The Question Concerning Technology

Topic/Lesson

1. Difficult Concepts (What concept did you find difficult to understand?)

i. Technology is not equivalent to the essence of technology
ii. Technology itself is a contrivance, or, in Latin, an instrumentum.
iii. Technology is a means to an end.

2. Insights (What new insights or learnings did you gain in discussion/ activity?)
i. Before reading the article/understanding the lesson, I thought technology is just simply about
the collection of techniques, skills, methods, and processes used in the production of goods or
services or a tool for social media. However, reading the article/understanding the lesson, I now
realize that technology is not equivalent to the essence of technology. When we are seeking the
essence of “tree,” we have to become aware that That which pervades every tree, as tree, is not
itself a tree that can be encountered among all the other trees. We must question technology the
way we could find the answer to question that we have.
ii. Before reading the article/understanding the lesson, I thought that technology is just a
technology like it is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in
industry. However, reading the article/understanding the lesson, I now realize that the current
conception of technology, according to which it is a means and a human activity, can therefore
be called the instrumental and anthropological definition of technology everything depends on
our manipulating technology in the proper manner as a means. We will, as we say, “get”
technology “spiritually in hand.” We will master it. The will to mastery becomes all the more
urgent the more technology threatens to slip from human control.
iii. Before reading the article/understanding the lesson, I thought that technology would be a
technology only that again n again the use is the same. However, reading the
article/understanding the lesson, I now realize that means to an end meaning it is a thing that is
not valued or important in itself but useful in achieving an aim. Primitive means versus the
technology as a means to the end, a computer is merely a means to an end, and a modern
technology is also a means to the end. Means to the end example is the LED light bulb start in
stone tools then torches, candles, gas lamps and so on… it means it has a process.
3. Questions (What questions would you want answers for? Or vague areas you want more
explanations about?)
i. What is the instrumental itself?
ii. What is the reigns causality?
iii. What technology is, when represented as a means, discloses itself when we trace
instrumentality back to fourfold causality

Causality (also referred to as causation,[1] or cause and effect) is what connects one process, the
cause, with another process or state, the effect[2], where the cause is wholly or partially
responsible for the effect; the former is hence said to be a cause of the latter. In general, a
process has many causes,[3] which are also said to be causal factors for it, and all lie in its past.
An effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its
future. Multiple philosophers have believed that causality is metaphysically prior to notions of
time and space.[4][5]

Causality is an abstraction that indicates how the world progresses,[citation needed] so basic a
concept that it is more apt as an explanation of other concepts of progression than as something
to be explained by others more basic. The concept is like those of agency and efficacy. For this
reason, a leap of intuition may be needed to grasp it.[6] Accordingly, causality is implicit in the
logic and structure of ordinary language.[7]

In the English language, as distinct from Aristotle's own language, Aristotelian philosophy uses
the word "cause" to mean "explanation" or "answer to a why question", including Aristotle's
material, formal, efficient, and final "causes"; then the "cause" is the explanans for the
explanandum. In this case, failure to recognize that different kinds of "cause" are being
considered can lead to futile debate. Of Aristotle's four explanatory modes, the one nearest to the
concerns of the present article is the "efficient" one.