A. G. M. Adedeji JAGR - Volume 5, Issue 12 (2012), pp.

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JOURNAL OF APPLIED GLOBAL RESEARCH

Journal Homepage: www.intellectbase.org/journals.php │ ©2012 Published by Intellectbase International Consortium, USA

COHESION OF PHILOSOPHY, SCIENTIFIC TECHNOLOGY, AND CULTURE

Adebisi G. M. Adedeji
Federal University of Technology - Akure (FUTA), Nigeria and Catholic Diocese of Ondo, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

A lover of wisdom is someone who is philosophically minded. He aims to view the world
from the right perspective because he wants to live rightly. Hence, he seeks after wisdom,
knowledge, and insight by thinking rightly with his or her endowed reasoning faculty as a
philosopher. He uses reasoning, knowledge and skill seeking solution to the problems of living. Man is
confronted and challenged not only by philosophical and science technological problems, but with
cultural factors. A technological scientist is a cultural being. The use of his reasoning ability in his
scientific knowledge and technological skill is determined by cultural factors. While a scientific
technologist has to be philosophically minded, he carries out his scientific engagements with cultural
consciousness and with a reasonable understanding. ”Science, generally speaking, may be called an
invention of human mind, a cultural activity, a kind of knowledge acquired through intellectual means
and with reference to the human environment,” says Fadahunsi, (Fadahunsi, 2003: 8) Culture engulfs
the totality of human existence, philosophically and scientifically. With the endowment of a reasoning
faculty, man is philosophically empowered to engage in reflective, contemplative, meditative and
thinking activities. Our submission in this work is that, man at the center of his own scientific and
cultural activities, gives meaning and understanding to philosophy, science technology, and culture.
Theoretically, this work explains the understanding of Cutural Environment and Technology, Science
Technology and Culture, and Philosophy and Cultural Technology.

Keywords: Reasoning Faculty, Philosophical, Technological, Cultural, Scientific, Consciousness,

Invention, Intellectual, Activities.

INTRODUCTION
It is understood that culture permeates all aspects of human life and living. The life style of humanity is
known as ‘culture’, (Olaniyan, 1982: 1). Man lives in culture, he creates culture, he develops culture,
and he makes culture meaningful and dynamic. He transforms culture socially, politically, scientifically,
technologically and philosophically. This is so with the understanding that man is culturally oriented,
scientifically endowed and technologically advanced with creative and producing tendencies. The
uncreated Creator of man and the greatest Architect of all existence puts structure into the social order
as a physical and natural universal phenomenon.

“So in essence, it should be easy to deduce that philosophy of culture refers to a body of coherent
ideas or ideological framework that underlies a particular culture or is the philosophical analysis of a
given culture. Lloyd Thompson, according to Irele had stated that culture is with ‘ways of thinking,

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feeling, believing and behaving and the system of related technologies and material goods that allow
members of a given society to adjust to that society’s physical and social environment’,” (Irele, Ed.,
1999: 151).

The concern of a scientific discipline such as social order, the physical behavior and the natural world
are culturally touched. Not only does a cultured man understand the study of scientific disciplines but
gives interpretation and meaning to the scientific experiments in the light of culture. His scientific
interpretation and meaning of social order, physical behavior and natural world by experimental data
becomes a part of culture and is covered by culture. In other words, living and nonliving things are
culturally embedded. Science operates in culture with cultural elements and for the growth and
dynamism of culture. It continues as long as Science is working and meant for the benefit of mankind
with growth and continuity of life.

Philosophically and culturally, man lives through the experience of life by moving through the
experimentation of living. Being an entity endowed with a reasoning and thinking faculty, he asks
questions about the origin and ultimate essence of his life. He is from time to time questing for answers
and solutions to his problems and the meaning of life. Based on his philosophical mindedness, he is
restlessly contemplating the justification for the scientific approach to life as much as he questions the
cultural values of scientific life. Philosophy is a lover of wisdom and it uses wisdom to penetrate into the
inner core of cultural science. Philosophy views science and culture as promoters of life and facilitators
for living. If science and culture are not working tools for the improvement of human existence, man’s
contentment and comfortable living conditions, then they have no business with humanity. Philosophy
through cultural and scientific understanding scans through human necessities for life continuity and
productivity.

Unfortunately, our obvious observation from a philosophical point of view is that most often science
operates without due consideration of cultural values and philosophical reasoning. Whenever and
wherever science neglects and downgrades the cultural role in its operation and fails to be in touch or
employ philosophical reasoning, it results in human destruction, elimination and termination of life. For
instance, environment is a cultural entity and aboard for philosophical mind, whenever the environment
is polluted by scientific experiments and chemical reactions, it leads to human discomfort, illness and
some of the time, it causes death.

Hence, philosophically a cultured man quests for scientific discoveries to improve the quality of life and
the preservation of life. Man must strive for a surviving means for himself and his species. For this
reason man works with nature to supply his technological needs. “Thus man must build a culture, a
man-made world. He is a cultural being. …Of course, when we consider man as intelligently
transforming his environment and exploiting nature for his own benefits, it is productive activity, and the
act of making that is referred to, we subsume under the general title, Technology to represent those
skills and techniques; and the application of man’s knowledge for productive activity aimed at serving
man’s needs, or even wants,” (Nwoko, 1992: vi).

For life’s preservation and human survival, integration of human knowledge in the area of philosophical
wisdom, scientific technology, and cultural endowment is undoubtedly called for intellectually. This
cohesion will not only promote knowledge, it will also bring better cultural understanding to
interrelationship and the interaction that exists between philosophy and scientific technology. In
addition, it will illuminate the fact that man is the center of knowledge.

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CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT AND SCIENTIFIC TECHNOLOGY

Environment is a geographical area inhabited by both living and non-living things that bears cultural
empowerment and identification. As long as a place is inhabited by people, the place becomes a
cultural environment. With the development of life of both living and non-living things, science takes its
root as well. A place is habitable to humanity because it has the potential to be scientifically and
culturally prone to growth, life fulfillment, and security.

Nwankowo makes our point clearer with the scientific approach to his definition of culture. He says:

The common denominator to these views of culture is that it is the sum total of all those
elements by which man adapts himself to his environment. It embraces every factor, material
and intellectual, which man acquires in order to survive in his society. …As environments vary,
so also do man’s laws, traditions, norms and customs adapt to these environments; and
oftentimes man adapts some environmental conditions to suit his own tastes and convenience.
(Nwankwo, 1979: 57)

Nigeria is blessed with many environmental conditions and factors that should make life culturally and
scientifically convenient for habitation, such as weather – sun and moon, rain and water, air and
breeze; land – plants and animals, rocks and stones, plains and valleys, etc. Man adapts these
environmental conditions and factors culturally and scientifically for his own good and uses them
technologically to challenge problems and difficulties arising from the adaptation. For instance, hot
weather generated by the Sun is tempered by a fan and air conditioner. A heating system is used in
Europe and other nations where there is severe cold weather. Land and water are technologically tilled
to yield fruitful food agriculturally to sustain life.

An African sees himself as being part of both nature and environment, hence his almost
instinctive adaptation to its varied imperatives. Because there was such a great variety of
climatic environments and because he sought to function as part of the natural World,
inevitably his culture developed in part from the nature of the demands made on him by the
physical environment and his own adaptive response to it. It then follows that differences in
climatic Regions would, again in part, account for the diversity of cultures all over the
continent. It is also important to appreciate that climate has been a crucial factor in the
distribution of people and, to a very large extent, has dictated their occupational activities.
(Olaniyan, Ed. 1982: 6)

The environment offers its factors and conditions for the betterment, improvement, maintenance, and
sustenance of life. Man responds and adapts culturally and scientifically to environmental natural gifts.
Since not all the dictations of environment are naturally and immediately acceptable to man, such as
excessive heat or extremely cold weather – man’s response to environmental dictation goes beyond the
cultural answer. In such situations, culture takes a scientific approach to challenge and transforms
whatever the environment offers to suit one’s livelihood. This is how science is culturally engaged to
offer solutions to problems confronting life improvement and preservation.

By and large in the World today, and particularly in Africa, there are environmental conditions that
scientific technology should address and tackle by better and productive technological approaches as
noted by Olaniyan:

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…we must take account of the prevalence of disease and sickness, partly due to poor or
inadequate diet and partly due to disease-carriers present in the natural environment like the
mosquito which transmits malaria, the tsetse fly which brings trypanosomiasis or sleeping
sickness to man and cattle, and so on. These sap man’s energy and affect his productive
capability. There are also many pests, which annually cause great havoc to his crops and thus
reduce his food supply.
( Ibid: 7)

In Africa, the scientific technology demands an appropriate technology that will involve new techniques
to affect transformation in the traditional methods of solving problems posed by environmental
constraints, (Ibid: 7). Science needs to penetrate deeply into human culture in order to respond usefully
to the needs and requirements of a healthy environment such as environmental sanitation and simple
environmental hygiene lacking in most of our cities. Here, we need to take David Suzuki’s suggestion
more seriously and with a critical look. In his opinion, he says that:

The solutions to the biodiversity crisis – decreasing consumption and numbers of our species,
reducing the inequities between nations, protecting wildlife habitat, eliminating pollution-
demand a radical change of attitude to our relationship with the land and other species.
(Suzuki, 1992: 247)

Interestingly enough, “If in some way or another the scientific community did not continue to produce
the ‘goods’ in the form of workable, reliable, and usable knowledge, it would hardly have continued to
prosper,” (Harre, 1992: 191). The acts of manufacturing and testing are culturally and scientifically in
place with human surviving mechanisms. Productivity and methods of testing should be geared towards
cultural and technological transformation, scientific requirements, life promotion, and preservation. The
outcome of our cultural and scientific technological advancement must be technologically reasonable,
that is, it must be logically and philosophically plausible.

SCIENTIFIC TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE

Culture is all that comprises and consist of human life and living. It is inherited and created as time rolls
in and out of history and as long as humanity continues in existence. Technology and its philosophy
also stays alive as long as humanity continues to be alive with the endowment of reason and the quest
for knowledge.

The word culture, a term from which inculturation is derived is itself very difficult word to give a
precise definition. But in a very simplified though comprehensive form, the word is often used
with reference to a way of life. It could refer to the sum total of a peoples’ way of life or it could
be used with reference to a particular or specific aspect of the peoples’ way of life.
(Udoidem, 1996: 44)

Culture is given, leaned and acquired as man grows in social, political and scientific order of his
environment. Cultural understanding, interpretation and meaning defer from one environment to the
other and from one community to another; it has individual, societal and universal conceptions. There is
an individual culture, community culture and universal culture that run through length and breadth of
human life. Culture, therefore, has an extensive meaning and very wide approach, (Afolabi, 1971: 26).
Indeed, we are living culture in a word of culture. Culture is a world we are living in, (Adedeji, 2002: 1).

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Living by scientific growth most importantly and precisely, living scientific technology, we are in touch
with culture. The environment we are living in day in day out is culturally engulfed whenever we are
operating our daily functions, whenever human relationships and interactions are taking place,
whenever science and technology are permeating and shaping human ideas, feelings, development
and all other undertakings. Science enriches culture while culture blends and vitalizes science with life.
Science is rooted in culture as culture provides vital soil for science.

A Technologist is a man of culture as much as any scientist; whether he lives by the cultural standard of
the society or not, he cannot cease to be a cultural man simply because he is a technologist. A man of
culture respects the elders, educates the younger ones by personal example, respects and obeys
societal etiquette such as eating, dressing, talking, and cleaning. A Technologist as much as a cultured
man emerges himself in good behavior, lives by community ethics and upholds society’s moral
standard.

Just imagine a lawless situation where students of scientific technology insult and abuse the Vice
Chancellor, lock-up their lectures inside their rooms, initiate their fellow students into a secret-cult, and
vandalize University property. What happens in a situation where discipline is lacking and there is
lawlessness? It amounts to cultural disrespect and manipulation of scientific education, etiquette and
discipline. It is a disgrace to our cultural heritage that cherishes and enjoys respect for life and human
property. Science in such a situation becomes undesirable and unbecoming. Misbehavior such as
those from students of science, technology or otherwise, corrupts and pollutes community culture and
renders blending of cultural education with scientific education which is useless and impossible. A man
who lacks respect, who is arrogant and proud sets culture far apart from science. Regardless what his
cultural understanding and scientific education may be, philosophically he lacks knowledge and wisdom
and he is empty-minded.

It should equally be noted that being a cultural man does not mean that he should shun scientific
education. Rather he uses his scientific training to improve his community’s culture by being sincere
and honest in it and to it. Indeed, his effort is to transform his scientific experience and blend it with his
cultural heritage. While he does that, his community’s culture is enriched and transformed. By doing so,
culture becomes dynamic, lively, comfortable, preservable, and becomes heritage. Scientific technology
thereby becomes desirable for the community advancement for development and progress. Indeed,
Scientific Technology becomes life enhancement.

Hence, scientific education becomes worthwhile as a part of life rather than as an abstract culture of the
society. It becomes a life protector and preserver for the common people as culture. In this sense,
science becomes the daily common language of the people. Culture is spoken, communicated, lived
and transmitted. Cultural technology should become a spoken and communicative language. Hence,
scientific technology as a spoken language of dialog becomes liveable and transmittable.

PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERSTANDING OF CULTURAL TECHNOLOGY

Philosophy involves an analytical, critical, and investigative sort of knowledge as an approach to life’s
issues, and particularly to scientific discoveries. Science, on the other hand is known for investigation,
experimentation, observation, deduction, and conclusion. Scientific conclusion is philosophically
subjected to further critical analysis, observation and questioning, verification and investigation. Many
Philosophers and Scientists are engaging philosophy and Science respectively in different ways. For
Aristotle, philosophy is knowledge by education; hence it is critical and analytical. Science too, for

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James Conant, is seen as series of concepts interconnected that have developed as a result of
experimentation and observation and are fruitful for further experimentation and observation, (Udoidem,
1991: 104-105). Philosophy and Cultural Science are means of obtaining objective and verifiable
knowledge.

Philosophy, so to say, sees and understands Cultural Technology as compatible and as a companion in
an attempt to interpret reality. Nevertheless, philosophy has its own approach while Science and
Cultural Technology also has its own unique approach to the interpretation of reality. In essence,
philosophy and cultural technology have a common fertile ground to work together as noted by
Udoidem:

Both science and philosophy seeks to eliminate the personal and subjective element as far as
possible in the interpretation of reality. This has been a very difficult task in the history of both
philosophy and science, for all forms of philosophical and scientific formulations always bear
the subjective disposition of the articulator. Both philosophy and science used the methods of
reflective thinking in their attempt to interpret reality. Both exhibit a critical, open-minded
attitude and an impartial concern for the truth,
(Ibid.: 105)

Life continuation and value is founded and rooted in reality and truth. Philosophy and cultural science
technology have a common ground to interact and enrich one another. In this regard, while some
Philosophers are making a tremendous contribution to the growth of science students, science on the
other hand helps philosophy improve itself with factual, reflective, and descriptive materials.

Philosophy teaches the stronghold of values and the purpose of life, while it penetrates into the study of
logical, epistemological, ethical and metaphysical problems of scientific enterprise. This in fact leads to
the study of philosophy of science and cultural technology. Philosophy of science takes its significant
meaning from the philosophy of cultural science because science is the offspring of cultural heritage
where the value of life, purpose of life, and life continuity is treasured and nurtured. Philosophy
describes what is scientific, the purpose of science, the nature and laws of science, and the method
and end of science. Culture being the totality of human life, informs and enables philosophy to justify
the existence of science. Science in any given culture justifies its own existence by supporting and
improving the quality of life, value of life, and life continuation through cultural technological
advancement.

CONCLUSION
None of these - Philosophy, Science and Scientific Technology, and Culture exist in isolation where
there is no human being in existence. Culture and cultural heritage develops with human growth and
existence while science and science technology finds its root where human reasoning is operating and
questing for development and life improvement. The co-existence of philosophy, science and scientific
technology in a given culture is as a net-work. They are all interconnected and interwoven. Science
comes into being with human beings experience in culture with culture. Man lives with culture, grows in
culture, and dies in culture. Culture sees man through his accomplishments, achievements, and
fulfillment in life.

Man dislikes life ending abruptly so he enkindles life with values and purpose. He keeps the light of
values and the purpose of life burning with cultural understanding and scientific knowledge. That is, he

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improves the value of life, purpose of life, and existence of life with scientific discoveries. Science
cannot operate now without cultural understanding and culture cannot operate without science as a part
of its operative systems and enrichments.

The Catholic Bishops of Nigeria, in one of their study sessions say that, “A faith that does not become
culture is a faith that is not fully accepted, completely thought out, and truly lived, (Catholic Bishops of
Nigeria, 1988: 9). Let me use the same Catholic Bishop’s analogy in Theology referred to above to
conclude and say that, Science Technology that mingles not with culture, philosophically cannot
challenge human problems and make meaningful impact and contributions to the continuation, qualities
and values of life.

REFERENCES
Adedeji, G.M. (2002), “The Place of Cultural Religion in National, Unity”, Arts and Social Sciences
Forum Journal 1, Vol. 1, No 1.
Afolabi, G.O., (1971), Yoruba Culture, Ibadan: The Caxton Press Ltd.
Catholic Bishops of Nigeria, (1988), Inculturation in Nigeria, Lagos: Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria.
Fadahunsi, A. Ed., (2003), Philosophy, Science, and Technology, Ibadan: Hope Publications.
Harre, R., (1992), The Philosophies of Science, New York: Oxford University Press.
Irele, D,.Ed. (1999), Philosophy, Logic, and Science Reasoning, Ibadan: New Horn Press.
Nwankwo, A.A., (1979), Nigeria My People My Vision, Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishing Co. Ltd.
Nwokwo, M.I., (1992), Philosophy of Technology and Nigeria, Owerri: Claretian Institute of Philosophy.
Olaniyan, R.Ed., (1982), African History and Culture, London: Butler and Tanner Ltd.
Suzuki, D., (1992), Inventing the Future, Reflections on Science, Technology and Nature, London:
Adamantine Press Ltd.
Udoidem, S.I., (1991), Understanding Philosophy, Lagos: African Heritage Research Centre.
Udoidem, S.I., (1996), Pope John Paul II On Inculturation Theory and Practice, New York: University
Press of America Inc.

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