Heideggers Critique of Modern Technology - Essay Example

Heidegger’s critique of technology

Heidegger’s critique of technology and its underlying stance of Enframing are sufficiently persuasive for argument against technology. According to Heidegger’s understanding, technology is essentially linked to being; it points at the constitution of our ontology and our way of existing in the world (Nadal, 2010). He observes that everywhere man remains chained to technology and thus is not free. This is a situation in which technology threatens to slip from the control of man the more it advances itself. Heidegger saw an urgent and necessary question arising from modern technology because of the way it brought about a new ordering of the world. In so doing, modern technology contaminated man’s authentic being and presented a crisis for the industrial modernity in Europe. It distorted our way of ordering the world and thus reorganized our cognitive perception of reality resulting to a social and ontological crisis. Heidegger argues against modern technology in this sense because it has severed man’s essential relation to being through its dominance. These among other points are discussed in this essay.

Technological modernity, which Heidegger argues against, has lost its meaning of the primary sense of the word. He traces back the meaning of the word “technology” as it stems from the Greek language word “Techné” which means skill, art and craft; a mode of making/doing. This word in its original Greek usage referred to that which is performed, produced or fabricated as well as the skill of doing or making which designates both art and artifice (Nada, 2010). “Techné” is associated with another Greek word “Poiesis” which implies that there is a mediation of an external agent on an object to facilitate change from within. The principle of change is foreign to the object.

This is opposed to organic forms of nature which can show the principal of change in themselves which is natural self-genesis. The Greek word for this is “physis” which refers to change due to capacities already contained in the entity itself. An example that Heidegger gives of the latter is the blooming of a flower after its bursting. An example of Poiesis is the production of a chalice through a craftsman or a painter producing a painting. Technology, by primarily being concerned with Poiesis assumes a fashion that sets upon nature and challenges the energies of the earth. This results in the stance of the Enframing (German “Gestell”) which defines our being in the modern age and it causes us to order things in such a manner that they are always ready for use. For instance, planes are always positioned ready for takeoff; the blender is ready for blending among other examples.

This is an insufficient definition that leads man to hubris and restricts one from getting to the purpose of technology. Restricting understanding of technology to the domain of “Techne” makes it a mere ends-means schema based on human instrumentality on nature. This comprehension of technology stands therefore as a possible way for an end in man’s transactions with nature and is thus merely instrumental and anthropological. Humans then essentially seek to learn from nature how to use the “Techné” to dominate it and other humans. This is based on the totalitarianism of Western Enlightenment where man aims at controlling the internal and external nature. This way man’s self-preservation has become automated and with it loss of reason results. Reason becomes lost under the technical or instrumental reason with rationality resonates from a crucial force to assume an alteration and conformity role. Technical requirements become the shaping force of men’s thoughts, feelings and actions and the autonomy of reason loses its meaning. The technical attitude causes the subordination of thought to external things and preset a standard leading to thinking that is standardized, routinized, quantifiable and predictable.

Heidegger critiques technology as fixed and based on human instrumentality which causes it to be exploited in a means-ends schema. This is supported by the Frankfurt school’s critique where reason under civilizational modernity is accused of being instrumentalized and/or technicalized. The problem with this is that the original, essential meaning of technology as a fundamental mode of revealing is obfuscated and reduced to a mere process of making. Heidegger denies the prior meaning of the word “Techné” that refers to making and expands this definition of technology to include the Greek words “Poiesis” and “episteme”. These words fit in the sphere of revealing and are thus connected to truth and engendering.

Poiesis refers to that which brings something into presence and from it we get the word poetry. Techne as Poiesis (making from something which brings forth) in this manner becomes related to episteme which implies a truth because rational designs are made possible by certain knowledge and what is presented, revealed or disclosed is a truth. Accordingly, technology is therefore a presentation of man’s artificial fabrications of nature whose materialization reveals the truth about the power of his rationalism. Heidegger’s definition thus departs from the conventional and instrumentalist definition where technology is merely a means to an end and elevates it to an originary form that is truth revealing. It discloses worlds and can be said to be “worlding” in this sense. It is the process of bringing something forth into presence and through it being a mode of revealing, it frames an unfolded and unconcealed world. This modality of technology as revealing is what is referred to by Heidegger as “Enframing”.

Enframing is not mechanical or belonging to the machine domain in this sense but rather it names the ontological process of revealing which is fundamental. Therefore, technology encompasses techné, Poiesis and episteme and its Enframing is the condition of possibility that the truth of the real to be revealed to man poetically (Nadal, 2010). Modern technology deviates from this essence of technology which is the presentation and revealing of a world and denies Techné as Poiesis for positivism or scientism.

For Heidegger, human beings are entities that are already immersed in a world consisting of our social conditioning, art, history among other influences. These influences are indeed so great upon us that rarely do we get glimpses of the real aspects of the world itself. Human understanding of themselves determines what kind of societies they live in, the type of art they produce and essentially their relationships with each other and the world. Through historical examination, he discovered that human civilizations had people who lived in different worlds and conducted their lives within them differently because of how they understood themselves. For instance, in the mediaeval ages, the belief centering on God and animals as well as human beings as His creation was the basis of their world.

Similarly, enframing defines the technological world of the modern period with it’s by products which include alienation, pollution, poverty on the widespread, extinction of some species and environmental degradation. These problems and others are as a result of the enframing mode of revealing. Enframing is the underlying stance that compels human beings to take what they encounter for what it is and then tries to fit everything into that narrow framework. Humans from this point of departure try to locate entities within this narrow framework theoretical or practically with the aim to control and secure them so as to have “presences” to them.

Modern technology has the kind of revealing that Heidegger calls “challenging” and thus contains a considerable share of difference or lack thereof of the essence of technology. It puts an unreasonable demand on nature and “enframes” it with the sole purpose of capturing it not for the truth of being to be disclosed but as an important material resource for use by man and his will. He gives an example where modern technology in this regard only views the earth as a coal mining district and its soil a mineral deposit, which illustrates the view of modern technology of the earth as only an instrument for man’s use. This implies that the fundamental nature of technology as an ontological tool of illuminating and presenting truth is misrepresented in modern technology. It only reveals the world as an energy resource to be used and this is what Heidegger calls the standing reserve. In a like manner, reality becomes technologically enframed as a standing reserve in the mechanization and industrialization of life. Reality so enframed, conceals a former way of revealing and blocks the truth from shining through. Man becomes something technological himself in modern technology and this is the danger that it poses.

Heidegger’s suggestions in subsequent essays on the problems of enframing include that instead of the challenging stance humans have taken against the earth, it is better for them to understand the symbiotic relationship between them. Human beings should not be limited to the mode of revelation that is enframing alone but rather should understand their role as the guardians of the modes of existing. His world would be based on the understanding of what he termed as the fourfold which include the earth, the sky, mortals and divinities.

Rather than the current overemphasis of enframing as the mode of revelation, this would encourage multiple modes of revelation. Enframing of itself may also be limited in allowing human beings to exploit the other modes of existence as well as hinder the processes of their revelation to man.

In conclusion, Heidegger argues against modern technology because it has lost the essence of technology as bringing forth and revealing the truth about being. This is because it is based on human instrumentalism and views the world as an energy resource existing only for the use of man and his will. It does not enframe nature for the purpose of the truth of being to be revealed but rather it seeks to exploit nature for man’s use. Technology is a means to an end and this definition is not adequate and is even dangerous. This is because it leads to the Enframing where everything is set ready for use and this way we do not exercise our free will as we interact with nature. The danger with enframing and its emphasis on ordering over all else is the possibility of human beings losing their own essence and their unique ability as entities capable of revealing many ways of being. They are restricted to the revelation methods of setting up unlocking, storing and redistribution which essentially makes them orderers who eventually become orderable so to speak.

Enframing as the underlying stance of technology results in human beings evaluating things the way they are and then trying to create “maximum presences” from them that they can control and order. Things are thus shaped and designed in a manner ready for use as evidenced by airplanes to blenders. The spirituality or religion/gods in things is diminished as rational thinking becomes routine, quantifiable and predictable.

Enframing places the human race at the risk of losing their own essence and becoming subject of the ordering that is inherent in the concept. Human beings lose their freedom and control over technology as it gets more advanced and they themselves end up becoming technological items.

Technology leads to mechanization and industrialization which give rise to problems such as environmental degradation, the momentous climate change and global warming, widespread poverty among others mentioned in the essay. These according to Heidegger are not solely the contribution of the human technological advances but as a result of enframing. The problems have their root in the underlying stance that is enframing which has informed modern technology and the world.

The essence of technology has been lost and modern technology is premised on the wrong definition which Heidegger finds to be insufficient. This is because it stops at the “Making”/ techné aspect of technology and leaves out the important angles of “bringing forth into presence”/Poiesis and the revelation of the “truth”/ episteme. The role of technology does not end with simply providing man with the tools and means to exploit the earth as a means to overcoming his challenges, but is also called upon to help reveal the true reality of being in the ontological sense.

Reference

Nadal, P. (2010) Heidegger’s Critique of Modern Technology: On “The Question Concerning Technology”. Retrieved from<https://belate.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/heidegger-modern-technology>/