SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY, Assignments of Science education

Download SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY and more Assignments Science education in PDF only on Docsity! How is the human person revealed in modern technology? Answer: First, the essence of technology is not something we make; it is a mode of being, or of revealing. This means that technological things have their own novel kind of presence, endurance, and connections among parts and wholes. They have their own way of presenting themselves and the world in which they operate. The second point is that technology even holds sway over beings that we do not normally think of as technological, such as gods and history. Third, the essence of technology as Heidegger discusses it is primarily a matter of modern and industrial technology. And fourth, for Heidegger, technology is not simply the practical application of natural science. Instead, modern natural science can understand nature in the characteristically scientific manner only because nature has already, in advance, come to light as a set of calculable, orderable forces — that is to say, technologically. Human beings too are now exchangeable pieces. A forester "is today positioned by the lumber industry. Whether he knows it or not, he is in his own way a piece of inventory in the cellulose stock" delivered to newspapers and magazines. But the essence of technology does not just affect things and people. It "attacks everything that is: Nature and history, humans, and divinities." Modern machines are therefore not merely more developed, or self-propelled, versions of old tools such as water or spinning wheels. Technology's essence "has already from the outset abolished all those places where the spinning wheel and watermill previously stood." Given this view of technology, it follows that any scientific account obscures the essential being of many things, including their nearness. 2. What do you think constitutes human flourishing? Answer: A human being's flourishing requires the rational use of his individual human potentialities, including his talents, abilities, and virtues in the pursuit of his freely and rationally chosen values and goals. An action is considered to be proper if it leads to the flourishing of the person performing the action. Human flourishing is defined as 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. When ideas and projects emerge in profusion, then there is "human flourishing". It encompasses the uniqueness, dignity, diversity, freedom, happiness, and holistic well-being of the individual within the larger family, community, and population. Achieving human flourishing is a life-long existential journey of hopes, achievements, regrets, losses, illness, suffering, and coping. Human flourishing is the reward of the virtues and values and happiness is the goal and reward of human flourishing. Self-direction involves the use of one's reason and is central and necessary for the possibility of attaining human flourishing, self-esteem, and happiness.