Martin Heidegger

• Martin Heidegger: '"The essence of technology is by no means anything technological."'
• Heidegger's philosophical shift


  From the thinking of beings to the Being
• Philosophers Heidegger questioned


  • Plato
  • Descartes
  • Rousseau
  • Kant
  • Nietzsche
  • Kierkegaard
  • Husserl
• Being in Time


  The underlying flaw Heidegger identified continues throughout philosophy
• Heidegger: '"Fundamental mystery of life is that something exists, rather then nothing, that is the world"'
• The world exists
• We exist only because the world does
• If there was no world we would not exist
• The world allows us to be
• Being


  A base that allows us to come into existence
• Beings


  The things in existence
• Without the Being there is the Nothing
• Beings make Being possible and without Being there is Nothing
• We exist in-between the notion of Being and Nothing because we are time based
• We come into Being and we eventually die bringing us back to nothingness
• Questioning Being


  • Being can't be applied to an individual
  • Being can be questioned because of our awareness to the ability to ask the question
  • Having the ability to ask a question about Being means we have the ability to answer the question
• Human-being


  A special type of being, the being-there (Dasein)
• Dasein


  • Understanding of behavior according to the culture
  • Shapes the behavior of the Dasein
  • It's like that perfect model we strive for as people in certain cultures
• 3 types of existence

  • Undifferentiated
  • Inauthentic
  • Authentic
• Being-toward-death


  • Anxiety
  • Fallen-ness
• Technology


  • Everything exists for us
  • Even other people are seen as something there for us to consume and use
• Art


  • Art does what technology cannot
  • Interconnectedness with things
  • Allows us to appreciate the things that exist
  • Existence enters the entire world around the individual
• Heidegger argued that he was not an existentialist
• Philosophers influenced by Heidegger

  • Jean-Paul Sartre
  • Maurice Merleau-Pony
  • Rudolf Karl
  • Bultmann Paul Tillich
  • Hans-Georg Gadamer
  • Michael Foucault
  • Jacques Derrida
  • Ludwig Wittgenstenin
• Technology


  Tools integrated into our everyday routines to make life easier
• Examples of technology


  • TV
  • Microwave
  • Air conditioner
  • Laptop
  • Camera
  • Headphones
  • iPhone
• We often take technology for granted and don't think twice about what it does for us every day
• Technology


  A means to an end, and a human activity
• Heidegger says the statement 'technology is a means to an end and a human activity' is technically correct but not adequate to define what technology really is
• Free relationship to technology


  What Heidegger means for us to fully comprehend technology
• Technology does not equal technology's essence
• To discover technology's essence, we need to approach it metaphysically, not just conceptually
• Heidegger uses the silver chalice as an example to explain Aristotle's four causes
• Revealing (Aletheia)


  The unconcealment of truth, where meaning is introduced where there was vagueness
• Poiesis


  Bringing forth, the poetic revealing of truth
• Techne


  Skill, technique, the arts of the mind and fine arts, the bringing forth of poiesis
• For Heidegger, technology's essence is not just about revealing truth, but something more distinctive about modern technology
• Modern technology


  A challenging revealing that demands nature supply energy that can be extracted and stored
• The windmill is an example of technology that satisfies human needs without challenging nature
• Standing reserve (Bestand)


  How modern technology causes us to perceive resources, not for what they are but as something to be used and exploited