HUMAN FLOURISHING

• Philosophy


  The study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind and language
• Branches of Philosophy

  • Natural Philosophy
  • Moral Philosophy
  • Metaphysical philosophy
• Moral Philosophy


  This is black and white
• Metaphysical Philosophy


  Who am I?
• This is small decisions that can affect the future
• Martin Heidegger


  German philosopher whose work is associated with phenomenology 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
• The Question Concerning Technology

  1. Examining the relationship between human and technology

  2. Offering two definitions of technology: Instrumental and Anthropological
• Heidegger begins by portraying his investigation of technology as the building of a path
• 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
• He analyses the notion of instrumentality to reach the truth or the essence of technology- it is traced to causality
• Technology


  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
• 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
• Enframing


  The destiny of technology, which is 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
• Dangers of enframing


  • The danger that human being reduces itself to standing reserve and in so appearing to have taken total control encounters nothing any more
  • The danger that the disclosure of the enframing forecloses every other dispensation and conceals that too is a disclosure
• Still the enframing is a disclosure. It involves human being, therefore harbors the possibility of saving power
• Technocratism


  Extreme version of technological optimism
• Doctrine of causality


  • Causa materialis- the material, the matter out of which an object is made
  • Causa formalis-the form, the shape into which the material enters
  • Causa efficiens- which brings about the effect that is finished
  • Causa finalis- end
• There is something concealed, to unconcealed it there is call to concealment and it needs to answer
• Enframing


  A way of revealing in modern technology
• Types of thinking

  • 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
• Aspects of Heidegger's philosophy of technology

  • Technology as a Mode of Revealing
  • Technology as Poesis: Applicable to Modern Technology
  • Questioning as the Piety of Thought
  • Enframing: A way of Revealing in Modern Technology
  • Human Person Swallowed by Technology
  • Art as a Way out of Enframing
• Bringing Forth


  From nothing into something, e.g. planting trees in soil
• Challenging Forth


  Something to nothing, e.g. mining
• 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
• Volcanic eruption

  • Challenging forth
• Coral bleaching

  • Challenging forth
• Planting trees

  • Bringing forth
• Mining

  • Challenging forth