SCITES030-MIDTERMS

MODULE 5: TECHNOLOGY AS A WAY OF REVEALING

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

Analysis:
Technological products as extension of the contemporary human’s life.

Human Person as a Being Who is Rational and Free

-The Vitruvian Man

I. 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.
 Our intelligence, freedom, and creativity are 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.
 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.

II. 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?
 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.
 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.
 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 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 judgment 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 Enflaming 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.

MODULE 6: HUMAN FLOURISHING

Science and Technology: Avenue for Finding What’s Next
 The search for the best life is a common pursuit among humans.
 Throughout history, humans look for the best way to live and to flourish as a society.
 This drive to live and flourish is filled in by technology.
 Technology as the application of science is an important way humanity uses in order to discover improvements and to
find other means that make human life flourish.

Ways of Being-With Technology

 Carl Mitcham, an American thinker, in his essay Three Ways of Being-With Technology, proposes that there are different
ways humanity sees and relates with technology.
 This is his way of addressing the issue whether humanity shapes technology or it is technology that inevitably has a
significant influence on how humanity lives.
 For Mitcham, all living humans are necessarily in events of life where we are situated. Because of this, we necessarily
react to our situation which means that we are affected by this at the same time we can also affect the situation.

a) Ancient Skepticism
 Humans see any technology as dangerous until it is proven to be good.
 Many ancient Greeks were suspicious of technology in the attainment of human flourishing.
 They thought that to trust in technology means to turn away from faith from the gods and instead focus on the trust to
the accuracy of technology.
 They also believed that personal excellence and societal care would be weakened through technical affluence and the
inevitable changes it would bring.
 Humans see any technology as dangerous until it is proven to be good.
 Many ancient Greeks were suspicious of technology in the attainment of human flourishing.
 They thought that to trust in technology means to turn away from faith from the gods and instead focus on the trust to
the accuracy of technology.
 They also believed that personal excellence and societal care would be weakened through technical affluence and the
inevitable changes it would bring.

b) Enlightenment Optimism
 Unlike the ancient skepticism which does not trust technology, enlightenment optimism sees technology as inherently
good while the evils that go with it are only accidental in character since they are only effects of the misuse of
technology.
 There is so much suffering in this world and humans have the ability to stop these sufferings through technology.
 On the other hand, those who are unproductive are punishing themselves with a kind of no-good existence which
could have been eradicated had they been productive through the practice of technology.

c) Romantic Uneasiness
  Technology is viewed as one with nature which is evolving into something that can be liberated through the will
power of humans.
 However, those who have this uneasiness toward technology recognize the possibility of the often negative results
when human will liberates technology.
 Those who have this uneasiness believe that there is a bondage of humans to technology but they have a hard time
grasping on the real situation.

 They do not easily trust to developments because they feel that something can go wrong anytime and believe that the
human will is not totally inclined to do what is good.

 They also view the machine as an inferior form of life and do not want to compare living as like a machine.

 Imagination is important for them and they consider science as automatic and boring and does not direct humans
toward the sublime and the feeling of awe and wonder of the mysterious and the beyond.

Technology and the Dynamics of the Western Thought

Thinker of Group Sophists Socrates Plato Aristotle Epicureans Stoic

Main idea Sophists thought He was a critic of He rejected the Taught of the idea of Epicurus taught his Started by Phoenician
that people should the sophists. idea of democracy the Golden Mean. He students that named Zeno. Taught
use knowledge to Socrates believed as a form of believed observation happiness was the that happiness came
improve there is an absolute government. Plato and comparison goal in the life. from following reason
themselves. They right or wrong. believed that the were necessary to not emotions.
believed there was philosopher-kings gain knowledge.
no absolute right or should rule.
wrong.
Important Sophists developed He created the He described his He wrote over 200 The way to be happy Emotions come and
Contribution the art of public Socratic Method of ideal vision of how books on philosophy was to seek out go and are unreliable.
speaking debate. teaching (learning government works and science. He continual physical Using reason and
new things simply in his book divided all pleasures. It also being stable is
by asking questions Republic. governments into 3 meant a life free superior as it leads to
and considering basic types. from worry and to fewer bad times.
different options.) some extent
responsibility.
Influence on Today The importance of His methods He introduced the His writings helped Today epicurean Today, Stoic is used
their public influenced the way idea that shape our means the love of to9 describe people
speaking can be teachers interact government should constitution. physical pleasures who are not greatly
seen today in with their students. be fair and just. such as good food affected by joy or
political debates and comfortable grief. Stoics put duty
between surroundings. above feelings or
candidates. comfort.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

Medieval Philosophy

Medieval Philosophy is the philosophy in the era now known as medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the
fall if the Western Roma Empire in the fifth century AD to the Renaissance in the sixteenth century.

Essentially “monotheistic”

From a state of polytheism to a belief in a one and only God here is the center of man’s life.

Medieval philosophy is not to be separated from theology.

Medieval Period

500 AD – 1400 AD

 Educational goals: develop religious commitment, knowledge, and ritual, establish social order, prepare for appropriate
roles.
 Students: Male children of upper class, girls and women entering religious community ages 7-20
 Instructional methods: memorizing and recitation in lower schools, text analysis and discussion in higher schools and
universities.
 Curriculum: reading, writing, arithmetic, philosophy, theology, military, and chivalry.
 Agents: Parish cathedral schools, universities, knighthood.
 Influence on education: structure and organization of the university, institutionalization of knowledge.

Modernism Postmodernism
Absolute Relative
Progress Circulation
Fixed Random
Hierarchy Collapse
Authority Contention
Truth No truth
The author The reader
Pro formalism Anti-Formalism

Eudaimonia

Aristotle understands the good as a specific characteristic of each individual.

The natural end of any existing being is its specific and natural function. Let us take for
example plants, plants are beings which have vegetative soul. Beings with vegetative soul
reproduce and grow. If a plant cannot reproduce and cannot grow then it means that it has
not achieved its potential and has not flourished. The same with animals. For Aristotle,
animals have sensitive soul. Unlike plants, animals have the mobility and capacity to feel
physical pain. That is why in the case of an animal who is chained and imprisoned, for Aristotle
this animal cannot experience its best since its mobility is limited. Its function is limited and so
there’s no flourishing of its being.

Aristotle defines the good that is suitable for human as those activities which make us human.
Aristotle defines the good that is suitable for human as those activities which make us human.

Unlike the plants and animals, we are not contented and happy if we just grow, move around and feel pain and pleasure.

We need more than these since we are rational.

Rationality demands that a human’s life must be a life with enough material goods but most especially a life that involves theoretical
inquiry through which we exercise our being rational.

MODULE 7: THE GOOD LIFE

Happiness and the Good Life

 Human flourishing is always associated with happiness.

 Aristotle believes that happiness must just be another term for good, since happiness, like good, is “the fulfillment of our
distinctive function.”
 To attain happiness, it is necessary to act what is in congruence with Right Reason.
 That is why there is a need to develop moral virtues through good habits because the practice of these perfects the rational
part of our soul.

The Golden Mean and the Practice of Virtue

 The rational soul must be in control of the humans’ appetite and passion in order for these lower parts not to control our
actions.
 The proper way for the rational soul to intervene is through the effort to practice virtuous ways which is the middle ground
of both the extremes.
 E.g. the virtue of temperance

Our body has a certain wisdom to signal us in our intake when is enough, enough.
However, the mean is different from person to person. Each individual has a relative need with the consideration of the
circumstances.

In terms of food, the need of a child is less compared to the need of an adult who labors physically in the farm.
Moreover, there are acts that are naturally evil not in their excess or deficiency but in themselves. Acts like stealing, adultery and
envy are bad in themselves regardless of the circumstances

The practice of moral virtue is the practice of habits that makes us take the middle ground and the avoidance of evil acts like
adultery and stealing.
These acts plus “generosity, good temper, friendship, and self-respect” lead us to be better and live a good life. The happy man lives
a most pleasant life and it is no wonder that people like to live like the happy man.

Aristotle reminds us that though we may have the moral capacity but it is not a guarantee that we cannot go wrong.
There are so much possibilities in life that even our potential goodness may be set aside.
He gives an example of a seedling which has the potential to be a tree. Under different circumstances, the seedling may perish
earlier not achieving into a full-grown tree but it can never be robbed from the seedling the potential to become a tree.

In our case our nature is characterized by being rational. Rationality entails deliberation and choice. Our potential is achieved in
knowing what to do and deliberating about it and choosing to do it.
For Aristotle, it is not enough to know what is right to be right. What is right for him is knowing that it is right and choosing to do it.

But Aristotle adds that human nature is not only about rationality.
We have vegetative and appetitive souls.
 When we practice virtue and exercise our rationality we do not deny the other capacities. We read, feed our spirit and practice
virtues but we do not forget also to eat and sleep and take care of our body.

The end, goal, purpose (or meaning) of human life is to live well.
We live a good life by accumulating, over the course of our lives, all the real goods (not just the apparent) that correspond to our
natural needs.
We increase our chances of having good lives by cultivating good habits and bit of luck.

The most important moral virtues or habits are moderation, courage, and justice.

Moderation keeps us from overindulging in pleasure or seeking too much of the limited goods.
Courage is having the disposition to do what it takes to live a good life.
Justice is the virtue that allows us to have friends and enjoy the benefits of cooperation.

Other Perspectives of Living the Good Life:

1. Epicureanism
2. Stoicism
Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle. Some things are withing your control.
And some things are not. -Epictetus
3. Others find meaning in living through religion and the faith that there is a Creator who plans well the universe for humans
to enjoy.
 The Creator is the beginning of everything and everything should go back to the Creator.
The good life should be in accordance with the plan of the Creator.
 It is the duty of humans to know the ways in which the Creator has planned everything in order to find peace
and live the good life prepared and planned by the good Creator.
 Others live their life in a deistic way, believing that there’s a creator who created all things but as humans we
need to live our life without depending on this creator.
process is easy
4. Another perspective of living the good life is through humanism.
 Humanism focuses on “human dignity, beauty, and potential.”
 The development of this thought came when some people in Europe tried to get away from religion and from
what they thought as ancient superstition.
 Those who adhere to humanism focus on reason and have tendency to set aside faith.
 Knowledge can only be accepted as fact when it is proven either empirically (through experience) or through
reason. Man can live a good life even without religion and the adherence to faith.

For humanists, humans are free to make laws without consideration of divine commands.
Humans can design their destiny without the thought of grace, without the guidance from God and without the Church.
One thinker who can be associated with humanism and the enlightenment era is Francois-Marie Arouet or widely known as Voltaire.
He asserted that human life and its purpose is not to reach heaven through pious acts and sacrifices but to attain happiness through
the progress of sciences and arts since through sciences and arts humans can attain what their nature is destined.

MODULE 8: WHEN TECHNOLOGY AND HUMANITY CROSS

Human's Capacity: Technology and Its Role

 Human being is made in the image and likeness of God.

 The creator also gives humans as a role that makes us “co-creator” in the journey towards his ultimate plan.
 The idea of technology is rooted in the capacity of humans to do things out of our freedom as co-creators of the Creator
in the pilgrimage of the creation.

Technocratic Paradigm
  Pope Francis in his Encyclical letter Laudato Si
 Human's way of seeing the creation is no longer in the manner which the creator intends.
 Part of concept of technology is that nature can be modified for useful purposes.
 Humanity now takes up technology in a “one dimensional paradigm... that exalts the concept of a subject who, using
logical and rational procedures, progressively approaches and gains control over an external object”.
 Church has been critical to this culture.
 Enframes the resources as mere standing-reserve

The Impersonal Man: Effect of Technocratic Paradigm

 Modern anthropocentrism
 The value of work is part of the vocation of man.
 When humanity surrenders to the view of the technocratic paradigm as the way of seeing things

LOVE PEOPLE, NOT THINGS

USE THINGS, NOT PEOPLE

Yet it must also be recognized that nuclear energy, biotechnology, information technology, knowledge of our DNA, and many other
abilities which we have acquired, have given us tremendous power. Those who have advanced knowledge to these technologies can
have dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world. Never has humanity had such power over itself, yet nothing
ensures that these will be used wisely, particularly when we consider how they are currently being used.

There is a tendency to believe that every increase in power means an increase in progress itself, an advance in security, usefulness,
welfare and vigor. But the contemporary man has not been trained to use power well. The immense technological development has
not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and kindness. Power has been always associated as to
respond from alleged utility and security.

The Globalization of the Technocratic Paradigm

 Man now is seen as the master of all and can manipulate all things through his creative capacity.
 Everything else is there to be possessed, mastered, and manipulated.
 What makes this problem more alarming is that man may even see other men as possessions and things that can be
manipulated and controlled.

Ethics and Technology

 The role of ethics comes in the issue of the globalization and spread of the technocratic paradigm.
 Aristotle upheld moderation to avoid apathy and greed; courage to choose to live a good life over bad; and justice to
consider others in order not to cause them pain and suffering.
 St. Augustine upheld to exercise freedom and creativity to help in the continued existence of the good that the Creator
made.
 Pope Francis upholds each man’s sense of responsibility for all of humankind and the common home, which is the earth.

Disinterested Appreciation and Technology

The spontaneity in doing arts should not be taken for granted, arts reveal the truth.

The appreciation for what is aesthetically delightful also reminds inventors and those people who are in the pursuit of making new
things, that being creative and making new things out of what are those available must not be out of personal interest but more on
the delight of just beholding what is beautiful and what is good for all.

STS AND BALANCE

 Apollo and Dionysus

  Science, Technology, and Ethics
 Technology is a tool and science is the underlying principle use in it. Both should be used to achieve a better society and for
all people to enjoy a good life.

MODULE 9: THE ROLE OF BIODIVERSITY TO THE SOCIETY

Four Components of Biodiversity

1. Species Diversity- The number and abundance of species present in different communities

2. Genetic Diversity- The variety of genetic material within a species or a population.

3. Ecological Diversity- The variety of terrestrial and aquatic

ecosystems found in an area or on the earth.

4. Functional Diversity- The biological and chemical processes such as energy flow and matter recycling needed for the survival of
species, communities, and ecosystems.

Levels of Ecological Organization

a) Cellular Organization

b) DNA and RNA

c) Types of Components in an Ecosystem

 Abiotic factors

 Biotic factors
Importance of Biodiversity

1. Aesthetic and Scientific Value- The value of beauty and scientific discovery cannot be measured, but are extremely important
to life on Earth.
2. Direct Economic Value- Maintaining biodiversity has a direct economic value to humans. Humans depend on plants and
animals for food, clothing, energy, medicine, and shelter.
3. Indirect Economic Value - A healthy biosphere provides many services to humans and other organisms that live on Earth.
(e.g. photosynthesis & water cycle)
4. Recreational Value- Human outdoor activities e.g., fishing, scuba diving, jogging, mountain trekking, plantation, and fruit
harvest. (e.g. Sardines watching in Moalboal, Cebu & Antidesma collettii (Bugnay)
5. Human Health value- Biodiversity can help people find better cure for illness. (e.g. Euphorbia hirta & Aloe vera)
6. Value of Human Rights in biodiversity- Indigenous people can continue to live in their native land.
7. Intrinsic Value
 Biodiversity should be preserved for its own sake.
 Plants and animals have rights to live.
 People rely on wild places and creatures for spiritual fulfillment.
 To be understood, biodiversity should be experienced firsthand in the local environment from a range of views
including scientific, aesthetic, and ethical studies.

Evidence of evolution

a) DNA Structure b) Homologous structure

c ) Fossil Layers d) Similarities of Embryos

e ) Artificial Selection Threats of Biodiversity

1. Contamination of drinking water

2. Pollution
3. Food Safety
4. Deforestation
5. Mining