On the Background of Heidegger's View of Technology

To begin with, it is useful to recall in outline the development of the theme of technology in Heidegger's position. This theme is not explicit in his early philosophy and only becomes explicit after the turning in his thought as a by-product of his attention to nihilism. Technology is not an important theme in Being and Time . To the best of my knowledge, the only explicit mention of technology is in a single sentence in § 69, in the course of a lengthy discussion of "The Temporality of Being-in-the-World and the Problem of the Transcendence of the World." In part b of this paragraph, clumsily titled "The Temporal Meaning of the Way in Which Circumspective Concern Becomes Modified into the Theoretical Discovery of the Present-at-Hand Within-the-World," Heidegger writes: "Reading off the measurements which result from an experiment often requires a complicated 'technical' set-up for the experimental design."^[19]

Yet if not the theory of technology, at least the basic conceptual framework from which it will emerge is already in place as early as Being and Time . So in the famous discussion of equipment from a clearly pragmatic angle of vision, Heidegger draws the well-known distinction between readiness-to-hand (Zuhandenheit ) and presence-to-hand (Vorhandenheit ). He then writes, in a reference to what nature is in itself:

Here, however, "Nature" is not to be understood as that which is just present-at-hand, nor as the power of Nature . The wood is a forest of timber, the mountain a quarry of rock; the river is water-power, the wind is wind "in the sails." As the "environment" is discovered, the "Nature" thus discovered is encountered too. If its kind of Being as ready-to-hand is

disregarded, this "Nature" itself can be discovered and defined simply in its pure presence-to-hand. But when this happens the Nature which "stirs and strives," which assails us and enthralls us as landscape, remains hidden. The botanists' plans are not the flowers of the hedgerow; the "source" which the geographer establishes for a river is not the "springhead in the dale."^[20]

In this passage, Heidegger, who does not yet possess a developed concept of technology, presents the dark side which, he believes, technology tends to hide or to cover up. To see this point, we need to dig a little deeper than the official concern in this paragraph with the relative priority between presence-to-hand and readiness-to-hand which defines entities "ontologico-categorially."^[21] For Heidegger, the initial access to entities is solely in terms of an "in order to" structure, through a possible use to which they can be put. It follows, then, that a pragmatic intention structures the world and its contents as they are revealed to us. If the way in which we turn to the world structures what we find there, by implication the particular structure we impart to the world removes from it certain aspects that cannot be found because they are literally rendered invisible by the kind of utilitarian perspective one adopts, or even the utilitarian perspective itself. This is the deeper meaning of Heidegger's remark, in the passage cited, that beyond the botanists' plants and the geographers' river there are the flowers of the hedgerow and the springhead in the dale. Heidegger's point, then, is that at the same time as modern technology, illustrated in such sciences as botany and geography, reveals a world called into being by different forms of technological perspective, it also tends to hide or to occult another, more "natural" world.

This passage, which is not yet a theory of technology, points toward the need for an explanation of how, under circumstances associated with nihilism, technology itself, in principle meant to improve life, works against the realization of that aim. In Heidegger's succeeding writings, the theory of technology gradually emerges until he focuses on it directly. This topic is already on his mind in the lecture course on metaphysics. Here, in the context of his meditation on metaphysics, he interprets the Greek root of the German word often rendered as technology ("Technik ") against the background of the ancient Greek tradition.

In a remark on the relation of "physis " and "techne, " he translates the latter as denoting neither art nor technology but knowledge. By "knowledge" he understands "the ability to plan and to organize freely, or to master institutions."^[22] Heidegger later amplifies his understanding of techne as knowledge in the context of a lengthy discussion of Sophocles' Antigone . In an interpretation of the word "deinon, " he employs the

term "Machenschaft, " from "machanoen, " to describe "the power, the powerful, in which the action of the violent one moves," to refer to the "machination . . . entrusted to him."^[23] If we take Heidegger's comments on techne as adumbrating his later doctrine of technology, we can perceive in this remark a foreshadowing of what he regards as the essential passivity of human being with respect to a violent phenomenon not under human control. If knowledge requires effective transparency, or control, then such knowledge is accompanied by a constitutive opacity, or lack of control.

Heidegger amplifies the manner in which techne as knowledge presupposes an active aspect in further comments on the link between techne and art. For Heidegger, knowledge is not mere observation, but involves a looking beyond what is given at any time. He further stresses the forward-looking, prospective aspect of techne by noting that it is the Greek term for art, which allows the emergence of what is concealed, which, then, realizes, which accomplishes in the form of an entity.

Because art in a pre-eminent sense stabilizes and manifests Being in the work as an entity, it may be regarded as the ability, pure and simple, to accomplish, to put-into-the-work [ins-Werk-setzen]. as techne . This accomplishment is a manifesting realization [Erwirken] of being in the entity.^[24]

But if Being manifests itself in technological production, then the human role is overshadowed by that which so to speak makes use of it. Technology is not, or is not only, the employment of a means to reach an end in view; technology, as in the Greek sense of art, is the revealing of what reveals itself through technology in independence of us.^[25]

In later writings composed during the 1930s, Heidegger begins to develop various aspects of his view of technology. In the Beiträge , through the concept of machination Heidegger emphasizes the relation of technology to calculability and to the modern period. For Heidegger, calculation originally becomes possible through the application of scientifically grounded mathematical technique.^[26] Yet in Heidegger's eyes, technology is at best a mixed blessing. Heidegger stresses its negative aspect in a later remark, in a protest against the way in which the familiar insistence on the expansion of technology, in the rise of mere number, of simple gigantism, brings about a transformation of human being.^[27]

Heidegger finds the origins of modern technology in early Greek philosophy. In a remark about Plato, Heidegger attributes the difficulties of modernity to the central figure in the Western philosophical tradition. On the basis of a concept of techne , Plato's supposed preference for entities, mere beings, made possible the rise of modern technology,

whose result is seen in an alleged forgetfulness of Being and a supposed denial of history.^[28] In this way, Heidegger establishes to his satisfaction that modern technology, and by implication the whole modern period, is only possible because of the turn away from an authentic comprehension of Being. The double consequence of Heidegger's analysis is to forge a metaphysical link between the question of Being and technology, and to uncover a metaphysical ground to oppose technology and modernity. Heidegger's disparaging comment on Plato is consistent with Heidegger's later effort to reject metaphysics and philosophy for another form of thought beyond philosophy. It points to the deep connection between Heidegger's view of technology and his rejection of all metaphysics since the pre-Socratics.

The connection of technology with modernity and metaphysics, to which Heidegger alludes in the Beiträge , is strengthened in subsequent writings. In an important essay on representation, Heidegger insists on the link between technology and modern science while seeming to distance himself from his earlier claim about the relation of calculation and technique. Heidegger now maintains that technology is as important as modern science, since it is an autonomous domain; but technology cannot be understood as an application of a mathematical form of physical science.

One of the essential phenomena of the modern age is its science. A phenomenon of no less importance is machine technology. We must not, however, misinterpet that technology as the mere application of modern mathematical physical science to praxis. Machine technology is itself an autonomous transformation of praxis, a type of transformation wherein praxis first demands the employment of mathematical physical science. Machine technology remains up to now the most visible outgrowth of the essence of modern technology, which is identical with the essence of modern metaphysics.^[29]

This passage uncovers an important new aspect of technology, which is now revealed as the ground of modernity and, for that reason, as the continuation of the metaphysical turn away from an authentic grasp of Being. For Heidegger, metaphysics grounds an age by giving it a specific viewpoint, and ours is the age of technology. Modern technology, which is so far most visible in so-called machine technology, is modern metaphysics. Since Heidegger also holds that the metaphysical tradition carries with it a false understanding of Being, modern technology is a phenomenon that we need to surpass if we are to return to a true metaphysics. The technological conquest of the world, produced through the appearance of the gigantic, and the attachment to quantity,

although perhaps a special kind of greatness, only signifies a metaphysical decline.

Heidegger further contributes to his nascent view of technology in a brief passage in the "Letter on Humanism." The passage begins with a meditation on homelessness, which he sees as resulting from the turning away from Being by beings. For Heidegger, homelessness is becoming the destiny of the world (Weltschicksal ).^[30] He sees Marx's concept of alienation as the analysis of a phenomenon due to, and covered up by, metaphysics. From Heidegger's perspective, Marx's specific contribution lies in his understanding of the relation of alienation to history, an insight so far unmatched by later thinkers who fail to enter into dialogue with him, which is possible only if one grasps the essence of materialism.^[31]

These claims require careful consideration. It is unclear that Heidegger has avoided the danger of facile statements about materialism, about which he warns us. His assertion that no one has so far been able to dialogue with Marx in virtue of the inability to think history is possibly accurate for Husserl but more questionable for Sartre.^[32] One must also question Heidegger's dogmatic assumption of the Marxist myth that Marx's position is fairly described as materialism.^[33]

Heidegger's basic claim is that in order to think history, we must think Being in the authentic sense. His remarks on technology, meant to support his stress on the priority of the question of Being, reveal the importance he attaches to this phenomenon. Heidegger insists that the essence of materialism, the position he attributes to Marx, is concealed in technology. The result is in effect to reverse what he, following the standard Marxist reading of Marx, understands as Marx's effort to think technology through "materialism," that is, as an outgrowth of the concentration of capital in modern society. Since Heidegger believes that technology can only be understood in terms of the forgotten history of Being, Marx's position, although deeper than others, is nonetheless superficial when measured by this standard. In this way, Heidegger transforms Marx's question concerning the nature of modern life, which Marx studies in terms of the institution of private property and human being, into his own question concerning Being.

Heidegger argues for his rival theory of Being as the key to modern society by drawing a link between technology and the contemporary historical moment. For Heidegger, technology is a mode of the manifestation of the truth of Being in the ancient Greek sense; through technology, the history of metaphysics appears. From Heidegger's perspective, technology is merely the visible aspect of metaphysics. Now making a difficult transition from technology as a manifestation of Being to political doctrines, he asserts that the latter as well derive from Being. The problem is that thought, which is determined by Being, is inadequate

either to grasp Being or to conceptualize the present historical moment. Metaphysics cannot think the present era, in which it is the dominant mode of thought. Heidegger's assertion that politics depends on Being is further important for an understanding of his turning toward Nazism. If ontology leads to politics, as Heidegger now maintains, then it is reasonable to suppose, as the discussion has previously shown, that his view of Being could also induce a political turning, including a turning to Nazi politics.

In an important passage that ties together different themes of his overall position with his concept of technology, Heidegger writes:

The essence of materialism is concealed in the essence of technology, about which much has been written but little has been thought. Technology is in its essence a destiny within the history of Being and of the truth of Being, a truth that lies in oblivion. For technology does not go back to the techne of the Greeks in name only but derives historically and essentially from techne as a mode of aletheuein , a mode, that is, of rendering beings manifest. As a form of truth technology is grounded in the history of metaphysics, which is itself distinctive and up to now the only perceptible phase of the history of Being. No matter which of the various positions one chooses to adopt toward the doctrines of communism and to their foundation, from the point of view of the history of Being it is certain that an elemental experience of what is world-historical speaks out in it. Whoever takes "communism" only as a "party" or a "Weltanschauung " is thinking too shallowly, just as those who by the term "Americanism" mean, and mean derogatorily, nothing more than a particular lifestyle. The danger into which Europe as it has hitherto existed is ever more clearly forced consists presumably in the fact above all that its thinking—once its glory—is falling behind in the essential course of a dawning world destiny which nevertheless in the basic traits of its essential provenance remains European by definition. No metaphysics, whether idealistic, materialistic, or Christian, can in accord with its essence, and surely not in its own attempts to explicate itself, "get a hold on" this destiny yet, and that means thoughtfully to reach and gather together what in the fullest sense of Being now is.^[34]

This passage is important for several reasons. First, Heidegger indicates that a theory of technology needs to take a historical approach. He credits Marx's view as an advanced example of this approach. Second, he stresses, as he did in Being and Time , that history can only be thought in terms of Being. Third, from this perspective, Heidegger maintains that a theory of technology which explains the phenomenon of technology in terms of modern society and not conversely is unacceptable. The result is to maintain his insistence, consistent in his works, on the primacy of the question of Being. Fourth, he insists on the inseparable link

between technology and metaphysics or the history of ontology. In this way, Heidegger signals his intention to utilize his concern with Being as the crucial insight to understand technology. Fifth, he brings out the fateful consequence of the understanding of technology in the escape from homelessness which afflicts modern man and the return to Being from the forgetfulness of Being. This is again a signal that, despite the later effort to decenter subjectivity, Heidegger still maintains the emphasis, present as early as Being and Time , on the link between Being and authenticity.