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Martin Heidegger

Heidegger believed the essence of technology is enframing, which challenges humans to reveal the truth of nature in a way that risks reducing nature to mere resources. Modern technology reveals through challenging-forth rather than bringing-forth. Enframing orders nature for exploitation through either calculative or meditative thinking. This risks humans being consumed by technology rather than its stewards.

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Roy Etolle
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14 views3 pages

Martin Heidegger

Heidegger believed the essence of technology is enframing, which challenges humans to reveal the truth of nature in a way that risks reducing nature to mere resources. Modern technology reveals through challenging-forth rather than bringing-forth. Enframing orders nature for exploitation through either calculative or meditative thinking. This risks humans being consumed by technology rather than its stewards.

Uploaded by

Roy Etolle
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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II.

MARTIN HEIDEGGER'S CLAIM ABOUT THE ESSENCE OF TECHNOLOGY

To Heidegger, the real essence of technology lies in enframing, the gathering of settling which challenges man
to bring the unconcealed to unconcealment and this is a continuous revealing.

MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1889–1976)

 Heidegger was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. Technology was an
important element in his work: for Heidegger, technology was the key to understanding our current time.
Especially his text ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ (1954, English Translation 1977), which has
been very influential in the philosophy of technology. He urges us to question technology and see
beyond people’s common understanding about

Definitions of Technology according to M. Heidegger


1. Instrumental definition: Technology is a means to an end
2. Anthropological definition: Technology is a human activity

Both definitions are correct. However, neither touches on the true essence of technology.

HEIDEGGER’S VIEW ON TECHNOLOGY

Technology as a Way of Revealing


 Heidegger stressed that the truth can only be pursued through the correct. Simply what is correct leads to
what is true. In this sense, he envisioned technology as a way of revealing – a mode of bringing forth.
 Bringing forth can be understood through the Ancient Greek philosophical concept, Poiesis, which
refers to the act of bringing something out of concealment. By bringing something out of concealment,
the truth of that something is revealed.
 The truth is understood through another Ancient Greek concept of Aletheia, which is translated as
unclosedness, unconcealedness, disclosure, or truth.
Technology is a form of poiesis- a way of revealing that unconceals aletheia or the truth.
 In philosophy, techne resembles the term episteme that refers to the human ability to make and
perform. Techne also encompasses knowledge and understanding.
 In art, it refers to tangible and intangible aspects of life.
 The Greek understood techne in the way that it encompasses not only craft, but other acts of the
mind, and poetry.

TECHNOLOGY AS POIESIS: DOES MODERN TECHNOLOGY BRING FORTH OR


CHALLENGE FORTH?
 Heidegger, in The Question Concerning Technology, postulated that both primitive crafts and modern
technology are revealing. However, he explained that modern technology is revealing not in the sense of
bringing forth.
 Revealing of modern technology is not a bringing-forth, but a challenging-forth.
 Modern technology challenges nature by extracting something from it and transforming, storing and
distributing it. It makes people think how to do things faster, more effectively, and with less effort.
 Challenging forth reduces objects as standing-reserve or something to be disposed of by those who
enframe them- humans.
 This is evident in the way people exploit natural resources with very little concern for the ecological
consequences that come with it.
 In the information age- greater control of information to profit from its value gives rise to concerns
about privacy and the protection of human rights.
 Rise and depletion of petroleum as a strategic resource
 Introduction and use of synthetic dyes, artificial flavorings, and toxic materials into the consumer
stream that bring about adverse effects on human health.
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 Use of ripening agents in agriculture that poses threats to food safety and health security.
ENFRAMING AS MODERN TECHNOLOGY’S WAY OF REVEALING
 Heidegger distinguished the way of revealing of modern technology by considering it as a process of
enframing.
 Enframing, according to Heidegger, is akin to two ways:
1. CALCULATIVE THINKING- humans desire to put an order to nature to better understand
and control it.
- tends to be more commonly utilized, primarily because humans’ desire to control due to their fear
of irregularity.
- Calculative thinking is the more technical kind of human thought, in which people gather
information and put it together in order to put it to some specific use.
2. MEDITATIVE THINKING- humans allow nature to reveal itself to them without the use of
force or violence.

 Enframing, is a way of ordering (or framing) nature to better manipulate it. Enframing happens because
of how humans desire for security, even it pulls all of nature as a standing reserve and an instrument of
technology, to be exploited in the ordering of nature.
 The role of humans take as instruments of technology through enframing is called destining.
 In destining, humans are challenged forth by enframing to reveal what is real. However, this destining of
humans to reveal nature carries with it the danger of misconstruction or misinterpretation.
THE DANGERS OF TECHNOLOGY
 Lie on how humans let themselves be consumed by it. The responsibility of humans is to recognize how
they become instruments of technology.
 According to Paulo Coelho, it is boastful for humans to think that nature needs to be saved, whereas
Mother Nature would remain even if human cease to exist.
 As a mere tenant on Earth, people must not allow themselves to be consumed by technology lest they
lose the essence of who they are as human beings. In this sense, humans are in danger of becoming
merely part of the standing reserve or, alternatively, may find themselves in nature.
 Recognizing the dangers of technology requires critical and reflective thinking on it use. For instance,
 Social media has indeed connected people in the most efficient and convenient way imaginable, but
it also inadvertently gave rise to issues such as invasion of privacy, online disinhibition, and
proliferation of fake news.
ART AS THE SAVING POWER
 Necessary reflection upon and confrontation with technology are required in order to proactively address
the dangers of technology.
 “But where danger is, grows the saving power also” – Friedrich Holderlin (1977, p.14)
 Heidegger proposed art as the saving power and the way out enframing: “and art was simply called
techne. It was a single, manifold revealing” (1977, p.18)
Art encourages human to think less from calculative standpoint where nature is viewed as an ordered system.
Instead, it inspires meditative thinking where nature is seen an art and that without any force and violence.

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