The Cautionary Ontological Approach To Technology of Gabriel Marcel

[Faustine]

The Cautionary Ontological Approach To Technology of Gabriel Marcel
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Tech/TechGend.htm

ABSTRACT: I present the arguments of Gabriel Marcel which are intended to 
overcome the potentially negative impact of technology on the human. Marcel 
is concerned with forgetting or rejecting human nature. His perspective is 
metaphysical. He is concerned with the attitude of the "mere technician" 
who is so immersed in technology that the values which promote him as an 
authentic person with human dignity are discredited, omitted, denied, 
minimized, overshadowed, or displaced. He reviews the various losses in 
ontological values which curtail the full realization of the human person 
in his dignity. The impact of technology leads too often to a loss of the 
sense of the mystery of being and self, authenticity and integrity, the 
concrete and the existential, truth and dialogue, freedom and lover, 
humanity and community, fidelity and creativity, the natural and the 
transcendent, commitment and virtue, respect of the self and responsiveness 
to others, and especially of the spiritual and the sacred. Thus, the task 
of the philosopher is to be a watchman, un veilleur, on the alert for a 
hopeful resolution of the human predicament.