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... it does not interfere with our understanding of our being and essence. We could to easily get caught up in our devises and let them rule our lives. Heidegger feels it would be a supreme danger for them to define our being. The saving power would be our understanding of our being and using those gadgets only as means to their end.
I think Heidegger would not respond favorably to our technology of mass media and electronic communications. Our society seems to see our technological advances as goals in their life. Materialism has spread throughout the earth. People are compared to one another by what they own and the its worth.
Human identity and being seem to be affected by our present technology. Our technology is so advanced; Heidegger would hope that it would be used to further our understanding of self. Jurgen Habermas Habermas begins by describing his philosophical anthropology, namely his species interest. He has the basic idea that you cannot know a culture from the outside; you must know it internally. Social science is an understanding of a culture, and this is imperative for the hermeneutic and natural sciences. Information provided by the strictly empirical sciences can be incorporated in the social-life world only through its technical utilization, as technical knowledge, serving the expansion of our power of technical control. (Habermas 52) Technology must apply to some human understanding.
It must apply to the life-world. Habermas sees a problem between the communication of scientists and humanists. Through history, he states this theory of necessary truth, and says that Modern science becomes technical knowledge, which speeds up life. These lead to many practical problems. Practical problems for Habermas are political problems.
Science must be in some contact with practical knowledge. The natural sciences express the 'cognitive interest in technical control over objectified processes. The historical-hermeneutical sciences gain knowledge in a different methodological framework (Habermas 53). Habermas also poses the theory of knowledge-constitutive human interests. He differentiates three primary generic cognitive areas in which human interest generates knowledge. These areas determine categories relevant to what we interpret as knowledge.
That is, they are termed knowledge constitutive -- they determine the mode of discovering knowledge and whether knowledge claims can be warranted. These areas define cognitive interests or learning domains, and are grounded in different aspects of social existence -- work, interaction and power (Class Notes). Pervasive computing taking over all aspects of our society spells immediate trouble for Habermas. Being alone in our heads, contemplation and reflection, are important for our being, and they lead us to a greater understanding of self. Pervasive computing damages the knowledge-constitutive, and interferes with our learning domains.
Habermas wants us connected with science. The article, though, explains otherwise. Modern electronic technology seems to be cutting us away from scientific discovery and thought. Technology is used as means to power, and Habermas sees this as a problem. He rejects the technocratic model of democracy and science relationship.
Habermas seeks equality in our social system so that all will use our advanced technology equally and that we gain a greater understanding of the sciences. We must not use as a means to power, as Marx does. Marx equates the practical insight of a political public with successful technical control. He did not reckon with the possible emergence at every level of a discrepancy between scientific control of the material conditions of life and a democratic decision-making process. (Habermas 58) Herbert Marcuse Marcuse looks at technology as a Marxist. He states how the apparatus (Whatever particular new technological device it may be) is controlling our life -- it is a new form of control. Machines were created in order to free people from work, thus giving them time to pursue other cultural and intellectual pleasures.
If the productive apparatus could be organized and directed toward the satisfaction of the vital needs, its control might well be centralized; such control would not prevent individual autonomy, but render it possible. (Marcuse 2) The individual is no longer as controlled by the need to work in order to survive. The machine now controls the material and intellectual culture, which the machine freed us into. For example, the media controls our needs by creating false needs, such as the need to relax or to have fun. Since we identify ourselves according to these needs which are false, it shows that we are unaware of the control technology has on us, which shows that we have lost our individuality and conscience.
In other words, we have become alienated, not because we fail to conform, but because we adapt to technological changes uncritically, without considering possible consequences an apparatus can impose upon us (Marcuse 2 - 4). Marcuse believes that in order to halt this control technology has over us, we need to transcend, or look at things from the outside as an observer rather than from the inside as a participant, and realize the consequences and results technology can and have had. This is opposite of Habermas thinking, which says that we should start from the inside to understand technology. Marcuse does not seem hopeful that this will happen though. Gleicks article on Technology would be hopeful to Marcuse.
Our present technology is a well-oiled machine, and has an enormous power over our society. The technical system will define a society. Technology becomes the ruling structure, and our society can only be changed through that structure. Our computerized world is leading to a new age of living and understanding of being.
For Marcuse, Gleicks description of our society is our model for living. In conclusion, Gleicks has described a world of pervasive computing. At every turn, it seems we depend on a complex electronic devices for our survival. Technological advances will blossom into a world that might be unfamiliar.
It might even lead us to inhabit other planets. The question is, will technology distract us from our understanding of self or lead us to a greater understanding of self? We can use technology as a tool for understanding, or as a means to living. It is our choice.
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Research essay sample on Technological Advances Greater Understanding
