03 The Question Concerning Technology π
Tags: #philosophy, #tech, #theory, #heidegger
- Philosopher Martin Heidegger explored technology in an essay
- Based on an essay in 1953, based on a talk in 1950 after WWII. A lot of the devastation then was technological in nature.
- He wrote the article based on a philosophical perspective. It's not we who pose questions, but questions pose to us, demand answers from us.
- The experience of our relation to tech is what helps us understand its essence.
- In the definition of tech, it's a means to an end. Technology consists of tools and machinery that helps with a purpose. But anthropologically, it's how we use it as humans. As a human activity, we create the means to the end. The essence according to Heidegger is not satisfactory. Especially on experiencing tech.
- He uses an idea from Ancient Greece, Aristotle theory of 4 causes.
- For Aristotle, everything comes to being from 4 causes.
- Matter: The material something is made from, can't be seen separate from matter.
- Form: Shape, can't be seen separate from matter
- Purpose: What is it for? The Tellos.
- Efficient: Brings forward into appearance. The person who made it.
- Heidegger sees that these causes share, allowing something to appear. Process of revealing
- He describes different ways things comes into appearance.
- Physis: the arising of something from out of itself. Ancients greek work for nature (originates from becoming)
- PolΓ©sis: Process by which things appear but not out of themselves. The bringing forth into being from someone.
- TechnΔ: specific type of making. Involves activities from someone to make physical things in the arts and crafts. He says that techne means to be at home with something and understand it clearly and be an expert in it.
- This means that True doesn't mean correct. Correct is very narrow, has to do with statements and propositions that we make. It's a black and white way. Existence is more nuanced than being correct or not.
- He used the greek term alΔtheia to describe revealing or unconcealement.
- He see technology as "a way of revealing.. it is the realm of revealing" (Heidegger 318).
- The question now is: Is modern technology a technΔ (is it a mode of revealing)
- Some might argue that Modern technology involves machinery and assembly lines. It's different from carpentry where a carpenter is an expert in an area that reveals some unknown things about wood. How come a large factory reveal something?
- For Heidegger, it's true that a large factory is not similar to carpentry but there is a special mode of revealing for it. He calls is "challenging"
- He defines challenging as the unreasonable demand that nature's supply energy which can be extracted and stored.
- While a technΔ draws nature out and reveals different aspects of it, modern technology sees everything in nature the same way; energy to be extracted and stored. It makes everything the same.
- Example a windmill that is only useful on windy days. It's not a modern technology because it works with nature rather than making a demand on it like an industrial energy factory.
- A similar thing would be traditional farming versus factory farming.
- One responds to nature, the other demands from nature.
- Maximum yield at the minimum cost.
- This makes us think that nature is at our command.
- For Heidegger, modern technology treats everything as something that can be stored up for later use. Standing Reserve or Bestand (german)
- Things wait for us to use them with modern tech.
- Example is an airplane, it's not meaningful as an object but it is meaningful because it's part of an order (airport, air travel, the whole system of air travel). No one plane matters, the order determines its use.
- He uses the term Gestell or Enframing to describe the modern technology, it is a way of setting up (or framing) everything as standing reserve. It reveals things but it does so by transforming nature into very specific order of use.
- Examples of enframing in our world: difference between old towns and typical suburb and how things get arranged for the market.
- Think of the way modern groceries stores are presented. You don't know where your chicken came from. Everything is waiting for us to use it (we don't see anything beyond that). Modern technology developed a new way of how we relate to the modern world. He sees it as threatening. It gives us an illusion that everything that exist is constructed by us, we have full control of nature.
- It reveals very limited truth, can be dangerous of human existence. It conceals the fact that there's something outside the human activity.
- For these reasons, he wants to address the danger that modern technology poses by reflecting on previous human activities of revealing techne and poisis. They are responsive to nature, and are revealing of what was previously concealed. They do not convert the world into a system of standing reserve.
- He himself, likes to live closer to nature. He teaches while hiking. Deeply suspicious of technologies appearing in his time. Airplane, radio, TV. He talks about this in speech called "The Thing". In it, he argues that we can experience new things through travel, but this abolition of all distances brings no nearness. So even though, distances have shrunk, we can be further away from understanding the world.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRp5lzP5L80
Related to: 04 The Technological Society π