Philosophical Perspectives on Work, Technology, and Art

The Evolving Meaning of Work in Society

The meaning attributed to work and its social, political, or religious role has not always been the same. Generally, work is the action through which human beings attempt to respond, revealing their capacity for invention and their power to transform nature.

Ancient Greek Perspectives on Work and Life

Greek philosophy conceived of the human being as one who knows, who yearns to contemplate the truth. When someone was forced to perform necessary tasks simply to survive, it was considered a servile life. Aristotle spoke against the domination of men in this context. The Greeks distinguished between two types of life:

• Private life: Serving the needs of life, which ought to remain hidden.
• Public life: Relating to human affairs, considered the only life truly worth living.

This ideal public life was one without toil. Work was reserved for slaves and women, whose tasks were confined to the private sphere.

Hannah Arendt: Distinguishing Labor and Work

Hannah Arendt provided a detailed analysis distinguishing between concepts often conflated:

• Labor: An activity oriented towards obtaining goods for consumption.
• Work: An activity designed to produce artificial, more durable things.

Furthermore, Arendt characterized work as follows:

• It involves a certain violence against nature.
• It is governed by a model that guides production, precedes the process, and endures afterward.
• It transforms human beings into designers (homo faber).
• The worker receives remuneration for a predefined, limited time.

Industrial Revolution: A New Era of Work

The Industrial Revolution radically transformed the concept of work. Some key consequences included:

Consequences of Industrialization

• Emergence of the factory: A new workspace allowing many workers to collaborate in a coordinated manner.
• Proliferation of roles: Functions, activities, and levels of distribution multiplied.
• New time discipline: Workers' time organization changed, governed by the factory clock and siren.
• Urbanization: Production shifted to cities, causing the rise of urban centers.
• Rise of capitalism and bourgeoisie: The emergence of capitalist owners.
• Birth of the proletariat: A new class defined by its working and living conditions in urban areas.
• Women's entry into production: Beginning the long journey towards women's liberation.

Marx on Alienation and the Worker

According to Karl Marx, the worker becomes alienated, losing their essential being through work. By selling their labor power, workers are treated as commodities, diminishing their value as active subjects.

Workers are also expropriated from the fruits of their labor, which instead contribute to the owner's capital. This is the alienation of the worker. This division between workers and owners manifests in society as opposing social classes, a tension that historically erupts in revolutions.

Philosophical Reflections on Technology

The philosophy of technology reflects on technical systems and their effects on society. It questions the nature, value, and social consequences of the technological phenomenon.

Key Thinkers on Technology's Impact

• Lewis Mumford: Offered an early philosophical interpretation of technology's value, social consequences, and potential reforms.
• Ortega y Gasset: Believed that humans must create themselves. He identified stages of technical elaboration: the technique of chance, the technique of the craftsman, and the technique of the technician. He argued the latter could annul the human being by enslaving or making them dependent on it.
• Martin Heidegger: Viewed technique (techne) as a form of revealing, an unveiling of truth (aletheia).
• Jürgen Habermas: Argued that contemporary science and technology do not genuinely seek truth but are contaminated by values and interests external to the investigation itself. He suggested that technological society and state bureaucracy lead to depoliticization and civic apathy, where only technical experts are deemed capable of making correct policy decisions. Technology, in this view, becomes an instrument of domination.

Art as a Revelation of Truth

The artwork presents us with a beautiful and fulfilling experience that brings us closer to the truth of things. Philosophers distinguish two planes to explain how the truth of matter is revealed through the sensible:

1. The matter of the artwork: A plane of immediate perceptions, closely related to the work's material configuration or shape.
2. The form: A plane capturing a world of relations between sensory elements.

Heidegger referred to the first plane as "Earth" and the second as "World." The artwork emerges from the apparent closeness of the Earth. From this foundation, a World arises, engaging in a struggle with the Earth. This process consists of bringing things to light, initiating the journey of the materials. For Heidegger, the "rift" (Riss) or tension between Earth and World is essential to the artwork. The artist works with pre-existing materials—physical, inert matter—within which they perceive a world of meaning. Perceiving the form allows us to grasp its unity.