A Field Guide to Heidegger: Understanding 'The Question concerning Technology'

Journal of Philosophy of Education, 1997

This is an overview of Heidegger's view of technology, from Being and Time onwards. The essay will be an entry in an anthology edited by Mark Wrathall on key concepts of Heidegger's thought. Please do not cite without permission. Suggestions for improvement are welcome!

Epoché, 2015

Is Heidegger's theory of the era of technology a sufficent hermeneutics of contemporary globalization? It remains invaluable because it understands technology in terms of transcendence, and transcencence in terms of being-in-the-world. But should it nevertheless be revised in the context of contemporary social and technological environment? This article shows firstly how Heidegger's general idea of being-in-the-world is specified in his theory of technology, and how technology reduces man and nature into "natural resources" and being into elemental techno-nature. Secondly, the article presents two types of critique to Heidegger's idea: on the one hand, Ihde, Latour and Stiegler question Heidegger's understanding of technology as a total system; on the other hand, Foucault and Eldred question Heidegger's understanding of technology independently of social and economical structures. The article suggests that re-interpreted through these critiques, the theory of technology gives a good basis for an ontology of contemporary "uprooted" existence.

Continental Philosophy Review, 2011

Martin Heidegger's radical critique of technology has fundamentally stigmatized modern technology and paved the way for a comprehensive critique of contemporary Western society. However, the following reassessment of Heidegger's most elaborate and influential interpretation of technology, ''The Question Concerning Technology,'' sheds a very different light on his critique. In fact, Heidegger's phenomenological line of thinking concerning technology also implies a radical critique of ancient technology and the fundamental being-in-the-world of humans. This revision of Heidegger's arguments claims that ''The Question Concerning Technology'' indicates a previous unseen ambiguity with respect to the origin of the rule of das Gestell. The following inquiry departs from Heidegger's critique of modern technology and connects it to a reassessment of ancient technology and Aristotle's justification of slavery. The last part of the paper unfolds Heidegger's underlying arguments in favor of continuity within the history of technology. According to these interpretations, humans have always strived to develop ''modern'' technology and to become truly ''modern'' in the Heideggerian sense. The danger stemming from the rule of das Gestell is thus not only transient and solely directed toward contemporary Western society, but also I will argue that humans can only be humans as the ones challenged by the rule of das Gestell.

Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2021

It is clear that we have to do something in our time concerning global warming yet before we can actually change the world, we must first understand our world. According to Heidegger, technology itself is not good or bad, but the problem is, that technological thinking (calculative thinking) has become the only form of thinking. Heidegger saw that the essence of technology nowadays is enframing -Ge-stell, which means that everything in nature is 'standing-reserve' (Bestand). Enframing (as apparatus) is one way of uncovering, which for Heidegger meant truth. Truth can appear in many ways and the danger is that this truth of representational-calculative thinking becomes the only truth. We claim that the calculative way of thinking must be changed and we posit that Gelassenheit (slow thinking, releasement, letting-go) is the remedy. It does not mean some kind of mysticism or irrationality. The notion of Gelassenheit includes the idea of to let learn. We as teachers and educators have to learn how to think outside of the technological 'Ge-stell' and start thinking and acting in radically new ways. Like Arne Naes and Michael Zimmerman we connect the overcoming of technological 'Ge-stell' with so called deep ecology. We have to 'learn to think' and act within the deep ecology. We call for an educational ecological imperative. Every teacher and educationalist has to think what they can do (not as private person but as professionals) in order to prevent the coming eco-catastrophe.

Gatherings: The Heidegger Circle Annual, 2023

This essay highlights the default of questioning, along with logic and critical reflection, on techno-scientific principles and philosophical and theological questions. Heidegger's reflections on questioning and on technology are read alongside Günther Anders' reflections on the "antiquatedness" of the human being. In the wake of modern techno-science, what is most "question-worthy" is that we do not question-heightened in an age in which critique has come under attack and citizens are urged to "trust," without questioning, what is called "the science." k e y w o r d s : correctness; aletheic truth; thinking; media; questioning In: Gatherings, edited by Scott Campbell, Vol. 13 (2023)

In his 2004 book Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology, St. Louis-based writer Eric Brende recounts his and his wife’s 18-month experiment in living with a conservative Amish sect. Brende, a graduate of the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, wanted to put to the test some of his reservations about technology that he had aired, with various reactions, at his alma mater. Anticipating the conclusions he would come to through his time with the Amish, Brende writes that modern humans have forgotten the distinction between the tool and technology. Without such a distinction, it is natural to view all human technical activity as of a piece, from the simplest of hand-tools, to the most complex mechanical or digital apparatus. In “The Question Concerning Technology,” Heidegger makes this suggestive, parenthetical comment: Here it would be appropriate to discuss Hegel’s definition of the machine as an autonomous tool. When applied to the tools of the craftsman, his characterization is correct. [However,] seen in terms of the standing reserve, the machine is completely nonautonomous, for it has its standing only on the basis of the ordering of the orderable. Heidegger thereby suggests an account of the tool and of its difference from technology. While technology frames the world as standing-reserve from which energy is extracted, tools are bound up with Dasein’s primitive conception of the world, disclosing the world as ready-to-hand. While technology extracts quantifiable energy for future use, challenging nature with a techno-scientific enframing, with tools, human beings work with nature as with an autonomous partner in their labor. This Heideggerian distinction points the way to a practical form of response and action in the face of the technological enframing which surrounds us in contemporary life.

Synthesis Philosophica

As people who live in modern ages, technology occupies a great place in our lives. In the way how we relate to technology, we regard it as a means to an end. We use technology in the service of our needs. But we also blame technology for dissolving human relations and controlling our lives. My claim in this paper is that technology in itself cannot be hold responsible for this unwelcome scene alone. There is also the role of the way how we relate to technology. Therefore, we should question what technology is in itself regardless of its service. Heidegger in The Question Concerning Technology claims that technology cannot be understood instrumentally but as a mode of revealing. In this revealing the truth, in the sense of aletheia, happens. Thus, if we consider technology as a place where truth happens, we can reconstruct our relation to it.