Technology and Gabriel Marcel :: Philosophy Essays

Technology and Gabriel Marcel lift I present the arguments of Gabriel Marcel which are intended to overcome the potentiall(a)y negative impact of technology on the human beings. Marcel is concerned with forgetting or rejecting human reputation. His perspective is metaphysical. He is concerned with the attitude of the mere technician who is so immersed in technology that the values which promote him as an authentic soulfulness with human dignity are discredited, omitted, denied, minimized, overshadowed, or displaced. He reviews the various losings in ontological values which curtail the full realization of the human person in his dignity. The impact of technology leads too often to a loss of the sense of the mystery of being and self-importance, authenticity and integrity, the concrete and the existential, right and dialogue, freedom and lover, humanity and community, fidelity and creativity, the natural and the transcendent, commitment and virtue, respect of the self and responsi veness to others, and especially of the spiritual and the sacred. Thus, the task of the philosopher is to be a watchman, un veilleur, on the alert for a hopeful resolution of the human predicament.. Technology as the ever-present dynamic factor affecting our daily lives and transforming our contemporary cultivation could be described as the rationally created artificial world of learnable operable rules, methods, recipes, and skills furnishing a complex of universally available standardized means utilise automatically to attain predetermined goals in any variety of endeavors with to a greater extent mastery, more efficiency, more productivity, more predictability, more durability, and more practicality. (1) Technology, under all its forms, dominates every aspect of our lives by making it possible for us to prepare any physical or mental activity dealing with domestic, social, political, economic, medical exam and aesthetic concerns, facilitating means of transportation and comm unication, enhancing conditions of work and play, and helping in harnessing the forces of nature and in transforming raw material. (2) The advent and progress of technology as it becomes a global all-encompassing phenomenon appears to be both a blessing in the way it improves the human condition in its efforts at coping with intent and the world and as a tragedy in its destructive expiration as it is affecting the physical introduction and impacting on the future of humanity. (3) It lessens the hardship, the suffering, and the discouragement in the face of overwhelming odds in mastering the universe and achieving chosen goals and enhances self-mastery, higher achievements and hope in performing essential tasks and chores demanded or chosen for survival or human flourishing.