The Question Concerning Technology’ by Heidegger
Introduction
Martin Heidegger was an authentic and significant thinker of the twentieth century (Hanks 99) Critics perceive him as an obscurantist and charlatan. Some scholars despise his thinking due to the fact that he was linked with the Nazis. However, Heidegger’s reasoning on the philosophy in the contemporary society makes the study worthwhile. He was obliged to write was the observation that everywhere in the European nations. Man was highly tied to technology. Human beings could not exist free of technology.
Understanding Heidegger on Technology
In his book Being and Time (1927), Heidegger boldly claimed the Westernideology propagated by Plato onward had disregarded the basic question of what the being of something to be was. Therefore, he worked at clarifying in his entire work the both the Greek and Western philosophies had been on course that favored nihilism. This was connected to the forgetting of being. Heidegger felt that a rediscovery of the being as well as the real of its revelation would salvage the modern man. Cernuschi cited that Heidegger emphasized on the humanity separateness and connection to others.
Heidegger later literary work on technology draws attention to the place of technology in bringing our destruction as technology constricts our experiences of the things that technologies are. He argued that as we currently view nature and escalating technology directly insinuates the nature and people are a raw material for technological operations. In his argument, he seeks to illuminate this phenomena as a way of finding the thinking by would salvage humanity from being controlled by technology. Heidegger believed that civilizations in Communist Eastern region and the Democratic West had been shaken. He argued that they best way to ensure that we evade the bondage brought about by technology is by evading the dangers brought by the increasing technology.
Heidegger emphasizes on the difference between the objects perceived as parts of endless technological chains and those that show life by illuminating the link between idols and man, the heavens and the earth. For instance an object like a bottle of wine used when sacrificing. The full wine bottle constitutes the produce from the soil, rains, sunshine, man’s activities and sacrifices to the idols. This helps us to know the concept behind the wine bottle. Heidegger is for the idea that nature and art helps to reveal what is hidden. Natural objects acts on their own without any external interference. Poetry draws issues from the past to current.
Despite borrowing from Greek, Heidegger asserts there is a link between modern technologies and the classic philosophies. This is due to the fact that Plato argued that being has a permanent presence. Plato’s argument is that an idea of what a thing is cannot be perceived by the other senses. This leads to what is perceived to be present in contemplations. To Heidegger, these led to the forgetting the being of a thing. A free relationship with technology arises from an openness of humanity to the essence of technology. In this case, technology will not be an inevitable unalterable course. Rather will be perceived and charged as a kind to revealing.
Technology as revealing
It is worth noting that Heidegger’s concern on technology cannot be measured by the scope of his writings. To fully appreciate his views we need to need to understand the greater technology problem suits in the wider philosophical projects in addition to the phenomenological approaches.
This strategy makes things flow in their own way. Emphasis is not laid on the technical or theoretical lens. Being and time argument that is applicable to technology is the one on theoretical activities. For example, natural sciences rely on perceptions of time and space. This narrows knowledge that is implicit in the way we handle the ordinary world of actions and concerns. It is this scientific and objective view on science that restricts our knowledge on daily experiences. Our ordinary way of doing things and the actions in our lives are a fundamental pathway to factual understanding of technology. Human and the being that are above science. When we place science in the same realm of experiences from which it originates and examining thestructure of our scientific understanding of time, space that nature derives pleasure from an extra basic experience of the world.
Heidegger used this knowledge on history and the philosophy of science to explicitly focus on technology. This enabled him to goes beyond the traditional technological views achiness and technical frameworks. He looked at technology as an essence of generally encountering aspects like nature, ourselves and everything.
Heidegger observed that technology was slowly leading to shrinking of time and space. This was despite the fact the distances are hastily set aside brings no closeness. This is because nearness is not dependent on the small amount of distances.Nearness thus remains absent. With more technology, nearness is slowly warded off. This is done by restless removal of distances by technology. The things we needs are presented to us by technology. We see and treat them. Heidegger perceived this as a standing reserve. Supply is done in storeroom. Any piece of inventory is technologically ordered, conscripted, (dis)assembled and set up or aside.
Everything that comes to us is a source of energy that should be assembled. This treats human abilities as means for technologically advanced procedures. The employee is perceived as nothing but an instrument of production. Managers and planners follow the trend and become mere human resources. This makes human labor easily arranged and rearranged as well as objects of easy disposal. This leads to the loss of the distinctive independence and structure of anything that presents itself technologically. This makes humanity push aside any other possibilities.
Efforts to rectify the situation have not brought any remedy but have become part of it. This is majorly due to the fact that technology is a means to ends as well as a means to controlling human activity. The fact is humans perceive the means, ends and ourselves as employable and fungible. The direction and influence that can takes is influenced by technology.
Heidegger analyzes the original language and the phenomenal implications. He rests forGreek and German languages. This is because Greek the philosophical heritages are borrowed from this language while the words in German originally traced without the distortion of an original philosophical reflections.
Heidegger’s critique of modern technology: On “The Question Concerning Technology”
Heidegger began by citing what technology is. The word is derived from a Greek word techne that means skill or art. This is opposed to physis which means nature. The organic for of the nature individually develop in a manner that allows the principle of alterationswithin the system. In addition, techne externally exemplifies a mediation of reason to an object thus bringing change to it. This implies that the concept of change is new to the object. The conflict between the two terms has triggered the conservative division in Western philosophy in the issues of nature, culture as well as organic and inorganic arguments.
The colloquial perception of technology is a humanactivities that furnish the means that impacts desire end. For example, a bridge can be perceived as a product. This is a product of human performance and dealings. In this case, physis and techne is affects materialization and actualization of a desired product. The bridge technology facilitates transportation across discontinuous spaces. The manufacturing and utilization of facilities, tools and equipment and the end purpose they serve are critical aspects of technology.
Heidegger’s perception on the question concerning technology was that technology is fundamentally connected to the question of being. He argued that technology is vital for the constitution of the ontology. The ore technology advances the greater it threatens to get out of man’s control. The advancing technology always brings with it a way of ordering world. To Heidegger, the new structuring that technology brought contaminated an original sense of being. This signaled a level of crisis that awaited the European industrial modernity.
Technology influences the reorganization of the humanity’s perception of realty. With the rate of modern technology dominance escalating, there is s a need to trace back a deeper primary meaning that seems to be lost or overlooked in technological modernity. In a bid to ascertain technology as revealing, Heidegger expanded techne to incorporate poiesis and episteme. This was critical in getting the truth. He ignored the initial meaning of techneas making. He thus prioritized the meaning to poiesis that came before its initiation. Thus the actions that caused a thing worked in the sense of bringing into existence was poiesis. He interconnected the techne-as- poiesis to episteme. This was boosted by rational designs that were activated by particular understanding. For instance, the bridge was a form of poiesis. This brought into existence an artificial fabrication of nature (physis). The materialization of the ends was signified in the finishing of the bridge. This portrays the truth of a man’s rational ability. Stitched together, techne, poesis and episteme links the power to make (techne) as a basic structure of bringing-forth (poiesis) and the revealing exists in the truth (episteme). Heidegger drops the convectional and instrumentalist definition of technology to be a means to an end. This is done towards a thought in technology as an originality for of truth-revealing that discloses worlds. This goes a long way in structuring a form of wording.
Enframing was central to Heidegger’s argument. This is because it was an important tool and condition that signified the truth that was to be revealed poetically to humanity.It is worth noting that the modern technology cannot be perceived as poetic. This is because it does not bear the essence of bringing forth ends in the contemporary society. This takes it every dangerous. Moreover, it does not conform to the standards of calculability or utility. This makes it suspicious and thus mythical. Heidegger describes this situation as challenging as it pushes nature unreasonably demand energy supplies. The supplies can then be extracted for the benefits of man.
Works cited
Cernuschi, Claude. Barnett Newman and Heideggerian Philosophy. , 2012. Print.
Hanks, Craig. Technology and Values. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. Pri