The Essence of Technology
Thinking about essence and
technology
With an introduction to the work of
Martin Heidegger
The question concerning
technology
“It is a question raised on all sides and always
with a sense of urgency. On it hinges
nothing less than the survival of the species
man and the planet earth”
“The essence of technology is
nothing technological"
Heidegger in The Question
Concerning Technology, 1954
Today
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2.
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Where in the Western tradition?
Essence
Technology
Consequences of this thought
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–
Technology
Education
The Western Tradition of
Philosophy
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Greek  Christian  Bifurcation
Greeks: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
Christian: Augustine to Aquinas
Bifurcation
– Analytic (British)
– Continental
Inwood begins his book
“He was (with the possible exception of Wittgenstein) the
greatest philosopher of the twentieth century.
He was (with the possible exception of Hegel) the greatest
charlatan ever to claim the title of 'philosopher', a
master of hollow verbiage masquerading as profundity.
He was an irredeemable German redneck, and, for a time,
a gullible and self-important Nazi.
He was a pungent, if inevitably covert, critic of Nazism, a
discerning analyst of the ills of our age and our best
hope of a cure for them.”
Sein und Zeit
Early life - 1889
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South – West Germany
Poor Catholic beginnings
Jesuit novice to Freiburg University
1915 conscripted to the postal and
meteorological services
• 1919 breach with the “system of
Catholicism”
Establishment
• 1918 assistant to Husserl
• Teacher – Aristotle, St Paul, St Augustine,
phenomenology
• Marberg – Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant,
Leibniz.
• 1927 Being and Time
• Weimar Republic 1918 – 1933
• National Socialist German Workers party
Dwelling
Space, dwelling, Newton
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A way of looking at things.
Dwelling as an example.
The Adelaide teacher.
Very similar to the argument about
technology.
Freiburg University
• Rectorial address
• 1934 resignation
• Positives – no anti-Semitism, Being the goal
of Nazi Party, Gestapo surveillance,
• Statement: empire building stems not from
“dictators” but from “the metaphysical
essence of modernity”
• Negatives – Catholics, retraction
Phone joke
Essence
• Aristotle raised the question of ‘essence’ as
a part of his discussion of ‘substance’
• Second book on Logic
• One defines things, not words.
The definition of tiger does not tell us the meaning of the word ‘tiger’; it tells us what it is to be a tiger,
what a tiger is said to be in respect of itself. Thus, the definition of tiger states the essence — the
“what it is to be” of a tiger, what is predicated of the tiger per se.
“Technology is not equivalent to the
essence of technology. When we are
seeking the essence of ‘tree’, we have
to become aware that what pervades
every tree, as tree, is not itself a tree
that can be encountered among all the
other trees”.
Essence: the whatness of a
thing – the whatness of
technology
What is the essence of technology?
– A means to an end AND
– A human activity
(This is the instrumental,
anthropological definition)
But, what is the instrumental
itself?
Within what do means and ends
belong?
The path to answer
1. Aristotle – cause – 4 notions
A.
B.
C.
D.
Causa materialis – the material
Causa formalis – the shape
Causa finalis – the end
Causa efficiens – the push
2. But, we act as if they “fell from
heaven” - What grounds them?
In his words
• The 4 ways belong together
• Example: the sacrificial silver chalice, lying before
us, lying ready
• We are asking about the primal meaning of this
• The presenceing of something as coming fourth
into the present
• The bring forth by the craftsman is the same as the
bringing forth in a bud
• Brings out of concealment into un-concealment
The essence of technology is …
•To bring out of concealment
•A way of revealing the totality of
beings
•Prior to, and by no means a
consequence of, the Scientific
Revolution
An important contrast
What is different between ancient and modern
technology?
Ancient technology - lets things emerge / be
Modern technology - forces things to be
- it is “violent”
Examples
• The old bridge / the hydroelectric dam
• The peasant farmer / mechanised food
industry
• The modern airline industry
So what is wrong with progress?
What produces the modern view?
And, what are its consequences?
We come to see everything as
“resource”, “standing reserve”, being
there for our use
… Metaphysics
Examples
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Adolescents
Marriage partners
Save and retire
Curriculum
Credentialing
Polytechnics
Distance learning on the internet
Management theory