Human Flourishing in Science and Technology: Technology As Revealing A Mode of
Human Flourishing in Science and Technology: Technology As Revealing A Mode of
Technology as a Mode of
Revealing
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."
POSITIVITY
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.
Human flourishing
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.
=-....
..
•
Meditative thinking
kind of thinking
that thinks the
truth of being,
that belongs to
being and listens
to it.
Science and Technology
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 operated 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 technology, 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 word alètheuein, which means
‘to discover’ – to uncover what was
covered over. Related to this verb is
the independent noun alètheia, 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?