Dasein” which literally means “being there” focuses on the “mode of existence”
Eudemonia is consists of Greek words “eu” which means “good” and “daemon” which means “spirit”.
Pre-Industrial Age (Before 1700s) - About 2.5 million years before writing was developed, technology
began with the earliest hominids who used stone tools, which they may have used to start fires, hunt,
and bury their dead.
- Cave Paintings (35000BC)
- Clay Tablets (2400BC)
Industrial Age (1700s to 1930s) - The Industrial Age is a period of history that encompasses the changes
in economic and social organization that began around 1760 in Great Britain and later in other countries,
characterized chiefly by the replacement of hand tools with power-driven machines such as the power
loom and the steam engine, and by the concentration of industry in large establishments.
- Typewriter (1800)
- Telephone (1876)
- Telegraph- communications system in which information is transmitted over a wire through a
series of electrical current pulses.
- Punchcards
- Mechanical Calculator
- The Babbage Engine
The electronic age began when electronic equipment and large technologies, including computers came
into use. The invention of the transistor ushered in the electronic age. People harnessed the power of
transistors that led to the transistor radio, electronic circuits, and the early computers. In this age, long
distance communication became more efficient.
- 1st programmable digital computer
- 1st electronic digital computer
- Electromechanical computer
- Transistor
- Television
- Transistor Radio
- UNIVAC commercial computer
- 1st computer game- spacewar
- Microprocessor
- First Internet – ARPNET
- Floppy disk
Information Age - People advanced the use of microelectronics with the invention of personal
computers, mobile devices, and wearable technology. Moreover, voice, image, sound and data are
digitalized. We are now living in the information age.
- PORTABLE COMPUTERS- laptops(1980), smartphones, tablets(1993) – use as a medium for
communication, can store and spread information efficiently.
“It has become appallingly obvious that technology has exceeded our humanity.” – Albert Eintein
Humanity - A virtue associated with basic ethics of altruism derived from human condition.
The Future Of Humanity ( Nick Bostrom, 2009):
1.Extinction
2.Recurrent Collapse
3.Plateau
4.Post Humanity
“ Achieving happiness and man's own desire and needs commonly gives essence for living a good life.
In particular, moral decency and goodness, authenticity, mental health, self-fulfillments, and
meaningfulness describes it .” – Martin (2012)
“ Every human being aspires to live a good life. Conversely, man's idea of “good life” differs in many
dimensions.” – Dotson (2012)
“GOOD” Is commonly used interchangeably with the term “RIGHT”
Taking the right action means correctly applying a norm, premise, presupposition, rule, standard, or law.
This explains that the term “right” reasons are being used to justify the principle and its application.
According To Aristotle, The good is what is good for purposeful, goal-directed entities. He defines the
good proper to human being as the activities in which the life functions specific to human beings are
most fully realized.
ACTING RIGHTLY means doing the right thing based on the voice of conscience, otherwise, feeling of
guilt, self-reproach, and remorse will be felt. It follows that a person, as a human being, has his own
consciousness, of function, survival, and means of having the life he envisioned. Thus, considering the
aspect of human being nature, the term “good” denotes a more objective meaning of “a state or way of
being.”
“ The unexamined life is not worth living for”, the idea of worthwhile living
should be filtered with experience and vice versa.” – Socrates
STEVE MUELLER (2016)
THE FOUNDER OF PLANET OF SUCCESS defined the term as: a (desirable) state that is primarily
characterized by a high standard of living or the adherence to ethical and moral laws. As such, the term
can both be understood as the quest for wealth, material possessions or luxuries and the quest to create
a worthwhile, honest and meaningful existence.
MARTIN HEIDEGGER
An existentialist philosopher, also has a different view on the aspect of life. He dealt more on how we
live an “authentic life” rather dealing with the “good life”. For Heidegger, living an authentic life means
living with deep acceptance on the facticity of “death” and resulting to a “life lived according to what it
has clearly decided as its meaning and purpose”.
Timbreza (2013)
On the other hand, man's varied ethical foundations may also differentiate the idea of good life. Some
may define it through attaining pleasure (hedonism); others may relate it to peace of mind through
minimizing desires and passions (stoicism) and some views are based on professing moderate pleasure,
which for them, “anything that is taken in excess is bad” (epicureanism)
Philosophy- The study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence,
knowledge, values, reason, mind and language.
MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1889-1976) - German philosopher whose work is associated with phenomology
and existentialism. He begins “The Question Concerning Technology”.
TECHNOLOGY AS A REVEALING WAY
- Technology is a means to an end
- Technology is a Human Activity
1.Causa Materialis or the Material Cause (-silver)
2. Causa Formalis or the Formal Cause (-form or shape)
3. Cuasa Finalis or the Final Cause (-the purpose)
4. Causa Efficiens or the Efficient Cause (-agent: silversmith)
ENFRAMING: WAY OF REVEALING INMODERN TECHNOLOGY
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.
Smith (2012) shared that, we can’t turn to science for an answer because in the first place, science
identified human with varied opinion and limited evidence.
According to Heidegger, it was originally the fundamental question of philosophy, which was pursued by
the ancient Greek philosophers but later on neglected, if not forgotten, in Western philosophy.
Furthermore, he argued that asking for the meaning of the term “being” doesn’t suggest that the
“inquirer” has no idea about it because in the first place, the meaning of “being” is associated with the
concept of existence, which means that the “inquirer” already has the idea on the term “however vague
or incomplete”. The “inquirer” obviously refers to “man” as “being”, focuses to the “what” of human
existence.
Heidegger used the term “dasein” which literally means “being there” focuses on the “mode
of existence” or the “who” of “Dasein”.
Aristotle -Aristotle’s teachings suggest that each man’s life has a purpose and that the function of one’s
life is to attain that purpose.
- Aristotle believed that human beings have a natural desire and capacity to know and understand
the truth, to pursue moral excellence, and to instantiate their ideals in the world through action.
- Furthermore, these actions are geared towards one’s proper and desired end-flourishing,
happiness or eudemonia.
Eudemonia
- meaning “the state of having good indwelling spirit; a good genius”.
- (also known as Eudaemonism) is a Greek word, which refers to state of having a good indwelling
spirit of being in a contented state of being healthy, happy and prosperous.
Epicurus (born 341 B.C) was a Greek philosopher who contradicted the metaphysical
philosophers. He believed that balance and temperature were created space for happiness.
His view is not more of how happiness can be defined but more on theory about the real source to
experience it.
Friedrich Nietzche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher and cultural critic who published
intensively in the 1870s and 1880s. He is known for his criticisms on psychological analyses that
resulted to opposing ideas on the people’s received ideas. As expected, Nietzche viewed happiness
in a different way. For him happiness is an “ideal state of laziness”. Laziness for him is described as
to not have any worries or distress in life.
