SOCRATES, HEIDEGGER AND HUSSERL ON THE ETHICS OF

SCIENTIFIC TECHNOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT.

Introduction
“Technology and its instruments are appreciated not as extensions of man’s
physical faculties but as participating in his intellectual insight with its
spiritual values” (Mclean, 1984:11).
Technology like any rational work of man has as its effect the achievement of
the destiny of man, which destiny includes the good and happiness of man. So, it is the fruit
of both the spiritual and material life of man. Today however, the interplay of science and
technology stands in great confusion and increasingly assuming paradoxical dimensions,
more purposeful and purposeless, more meaningful and bizarre, and more useful and
destructive. While the achievements in science and technology have served to prolong life,
they have also served to provide resources for its brutal extermination. Science and
technology provide the material ingredients which human development requires though,
happiness, ethical values, spiritual well being and wholesomeness of the human person are no
less needed as important elements of a humane society.
This paper argues here that, scientific technology (i.e. human creativity), interacting
with nature (i.e. natural environment) is not and should not be “a journey outward away from
home but a homecoming”; a discovery of the essence of ourselves on earth, and within our
environment in the world. Such an endeavour is uniquely the function of man whose active
life involves a rational principle; an activity of the soul. Man’s moral action, it is contended,
entails the conscious, rational control and guidance of the irrational part of the soul in its
conception of ideas, and or active creation and use of technique for sustainable humaniniy.
Four philosophers, namely, Socrates, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Herbert
Marcuse shall be our focus as we attempt the evolution of an ethical approach to sustainable
human environment.
Socrates and Environmental Ethics
That Socrates was at once a moral and intellectual reformer is not, and cannot be an
issue in dispute. History books state in non-contradictory tones his dogged preoccupation in
transforming and restoring moral conduct through knowledge. Human conduct, it was his
belief, is central to every other human activity. For Socrates therefore virtue i.e. knowledge
of the good, is science as much as science is virtue. This thesis is further and better
established in a celebrated dialogue between Socrates and Aristippus (Xenophon, 1925. Bk
III, Ch. VIII).
Thus understood, the basis and content of Socratic ethics is fundamentally relational.
That is, the idea of utility is essentially the idea of a relationship between a means and an end;
nothing, he says, is useful intrinsically, it is useful for something or someone. He thus echoes
in the dialogue above that “nothing is good in itself, that all good is relative”. Without
regressing into the intellectual dogmas of the different strands of ethical theories of
objectivism, subjectivism, relativism and individualism, and their psudo adequacy debates,
one would want to argue that Socrates ethics as a science of the sciences transcends such
limited analysis of the contemporary ethicists. The informed thinking of Socrates is founded
on the nature and function of MAN, who according to him is a soul and not a body.
Accordingly, our attempt at determining the good of man must itself involve considering the

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good of the soul and not the good of the body.
It is to be argued though that, there cannot be a soul without the body, and essentially
too that, the good of the soul makes no meaning without corporeality. Truly, such argument
is sound only to the extent that man is not studied dualistically which fallacy Albert
Schweitzer (1961:20) laments that western civilization is a disaster because it is far
developed materially than spiritually, but that it balance is disturbed. The central argument of
Socrates is not that which is canvassed in ethical relativism. Far from that, it rest in the
reasoning that, at the individual level, every body must take care of himself, hence the maxim
know yourself. Thus, the good of man will consist in developing his reason by controlling as
much as possible the desires of his body which are disastrous for the health of the soul.
Such is the overwhelming position of the Socratic ethics that instruments in the hands
of man are said to be neither good in themselves, but worthy relatively to the use we make of
them. Apparently, Socrates is a candidate of the neutrality theory of science and technology.
But this is not the true interpretation of Socratic philosophy. Interpreted to mean wisdom or
reflection, virtue signifies excellence which upon further investigation has nothing in
common with modern day endeavours of science and technology which have no self-limiting
measures or restraints. Such adumbrations by the revered philosophers argues cogently for a
grund norm which universal application will engender biospheric harmony. The philosopher
himself had argued that “to be virtuous is to be fully developed; being good at something,
realizing one’s power. Professor E. K. Ogundowole more clearly understands this state of
affairs as liberation, which according to him is self-liberation, hence, self-reliance supported
by a mental disposition. This mental disposition he argues “must be such that eschew
exploitation of the abilities, enterprise, intelligence and hard work of others, deplore
acquisitiveness for the purpose of gaining and or consolidating power, and reject personal
wealth accumulated or concentrated as to be tantamount to, or effect a vote of, “no
confidence in the social system” (Ogundowole, 1992:255).
Obviously, the development type inspired by such unethical paradigms contradicts the
essential nature of man whose unique and true good is to grow more and more reasonable.
Fundamentally, such moral basis and content as promoted and propagated by Socrates
is definitive of the human environment which essential features of civilization he consistently
points out does not lie in material achievement but in the moral and spiritual development of
the individual i.e. the good of the soul not the good of the body. Placid Tempels (1959:172)
also echoes similarly that “material possessions; housing, increase in professional skills are
no doubt useful and even necessary values. But do they constitute civilization? Is not
civilization above all else progress in human personality?” It is understood here that
‘progress in human personality’ entails a liberated individual with a creative approach to the
human environment, who is constantly guided by the good, and able to consistently live up to
its demands.
Argued as such, ethics (Socratic ethics) is the greatest science (knowledge), and it
identifies virtue with knowledge (science) which true science is architectonic to the essence
of man; “to become a good man.” In what seems to be a global challenge, Socrates queried:
What is it good for to know all the rest, if you do not know the only thing
which is essential? What use will you make of a science if you do not
know how to use it for the good? It will be in your possession like a tool in

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 the hands of a man without experience he manipulates it a random and
injures himself more than he makes progress at work (Diogenes,
1925:179).
By interpretative analysis, Socrates enunciates a true science as encased in the domain
of ethics, the science of excellence, which knowledge can promote human interaction; within
human beings on the one hand, and between human beings and other beings in the biosphere.
That humanity has the capacity to do everything and to be everything. Most rightly enthused,
it is in ourselves that we find the science of good and evil. It is through the examination of
our inner state that we learn and we must seek for whatever we must avoid. The inner
reflection provides us all the solutions sought (Ahoyo, 1997:58).
Truly, science and technology have powerfully helped man to free himself from the
immediate material constraints imposed by the search for security though, they have similarly
caused new evils like degradation of the environment, effects on man’s health, the
dehumanising robotizing of society and the deepening of social inequalities among others.
Prevalence of such noticeable evils of science according to Socrates is a product of ignorance
“Know yourself and you will know what convenes you” is what Socrates commands.
What then counts as an ethical approach for sustainable human development is
founded on the Socratic assumption that all men have the same nature and whatever is good
for one is also good for the other. Methodically, humanity engages in self-search to unravel
objective values, that self-introspection engenders a higher practical value which according to
Hegel is self-discovery. It is a Socratic principle which aim is that,
…man must discover in himself, his destination, his end, the ultimate end
of the world, the truth that is what is in itself for itself, he must attain by
himself the truth. It is the return of self-conscious which is on the contrary
determined as getting out the particular subjectivity. It is thereby that it is
eliminated the accidental character of consciousness, the particular whim,
the particularity, by having deep down oneself, this exit, having what is in
itself and for itself. Objectivity has in this context the sense of universality,
that is in itself and for itself and not an external objectivity (Ahoyo
1997:62-63).
Self-knowledge which here means a rigorously rational introspection obviously
avoids contradictions but promotes harmony between convictions and actions. Such
condition is what life is said to be a moral one. Thus, as a basis for human activity in a
biosphere, ethics acts as a guide in the promotion of a true moral life. Human endeavours,
which results from self-consciousness, does not (and cannot) disrupt the link between
conviction (belief) and action.
In truth, such ethical approach more properly defines authentic human beings and
hence sustainable human development. Understandably, ethical knowledge (self knowledge)
amount to good ethical conduct which knowledge unites conviction with will, thought with
action, under the guidance of an inner lucidity, of reason, or of reflective wisdom (Ahoyo, p.
64). This knowledge guides (or should guide) the products of our brains and the works of our
hands to avoid contradictions, and so to be in tune with human existence. But human
existence, it must be unequivocally stated demands meaning in the universe. The
meaningfulness or meaningless of the universe itself starts from the meaningfulness or
meaninglessness of human existence. Every human endeavour, using this ethical approach as

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a guide must be subordinated to the human person long acknowledged by Socrates as the
focal point of philosophy. It is here argued that, absolute devaluation of the human person as
is common in todays techno-polis is most unethical. Sustainable human development process
with its purview an invitation to the understanding of the nature and value of the human
person to which Professor J. I. Omoregbe (1990:196) readily provides; that,
man is the key to the understanding of the whole reality. The human
person transcends the infra-human world. The human person posses an
inviolable dignity an inalienable liberty and an inseparable moral
responsibility.
This high premium on the centrality of the human person as the absolute value and the
Supreme Being in the universe isolates him out never to be used simply as a means to an end.
In the thinking of Socrates, virtue, which quality is self-knowledge can set us free from the
illusion of reliance on individual ability, and so liberate us from the servitude of the
selfishness, calculation and anti-social ego to fit into the universality of moral laws where in
contradictions are non existent, with man always thinking and acting rightly in the promotion
of the common good. Arguably, such a civilization is wholistic, which human (sustainable)
development, individuals are able to express their inner talents fully in the creation of a happy
and peaceful community, just as they bring about an ecologically prosperous natural
environment, which nurtures them. Such is what is argued as an ‘ethical approach” towards
the evolution of a sustainable human development, wherein, the interests of the individual
and society and humans and nature become congruent. The question is, how does the
SCIENCE of Socrates regulate the modern sciences (and technologies) in the achievement of
this noble goal of sustainable human development?
To answer this all-important question suggests to us a little knowledge of the person
of Socrates. Socrates, we are told was not a metaphysician, but a practitioner, a physician of
souls. It is business was not to construct a system, but to make men think and act morally.
He calls this endeavour the only true science, which engenders the good of man. Captured in
fragments as handed down to us by Plato and Xenopho, Socrates dictates such a true science
as is flavoured by narrowly utilitarian motives thus:
What I ought to do is, what is good for me, and what is good for me is
what is useful to me – really useful (Jacques Maritain, 1979:51).

It is to be understood here that, Socratic ethics seems at first sight to have been
dictated by narrowly utilitarian motives though, he went beyond utilitarianism of every
description. “What is good for me is what is useful to me – really useful” means only that,
the good is not just the material, physical or transient things, but what is really useful to man;
and at this point Socrates compelled his hearers to acknowledge that man’s true utility can
only be determined by reference to a good, absolute and incorruptible i.e. man’s sovereign
good which is his last end. Regulated as such, Socrates seems to be arguing that, humanity is
saved from the catastrophe which trails the trend of development of human knowledge
(science) and skills (technology) that are constantly in the direction of seeking more
comforts, conveniences and control on the natural environment.
More than ever, humanity is today confronted with a new reality, the increasing
knowledge of nature and the ready capability to manipulate it which capability and

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understanding have conferred on him a power able to destroy the delicate network which he,
is himself, as a creature of the nature, involved for better for worse Ahoyo (1997:76) argues
in support here that, “to that effect, he (man) has stored in his armouries forces of nature
which, if they escape his control, could annihilate the whole mankind.” When and where this
happens, humanity is said to be acting in the fashion of cancer cells, which when they run
amok and burst out of the prostrate and take over the liver and lymph glands, it kills
everything in the body including the cancer cells themselves.
Obviously, modern science and technology has given today’s humanity more than he
bargained for; serious and burning problems ranging from ecology, exhaustion of the natural,
non-renewable raw materials and the problems of scarcity, starvation and misery of the great
majority of people in the third-world. But as it is said, “where the danger is, grows also the
saving power”, which saving power is the ethical approach of Socrates. This approach
emphasises inwardness, subjectivity and self-knowledge. It is perhaps the absence of this self
knowledge, this self-consciousness that blinds our knowledge of human essence s graphically
presented by Eric Fromm. He says:
He (man) works and strives, but has an obscure consciousness of the
usefulness of his action. Whereas his power on the matter increases, he
witnesses his powerlessness on the twofold level of personal and social
life…. Becoming master of the nature, he has become slave of the machine
he has made with his hands. His knowledge about matter is great, but his
knowledge about himself is nil (Ahoyo 1997:138).
Rightly self-consciousness or introspection which quality is self-examination and
hence the capacity to realise what is more authentic in man, is for us the saving power. This
endeavour in human knowledge remains undirected towards the inward dimensions of man
offers the only gateway to the true essence of man on the true human condition. Working
within the framework of this true science (ethics), human aspirations are made to rule self-
interests and short-range perspective, and profitability subordinates sustainability. For,
“nature has to be considered as the whole of which human beings form one component. As a
very important component, they are meant to serve nature rather than make it subservient to
their own needs and wants, for each generation must pass on what it has received in good
order to the next.
The argued conclusion here is that science is truly useful to human kind only and only
as it is ethically sensitive. Correctly rephrased, science without conscience is but ruin in the
soul. This subordination of science to the human spirit is lucidly interpreted by Pope John
Paul II (The Common Good, 1997:31) to signify the kingship and dominion of man over the
visible world, which task consists in “the priority of ethics over technology, in the primacy of
the person over things, and the superiority of spirit over matter.” Humanity totals, and society
tumbles in the event that there is the growing priority of technology over ethics, in the
growing primacy of things over persons and in the growing superiority of matter over spirit.
This is a contradiction of the human will resulting from absence of self-knowledge. In order
to act well, which thought links with action, the stake, according to Socrates is to acquire the
science of the good, and virtue is that science. This according to Socrates the good of the
whole man; the truncated man who is caught between two poles; a material pole, which, in
reality, does not concern the true person but rather the shadow of personality of what in the

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strict sense, is called individuality, and a spiritual pole, which concern true personality.
Sustainable human development is derivable from this spiritual pole, the source of
liberty, meaning and bountifulness of man, the form or soul of the whole man. Material
entities have their meaning or rationality because of the impress of the form or soul
(metaphysical energy) the spirit is ordained to inform matter. This is the primary duty of
philosophy which Socrates has recasted in his principle of self-examination which functions
to control the excesses of the sciences by critique and controversy in the attainment of the
ultimate good of man. As the sciences are ever developing and progressing, and responding
to the diverse needs and expectations of Homo technos, ethics (philosophy), the supreme
science must ever trail them, judging and governing them to accord with the pursuit of the
common good, even against strong economic forces that would deny it so as the feared evil of
turning science into an endeavour that devotes itself to organised murder and mass
dehumanisation. The perfect thought of St. Thomas Aquinas may here suffice, that, “any
culture or society or age that does not submit the sciences to the critical leadership of
philosophy (ethics) heads to confusion and low rationality” (Nwoko, 1992:12). Meaning then
that, public life needs rescuing from utilitarian expediency and the pursuit of self-interest. In
human affairs, the twin principles of solidarity and subsidiary need to be applied
systematically to the reform of the institutions of public life.

Husserl and Heidegger on the Ethical Approach

Phenomenology as adopted and used by both Husserl and his student Heidegger
suggest a method of investigation where from the essences of Beings are made known as they
are in themselves as they are. While Husserl insists that phenomenology as a method is
characterised by ‘what’ of the object of philosophical investigation as to its subject matter,
Heidegger argues otherwise that it is the ‘How’ of that investigation. Notwithstanding their
special emphasis, phenomenology etymologically formulated means “to let that which shows
itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself” (Heidegger,
1978:58). It means by this descriptive statement that, true knowledge (science) of being is
possible only through phenomenology; that ‘phenomenon’ is the being of entities, its
meaning, its modifications and derivatives. Thus, the argued conviction of both Husserl and
Heidegger is that, behind the phenomenon there is nothing else, but since the phenomenon
itself can be hidden – proximally and for the most part, there is, need for phenomenology
which maxim is “to the things themselves”.
But as human knowledge has made progress, it has not and cannot come to anything;
it has rather raised more problems than solutions. Such paradoxical situation, to which
knowledge (science and technology) has led us to, convinces us that knowledge itself is a
disability. This is what we call the crisis of science and technology to which Husserl and
Heidegger offers a phenomenological rescue mission. Science and technology are products
of the essentially metaphysical character of the western intellectual tradition which
technocratic reduction of everything to planning, calculation and predictable laws, wrest
objectivity from what is, the quest for certainty in our ways of knowing and the passion for
totality or the total dominance of everything.
Such is the real source of the problem of modern science (and technology). As Dr Jim
Unah rightly alludes, “by forcing things to appear which he (man) does not need, man turns

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himself into the conqueror of nature, into an overlord who wills to thoroughly exploit and
dominate the earth”. But he concludes rightly too that, “he who exploits and dominates the
earth ends up thoroughly debasing the earth” and destroying the entire biosphere, including
himself (1998:362).
It remains to be seen how Husserl and Heidegger have adopted the phenomenological
method as an approach to true humanism and hence removing “Abstacles to the Building of a
Beautiful World” (Read Easlea, B, 1973). They both argued that, what leads to a distortion
of reality is not any inherence of a distorting element in things themselves, but the way we
position ourselves to view them. They argued further that we can position ourselves to view
things and relate with objects and see the objects the way they are, without bias, prejudice,
preconceptions and predispositions of particular circumstances. Thus inquisitional
methodology for Husserl is epoch and phenomenological reduction, while goes for the
explication of Dasien. Phenomenology, they argued in conviction, promises to be a vehicle
for authenticity as it purges the metaphysical attitude of viewing what is presented to ones
consciousness from the cognitive imposition of another.

Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)

Phenomenal technological advancement is said to be the most important noticeable
index of the twentieth century. As lavishly described in chapter two, the twentieth, but
beginning with the nineteenth century witnessed spectacular achievement in virtually every
area of human endeavour thus earning our generation the appellation the best of times. But
the necessary natural law of Nyohon yuan which is exemplified in the principle of opposites;
good and bad, positive and negative have on the other hand brought to bear on humanity
deterioration in our ecological system, widespread abortion and the ever looming threat of
nuclear holocaust through war or accidental detonation. On this negative note, our century
could also be described as the worst of times.
It is to be said that the forces of the techno-scientific economy are threatening the very
existence of human life, even while they create unheard-of material bounties for a minority of
humanity. These same forces are giving rise to ever more complex social, political and moral
questions. Rightly described, our century has become in the words of Eric Hobsbawn
(1996:6), an era of “decomposition uncertainty and crisis which for Edmund Husserl means
that science has lost its importance for life. The question of science, but the domineering
spirit of the positive sciences in particular, with its spirit of exaggerated and blinded
materialism meant that man was diverting himself with indifference from the questions which
are decisive for an authentic humanity. Perhaps the problem which could best described as
global in nature is most comprehensively listed to include among others the following:
Uncontrolled human proliferation, chaos and division in society, social
injustice, hunger and malnutrition, widespread poverty, the mania for
growth inflation, energy crisis, international trade and monetary
disruptions, protectionism, illiteracy and anachronistic education, youth
rebellion, alienation, uncontrolled urban spread and decay, crime and
drugs, violence and brutality, torture and terrorism, disregard for law and
order, nuclear folly, sclerosis and inadequacy of institutions, corruption,
bureaucratisation, degradation of environment, decline of moral values,

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 loss of faith, sense of instability, lack of understanding of the above.
Problems and their interrelationship. (Aurelio Peccei, 1979)
This prevalence of the problems have reduced human thinking to the concluding that
science no longer has anything to say to humanity in the distress of their live. It is within the
bounds of this intellectual tradition that Edmund Husserl argues that science has ignored its
most crucial traditional function. As he alludes, the questions it excludes in principle from its
field of concern are precisely questions which are the most burning for our unfortunate times,
for a humanity abandoned to the upheavals of destiny. They are questions related to the
sense or the absence of sense of all human existence. These questions, he argues further
require in their generality and necessity that we carefully and adequately consider them so as
to find answers to them which come from a rational view; he says
the evil in the positivist approach of science consists in excluding
subjectivity from its domain of research; but then all that concerns man
himself is precisely to be found in this subjectivity, this spirituality (Ahoyo,
1997:79)
Husserl implies by this assertion that the person is the basis of judgement of techno-
science, and that it is the absence of the concept of person that science has found itself in the
present mess, losing sight the original foundation on which it has been built. Personalism is
perhaps the best watch-doctrine and the most wholesome in the presentation of man against
the truncated conception of man. This philosophical knowledge of man which involves the
true meaning, dignity and destiny of man may have most obviously informed. Boethiu
definition of the person as naturae rationalis individual substantia (the individual substance
of rational nature) (Boethius ). This definition implies that man is a natural unity, a unity of
the individual man, a unique entity of self. The person is the totality which the self achieves
in the individual entity in the unity of his spiritual and physical aspects.
The threatening symptoms of the crisis in European culture is viewed by Husserl as
eroding this unique understanding of man. He thus undertakes through a critical and deep
analysis of the philosophic thought which has lost its human dimension. He thus jettisoned
the traditional reduction of human knowledge to objectives scientific knowledge leaving
aside the vast domain of sensitive and immediately subjective knowledge. Using this
approach, Husserl sought to merge sensitivity and understanding, subjective emotion and
concept into a single whole in an attempt to strike a relationship between the activity of
consciousness and human essence. In his “The Idea of Phenomenology (1970) Husserl
convincingly argues out this possibility. That when the mind or ego is purified, and so
effectively carried out, a zero – attachment is achieved, hence consciousness is poised to
“see’ the thing as it truly is. This is properly speaking what Husserl calls reduction, which is
a cognitive process of arriving at the essence of a thing through the extraction of intellectual,
doctrinal and particular colorations, which procedure meaning is intuited, leading the human
person to transcendental subjectivism. It is to be acknowledged that such a sense of human
existence in its wholeness is founded on Husserl’s strong belief that the human person is the
basis of our practical judgement of the good. Indeed, it is actually the principle of goodness
alive in the world. Such is which strong faith Husserl had in the human project that he
brilliantly captures in his paper entitled “The Crisis of European Humanity” when he says

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that “misled humanity could be called back to reason and that phenomenology could reveal
its authentic image.”
Interestingly, Husserl sought a reverse in methodology. Reality he says is found
through the eye-glasses of phenomenology which search for immutable foundations of
philosophy directs knowledge towards pure consciousness”, towards total subjectivity
(Ahoyo 1997:110) Husserl argues then that the new task of philosophy is to restore the sense
of human wholeness which positivism has destroyed; to rediscover the sense of wholeness.
Such is why he sees philosophers as the civil servants of humanity, to restore that which is
most noble and most perfect in all of nature, to integrate all the existing values and
potentialities in the world towards a transcendent goal which find expression in his concept of
intersubjectivity, that i, the coalescing together of subjectivities, which “agreement that a
certain thing is the case becomes objective” (Unah, 1998).
For Husserl therefore, the human person is central to what counts as development and
that which is good is that which is subsumed in the concept of the human person who is the
centre of complementation and communion of all created worldly values; the natural social,
the universal values, all values: material and spiritual have their ultimate meaning only in
reference to the person. Sustainable development only is to the extent that it makes the whole
of man; his material and spiritual values, a focal point. For St. Thomas Aquinas most rightly
posits that, the human person signifies what is most perfect in all nature, hence Agenda 21
Principles (UN Briefing Paper, 1997:27) correctly adumbrates the point further that, “human
beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a
healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.”

Martin Heidegger
The thoughts of Heidegger on science (and technology) are not too expressly distinct
from those of Edmund Husserl. But more than Husserl, Heidegger made a successful attempt
at distinguishing between modern science (or technology) and ancient science (or
technology). He thus argued like Husserl that, modern science had developed losing sight of
the original foundation on which it has been erected and that neglect was responsible for the
crisis it is getting across in spite of its success. According to Heidegger, (1997:3-37)”
technology (in its everyday sense) is not equivalent to the essence of technology” to be free
of misunderstandings, to relate technology intelligently, we must fund its central meaning and
that can be done only by discovering its essence; we must think of its relationships with all
else. To view technology as a complex of contrivances and technical skills, put forth by
human activity and developed as a means to our ends is an error of judgement. “We are
delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral”, he
says. On the contrary, the essence of technology reveals it as something far from neutral or
merely an instrument of human control; it is an autonomous organizing activity within which
humans themselves are organised.
The argued position of Heidegger is that the true essence of technology is to be
located in the modes of occasioning, the four causes; Causa materialis, causa formalis causa
finalis and causa efficiens. As he put it “every occasion for whatever passes over and goes
forward into presencing from that which is not precencing is poiesis, is bringing-forth”
(Heidegger 1977:10). This bringing-forth is, in its most generally understood sense what the

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Greeks called aletheia, which Heidegger expressed in the German word Entbergen and his
English translators have expressed in the word ‘revealing’, that is truth revealing which
objective significance is the expression of the actual coming into presence of something.
Put in proper perspective, Heidegger here locates technology within its Greek
etymology as essentially that which belonging to the general notion of bringing-forth,
Poiesis. he thus adumbrates this position further and better thus;
techne… reveals whatever does not bring itself forth and does not yet lie
here before us, whatever can look and turn out now one way and now
another… Thus what is decisive in techne does not lie at all in making or
manipulating nor using of means, It is a revealing, and not as
manufacturing, that, techne is a bringing-forth (1977:13).
By this assertion Heidegger means to insist that the basis essence of technology has
remained the same unchanged and that this essence is most readily observed in the Greek
origins of our thinking about these things. The problem with modern technology and the
dangers of modern science and technology is that they have evolved outside this essential
nature as a mode of revealing. What we understand as modern technology can hardly be
recognised as having a common origin with the fine arts or craft. Instead modern technology
is distinguished in having made its alliance with modern physical science rather than with the
arts and crafts.
It is thus not farfetched to conclude that modern technology destroys, and
dehumanizes. Indeed, humanity journeys and involves with nature to the point of intrusion
upon it. Thus, instead of diverting the natural course co-operatively (wherein lies the essence
of technology) modern technology emphrames and achieves the unnatural by force. Not only
is it achieved by force but it is achieved by placing nature in our subjective context, setting
aside natural processes entirely, and conceiving of all revealing as being relevant only in
human subjective needs.
The essence of technology originally was a revealing of life and nature in which
human intervention deflected the natural course while still regarding nature as the teacher
and, for that matter, the keeper. The essence of modern technology is a revealing of
phenomena, often far removed from anything that resembles ‘life and nature’ in which human
intrusion not only diverts nature but fundamentally changes it. As a mode of revealing,
technology today is challenging – forth of nature so that the technologically altered nature of
things is always a situation in which nature and objects wait, standing in reserve for our use.
We pump crude oil from the ground and we ship it to refineries where it is fractionally
distilled into volatile substance and we ship these to gas stations around the world where they
reside in huge underground tanks, standing ready to power our automobiles or airplanes.
Technology has intruded upon nature in a far more active mode that represents a consistent
direction of domination. Everything is viewed as “standing-reserve” and, in that, loses its
natural objective identity. The river for instance, is not seen as a river, it is seen as a source
of hydro-electric power, as a water supply, or as an avenue of navigation through which to
contact inland markets. In the era of techne humans were relationally involved with other
objects in coming to presence; in the era of modern technology, humans challenge forth the
subjectively valued elements of the universe so that, within this new form of revealing,
objects lose their significance to anything but their subjective status of standing-ready for

10
human design. Thus everything in the universe, including humans, have been transformed in
significance leading to a loss of humanity. It may be said to that extent that, humanity has
been conducted out of its own essence.
Obviously, our attempt at converting ‘science and technology as tools of human
development but which have become standing reserves has effected the greatest threat to
humanity by carrying humanity away from its essential nature. On the one hand we consider
ourselves, rightfully, the most advanced humans that have peopled the earth but, on the other
hand, we can see, when we care to that our way of life has also become the most profound
threat to life that the earth has yet witnessed. Medical science and technology, it is argued,
have even begun to suggest that we may learn enough about disease and processes of aging in
the human body tat we might extend individual human lives indefinitely. In this respect we
have not only usurped the god’s rights of creation and destruction of species, but we may
even usurp the most sacred and terrifying of the god’s rights, the determination of mortality
or immortality (Tad Beckman, 2000:13) Thus maternally and spiritually, human life and its
environment have been profoundly transformed, and humanity no longer has a correct
relationship with the environment.
For Heidegger therefore human development is not and cannot be a product of
modern technology, for it has lost its essence. As human beings become progressively more
involved as the orders of reality conceived as standing reserve, they too become standing
reserve at a higher level of organization. That is, as human beings come to see other beings
in the world only for their potential applications to human dispositions, humans themselves
come to mirror this shallowness of “being” and to see themselves merely in terms of potential
resources to the dispositions of others. Understood within this human disposition, our
essence as human beings falls into concealment which activity Heidegger calls enframing.
As Tad Beckman is to argue in explication,
Emframing challenges us forth in the decisive role as organizer and
challenger of all that is in such a way that human life withdraws from its
essential nature. Within this role the essence of our humanity fall into
concealment; we can no longer grasp the real nature of life. We withdraw
into a conception of reality that is subjective and isolated (Beckman
2000:15)

But, Heidegger asserts that the human essence is not a being in isolation. Human
beings unlike most beings that are simply in existence with no relationship to one another, no
consciousness, are unique, they are beings among beings, beings who witness other beings.
Such essence of human life is founded in the facticity, or objectivity of Dasein; not only do
we humans come into relationship with other beings through our characteristic consciousness
but they come into their own beings as objects through us. They are witnessed by us. This is
why Heidegger insisted that from the position of our own essence, “we can never encounter
only [ourselves’” (Adams; 1946:27). So argued, any conception of our environment that
perceives only ourselves and our dispositions is necessarily flawed from the point of view of
essential human nature.
But is there a way out of this human predicament? The answer to this complex and
difficult question may simply be YES. We agree with Holderlin that “where the danger is,

11
grows also the saving power”. We must stare into the depths of all that is and was and can be
and recognise, above all, that what humans essentially are is, in some mysterious way, a
“grant.” So Heidegger says, “only what is granted endures. That which endures primally out
of the earliest beginnings is what grants” (Heidegger 1977:31) If technology is seen as an
imminent threat to humans, it comes to focus attention upon that which is granted to human
life, since what is granted is precisely what is most threatened. Thus Heidegger suggests that
the saving power begins to grow precisely within the greatest danger. The saving power is
found in the arts, which saving power is “more than hauling something back to its original
form; instead, it should be construed as bringing something back into its essence. Thus the
saving power that arises through art and within the danger of modern technology must be a
power to bring humanity back into their essence. Heidegger’s attempt could be summarised
within this thinking, that “we must proceed into the future, as we interact in the techno-polis,
from where we stand but, while we proceed, we should use these things and our talents to
come back into our own essential nature.
Technology carries humanity outward from ourselves and to that extent humanity fails
in the essential task of human fulfilment as beings whose very essence is to be – there, to
witness the whole of what is. Through the art, which nature is homecoming, that is,
discovering the essence of ourselves on earth and within our environment in the world, we
are healed by coming back into our on essence. It is not an exaggeration to say that the art
does bring us the power that can save us from the people that we have become. Art might be
able in some way to drawn us back into a more original form of bringing – things forth. It is
perhaps to be understood that Heidegger is well informed on this consistent and well
developed picture of art, especially the art of poetry. In this picture,
art is a mode in which life is experienced in which life is experienced in
which truth happens for us. …art is a mode of revealing, a setting forth,
in which humans and other objects-beings come to presence in an
organization that is far closer to the essential nature of human life on
this earth. (Heidegger, 1971:25).
As a saving power that returns humanity to its essential nature, art carries us into the
essential tension between earth and world and to the essential need of humans to fund a
joyous home within for just as technology in the epoch of enframing has effected the greatest
threat to us by carrying us away from our essential nature, art possesses the capacity to
become the mastering theme of a new epoch in which we are healed by coming back into our
own essence.
Such is what Heidegger calls a bringing-forth which means the liberation of man from
the hold of technology and a modification or a redefinition of our relationship with them.
Instead of being fascinated and dominated by them, we can in using them normally keep a
certain distance to them, that is allowing them to reveal themselves the way they are in
themselves as they are in themselves. This condition of science and technology is sine qua
non for human fulfilment nay sustainable human development. For Heidegger therefore,
We can say “yes” to the inevitable use of technology but at the same time
say “no”, which means that we should impede them to monopolise us and
thus to miss stifle and finally empty our Being (Heidegger, 1977:49)

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 Such temperament is what Heidegger calls the “serenity of the soul” which condition
entails a communion between the body and the mind. Since a human person is possessed of
both mind and body requiring both spiritual and material fulfilment pursuit of wealth and the
satisfaction of the physical needs of man must be tempered by the cultivation of the mind.
Outer satisfactions of a material kind should be enhanced by the inner satisfaction of the
mind and spirit. This is the goal of wholistic human development which the physical needs
of man are achieved through science and technology (from nature) though, they are not used
in a manner that they will dominate us and finally empty our Being. They are used in a way
that we are at peace and a piece of nature, at peace with our emotional needs by maintaining
peace between the individual and society, from which we also derive intellectual and spiritual
peace.

A Phenomenological Rescue Mission

In an essay entitled “Remembrance of the Poet”, first published in 1943, Heidegger
(1979:233-269) explicates an analysis of Holderlin’s elegy “Homecoming” in which he tells
the story of a man who returns from his youthful travels to the town of his birth, his home.
He sails across Lake Constance and out of the shade of the ALPS to the little town, where he
finds familiar places and congenial faces. As Heidegger saw it “Homecoming” tells a deeper
story of a poet who is finding the significance of his homeland and, hence, of home itself.
One most significant aspect of this story is Heidegger’s conception of the poet’s
journey in life as wholly a matter of “homecoming”. Life, Heidegger argues, “really consists
solely in the people of the country becoming at home in the still – withheld essence of home”
(1979:245). Homecoming is the return into the proximity of the source, it is the essence of
our being on the earth and that towards which we should work in our lives.
Such contemplation is truly which philosophy informs the phenomenological
principle to which Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger both subscribe. That total
domination of the earth by anybody or any group would not save and preserve the earth. “If
our true project is to save the earth from cosmic disaster” opines Dr Jim Unah, “all we require
is to have or learn to have a phenomenological access to the world to things and people”
(1998:363). This attitude is founded in the facticity or objectivity of man who has
relationship with other beings, the only being who observes both himself and other beings.
Thus, phenomenological access to what is, entails a bringing-forth, it requires an attitude of
the mind, which allow things to manifest themselves without forcing them into our
straitjackets. It is letting things be, and letting what is reveal itself without coercion; a
revealing that heals humanity and conducts it back into its real essence on earth. This
inherent disposition of phenomenology is what Jim Unah (ibid) tagged, phenomenological
rescue mission, but which Holderlin calls “Homecoming”; a uniquely vital journey into the
basic human issue of finding the essence of home (man’s original state of existence) within
life on this earth.

Conclusion
The task of philosophy, it is often said is the critical examination of the ideas we live
by. This supposition further argues that, philosophy has always announced and justified the
task of a rational reorganization of the world, which implies the recognition of the specific or

13
at least the potential rationality of the universe. Candidates of this school of thought are
quick to conclude here that, one might rationalise the existing, though it is not immediately
rational. That, what the rationalization of the world has led us to through science and
technology is the worsening of human condition, perhaps without a saving power. The
present alienation of human condition, they argued is a by-product of this condition which
remains caught in the trap of positivism whose evils it has so brilliantly unmasked.
In our preceding analysis, we have shown that philosophy is not only the critical and
rational examination of the ideas we live by, but that it is also the saving power of the ideas
that govern human existence. Basking in the era of the crisis of science and technology,
which consequent effect is the disappearance of “the person, but the emergence of the
machine”, we have argued in a reverse order that, the ‘person’ is the measure of all things.
The person, it is argued in this work, is the totality which the self achieves in the individual
entity in the unity of his spiritual and physical aspects understood as such, the human person
is the basis of our practical judgement of the good.
It is based on this thinking that we conclude that “science without conscience is ruin
of the soul.” The implication here is that, science and technology necessarily needs to be
inward directed so as to avoid the feared danger of conducting humanity out of its real
essence on this earth. Sustainable human development is more than mere growth and
progress in material terms, it means growth and progress in reference to the human person
who is the reason for all values in the world; material and spiritual. This, to us is what counts
as an ethical approach to sustainable development.
Informed by the thinking that humanity always poses problems that it can solve, we
proposed three options as a way ahead (out of) the present crisis in science and technology.
Option one argues that the way out of the radical upheaval caused by science is a
return to morality. Humanity, Socrates says, is at the crossroad and can only be returned
back into natural human essence through his moral philosophy which characteristic features
are inwardness, subjectivity and self-knowledge. Ethics he says, is the queen of all sciences
and without ethics science cannot stand.
Option two argues out the rehumanization and healing of the positivist contagion
through phenomenology. Pioneered by Edmund Husserl, this, line of thought argues that the
restoration of human wholeness which positivism has destroyed is possible through
transcendental consciousness. Phenomenology, in its search for immutable foundations of
philosophy, he says, directs knowledge towards. “Pure consciousness”, towards total
subjectivity. Philosophy, hitherto, he says, has remained naively objectivist; the ontological
constants brought out by that philosophy are without any relationship with human existence.
Hence, it is the task of philosophy to rediscover this sense of wholeness. So, he says
philosophers are the civil servants of humanity (Husserl, 1965:23).
Option four closely associates itself with option two, and extends its garb to
existentialism using it as a war against the project of a scientific philosophy propounded by
Martin Heidegger, a student of Husserl, existentialism like phenomenology argues the role of
philosophy in the restoration of moral and spiritual confidence of men, against the
dehumanisation and scepticism sowed by science and technology.
Whether it is the moral philosophy of Socrates, or the phenomenology of Husserl, or
the existentialism of Heidegger, the synergy is that, ethics define relationships between

14
beings; beings who witness other beings as beings among beings, and that, the nature of a
relationship defines the essential human nature or otherwise. Such conviction may have
informed the observations of the French philosopher and mathematician, Michel Serres, that,
…we (i.e. the scientists) have henceforth the responsibility to manage the
infinite cone of the possible that the ethics of our fathers named reality,
inventory, speculative activity seems to pose non-ethical problems; choice
on the contrary, a serious one. Once you have for a long time combined,
you have to choose what may pass from the possible to the actual (Ahoyo,
1997:122-123).
What this observation reduces to is that, the age long paradgm of scientific neutrality
is replaced with the phrase “to know amounts to choose”, for as Heidegger rightly suggests,
“from the position of our own essence, we can never encounter only ourselves”. We have
thus argued that, human action must always be informed by an attitude of the mind, in the
promotion of the human person. Kant’s formulation of the categorical imperative may
suffice here, that human action should be always directed “as to treat humanity, whether in
thy own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end in all, never as means only”
(Ozumba, 2001:89). While we support Kant’s position that the motive of the will is good if
and only if its motive is solely one that emanates from duty, we hasten to say that such
motive should not emanate from duty for duty sake. Such sweeping conclusion has the
capacity of promoting the culture of scientism.
It is thus argued that, human dignity, of everyman should be topmost in human
presencing. Arguably, human presence is crucial to other beings coming-to-presence, to truth
happening. That is to say that, the human essence is fundamentally involved in all revealing,
in all objects coming into unconcealment. Technology as a mode of revealing, is one part
within many possible parts that open up within the essential nature of that human role; each
of these parts develops a specific aspect of our relations to beings. That relationship is
always reciprocated in the sense that, in so far as being-there is our essential mature, the way
that we are there, the way that we relate, is the way that we ourselves come into being during
that period. Heidegger, an authority in this insight allays with this conclusion and adds in
particular that, “the way we treat other things is determinant of the way we ourselves will be
treated.
True, science and technology have made tremendous progress and growth, we have
mastered gravity and space, we have driven back the limits of life or death, we can now
choose the sex of our children and may tomorrow reproduce our own kind asexually and treat
any type of complicated disease, thanks to the breakthrough in the study of genes. But
herein, that power, lies all our problems. It is thus no longer what could I know , which is the
question of science, but what should I know and do which is the question of sense (ethics).
What is being argued for is a responsible human environment in which humanity is called
upon to integrate in its present actions the care to preserve the life of its descendants, nay its
environment.
In what appears as a summary of our position, Hans Jonas has formulated in a Kantian
formula the following ethical imperative:
Act in such a way that the effect of your action be compatible with the
permanence of an authentically human life on earth. (Ahoyo 1997:136).

15
 This imperative itself is a call for a meaningful relationship of openness and dialogue
within human being on the one hand and, with nature; the environment on the other. Yersu
Kim (1999:42) in his “A Common Framework for the Ethics of the 21st Century” provides in
addition, a four point agenda in this regard:
(i) The view of nature as accessible through causal mechanistic law has enabled
humanity to control nature and provide for itself the good life on earth. The same
view has contributed to the destruction of the natural environment and alienation of
human beings. We must therefore seek a balance such that we may maintain a
sustainable harmonious relationship between the human species and nature.
(ii) As nature is a finite quality, we must learn to manage the economy to sustain the
complexity and stability of nature while at the same time to manage nature so as to
sustain our economy. As our desires are insatiable, we must learn to accommodate
our desires to the limits nature sets, not to push the limits of nature beyond its
capacity for generation.
(iii) Humanity needs to develop economically and technologically in order to deal
with the problem of poverty in which a great majority of human beings still live.
Continuation of economic development at the present rate endangers the rights of the
future generations to life and a healthy environment. We must therefore, learn to
balance short-term thinking and immediate gratification with long term thinking for
future generations by shifting the balance towards quality rather than quantity.
(iv)Consumption contributes to human well-being when it enlarges the capabilities
and enriches the lives of the people. Consumption, when excessive, undermines the
resource base and exacerbates inequalities. Consumption therefore must be such as to
ensure basic needs for all, without compromising the well-being of others and without
mortgaging the choices of future generations.
This is the agenda for sustainable development which corpus entails that nature has to
be considered as the whole, of which human beings form one component, which important
component, they are meant to serve nature rather make it subservient to their own needs and
wants. The human species, with all its attributes of intelligence, inventiveness and capacity
of intervention is called upon to use these qualities in a positive manner to serve the whole of
which they are a part. Instead of exploiting nature in a manner of forcing things to appear
which man does not need, instead of dominating nature which action backfires and ends up
thoroughly debasing the earth with man inclusive, humanity should act as sentinels of nature
and help maintain the multifarious delicate webs of the eco-systems that make it function in a
sustainable manner. “We could learn from the bees” recommends Dr Devendra Kumar, “the
manner to serve nature and get its sustenance simultaneously. The more the honey it collects
from the flowers, the more it serves, in the propagation of the plants by helping in their
fertilization. We could emulate the bees by fulfilling our needs through a similar symbiotic
relationship with nature.” (Kumar 2001:2). Perhaps too, the Delphic Method of Rushworth
Kidder, the founder of the “Institute for Global Ethics” (USA) could help reinvent a new
world order for sustainable human development. In his Shared Values for a Troubled World,
Kidder (1994), identifies a number of cross-cultural core values: love, truthfulness, fairness,
freedom, unity, tolerance, responsibility and respect for life as architectonics of sustainable

16
human development; a wholistic development which entails a combination of the physical,
emotional, intellectual and spiritual dimensions. This should be in a way that humanity is at
peace with nature; at peace with our emotional, intellectual, and spiritual needs. This, John
XXIII (1963) argues can be established only if the order between men and nations, laid down
by God, and rooted in the nature and dignity of the human person is observed.
This is a call for the regulation of human activity which activity proceeds from man,
and which human activity is also ordered to him. The development of his life through his
mind and his works should not only transform matter and society, but it should also fulfil
him, his spiritual realm, for it is what a person is rather than what he has that counts. Thus,
technical progress is an important compliment of human development though, it is of less
value than advances towards greater justice, wider brotherhood and a more humane social
environment. It is here argued that, the norm for human activity is to harmonise with the
authentic interest of the human race, in accordance with God’s will and design, and to enable
men as individuals and members of society to pursue and fulfil their total vocation – the
better ordering of human society.

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