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“The Question Concerning Technology” by Martin Heidegger Essay

We live in the era of modern technologies. People cannot imagine their life without modern technologies and as a result, we do not even pay attention to its influence over our life and the way of thinking. Technologies have captured human life making them blind to the surrounding world. The relationships between a human being and nature which have been so close at the beginning of civilization are destroyed with the development of technologies. This question has become the main subject of many philosophers. The notion of technologies has become to be researched not only from the scientific point of view, but it has attracted a lot of philosophers. Heidegger devotes the whole work to the influence of technologies over humankind in his work “The Question Concerning Philosophy.”

Heidegger has based his work on his basic concept of the revealing of the Western World where the truth is limited. Truth is believed to be limited to knowledge. Truth is called revealing by Heidegger that is imposed on humanity. Truth is connected not only with knowledge, but it refers to all the objects surrounding us. Human life is based not only on knowledge but emotions, feelings, desires, goals, the role in society also play a vital role for us. All these factors predetermine our vision of the surrounding world. For example, if both the atheist and a religious person look at the church their thoughts will be different. Atheist considers this building as a work of art while religious person considers this place to be the Lord’s house (Windermere, n.d.). This place is beautiful for the atheist while for the believer it is holy. Heidegger points out the revealing aspects of each object of the surrounding world that depend on the attitude of every person to this object. Although the points of view concerning the church are considerably different, they both are true. Both these points of view are aspects of the church. All modes of revealing are true, and the truth is considered to the revealing. All factors influencing our attitude to the surrounding world are revealing. When people like the object it is considered to be a lovely while when it is hated it is considered to be horrible. As for technologies Heidegger tries to present this notion from a different point of view. Some people consider them to be hostile towards a human being while other people consider it to be the improvement of human life. There is no doubt that technologies make human life better. Nevertheless, this improvement touches upon only the material side of our life but what the spiritual one? How does it influence the notion of revealing?

To answer all the questions having asked above it is necessary to understand the essence of technologies. Heidegger is very interested in the essence of modern technology that is highlighted in his work “The Question Concerning Technology” but the basic subject of his work is not the interpretation of different approaches of the technology. The main theme of this work is the relationships between the so-called ‘we’ and modern technologies. He combines his notion of revealing with the technological development that influenced the human mind in his work. The main problem is not the notion of technology and its different forms in the modern world but a human attitude to technology. This problem should be considered as far as a human response to the technological problems is restricted only to the problem of making this technology better. He points out: “The will to mastery becomes all the more urgent the more technology threatens to slip from human control” (Heidegger). Technological development makes people blind to other ways of revealing. When people become more skilled at technological inventions, they become more susceptible to its influence. Heidegger makes the emphasis on this problem in the following words: “Thus we shall never experience our relationship to the essence of technology so long as we merely conceive and push forward the technological, put up with it, or evade it. Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it’ (Heidegger). People should understand this problem and face it. There is no sense to deny that we are not influenced by technological development. This problem should not be kept secret or be avoided. Heidegger presents this problem in a full way and provides the way of its solution.

Heidegger begins his work with the definition of technology. He provides different interpretations to cast light upon the gist of the problem. Heidegger’s statement that ‘the essence of technology is by no means anything technological’ confuses some readers. It seems to be contradictory but there is a deep sense in this statement used by Heidegger with a particular aim. This statement allows him to look at this problem from a philosophical point of view. He is not going to appeal to scientific knowledge, but he wants to present the technological development historically. There is a lot of scientific research concerning the subject of technology, but people do not pay enough attention to its philosophical side.

Heidegger uses questions in his work to attract the reader’s attention to the role of technologies in his/her life particularly. He asks the question: “How do we generally think about technology?” (Heidegger) and he provides two basic answers to this question. Technology is considered as a means to an end on the one hand and as a human activity on the other hand. These answers are based on instrumental definition aimed at getting things done and anthropological one where technology is a human activity. It should be noted that with the technological development the instrumental definition has ousted the anthropological one. Technology has become to be oriented to the resulting effect rather than to the process itself. More than that, modern technology is the result of the work of machinery rather than of human activity. Nevertheless, both these definitions are true and present the notion of technology from different points of view. As we have stated above the main aim of Heidegger’s work is not the essence of technology. He provides this definition to point out the real influence of technology on human life.

The basic concepts of his work are Zeit denoting time and Sein denoting a human being that is described as ungewohnlich and unheimlich to the person. These attributes mean ‘unusual’ and ‘unhomely’. The main problem of a human being is the understanding of the human essence. “Who are we?” is the question that disturbs many generations and is an eternal question often asked by philosophers. Our essence relates to our appeal to the world which is changed with the course of time or the so-called Zeit influencing our Sein. Time is closely connected to the development of technologies that influences a human revealing to the surrounding world. The development of technologies is historically predetermined that is why the notion of technology should be thought over from the point of view of history.

Heidegger opposes traditional technology of the past and modern technologies. With the development of technologies, mankind becomes more influenced by it and people do not even pay attention to this influence as far as the development itself is more important for them. Heidegger refers to farming to the traditional technology. He describes the peasant’s attitude to the land. Heidegger presents this attitude to be respectful. The peasant takes care of the land, cultivates it, and hopes to get a good yield. Modern technology has changed this attitude to the land. The land is treated as the source of income, and it is exploited to get as much yield as possible. People exploit the land instead of its fascination. For example, the dam on the Rhine is considered to be the source of energy and even when the tourists admire its beauty it is considered to be the source for the tourist industry (Windermere, n.d.). All things around us have become the source of human exploitation.

Modern technology has changed people’s attitudes to the surrounding world. The world is seen from the point of view of the modern technological mind. Everything is treated as ‘a calculable coherence of forces’ (Windermere, n.d.). Physics as science has begun to be used not only to justify the surrounding world but to demonstrate how it may be used to make human life better. People have an exploitative way of mind. People’s understanding of nature as the main resource prevails their consciousness of humanity. People have begun to consider only those facts to be the truth that is scientifically proved. Heidegger considers scientific knowledge to be one of the modes of revealing. Nevertheless, he points out that it is not the only mode of revealing, influencing the people’s attitude to the surrounding world. As a result, the objects of the world may be considered as “the main resources, a calculable coherence of forces, objects of scientific knowledge, mere relations of cause and effect” by the modern people (Windermere, n.d.). More than that, these objects may be assessed aesthetically, religiously, and poetically but all these modes of revealing are not so popular among people whose mind is captured with technological development.

Revealing is explained by Heidegger as the way of relationships between a human being and the surrounding world. This revealing influences not only a human attitude to the surrounding world but it influences the whole life. Modern technologies with people’s attitude to the surrounding world as to ‘calculable coherence of forces’ make them pure calculators who treat the world as the source of income (Windermere, n.d.). All people’s achievements are the domination over nature. Human dignity is connected to human consciousness. “The fullness of human consciousness depends upon the fullness with which consciousness allows nature to reveal itself in it” (Windermere, n.d.). If a human being wants to be richer spiritually the surrounding world should be revealed from different points of view not only as a source of income. Although Heidegger does not consider technological inventions to be dangerous, he points out that the way of revealing imposed by the technological development may hamper people from alternate modes of revealing and the belief that this revealing is the truth.

Heidegger opposes nature to technological development as well as an authentic human consciousness to the exploitative way of mind. Although, technological development influences the way of human thinking in quite a negative way Heidegger does not believe that mankind should stop making technological inventions as far as it is not real salvation. He points out that although humankind cannot do away with technological development it is possible to do away with its dominance. People should not allow technological development to influence them in such a way. It is necessary to consider that this way of revealing is only one of many other ways. If people confine themselves only to this way of revealing they will be deprived of the possibility to enjoy the surrounding world from different points of view. Heidegger treats a free relationship to technology to be the solution to the problem. He points out: “The relationship will be free when it opens our human existence to the essence of technology” (Heidegger). Heidegger recognizes an alternate way of revealing the world combining the way of the artist and craftsman.

From all the above said we may conclude that Heidegger presenting the influence of technology over a human life attracts the reader’s attention to one of the burning issues of modern society. He states that a human revealing to the world has been restricted to only exploitative and materialistic ones. Although Heidegger does not consider technologies to be the only cause of the restriction of a human mind, he points out the importance of making technologies less dominant in human life. A free attitude to technologies allows a human being to enjoy his/her life in a full way.

Works Cited

Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning Technology . n.d. Web. 2012.

Windermere, Arthur. n.d. Understanding Heidegger’s The Question Concerning Technology . Web. 2012. Web.

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Notes on Heidegger’s ‘The Question Concerning Technology’

I absorb ideas better when I take notes. Here are my notes on Heidegger’s essay, The Question Concerning Technology 1 . Elsewhere, there’s also a comprehensive guide to the essay and a useful blogged summary .

I’ve got to say, it’s one of the most difficult texts I’ve ever read, despite going between two translations in the hope of a little clarity. However, while he seems to spin a syntax of his own at times, Heidegger’s overall message is pretty clear and simple: The poetic roots of technology have been obscured by mechanisation that has compelled us to harness nature’s energy into an accumulated homogeneous reserve that conceals the true nature of things. In this world, humans too, have become resources, slaves to a process that constructs an appearance of truth rather than a revelation of the real. The solution is to question and confront technology through its forgotten roots in the arts.

Heidegger’s 32 page essay was originally a series of lectures he gave in 1949, entitled: The Thing, Enframing, The Danger, and The Turning. He begins by setting out the reasons for his questioning:

Questioning builds a way. We would be advised, therefore, above all to pay heed to the way, and not to fix our attention on isolated sentences and topics. The way is one of thinking. All ways of thinking, more or less perceptibly, lead through language in a manner that is extraordinary. We shall be questioning concerning technology , and in so doing we should like to prepare a free relationship to it. The relationship will be free if it opens our human existence to the essence of technology. When we can respond to this essence, we shall be able to experience the technological within its own bounds.

Heidegger is concerned with questioning the essence of technology and in particular, modern technology, which he understands as something different to older, pre-industrialised forms of technology. The difference, to put it crudely, is that our technological relationship with nature was once as one of steward but now is one of both master and slave. The purpose of questioning technology is therefore to break the chains of technology and be free, not in the absence of technology but through a better understanding of its essence and meaning. He suggests that there are two dominant ways of understanding technology. One is instrumental, to view it as a means to an end, while the other is to see it as human activity. He thinks they belong together.

For to posit ends and procure and utilize the means to them is a human activity. The manufacture and utilization of equipment, tools, and machines, the manufactured and used things themselves, and the needs and ends that they serve, all belong to what technology is. The whole complex of these contrivances is technology. Technology itself is a contrivance—in Latin, an instrumentum . The current conception of technology, according to which it is a means and a human activity, can therefore be called the instrumental and anthropological definition of technology.

The instrumental view rests on a view of causality, which he breaks down into four Aristotelian causes: the material, the form, the end, and the effect. These four aspects of causality are in fact four aspects of ‘being responsible for bringing something into appearance’. They reveal that which was concealed. They are different but united by their revealing.

What has the essence of technology to do with revealing? The answer: everything. For every bringing-forth is grounded in revealing. Bringing-forth, indeed, gathers within itself the four modes of occasioning— causality—and rules them throughout. Within its domain belong end and means as well as instrumentality. Instrumentality is considered to be the fundamental characteristic of technology. If we inquire step by step into what technology, represented as means, actually is, then we shall arrive at revealing. The possibility of all productive manufacturing lies in revealing. Technology is therefore no mere means. Technology is a way of revealing. If we give heed to this, then another whole realm for the essence of technology will open itself up to us. It is the realm of revealing, i.e., of truth.

Discussing techné , the root of ‘technology’, he observes that it encompasses both the activities and skills of the craftsman but also the arts of the mind and fine arts and concludes that t echné “belongs to bringing-forth, to poi é sis ; it is something poetic.” Techné is also linked with the word epist ém é and Heidegger states that both words “are names for knowing in the widest sense. They mean to be entirely at home in something, to understand and be expert in it.”

Such knowing provides an opening up. As an opening up it is a revealing. Aristotle, in a discussion of special importance ( Nicomacheun Ethics , Bk. VI, chaps. 3 and 4), distinguishes between epist ém é and t echné and indeed with respect to what and how they reveal. T echné is a mode of aleth é uein . It reveals whatever does not bring itself forth and does not yet lie here before us, whatever can look and turn out now one way and now another. Whoever builds a house or a ship or forges a sacrificial chalice reveals what is to be brought forth, according to the terms of the four modes of occasioning. This revealing gathers together in advance the form and the matter of ship or house, with a view to the finished thing envisaged as completed, and from this gathering determines the manner of its construction. Thus what is decisive in t echné does not at all lie in making and manipulating, nor in the using of means, but rather in the revealing mentioned before. It is as revealing, and not as manufacturing, that t echné is a bringing-forth. Thus the clue to what the word t echné means and to how the Greeks defined it leads us into the same context that opened itself to us when we pursued the question of what instrumentality as such in truth might be. Technology is a mode of revealing. Technology comes to presence in the realm where revealing and unconcealment take place, where al é theia , truth, happens.

Heidegger pre-empts the accusation that this view no longer holds true for modern, machine-powered technology.  In defence, he argues that modern technology, in its mutual relationship of dependency with modern physics, is also ‘revealing’.

Modern physics, as experimental, is dependent upon technical apparatus and upon progress in the building of apparatus. The establishing of this mutual relationship between technology and physics is correct. But it remains a merely historiological establishing of facts and says nothing about that in which this mutual relationship is grounded. The decisive question still remains: Of what essence is modem technology that it thinks of putting exact science to use? What is modern technology? It too is a revealing. Only when we allow our attention to rest on this fundamental characteristic does that which is new in modern technology show itself to us.

However, the revealing of modern technology differs from that of earlier, non-machine-powered technology, in a fundamental way. It is not a revealing, an unfolding in the sense of poiésis , “the revealing that rules in modern technology is a challenging, which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy which can be extracted and stored as such.” He then leaps into some illustrative examples:

But does this not hold true for the old windmill as well? No. Its sails do indeed turn in the wind; they are left entirely to the wind’s blowing. But the windmill does not unlock energy from the air currents in order to store it. In contrast, a tract of land is challenged in the hauling out of coal and ore. The earth now reveals itself as a coal mining district, the soil as a mineral deposit. The field that the peasant formerly cultivated and set in order appears differently than it did when to set in order still meant to take care of and maintain. The work of the peasant does not challenge the soil of the field. In sowing grain it places seed in the keeping of the forces of growth and watches over its increase. But meanwhile even the cultivation of the field has come under the grip of another kind of setting-in-order, which sets upon nature. It sets upon it in the sense of challenging it. Agriculture is now the mechanized food industry. Air is now set upon to yield nitrogen, the earth to yield ore, ore to yield uranium, for example; uranium is set up to yield atomic energy, which can be unleashed either for destructive or for peaceful purposes. This setting-upon that challenges the energies of nature is an expediting, and in two ways. It expedites in that it unlocks and exposes. Yet that expediting is always itself directed from the beginning toward furthering something else, i.e., toward driving on to the maximum yield at the minimum expense. The coal that has been hauled out in some mining district has not been produced in order that it may simply be at hand somewhere or other. It is being stored; that is, it is on call, ready to deliver the sun’s warmth that is stored in it. The sun’s warmth is challenged forth for heat, which in turn is ordered to deliver steam whose pressure turns the wheels that keep a factory running.

All technology reveals , but modern technology reveals not in the unfolding poetic sense but as a challenge ; it sets upon nature and expedites its energy by unlocking it.

The revealing that rules throughout modern technology has the character of a setting-upon, in the sense of a challenging–forth. Such challenging happens in that the energy concealed in nature is unlocked, what is unlocked is transformed, what is transformed is stored up, what is stored up is in turn distributed, and what is distributed is switched about ever anew. Unlocking, transforming, storing, distributing, and switching about are ways of revealing. But the revealing never simply comes to an end. Neither does it run off into the indeterminate. The revealing reveals to itself its own manifoldly interlocking paths, through regulating their course. This regulating itself is, for its part, everywhere secured. Regulating and securing even become the chief characteristics of the revealing that challenges.

Once unlocked, this energy (raw or in the form of machine-powered technology) is held captive as a standing reserve . The airliner standing on the runway is a stationary object ordered to be ready for take-off. However, this apparent mastery over nature’s energy is no such thing because we are challenged, ordered, to act this way. We, in fact, like the airliner on the runway, are situated in the ‘standing reserve’ as human resources .

The forester who measures the felled timber in the woods and who to all appearances walks the forest path in the same way his grandfather did is today ordered by the industry that produces commercial woods, whether he knows it or not. He is made subordinate to the orderability of cellulose, which for its part is challenged forth by the need for paper, which is then delivered to newspapers and illustrated magazines. The latter, in their turn, set public opinion to swallowing what is printed, so that a set configuration of opinion becomes available on demand. Yet precisely because man is challenged more originally than are the energies of nature, i.e., into the process of ordering, he never is transformed into mere standing-reserve. Since man drives technology forward, he takes part in ordering as a way of revealing. 2

In this way, we are challenged by modern technology to approach nature “as an object of research” to  reveal or “order the real as standing reserve”. Heidegger refers to this as enframing . Enframing is the essence of modern technology.

Enframing means the gathering together of the setting-upon that sets upon man, i.e., challenges him forth, to reveal the actual, in the mode of ordering, as standing-reserve. Enframing means the way of revealing that holds sway in the essence of modern technology and that is itself nothing technological. On the other hand, all those things that are so familiar to us and are standard parts of assembly, such as rods, pistons, and chassis, belong to the technological. The assembly itself, however, together with the aforementioned stockparts, fall within the sphere of technological activity. Such activity always merely responds to the challenge of enframing, but it never comprises enframing itself or brings it about.

There then follows a couple of pages which reflect on the relationship between physics and modern technology. As a 17th c. precursor to 18th c. modern technology, physics is a theory which sets up nature in a way that orders it in a coherent, self-serving manner. It is not experimental because “it applies apparatus to the questioning of nature.” The physical theory of nature is the herald of modern technology, which conceals the essence of modern technology. Technology then, in its essence as enframing, precedes physics.

Modern physics… is challenged forth by the rule of enframing, which demands that nature be orderable as standing-reserve. Hence physics, in its retreat from the kind of representation that turns only to objects, which has been the sole standard until recently, will never be able to renounce this one thing: that nature report itself in some way or other that is identifiable through calculation and that it remain orderable as a system of information. This system is then determined by a causality that has changed once again. Causality now displays neither the character of the occasioning that brings forth nor the nature of the causa efficiens , let alone that of the causa formalis . It seems as though causality is shrinking into a reporting—a reporting challenged forth—of standing-reserves that must be guaranteed either simultaneously or in sequence… Because the essence of modern technology lies in enframing, modern technology must employ exact physical science. Through its so doing the deceptive appearance arises that modern technology is applied physical science. This illusion can maintain itself precisely insofar as neither the essential provenance of modern science nor indeed the essence of modern technology is adequately sought in our questioning.

Heidegger’s use of language (or rather the way it is expressed in English translation) can be difficult at times. In the remaining few pages he discusses what enframing actually is, building upon the idea that as the essence of technology, it is therefore that which reveals the real through ordering as standing reserve. As discussed above, we humans are challenged forth (compelled) by enframing to reveal the real in a seemingly deterministic way (Heidegger refers to this as destining ) that holds complete sway over us. However, technology is not our fate, we are not necessarily compelled along an unaltered and inevitable course because “enframing belongs within the destining of revealing” and destining is “an open space” where man can “listen and hear” to that which is revealed. Freedom is in “intimate kinship” with the revealed as “all revealing comes out of the open, goes into the open, and brings into the open… Freedom is the realm of the destining that at any given time starts a revealing upon its way.” Freedom then, is to be found in the essence of technology but we are continually caused to believe that the brink of possibility is that which is revealed in the ordering processes of modern technology to create the standing reserve, deriving all our standards from this basis. Freedom is continually blocked by this process of the destining of revealing which obscures the real. This is a danger .

It is a danger because when the real is concealed it may be misinterpreted. When something is unconcealed it no longer concerns us as an object but, rather, as standing reserve “and man in the midst of objectlessness is nothing but the orderer of the standing reserve”. When the object is lost to the standing reserve, we ourselves become standing reserve and see everything as our construct, seeing not objects everywhere but the illusion and delusion of encountering ourselves everywhere.

In truth, however, precisely nowhere does man today any longer encounter himself, i.e., his essence. Man stands so decisively in subservience to on the challenging-forth of enframing that he does not grasp enframing as a claim, that he fails to see himself as the one spoken to, and hence also fails in every way to hear in what respect he ek-sists, in terms of his essence, in a realm where he is addressed, so that he can never encounter only himself. But enframing does not simply endanger man in his relationship to himself and to everything that is. As a destining, it banishes man into the kind of revealing that is an ordering. Where this ordering holds sway, it drives out every other possibility of revealing. Above all, enframing conceals that revealing which, in the sense of poiésis , lets what presences come forth into appearance.

Enframing blocks the truth and destining compels us to create order out of nature which we believe is the truth. This is the danger, not of technology, which itself cannot be dangerous, but rather of the destining of revealing itself. Enframing, the essence of technology then, is the danger.

The threat to man does not come in the first instance from the potentially lethal machines and apparatus of technology. The actual threat has already afflicted man in his essence. The rule of enframing threatens man with the possibility that it could be denied to him to enter into a more original revealing and hence to experience the call of a more primal truth.

Drawing on Holderlin, Heidegger believes that technology’s essence contains both the danger (enframing) and its saving power . How is this so? Enframing is not the essence of technology in the sense of a genus, “enframing is a way of revealing having the character of destining, namely, the way that challenges forth.” Recall that the revealing that “brings forth” ( poiésis ) is also a way with the character of destining. By contrast, enframing blocks poiésis.

Thus enframing, as a destining of revealing, is indeed the essence of technology, but never in the sense of genus and essentia. If we pay heed to this, something astounding strikes us: it is technology itself that makes the demand on us to think in another way what is usually understood by “essence.”

As we have seen, the essence of modern technology for Heidegger is enframing and as its essence, enframing is that which endures. Enframing is “a destining that gathers together into the revealing that challenges forth.” But Heidegger also states that “only what is granted endures” and “challenging is anything but a granting.” So how can the challenging of modern technology be resolved into that which is granted and endures? What is the saving power “that let’s man see and enter into the highest dignity of his essence”? The answer is to recall that enframing need not only challenge forth but can also bring forth the revealing of nature.” The essential unfolding of technology harbors in itself what we least suspect, the possible rise of the saving power.”

Heidegger argues that “everything depends” on our ability and willingness to cast a critical eye over “the essential unfolding” of technology. That instead of “gaping” at technology, we try to catch sight of what unfolds in technology. Instead of falling for the “irresistibility of ordering”, we opt for the “restraint of the saving power”, always aware of the danger of technology which threatens us with the possibility that its revealing, saving power might be “consumed in ordering  and that everything will present itself only in the unconcealedness of standing reserve.”

So long as we represent technology as an instrument, we remain transfixed in the will to master it. We press on past the essence of technology… The essence of technology is ambiguous. Such ambiguity points to the mystery of all revealing, i.e., of truth.

Now at the end of his essay, we can see there are two possible direction one might take with technology:

On the one hand, enframing challenges forth into the frenziedness of ordering that blocks every view into the propriative event of revealing and so radically endangers the relation to the essence of truth. On the other hand, enframing propriates for its part in the granting that lets man endure—as yet inexperienced, but perhaps more experienced in the future—that he may be. the one who is needed and used for the safekeeping of the essence of truth. Thus the rising of the saving power appears.

Heidegger concludes that technology once shared the root techné with a broader practice of poiésis . Technology ( techné ) brought forth and revealed that which was true and beautiful through the poetics of the fine arts. It is in the realm of the arts, therefore, that we can practice the questioning of technology in the hope of revealing the truth, which modern technology habitually conceals through the order it imposes on the world.

Because the essence of technology is nothing technological, essential reflection upon technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in a realm that is, on the one hand, akin to the essence of technology and, on the other, fundamentally different from it. Such a realm is art. But certainly only if reflection upon art, for its part, does not shut its eyes to the constellation of truth, concerning which we are questioning .

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• I found this online version slightly easier to read than the version in the book of the same name.
• I wonder what Marx would have to say about this. It sounds to me like Heidegger is referring to the imperative of capitalist laws of motion. cf. Ellen Meiksins Wood

3 thoughts on “Notes on Heidegger’s ‘The Question Concerning Technology’”

Interesting, although I’m not sure I followed all of the arguments, particularly when it got to the talk about “enframing” and “destining”. The translation into English really seems to be a barrier to fully understanding this text.

While reading your notes, I had a half-thought that some of these ideas of technology as revealing have a connection to the idea in linguistics that human language is an external representation of a wholly internal (and not externalizable) system of thought. I’ll need to think about this a bit more though.

One practical question might be: how do we communicate this to our new lords and masters who are apparently convinced that STEM is all, and that short- to mid-term returns are preferred when investing in research?

Hello. For my own take on *The Question Concerning Technlogy* please visit my essay, “Revealing the Truth About Revealing the Truth” on my blog, “Off Road Without a Map” on http://www.stuartkurtz.blogspot.com

Stuart Kurtz

This was incredibly helpful, thank you very much for posting this!!

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GREAT THINKERS Martin Heidegger

The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays

Heidegger, Martin, and William Lovitt.  The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays . New York :: HarperCollins Publishers, 2013.

The advent of machine technology has given rise to some of the deepest problems of modern thought. This newly packaged collection featuring Martin Heidegger’s celebrated essay “The Question Concerning Technology,” is an essential landmark in the philosophy of science from one of the most influential and profound thinkers of the twentieth century.

Online: Amazon

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Martin Heidegger on the Essence of Technology

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Edielle Anne O.

This paper aims to expound on the essay of Martin Heidegger entitled, “Questions Concerning Technology.” That is, to bring light to the relevant ideas of Martin Heidegger with regards to technology and critique them in the light of the 21st century. We would weigh the relevance of Martin Heidegger’s insight pertaining to technology in our modern age. This weighing of relevance on the insight of Martin Heidegger would be viewed under the perspective of existentialism. Heidegger had been associated as an existentialist, albeit denying this himself, it is still fitting that we should critique his work under this perspective. This is to be done in an expository manner. The paper would be divided into three sections. First a short background on Martin Heidegger, second an extensive summary on the essay “Questions Concerning Technology,” and the third section is the critique proper. To understand technology is to get a glimpse of the Dasein, and this glimpse will be to our benefit in order to understand the Dasein. To understand the Dasein is Heidegger’s primary work. The Dasein is man, thus man is the key player in this aforesaid essay of Martin Heidegger. For there would not be an uncovering of technology, if there is no man. And technology for Heidegger is not only merely utilizing techné to achieve the maximum output with the least effort, but it goes beyond that. The mode of thinking of man that underlies technology is what matters. It is the not the outcome of technology that concerns Heidegger, but the way we conceptualize technology do. That is why existentialism is imbedded even in the philosophy of technology of Heidegger. KEYWORDS: Heidegger, Technology, Existentialism

Inquiry an Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy

Andrew Feenberg

Philip A Powe

The purpose of this work is to engage the text The Questioning of Technology and clarify the new concepts and definitions of the language Heidegger uses when discussing his position. The examination will look deeper into the meaning of these new adaptations of words such as essence, challenging, enframing, setting upon, standing reserve, and destining. Heidegger's language is very technical and an understanding of what he is attempting to convince us of becomes difficult for even the most experienced philosophy student. Once these terms are clarified in simpler language, which will not take away the meaning of Heidegger's original language, the understanding of our questioning of technology will be easier to explain. The secondary purpose of this work is to show a proficiency by the writer to grasp difficult terms and explain them in a manner which makes it easier to understand for the undergraduate. Through this exercise it is hoped the writer can prove competency to reviewers and an understanding which proves an ability to teach this particular article by Heidegger in a lower level course. For convenience of reference and brevity, The Questioning of Technology will be abbreviated as 'QT'

Pieter Lemmens

Polis open accessed Journal Link: https://www.polisjerusalem.org/research/conference-2021/atrium-of-papers#ramos

Christine Carmela R . Ramos

This article focuses on Heidegger's concept of technology. The analysis of his views pointed back to the Greek tradition, criticized by Heidegger. According to Heidegger, the decline of the West occurred as human Dasein lost touch with the awesomeness of the gift and responsibility of the ontologically disclosive capacity. The author also looks at the four-fold benefits of technology: earth, sky, divinities, and mortal. Finally, the paper relates the Heideggerian notion of technology with globalization. Link: https://www.polisjerusalem.org/research/conference-2021/atrium-of-papers#ramos

Aydan Turanli

Martin Heidegger is one of the major philosophers influencing discussions of the condition of technology in the modern era especially with his very much debated article, " The Question Concerning Technology. " However, his views of technology are variously interpreted. Andrew Feenberg and Don Ihde accuse Martin Heidegger of being " essentialist. " Feenberg also implies that Heidegger is a technological determinist and a strong pessimist. On the other hand, Iain Thomson asserts that Heidegger's view of technology is not essentialist in the traditional sense. David Edward Tabachnick also underlines that essentialism in Heidegger does not necessarily include determinism. In this article, I defend Heidegger against Feenberg's essentialist charge. First, I summarize Feenberg's interpretation of Heidegger. Secondly, I criticize Feenberg to show that his accusations against Heidegger are unjustified.

Roisin Lally

The question concerning technology lies at the heart of human existence. As such it must take a central place in philosophy today. This importance, however, is veiled by a historical interpretation of technology as instrumental. This instrumentalism is the result of an ambiguity in the Aristotelian legacy that arises from an understanding of reality rooted in a theory of the categories, on the one hand, and a theory of causality on the other. This has left us with an ambiguous understanding of human making split by the twofold structure of artistic and representational thinking. The former is characteristic of empirical knowledge, the latter epistemological knowledge. This thesis follows Heidegger in arguing that an integral understanding of technology can only be achieved through a creative retrieval of Aristotle's ontology that interweaves the question of causality and the question of the categories, which we have outlined below as the interplay between potentiality and actuality, between being and non-being, and between truth and untruth. While indebted to Aristotle, this involves an important re-thinking of the nature of ontology, for it is made possible by exposing the limits of Aristotle’s theory of time, which understands time as a succession of present instants, and moving towards the Heideggerian understanding of presencing as the opening of a horizon in which things perdure. Consequently, this is an ontology in which technology is tied to our notion of time just as much as to our notion of being. After establishing this temporal ontology as the basis for an understanding of technology, in a unique way we apply it to the particular case of 3D printing and come to see that this technology is indeed more than an instrument; it is an interweaving of the epistemic and the poetic, the rational and the artistic. Thus I accept the consensus in contemporary philosophy of technology that questions of technology must be understood in terms of their political and social implications. However, unlike many thinkers in this field I also argue that they can be fruitfully understood in terms of a temporal ontology. I call this temporal ontology of technology, hyperology.

Fernando Ardila

In the 1950’s Martin Heidegger published the essay “The Question Concerning Technology” which has proven to be difficult to decipher for many contemporary thinkers engaged in extracting the meaning of his work. This is often attributed to his poetically composes and unconventional rhetoric which conceals his equally complicated philosophical perspective. This essay we will primarily highlight Heidegger’s vocabulary regarding the trajectory that our technological-modern age traces, which observes and criticizes the dangerous path that humanity pursues, thereby providing valuable insight into what the future holds. I will organize the sequence of Heidegger’s thoughts by addressing his essay and interlinking his ideas that respond to answering the question concerning the status and essence of technology. The valuable meaning is embedded within the interpretation of the terms with relation to the text and an effort for constructing an organized understanding has created obstacles. By looking beyond his unique writing style and focusing on his language I will organize Heidegger’s thoughts and grasp the valuable existential characteristics of technology. I will provide a comprehensive understanding of Heideggerian language and thought in order to synthesize his philosophy into an organized manner for clarification purposes.

Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, vol. 43, n. 3, October, 2012, pp. 305–325.

This paper discusses Heidegger’s analysis of the interconnection between modern technology, metaphysics, and anthropocentrism, before going on to discuss his attempted overcoming of metaphysics. While Heidegger’s notion of trace recognises that any attempt to go beyond metaphysics necessarily remains tied to metaphysics, his critique of anthropocentrism appears to insist that all vestiges of anthropocentrism be removed from thought. While a number of commentators have argued that this causes problems for his attempted overcoming of the enframing of modern technology, insofar as it is not clear where the impetus for the alteration in technology will come from and appears to be in tension with his notion of trace which insists that an aspect of metaphysical anthropocentrism will remain in that which overcomes metaphysical anthropocentrism, I show that Heidegger came to distinguish between different forms of willing, one of which allows him to point towards a path that incorporates a form of willing into the overcoming of metaphysical that remains consistent with his notion of metaphysical trace and critique of metaphysical anthropocentrism.

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.

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The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Description.

As relevant now as ever before, this accessible collection is an essential landmark in the philosophy of science from "one of the most profound thinkers of the twentieth century" ( New York Times ).

The advent of machine technology has given rise to some of the deepest problems of modern thought. Featuring the celebrated essay "The Question Concerning Technology," this prescient volume contains Martin Heidegger's groundbreaking investigation into the pervasive "enframing" character of our understanding of ourselves and the world.

About the Author

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was born in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He studied at the University of Freiburg and became a professor at the University of Marburg in 1932. After publishing his his magnum opus, Being and Time (1927), he returned to Freiburg to assume the chair of philosophy upon Husserl's retirement.

Praise for The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

“One of the most profound thinkers of the 20th century” — New York Times

“Among the most influential philosophers of modern times” — Newsweek

“Possibly the greatest Western philosopher since Hegel.” — The Guardian

Other Books in Series

Being and Time (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

The Phenomenon of Man (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Major Works: Selected Philosophical Writings (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Basic Writings (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

The Essential Schopenhauer: Key Selections from The World As Will and Representation and Other Writings (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Poetry, Language, Thought (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Works of Love (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

What Is Called Thinking? (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Spiritual Writings: A New Translation and Selection (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Great Political Theories V.1: A Comprehensive Selection of the Crucial Ideas in Political Philosophy from the Greeks to the Enlightenment (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

On Certainty (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy: Third Edition (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

The Gospel in Brief: The Life of Jesus (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Great Political Theories V.2: A Comprehensive Selection of the Crucial Ideas in Political Philosophy from the French Revolution to Modern Times (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Madness: The Invention of an Idea (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

Discourse on Thinking (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

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Scholars explain the ideology that says technology is the answer to every problem

by Seyram Avle, Jean Hardy, The Conversation

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen penned a 5,000-word manifesto in 2023 that gave a full-throated call for unrestricted technological progress to boost markets, broaden energy production, improve education and strengthen liberal democracy.

The billionaire, who made his fortune by co-founding Netscape —a 1990s-era company that made a pioneering web browser—espouses a concept known as " techno-optimism ." In summing it up, Andreessen writes, "We believe that there is no material problem—whether created by nature or by technology—that cannot be solved with more technology."

The term techno-optimism isn't new ; it began to appear after World War II. Nor is it in a state of decline, as Andreessen and other techno-optimists such as Elon Musk would have you believe. And yet Andreessen's essay made a big splash.

As scholars who study technology and society , we have observed that techno-optimism easily attaches itself to the public's desire for a better future. The questions of how that future will be built, what that future will look like and who will benefit from those changes are harder to answer.

Why techno-optimism matters

Techno-optimism is a blunt tool. It suggests that technological progress can solve every problem known to humans—a belief also known as techno-solutionism .

Its adherents object to commonsense guardrails or precautions, such as cities limiting the number of new Uber drivers to ease traffic congestion or protect cab drivers' livelihoods. They dismiss such regulations or restrictions as the concerns of Luddites—people who resist disruptive innovations.

In our view, some champions of techno-optimism, such as Bill Gates , rely on the cover of philanthropy to promote their techno-optimist causes. Others have argued that their philanthropic initiatives are essentially a public relations effort to burnish their reputations as they continue to control how technology is being used to address the world's problems.

The stakes of embracing techno-optimism are high—and not just in terms of the role that technology plays in society. There are also political, environmental and economic ramifications for holding these views. As an ideological position, it puts the interests of certain people—often those already wielding immense power and resources—over those of everyone else. Its cheerleaders can be willfully blind to the fact that most of society's problems, like technology, are made by humans.

Many scholars are keenly aware of the techno-optimism of social media that pervaded the 2010s . Back then, these technologies were breathlessly covered in the media—and promoted by investors and inventors—as an opportunity to connect the disconnected and bring information to anyone who might need it.

Yet, while offering superficial solutions to loneliness and other social problems , social media has failed to address their root structural causes. Those may include the erosion of public spaces , the decline of journalism and enduring digital divides .

Tech alone can't fix everything

Both of us have extensively researched economic development initiatives that seek to promote high-tech entrepreneurship in low-income communities in Ghana and the United States . State-run programs and public-private partnerships have sought to narrow digital divides and increase access to economic opportunity.

Many of these programs embrace a techno-optimistic mindset by investing in shiny, tech-heavy fixes without addressing the inequality that led to digital divides in the first place. Techno-optimism, in other words, pervades governments and nongovernmental organizations, just as it has influenced the thinking of billionaires like Andreessen.

Solving intractable problems such as persistent poverty requires a combination of solutions that sometimes, yes, includes technology. But they're complex. To us, insisting that there's a technological fix for every problem in the world seems not just optimistic, but also rather convenient if you happen to be among the richest people on Earth and in a position to profit from the technology industry.

Provided by The Conversation

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