into a particular relation with reality, reality is ‘revealed’ in a specific
way.
 Technology is the way of revealing that characterizes our time.
 Technology embodies a specific way of revealing the world, a revealing in which
humans take power over reality.
 While the ancient Greeks experienced the ‘making’ of something as ‘helping
something to come into being’ – as Heidegger explains that modern technology
is rather a ‘forcing into being’.
 Technology reveals the world as raw material, available for production and
manipulation.
Why is Technology not a Human Activity?
 According to Heidegger, there is something wrong with the modern technological

culture we live in today. In our ‘age of technology’ reality can only be present as a
raw material (as a ‘standing reserve’). This state of affairs has not been brought
about by humans; the technological way of revealing was not chosen by humans.
 Rather, our understanding of the world – our understanding of ‘being’, of what it
means ‘to be’ – develops through the ages. In our time ‘being’ has the
characteristic of a technological ‘framework’, from which humans approach the
world in a controlling and dominating way.
 Every attempt to climb out of technology throws us back in. The only way out for
Heidegger is “the will not to will’.
 We need to open up the possibility of relying on technologies while not becoming
enslaved to them and seeing them as manifestations of an understanding of
being.
References:
 https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/philosophy-of-technology/O/steps/26314
 Heidegger, Martin. “The question concerning technology (W. Lovitt, Trans.) The
question concerning technology: and other essays (pp. 3-25).’ (1977).
 Seubold, Gunter. Heideggers Analyse der neuzeitlichen Technik. Freiburg-
Munchen: Alber, 1986.
PHILIPPINE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCE
STUDIES
In Consortium with
VP Green Vale Academy
Valencia City, Bukidnon
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

GE-104
1ST Semester
SY 2021-2022
ANSWER SHEETS
Raulyns Pearl Bahian
_____________
Name
BEED 1-A
_____________
Course/Year/Section
Answer the following questions:
1. How does human civilizations and science and technology develop?
 Science is a system of knowledge based on repeatable observation and

experiment. Religion is a system of knowledge based on unverifiable belief.
 Technology is the application of knowledge about nature to practical aims of
human endeavour.
 Technology and science began as parallel developments but became eventually
inseparable.
 Society is the organizational form in which individuals of a species live together.
 Human society is the only evolving society; its structure changes in response to
environmental and economic conditions from the hunter-gatherer society through
the agricultural society to the urban society.
 The development of cities was accompanied by division of labour and by the
development of classes.
 The structure of the basic social unit (family) of the human society evolves in
response to changes of the society, and its role differs between its classes.
 Civilization requires a central institution responsible for the organization of daily
life and an advanced administration.
 Civilization is structure; culture is behaviour.
2. Are you in favor of Heidegger’s view of technology? Why? Or Why not?
Yes I agree, I am favor of Heidegger's view of technology.Why?
It is true that technology it means to an end or human activity. It is creation by human
and that is the truth.But for me I agree that inspite or these downsides of technology
and inventions, our lives have become better. I can’t even imagine the life without them
without car, airplane or phone and Internet, etc. without their support, I couldn’t be who I
am today, I couldn’t be sitting here writing this in another language in a country that Im
living today. We are more efficient and productive in day to day lives and technology is
revolutionary way of improving quality of our lives. It as part of a larger spectrum of
human activity, technological determinism sees technology as the basis for all human
activity.
3. In your own understanding, what do you mean by technology is “a means to an
end” or “a human activity.”
For me technology is "means to an end"
-Technology is the application of science, for some goal or another. That by definition
makes the technology the end itself, but in a broader sense, you could argue that all
science and thus all technology is aimed at improving human life and enjoyment of that
life while simultaneously advancing what is testable and knowable In science. Which
would make technology both the goal and the means by which that goal is reached

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SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SCIETY

General Education – 104

HUMAN FLOURISHING IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

 A state where people experience positive emotions, positive psychological

 An effort to achieve self-actualization and fulfillment within the context of a larger

Human civilizations and the development of science and technology.

Science and Technology

Technology as a Mode of Revealing

 A German philosopher and a seminal thinker in the Continental tradition of

Heidegger’s View on Technology

 He strongly opposes the view that technology is “a means to an end” or “a

What, then, is technological, if it is neither a means to an end nor a human

 Technology, according to Heidegger must be understood as “a way of revealing”

How can technology be ‘a way of revealing?

 Everything we perceive or think of or interact with “emerges out of concealment

Why is Technology not a Human Activity?

 According to Heidegger, there is something wrong with the modern technological

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

1. How does human civilizations and science and technology develop?

 Science is a system of knowledge based on repeatable observation and

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