STS Module 5 PDF

THE HUMAN PERSON FLOURISHING IN TERMS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TECHNOLOGY AS A WAY OF REVEALING Module 5 2  Science and Technology The goal of science is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The goal of technology is to create products that solve problem...

THE HUMAN PERSON FLOURISHING IN TERMS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TECHNOLOGY AS A WAY OF REVEALING Module 5 2  Science and Technology The goal of science is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The goal of technology is to create products that solve problems and improve human life. Technology is the practical application of science. - Ayush Raj 3 Analysis: Technological products as extension of the contemporary human’s life.  ACTIVITY Picture(What have you d0ne in your life?) 1. Do you think the technology used by the person helped him achieve what he/she is expected to do in life? Why or why not? 2. What do you think is the role of science and technology in your life? 5 6 7 Human Person as a Being Who is Rational and Free The Vitruvian Man  Technology as a Product of Human Reason and Freedom ❖ Man is rational and with this rationality comes also his creativity. ❖ This creativity means man has the capacity to innovate whatever are those available and “create” new things which other animals cannot.  St. Augustine and Human Freedom ▪ Freedom is the capacity of choosing what is good and of performing good deeds, because freedom is fixated on the good things, to choose the good things and to reject those which are bad. ▪ Our freedom should make us recognize what appropriate material things that we have to use with freedom and thanksgiving and what we have to love as a final goal. ▪ All material things are to be used but we have to be free enough to recognize that the only person for whom we have to be slaves is God, in whom we find our rest and our final goal.  Technology and the Desire for the Good ❖ Augustine acknowledges that the Supreme Good must be the source of happiness. ▪ Everyone wants to be happy and to live a good life. ▪ The desire for happiness and satisfaction may be expressed in the way humans want comfort, efficiency, security, and peace of mind.  Technology and the Desire for the Good ❖ Our intelligence, freedom, and creativity is our inner desire to attain what is good; hence our inclination to do good is what guides our freedom. ❖ We are then reminded that in order for technology to serve its purpose, our intent in the practice of it must be to do good.  Activity: What are these things for? Commonly Used Main Purpose of the Accessory Reasons Things Making of the Thing that Go with the Main Purpose of the Thing 1. Cellular Phones 2. Cars 3. Watches 4. Light Bulbs 5. Paper  The things we desire for a specific purpose may contain other elements that might make us forget their real purpose. The same with the Highest Good; we can even question if we are making progress in attaining it because of the distraction caused by the lesser goods. Technology has combined the camera, phone, internet browser, flashlight, calculator, and a library into one powerful device. The real purpose of having a phone has been drowned by other features. Technology as a way for us to ascend towards the Highest Good has now become a distraction that may hinder from reaching the Good.  Augustine thinks that we cannot be happy unless we attain the object of our desire but it is not a guarantee either that we can really be happy if we get what we desire. Not all our desires guarantee happiness. Certain desires and certain things may even bring us to misery if we desire what is not really the Good. This can happen to technology too. Some technologies distract us from reaching the real Good, they may even lead us away from what really matters. Technology as a Way of Revealing Martin Heidegger and Technology ❖ For Heidegger, presently, we tend to be chained to technology. ❖ There is also a pervasive instrumentalist interpretation of technology as a human activity that provides the means to our ends. ❖ But this interpretation opens up to a deeper question, namely, what is the essence of technology? And if it is instrumental then what is its end? Martin Heidegger and Technology × Heidegger considers that technology involves the bringing- forth (poiesis) and suggests that with technology comes a distinctive mode of disclosiveness, or revealedness, that is, a kind of ontological truth (aletheia). × Our activities, the things we encounter and deal with, and even we ourselves all seem to happen together in a “world” where everything is set up and “enframed” as part of a stockpile of available materials and personnel – “standing- reserve” (Bestand), always ready for technologically determined purposes. Martin Heidegger and Technology × Enframing (Gestell), then, is the “essence” of the technological – essence, not in the traditional sense of a permanent and unchangeable character or set of properties, but in the sense of a predominant way of disclosing meaning which “gives” the instrumentally useful its familiar “instrumental” sense. × Everything is seen as calculable and just mere instruments in order to attain what is intended as an end. × This is the danger of the age. Martin Heidegger and Technology × But where the danger is, there is also the “saving power”. × This saving power is still through enframing but in another way, namely, the possibility of opening up a “FREE relation with technology.” Free here means not conditioned by measure and the rigid ways of science and calculations. × A free relation with technology would thus have to happen “in a realm that is, on the one hand, a kin to the essence of technology and, on the other, fundamentally different from it.”  Calculative and Meditative Thinking × Calculative thinking is seemed favored in the modern world because of its efficiency and exact or definite answers to questions. × Meditative thinking, on the other hand, is a very important type of thinking for Heidegger than the calculative; it helps us to understand our life’s meaning, placing significance on the individual rather than the collective. × Calculative thinking makes our individual lives less important. It implies that there is a way to categorize everyone and everything in the world, taking away any real free will. × Calculative thinking, then—if taken as the entire truth—makes us entirely mechanistic. It suggests that there is complete, objective truth and order in the world. There would be no free will, because every action would fit into a greater structure. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche on Art Aside from the use of reason, arts unveils the truth. × We have art so that we may not perish by the truth. × Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest. × Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it. Immanuel Kant on Disinterested Pleasure and Aesthetics × Therefore, a true judgement of beauty is disinterested; it is not based on any known concept, simply a sensation of unconstrained, completely detached pleasure. Along these same lines, a beautiful object is purposive, containing the property or quality of purposefulness, without actually having a concrete purpose. The Use of Art as a Way Out of the Enframing of Modern Technology × The “pattern” followed by art is not the rigid pattern that follows much the calculative thinking. Art is spontaneously expressed and is open. Thanks! Any questions? 25