Ethics and Values in Science, Technology, and Society

Vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts from STS Lesson 2.2, including philosophical perspectives from Aristotle, Martin Heidegger, and Paulo Freire, alongside classifications of reality.

Objective Reality

A domain of reality that exists independently of personal beliefs, characterized by measurable facts such as river levels or temperature.

Disciplinary Reality

A perspective of reality understood through the specialized concepts, methods, and evidence of a particular field of study.

Intersubjective Reality

A shared reality that exists because people collectively agree, recognize, or give social meaning to it, such as laws, money, and citizenship.

Subjective Reality

An individual's personal perception of reality based on their unique experiences, beliefs, feelings, and emotions.

Ethics

Universal principles of right action that ground public reasoning and moral responsibility within Science, Technology, and Society.

Values

Cultural or personal priorities that influence what individuals and communities consider important and guide how technologies are adopted.

Physis

An Aristotelian concept referring to nature or reality.

Episteme

An Aristotelian term representing scientific knowledge, or knowing why things are as they are.

Techne

An Aristotelian concept referring to craft, making, or knowing how to construct tools and artifacts.

Phronesis

An Aristotelian concept meaning practical wisdom or the ethical, judicious application of knowledge.

Eudaimonia

An Aristotelian term for human flourishing and well-being, considered the ultimate goal of human life.

Material Cause

The first of Aristotle's Four Causes, referring to the raw physical substance or matter from which an object is made.

Formal Cause

The second of Aristotle's Four Causes, referring to the blueprint, design, structure, or arrangement that gives an object its essential identity.

Final Cause

The third of Aristotle's Four Causes, referring to the ultimate purpose, goal, or function (telos) for which an object exists.

Efficient Cause

The fourth of Aristotle's Four Causes, referring to the creator, craftsman, or agent that brings an object into existence.

Itak

A traditional Filipino blade crafted by a panday-bakal that illustrates how physical objects integrate materials, design, cultural context, and purpose.

Martin Heidegger

A 20th-century German philosopher who analyzed how modern technology fundamentally alters human worldview by reducing nature and people to resources.

Enframing

Heidegger's concept (Gestell) describing how modern technology frames the world, forcing nature, objects, and humans to be viewed strictly as resources or standing-reserves to be calculated and used.

Revealing

Heidegger's view that technology is not merely a passive or neutral tool, but a way of disclosing reality and altering how humans relate to the world.

Danger of Technology

In Heideggerian philosophy, the condition where humanity forgets alternative, richer ways of understanding the world and perceives everything solely as disposable resources.

Saving Power

In Heideggerian philosophy, the critical awareness of technology's dominating nature that allows humans to awaken, reframe techne, and use technology to let things be.

Paulo Freire

A Brazilian educator and philosopher who wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968) and promoted liberation through dialogical education and critical consciousness.

Banking Model of Education

An educational model criticized by Paulo Freire in which teachers deposit information into passive students, expecting them to memorize and reproduce it without critical inquiry.

Dialogical Education

An educational approach advocated by Paulo Freire based on mutual dialogue between teachers and students to question assumptions and co-create knowledge.

The Oppressed

In Paulo Freire's framework, marginalized individuals or groups who are denied full humanity and conditioned to adapt to oppressive conditions rather than transform them.

The Oppressors

In Paulo Freire's framework, those holding power who maintain control over social, technical, and educational systems while treating people as objects rather than subjects of history.