Aruta

The Need For Husserl’s Rational Intersubjectivity To Prevent Further Adverse Effects Of Science & Technology On Life & Ethics

By Gabrielle Aruta, Saint Joseph’s University

The metaphysical foundation of Western thought has unavoidably led to the technological domination and exploitation of the world. For this reason, I presently take up the question concerning science and technology given that the adverse affects of these fields, emerge as a central problem of our era. Many people place naïve faith in science to solve all conceivable questions without taking into account what Edmund Husserl calls the “Crisis of Science.” This results from not realizing the importance of critically examining the subjective and objective components of experience and their essential correlation, which is vital to Husserl’s phenomenology.

Currently, we are at a juncture when serious a reinterpretation is needed for the old foundation of scientific thought, that is, science and technology must become actively engaged in a phenomenological reduction and begin to self-criticize. Similarly, there needs to be an emphasis on the grappling that scientists have to do over “mounting perplexities and moral problems posed by their astonishing findings,” as “it seems that enlarged control over nature is brought at the price of diminished intelligibility.”1

Hence, I offer this paper as a response to Heidegger’s acknowledgment that there is no traditional philosophical remedy to the serious problems, which science and technology inflict on society and the essence of man’s existence. However, it is my intention to show that Husserl’s phenomenological method, most especially his call for the epochè of one’s doxa, will provide such a remedy and reveal greater insight to the essences of science and technology by means of a transcendental intersubjectivity, to determine technologies positive and negative elements. I believe it is of the utmost importance to determine a clarified final understanding of the implications of science & technology on life and ethics. It must be understood that technology is often a means of manipulating the environment for humans desired ends and thus presents us with various moral concerns about its application in our lives. In lieu of this humans need to strive towards an ethical approach to science and technology which, “entails the development of normative strategies directed toward the achievement or approximation of a moral ideal.”2 Again, to achieve a transcendental enlightenment of how science “ought” to conduct itself, Husserl’s phenomenological reduction is a necessary first step.

In, The Question Concerning Technology, Heidegger wrote that in truth, “nowhere does man today any longer encounter himself or, his essence,” which is precisely why I believe that a phenomenological reorganization of the world is needed.3 In the words of Husserl, we need to turn our attention back to “the things themselves” or the impressions made by the mind to question or perhaps even justify technologies adverse affects. Before I begin my criticism on the dangers of science and technology I must make a significant distinction between the form of technology I see as positive aspect to society, and the kind that both Husserl and Heidegger along with myself, see as a danger.

The form of science and technology that is excluded from my criticism is an anthropological understanding of technology, which pertains to the body of knowledge available a society to implement scientific discoveries for practical and helpful purposes. Heidegger views this as the fundamental “techne of poiesis”4 and describes it as receptive and contemplative, in that it inclines us to responsibly Care for our Projects and has a certain quality which can disclose the essence of our Da-sein.

Conversely, the dangerous form of technology is modern technology which exploits the scientific method for the purpose of achieving particular commercial or industrial objectives with no thought of how it affects the human condition or the Life-World in which we reside. It seems as though modern technology assumes little responsibility for its negative effect on nature, human beings and especially on beings relationship with others. What I intend to show is that the rational intersubjectivity found in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology is the tool needed to overcome the present technological crisis. I believe that phenomenology will act as an objectivist program of pure logic protecting the human condition from the adverse affects of modern technology.

Historically the channel of communication between science and philosophy has been strained but we need to overcome the traditional barriers concerning this issue to expound positive solutions for society. Science continually posits false meaning claims, asserting that it alone can comprehend all knowledge including that of our existence. This intrusion of technology depletes and destroys the importance of human life. As it continues to advance, it will further conceal our true nature or the essence of our Da-sein that Heidegger is so concerned about revealing.

The devastating effects of their progression have lead to many problems based on science lacking an awareness of its own inauthentic subjective nature. The utter lack of objectivity and valid truth in our world due to personal subjectivity, divulges our complete objectification of natural resources, other human beings, and the intersubjective Life-World. In the final analysis, this will further lead to a greater loss of Intelligibility by reducing our cognitive skills to what Heidegger calls, “technical information processing.”5

Thus, it is certain that we need use the full capacity of our reason to move beyond the problematic nature of science of technology and I suggest that we look at this challenging scenario through the lens of a Husserlian phenomenological reduction. People must come to realize that science and technology cannot alone cope with the problems of absolute truth and validity, however, individuals are so absorbed in the Everydayness of the Natural Attitude that we have become unaware of others. I think focusing our attention on the understanding that we actualize our identity based on Mitsein or our relationship with others is a simple realization that becomes the catalyst for a phenomenological reduction. For, to know the concerns of the other, can be our guide through the phenomenological process.

This comprehensive notion of Otherness is significant to those in a position of leadership in the fields of science and technology, who must come understand the great need for revisiting intersubjectivity. They must embrace the significance of dialectic between the self and others to realize how important a role their works plays in society. I believe that a practical application of phenomenological insights is central to focus on the constitution of otherness. If people were to take the time to seek knowledge about other human beings then perhaps individuals would not make such selfish decisions, since to know others leads to a better understanding of oneself. Essential, it is the directedness of our consciousness towards objects and others that will make us better people.

Martin Heidegger gives an ontological critique of the origins and imperfections of science and technology, identifying it as the main source of dilemmas and conflicts. Heidegger essentially does not want the world to be seen as an object to be used or controlled. “The aim of Heidegger’s analysis of the origin of technology is to show how the scientific objectification and manipulation of entities in-the-world takes place on the primordially nonsubstantive and nonconceptualizable domain of Being.”6 Here Heidegger’s “method is predominantly phenomenological in relation to ontology, by focusing on the process of the revealing/concealing of Being.”7 For Heidegger the great threat to human existence is that thinking has become a kind of technical information processing. Thinking, like our Da-sein has become a background reality, it had previously meant something very important but lost its meaning in language somewhere. Heidegger foresaw this problem leading to a fundamental “homelessness and rootlessness of our essence. However, he writes that, “thinking philosophically and poeticizing are both ways of guarding the essential nature of the human relation with Being”8

Although, modern technology presented itself as a problem to Heidegger he also was able to see the significance of its fundamental Revealing characteristic. “The revealing that rules in modern technology is a challenging Herausfordern, which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy that can be extracted and stored.”9 In describing the essence of technology, Heidegger writes that surprisingly it is not technological, “thus we shall never experience our relationship to the essence of technology so long as we merely conceive and push forward the technological, put up with it, or evade it.”10 Objects begin to lose their character when caught up in the “standing-reserve” Bestand when they are always present-at-hand. This challenge of nature places it as a means to a means in most cases and makes sure the resources are always at our command. As we push nature to its limits, technology also challenges human beings into the process of ordering. Here, human beings are made subordinate to the industries in which they work. Technology as it advances creates impressive machines that function as autonomous tools however this reduces the importance of cognitive ability. Undoubtedly, the earth is challenged in many ways by technology, Heidegger explained, but that challenging still has a revealing nature

Technology not only serves as a means of accomplishing projects, it is also a way of disclosing and revealing Being. However, it is a form of revealing that also uses up the material which it is setting forth. It turns nature into a stockpile of resources. The nature of this technological revealing is such that it obscures and does not reveal its own essence. Furthermore, it transforms the humans who are involved in technology. “Heidegger’s view is that, in the promotion of efficiency, flexibility, and control, humans become the tools of their own technology, and the human itself becomes resource.”11

Far too many people today get caught up in the structural feature of running away from responsibility, what Heidegger calls Falling. In this process humans continue to lose the essence of their Being for the sake of manipulating others or nature. However, I believe that the total lack of ethical behavior will be overcome by implementing Husserl’s rational intersubjectivity. Actualizing an Authentic Da-sein or transcending to the Phenomenological Attitude is what will allow us to overcome the problematic nature of modern technology.

We cannot continue to allow the destructiveness generated by neglect, unpredictability, or shortsightedness to keep humans trapped in the empirical ego and suffering the negative effects of technology. Science and technology need to phenomenological reduce their various modalities of judgment to achieve objective and valid truth without positing false knowledge claims. According to Husserl, our final foundation of truth is to be based on the universal self-reflection of phenomenology. This will leave society with a phenomenological and existential fulfillment of human existence.

For Husserl the roots and beginnings of knowledge are to be found in “the things themselves” and involve a turn to the object itself. Husserl blamed the crisis being discussed, that of the European sciences, on “the split between Galilean objectivism and Cartesian subjectivism.”12 This stemmed Positivistic science and the study of mere facts, which Husserl determined to be why science had lost its meaning and even impaired our comprehension of the purpose of man’s existence in the process. On this topic, Herbert Spiegelberg wrote that, “the incapacity and unwillingness of science to face problems of value and meaning because of its confinement to mere positive facts seemed to Husserl to be the very root of the crisis of science and of mankind itself.”13

Husserl’s method determines that we can only abstract understanding from what is “given” in experience. To do so, we are called upon to invoke the “pure” reflective method of phenomenology. For Husserl our logical conceptions of technology originate in intuition and arise on the basis of certain experiences. So to fully understand the affects of science we must investigate the, “’pure categories of meaning,’ which were described as the primitive concepts that ‘make possible’ our objective nexus of knowledge.”14

I believe Husserl’s descriptive clarification of phenomenology will allow us to better come to know objective truth in matters concerning technology. To this effect, Marvin Farber wrote that, “…our knowledge of the hitherto unrecognized elements may be increased by the greater thoroughness made possible by practiced reflection and the explicit use of the phenomenological epochè is a great aid in this procedure.”15

I think that Farber’s insight quoted above is important because objective clarification is precisely needed when investigating the problematic nature of science and technology. That essential clarification is further developed in “Husserl’s theory of the constitution of intersubjectivity, which is the process of directing intentional acts to correlated objective meanings. This can provide important guidance for a persuasive account of the progress whereby one subject comes to objectively know another.”16

Despite the many negative elements of science and technology both Husserl and Heidegger wrote about the potentially positive aspects as well. While technology is clearly a vast problem, Heidegger views it as a potential “saving grace” from which a new disclosure of Being emerges. He saw in technology the traces of that authentic relation to the world and to Being. Heidegger wants us to “Step-Back” and work through the problems existing within the framework of our Gestell. It is at this precise point that I believe we need to heed Heidegger’s advice vis-à-vis returning to Husserl’s epochè and the phenomenological reduction. From this more rational position individuals will be able to better perceive the problematic roots of the Western tradition of metaphysics. This is the opportunity to implement phenomenology as a return to beginnings and a tool for illuminating the Hiddenness-of-Truth. Similarly, Husserl’s science of philosophy sees technology as having the ‘chance of making life itself more significant,’ which we need to focus on. For, technology might aid in the realization of man’s fundamental purpose in life. For, Husserl felt a great sense of responsibility for his cause Sachen and had impossibly high aspirations for himself and his method.

Clearly, both Heidegger and Husserl wanted to overcome the global hegemony and overwhelming problems of the scientific era. To do so, I do not think it is necessary to systematical follow Husserl and Heidegger on the many twists and turns of their philosophical developments but rather to extract certain essential components to procure their most positive and helpful aspects. I believe in the possibility of having an ideal encounter with Science and Technology but that is contingent upon an active engagement in philosophizing. If not, we will continue to exist in the Natural Attitude or mundane Everydayness; allowing social, cultural and environmental dilemmas to grow. We will remain unfree with a loss of direction and chained to the destructive capacity of technology that continues to reduce cognitive ability to mere “technical information processing.”

Accordingly, there is a immense need for the rational intersubjectivity found in Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenology to thwart what Heidegger calls in Being & Time, the impending ‘Transcendental Homelessness’ of our Da-sein. This seems imminent vis-à-vis the overwhelming deconstruction of cognitive abilities due to the ‘Instrumental conception of Technology’.17 This is the paramount challenge to our times and as Husserl and Heidegger concluded, there is no traditional or specific remedy for this problem. That is why I propose a merging of the rational intersubjectivity found in Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenology with Heidegger’s Fundamental Ontology, and Hermeneutics. Finally, I call on society to rethink the tradition of Western thought and turn to new beginning, while applying a familiar phenomenological method, to improve the restlessness of our undirected lives and save future generations from further adverse affects technological on our lives and personal ethics.Ç

Works Cited:

Lisa D. Campolo, “Derrida and Heidegger: The Critique of Technology and the Call to Care,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Sep., 1985), 431-448

Marvin Farber, “The Function of Phenomenological Analysis,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Jun., 1941), 431-441

Kathleen M. Haney, Intersubjectivity Revisited: Phenomenology and the Other, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1994

Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1977

Steven Heine, “Philosophy for an ‘Age of Death’: The Critique of Science and Technology in Heidegger and Nishitani,” Philosophy East and West, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Arp., 1990), 175-193

Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970

Edmund Husserl, Phenomenology & Crisis of Philosophy, New York: Harper & Row, 1965

Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, New York: Routledge, 2000

David Papineau, Western Philosophy: An Illustrated Guide, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004

Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction, Netherlands: The Hague, 1971

Notes