Topic 5 Human Flourishing

HUMAN
FLOURISHING
IN SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
from Latin, florere
to bloom, blossom, flower
flourish
flourishing
TO GROW OR DEVELOP SUCCESSFULLY
a state where people experience positive emotions,

psychological and social functioning, most of the time, living
"within an optimal range of human functioning."
2
Human Flourishing
in Science & Technology
» The progress of human civilizations throughout history
mirrors the development of science and technology.
» The human person, as both the bearer and the

beneficiary of science and technology, flourishes and
finds meaning in the world that he builds.
3
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.
4
● The manufacture and utilization of
equipment, tools, and machines, and the
needs and ends they serve, all belong to
what technology is.
● The whole complex of these contrivances
is technology.
● Technology itself is a contrivance.
CONTRIVANCE
- the use of skill to bring something
about or create something.
- in Latin, it is called instrumentum.
5
The Question Concerning Technology by Martin Heidegger
He OPPOSES the view that:
TECHNOLOGY
“means to an end” “human activity”
a thing that is not valued or refers to how tools,
important in itself but is equipment, and facilities
useful in achieving an were used by humans.
aim/goal.
INSTRUMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL
DEFINITION DEFINITION
6
● These two definitions, are HEIDEGGER’S
indeed “correct”, but do not go
deep enough, as he says, they
are not yet “true.”
VIEW
● He points out, technological
objects are means for ends,
and are built and operated by
human beings, but the essence
of technology is something
else entirely.
7
WHAT THEN, IS
TECHNOLOGY,
IF IT IS NEITHER A
MEANS TO AN END
NOR A HUMAN ACTIVITY?8
TECHNOLOGYAS A
MODE OF
REVEALING
“TRUTH”
HOW CAN TECHNOLOGY
BE A WAY OF REVEALING?
► everything we perceive or think of or interact

with “emerges out of concealment into
unconcealment,
► by entering into a particular relation with
reality, reality is ‘revealed’ in a specific way.
10
HOW CAN TECHNOLOGY BE
A WAY OF REVEALING?
► 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.
► technology reveals the world as raw material,
available for production and manipulation.
11
Technology
► mode of
understanding
► develops beyond
human control
● means to an end ► the ultimate danger to
● human activity our existence
12
ANCIENT GREEK CONCEPTS
► aletheia – unhiddenness or disclosure
► poiesis – the activity in which a person brings
something into being that did not exist before. (For
Aristotle, it means making or producing something for a purpose.)
► techne – skill, art, or craft

In Heidegger’s work, technology is a poiesis that
discloses or reveals the truth.
13
Technology as a Poiesis making something for a purpose
MODERN TECHNOLOGY
• demands resources from • We no longer need to
nature that are forcibly work with the rhythms of
extracted for human nature since we have learned
consumption and storage. to control it.
• Revealing never comes to an • We order, extract, process,
end. Revealing always make ready for consumption,
happen on our own terms as and store what we have forced
everything is on demand. it to reveal.
14
QUESTIONING AS THE
PIETY OF THOUGHT
• Piety means obedience and submission.
- Submission to our thoughts and reflections.
- It is when we start questioning that we submit
ourselves to our thoughts.
• Questioning leads one to search for his/her place in
the universe and in the grand-scale of things.
15
ENFRAMING
a way of revealing in modern technology
• It is as if nature is put in a box or in a frame so that it
can be better understood & controlled according to
people’s desires.
• Poiesis is concealed in Enframing as nature is viewed
as an orderable and calculable system of
information.
• Modern technology isolates nature and treat it as a
“Standing Reserve”, resource for later utility.
ENFRAMING
a way of revealing in modern technology
• Enframing blocks the truth and destining force us to

create order out of nature which we believe is the
truth.
• This is the danger, not of technology, which itself
cannot be dangerous, but rather of the destining of
revealing itself.
CALCULATIVE THINKING
• one orders and puts a system to
nature so it can be understood
better and controlled.
• It is the more active aspect of
human thought, concerned more
with the doing of a thing than of
considering the possible
consequences.
MEDITATIVE THINKING
• one lets nature reveal itself
to him/her without forcing it.
• It tells us why we should do
or should not do a thing,
beyond the simple
calculative process of
actually doing it.
HUMAN PERSON SWALLOWED
BY TECHNOLOGY
• If we allow ourselves to
get swallowed by
modern technology, we
lose essence of who
we are as beings in this
world.
20
HUMAN PERSON SWALLOWED
BY TECHNOLOGY
• If we cannot let go of the conveniences and profits brought about

by processes and industries that pollute the environment and cause
climate change, then technology has consumed our humanity.
21
HUMAN PERSON SWALLOWED BY TECHNOLOGY
• Heidegger expressed that the various problems brought

about by human’s dependence on technology cannot be
simply resolved by refusing technology altogether.
22
ART AS A WAY OUT OF ENFRAMING
● Enframing tends to block Poiesis.
● In modern technology, the way of revealing
has become challenging.
● Heidegger proposes art as a way out of Enframing.
● Art allows us to see the poetic in nature in reality.
From calculative thinking to meditative thinking.
○ Arts are not merely representations of things
○ New artwork = changes meaning of what it is to
exist is inherently changed. 23
HUMAN
FLOURISHING
IN SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY

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HUMAN

a state where people experience positive emotions,

» The human person, as both the bearer and the

► everything we perceive or think of or interact

► techne – skill, art, or craft

• Enframing blocks the truth and destining force us to

• If we cannot let go of the conveniences and profits brought about

• Heidegger expressed that the various problems brought

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