LESSON PROPER

MODULE 5; Human Flourishing in Terms of

Science, Technology and Society

GROUP 1

Human flourishing refers to a state in

which individuals and communities experience
a high level of well-being, fulfillment, and
happiness. It involves not just the absence of
suffering or illness, but the presence of positive
conditions that allow people to live their best
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) is one of the
lives. This includes physical, emotional,
intellectual, social, and spiritual well-being. most significant thinkers and the most
accomplished individual who has ever lived.
Human flourishing encompasses several key Every person currently living in Western
aspects: civilization owes an enormous debt to Aristotle
who is the fountainhead behind every
1. Physical Well-being: Good health, achievement of science, technology, political
physical fitness, and access to
theory, and aesthetics (especially Romantic
healthcare.
2. Emotional Well-being: A sense of art) in today's world. Aristotle's philosophy has
happiness, contentment, purpose, and underpinned the achievements of the
emotional stability. Renaissance and of all scientific advances and
3. Social Well-being: Strong relationships, technological progress to this very day.
social support, and a sense of belonging Aristotle bases the understandability of
and connection to others. the good in the idea of what is good for the
4. Intellectual Well-being: Opportunities
specific entity under consideration. For
for education, learning, creativity, and
intellectual growth. whatever has a natural function, the good is
5. Economic Well-being: Access to therefore thought to reside in the function. The
resources, financial stability, meaningful natural function of a thing is determined by its
work, and economic opportunities. natural end. With respect to living things, there
6. Spiritual Well-being: A sense of are particular ways of being that constitute the
meaning, purpose, and connection to
perfection of the living thing's nature.
something greater, whether through
religion, philosophy, or personal values. According to Aristotle, there is an end of
all of the actions that we perform which we
Human flourishing is about living a life that desire for itself. This is what is known
is rich, meaningful, and balanced across as eudaimonia, flourishing, or happiness,
different dimensions of well-being, allowing which is desired for its own sake with all other
people to reach their full potential and things being desired on its account.
contribute positively to their communities.
Eudaimonia is a property of one's life when
considered as a whole. Flourishing is the
highest good of human endeavors and that
toward which all actions aim. It is success as a
human being. The best life is one of excellent
human activity. Technology as a Way of Revealing
For Aristotle, the good is what is good
for purposeful, goal-directed entities. He
defines the good proper to human beings as
the activities in which the life functions specific
to human beings are most fully realized. For
Aristotle, the good of each species is
teleologically immanent to that species. A
person's nature as a human being provides
him with guidance with respect to how he
should live his life. A fundamental fact of
human nature is the existence of individual
human beings each with his own rational mind
and free will. The use of one's volitional
consciousness is a person's distinctive
capacity and means of survival.
Aristotle thought that it was possible to Martin Heidegger’s in His Definition of
conduct rational research with respect to value. Technology
He saw practical science as an essentially
evaluative or moral science. A practical science Martin Heidegger, a German
is ethical to the extent that it takes into account philosopher, offered a profound and complex
the ethical aspects of the subject being definition of technology in his work "The
studied. Question Concerning Technology" (1954).
Aristotle regarded reality as ordered and Heidegger did not view technology simply as a
taught that order with respect to human affairs collection of tools or machines; instead, he saw
is a project or effort through which people it as a way of revealing, a fundamental mode of
aspire to happiness through the cultivation of human existence that shapes how we
virtues. He asserts that the end of politics is the understand and interact with the world.
good for man. According to Aristotle, the virtue
of prudence is personal, freely pursued, and Heidegger approaches the problem of
changeable according to situations. A prudent technology with the purpose of finding its
action for one individual may not be a prudent essence. The method is that of reducing
action for another person. Nevertheless, the technology to its fundamental being, so that all
integration of freely made prudent and varying problems and aspects thereof may be
actions results in social coordination. He understood. Heidegger pays special attention
believed that economic coordination is to language, frequently referring to the Greek
attainable when persons prudently choose and and Latin origins of the vocabulary he
undertake economic transactions with others. introduces. In this manner, he successively
Aristotle believed that human flourishing reduces the essence of technology to simpler
requires a life with other people. and more basic concepts until its relation to
humankind is apparent. He is particularly fond
of verbs. The essence of modern technology
becomes a type of happening. After laying bare
the nature of modern technology, Heidegger
proceeds to identify the danger and saving Heidegger claims that revealing is
power contained therein. As the "later what "truth" really means. The Greek for
Heidegger," Heidegger believes truth to be revealing, aletheia, is translated
better approachable through poetry, through into veritas, truth, by the Romans. The
art, than by logic or science, and art is the equating of revealing with truth is
essence of the salvation of technology. The pertinent to understanding the danger of
rhetorical form of the article is to carefully technology.
characterize modern technology as a
seemingly insoluble problem, then find the GROUP 2
solution in the problem's very definition.
Explication of Heidegger's reduction of The Danger:
technology will involve a series of definitions Heidegger now separates modern
corresponding to the steps by which he strips technology from previous technology and
technology down to its essence. specifies its peculiar type of revealing. This he
shows to be a danger to humankind. Modern
technology is based on modern physics, which
1. Instrumentality: technology is an is an exact science. It differs from previous
instrument to achieve human ends, technology in that it does not humble itself to
specifically those of building up or natural forces like the windmill to wind. Rather,
arranging. through physics, we can know the energy
Technology is slipping out of stored in nature and we can set upon nature
control and its nature as an instrument and challenge it to release this energy. We
causes frustration and excites the will to mine coal and damn, rivers, thereby controlling
re-master it, which is a large factor in the resources, not merely harvesting them. Objects
growing discomfort with modern then become standing-reserve, ready to
technology. be ordered about by humans.
Humans, however, are not the masters.
We do not control revealing itself. The "real
2. Causality: instruments are designed to shows itself or withdraws". Revealing does not
for the purpose of causing an end. occur beyond humans, but also not decisively
A deeper look into causality or exclusively in us. Thus we respond to "that
reveals that the end is the beginning: a challenging claim which gathers man thither to
cause is that to which something is order the self-revealing as standing-reserve."
indebted and the purpose for which an In this way, we ourselves are standing reserve,
instrument is designed is the primary being challenged to set upon all things,
cause of its coming into being. The including ourselves, that they may be ready to
essence of causality is reduced to an be ordered about. This form of revealing is the
occasioning, that is a bringing forth into essence of modern technology and Heidegger
presencing of something which is not calls it Enframing. Revealing is not only a
presencing, the Greek poiesis. bringing forth, it is a destining, for that which
revealing brings forth, revealing also starts
upon its way. The revealing to us of Enframing
3. Revealing: something is brought forth destines us into the process of Enframing, and
only when it passes from concealment here lies the danger.
into unconcealment; when it is revealed.
 This danger is the danger to the danger of making impossible other destining
freedom of humankind. For Heidegger, revealings, is also a granting and as such gives
"freedom is the realm of the destining that at humankind what we need, but cannot make: a
any given time starts a revealing upon its way". part in the "coming-to-pass of truth" (p.32).
Simply put, freedom is that revealing that Enframing is a type of revealing and seen as
destines more revealings. It is the revealing of such it contains the saving power that is the
the veil from under which revealing comes, as granting of revealing. We must pay attention to
a veil. More simply put, it is the revealing of the the coming to presence of technology, as
fact that more revealings are possible. opposed to the material products of
Enframing destines us to Enframe. technology, and we may see the process of
However, we appear to have such a decisive revealing as opposed to the standing-reserve
role in Enframing that we see ourselves as the as which technology causes things to reveal
masters of the world, the orderers of standing- themselves.
reserve. In fact, we are but one standing-
reserve ordering others because we are The saving power lies in looking into the
employed merely to the purpose of creating extreme danger. We must look past the
standing-reserve. When this purpose is technological toward the essence of
governing our activity, we are so engrossed in technology, the destining revealing that
ordering and securing standing-reserve that we endangers our freedom. The arising of the
do not recognize Enframing as a revealing. We saving power in this essence is the fact that it
thus lose awareness of our capacity for shows us that mankind belongs to revealing, to
revelation. All objects become forms of the coming to presence of truth. The essence
standing-reserve, and we feel that we of technology is part of the constellation of
encounter only ourselves, but in fact, we do not concealment and unconcealment, in which
encounter our essence, because this essence truth comes to presence. The sight of the
is revelation. Recall that freedom is the saving power, however, is not the same as
revealing of the possibility of more revealings. being saved. In addition to looking into the
When we lose all awareness of revealing in danger, Heidegger suggests a more tangible
general, we lose this also. We continue to path to salvation.
blindly challenge and order standing-reserves.

The Saving Power: Heidegger's definition of technology

The essence of technology contains the goes beyond the practical or functional aspects
extreme danger to humankind by threatening of tools and machines. He sees technology as
a fundamental way in which human beings
the loss of what is most essentially human, our disclose reality, shaping our relationship with
capacity for new revealings. The essence of the world in profound ways. While he
technology is the revealing of Enframing and in acknowledges the potential of technology to
that way, technology's essence is a permanent transform our existence, he warns of its
enduring in the sense of Plato's Ideas (or dangers and urges us to develop a more
Forms). Again, Heidegger returns to language reflective and mindful relationship with it.
and notes that Goethe once equated to endure
Heidegger’s work encourages a deeper
(währen) with to grant (gewähren). He claims philosophical inquiry into how technology
"that which endures most primally out of the affects our understanding of the world and our
earliest beginning is what grants" (p.31). place within it, challenging us to think beyond
Enframing, though it presents the extreme the mere utility of technological advancements.