Abstract

This essay argues that a purely secular philosophy of technology omits an essential aspect of technical activity: the ultimate concern for which any action is undertaken. By way of an analysis of Borgmann and Hickman, I show that the philosophy of technology cannot articulate the nature of the good life without reference to an ultimacy beyond finite human goods. This paradoxically implies that human beings desire something infinite which they cannot name, a paradox that theologians have long understood in terms of a theological dialectic.