STS (MIDTERM)

• Martin Heidegger - “The essence of technology is by no meansanything technological”
• Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) is widely acknowledge as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century
• Martin Heidegger - His work focused on ontology or the study of ‘being’ or dasein in German
• Essence of technology - Instrumental Definition and Anthropological Definition
• Instrumental definition - Technology is a means to an end and an instrument aimed at getting things done
• Anthropological Definition - Technology is a human activity and the production or invention of technological equipment, toolsand machines, and the products and inventions and the purpose and functions they serve are what define technology
• Revealing (a mode of being) - means that technological things have their own novelkind of presence, endurance, and connections among parts and wholes
• Bringing forth - Can be understood through the Ancient Greek philosophical concept“Poiesis” which refers to act of bringing something into unconcealment.
• Aletheia - Ancient Greek word which means “Unconcealment” or disclosure or truth
• Technology is a form of poiesis – a way of revealing that unconceals aletheia (truth)
• In Philosophy, techne resembles the term episteme that refers to the human ability to make or perform. It encompasses knowledge and understanding
• In Art, techne refers to tangible and intangible aspects of life. The Greeks understood techne in the way that it encompasses not only craft but other acts of mind, and poetry.
• Heidegger here makes clear that technology is "no mere means" but a mode or revealing, that is, of bringing forth into unconcealment - aletheia
• Heidegger emphasizes techne is also a kind of knowing or episteme
• We seek to master technology
• Heidegger says, we seek to "get" technologyspiritually in hand
• essence of modern technology - Not a bringing forth
• Poiesis - the activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before
• Poiesis - is etymologically derived from an ancient Greek term which means to make.
• Both primitive crafts and modern technology are revealing
• But the revealing of modern technology is not a bringing forth, but a challenging-forth
• Modern Technology - challenges nature, by extracting something from it and transforming it, storing up, distributing it, etc.
• setting upon characteristic of modern technology challenges forth the energy of nature as an expediting in two ways: Unlocks and exposes and the economic
• Bestand - standing reserve which is far more than simply reserves that one happiness to have on hand
• Bestand - means "stock", "holdings", "assets", or the term Heidegger uses often, "standing reserve"
• Examples of “setting upon”: Hydroelectric power plant, strip mining and Suleyman's bridge at Mostar
• Standing-Reserve - Modern technology takes all of nature to stand in reserve for its exploitation
• Standing-Reserve - Man becomes the instrument of technology, to be exploited in the ordering of nature
• Standing-Reserve - s active in the case of a river once it generates electricity or the earth if revealed as a coal mining district or the soil as a mineral deposit
• Normally, piety is associated with beingreligious
• For Heidegger, however, piety means obedience and submission
• Questioning as a Piety of Thought - It is when we start questioning that we submit ourselves to our thoughts
• Questioning as a Piety of Thought - This kind of questioning leads one to search for his/her place in the universe and in the grand scale of things.
• Questioning as a Piety of Thought - It is through this process that one builds a waytowards knowing the truth of who he/she is as a being in this world
• Enframing - Way of revealing in Modern Technology
• enframing - the actual is revealed as a standing-reserve
• Enframing - is "historically" prior to the development of science
• Enframing - is the essence of technology
• Enframing - means that way of revealing that holds sway in the essence of modern technology and that it is itself not technological
• Enframing - it is as if nature is put in a box orin a frame so that it can be better understood and controlled according to people's desires