THE QUESTION CONCERNING
TECHNOLOGY
Martin Heidegger
What is technology?
 We often think of the tools integrated to the
everyday routine and essential are there to
make life easy for us.
Example:
Phones, tvs, microwave, air conditioner, camera,
computers, cars, motorcycles, etc...
We have taken it for granted (& doesn't think of it
anymore) that it becomes natural for us.
We think of technology as a means to an end as well as
a human activity.
Martin Heidegger tries to answer this in his
philosophical essay
“The question concerning technology”.
Martin Heidegger (born September 26, 1889):
 is a German philosopher, counted among the
main exponents of existentialism.
 His groundbreaking work in ontology (the
philosophical study of being, or existence) and
metaphysics determined the course of 20th-
century philosophy on the European continent
and exerted an enormous influence on virtually
every other humanistic discipline, including
literary criticism, hermeneutics, psychology,
and theology.
 In order for us to fully comprehend technology
we need to have a free relationship to it.
Heidegger argues that technology should not be viewed
in the way we see it now (which is instrumentums or
simply tools or aids).
 such as smartphones or glasses.
Instead we are seeking technology's essence.
 It is crucial to distinguish that technology does
not equal to technologies essence.
 When we discover technology's essence, we
discover the commonality that all technology
shares.
 Suppose now that technology were no mere
means, how would it stand with the will to
master it?
 Now, we will not find this essence if we think of
it conceptually but rather we need to approach
it metaphysically.
According to Heidegger:
Whenever there is an effect, there is a cause.
Where instrumentality reigns there reigns causality.
He dives into Aristotle's principles of four causes:
 Thus, what is revealed? -the silver chalice
Heidegger often refer to the “unconcealment”, where
we “bringing forth” from nothing.
 here, we think of an idea and we make it into
something tangible.
UNCONCEALMENT = “Aletheia” (Greek for TRUTH)
Here he argues that “technology is a mode of
revealing”.
“Technology comes to presence in the realm where
revealing and unconcealment take place, where
aletheia, truth happens.”
We introduce MEANING where there use to be vague
conception.
But how is technology reavealing?
We must infare first that revealing “bringing forth” as
“poiesis”.
“Not only handicraft manufacture, not only artistic and
poetical bringing into appearance and concrete
imagery, is a bringing-forth, poiesis”.
In other words, we must be “sensitive” and so to speak
“poetic” to what is. - what prescences are laid out
before us.
When one encompasses both “poiesis” and “techne”
one can REVEAL to us.
base on all this information, it is safe to say that
“TECHNOLOGY'S ESSENCE is that it REVEALS aletheia or
TRUTH to us”.
 According to Heidegger: it's a YES... but “NO”.
Remember that uses the silver chalice to convey
CAUSALITY.
but can this concept apply to modern technology?
According Hediegger:
 “Modern technology goes beyond causality.”
 It has also changed the pattern, revealing
something quite different and radically new.
What is modern technology? According Heidegger:

According to Heidegger: There is always a REVEALING but it is revealing that

NEVER COMES TO AN END.
 “It is too revealing. Only when we allow our
attention to rest on this fundamental
characteristic does that which is new in modern
STANDING RESERVE:
technology show itself to us.”
Heidegger often use the word bestand (or “the
So are we really only worried about technology? The essence
of technology because we are scared of what we created into standing reserve”) to essentially describe how man
the world? perceive resources.

This is one of the fundamental question to Heidegger tries to  Man no longer sees them for what they actually
find an answer to.. are but instead sees as ways to fulfill man's
needs.
How technology any different?
Heidegger uses the Rhine River as an example:
There is something very distinctive about modern
technology -we go far away from poiesis more towards  a European river that begins in the Swiss canton
techne in which: of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps,
forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein, Swiss-
“The revealing that rules modern technology is
Austrian, Swiss-German and then the Franco-
challenging, which puts to nature the unreasonable
German.
demand that its supply energy that can be extracted
 People don't see the Rhine for what it is -a large
and stored as such.”
body of water or a river. Instead see only this:
 Heidegger goes on to say that although the [Hydroelectric plant]
windmill is a technological device made by man;
Man does not see the river's natural tendency and only
the idea of challenging does not apply here.
sees the power it only give to him and therefore sees it
 Instead, the wind is left as is.
as a standing reserve.
Yet we use it for energy “but the windmill does not
Gestell or “ENFRAMING”
unlock energy from the air currents to store it.”
We challenge and see things as “standing reserves”
 The windmill is technology that:
because we are constantly “enframing” everything
 Satisfy humans without hurting nature.
around us.
What Heidegger imposes here is that perhaps we need
ENFRAMING:
of these technology.
“means the gathering together of that setting-upon
On the other end of the spectrum, man challenges
which sets upon man, i.e. challenges him forth, to reveal
resources when he mines coal or when he cultivates his
the real, in the mode or ordering, as standing reserve.”
farm's soil.
When we enframe, we unconceal the standing reserve
Heidegger qouted:
and lose sight of things that do not fit with the standing
Agriculture is now the mechanized food industry. Air is reserve category back to concealment.
now set upon to yield nitrogen, the earth to yield ore,
When we enframe, us humans view nature as how it
ore to yield uranium, for example; uranium is set to
should fit with us instead of viewing how we should fit
yield atomic energy, which can be released either for
with nature.
destruction or for peaceful use.”
Heidegger said:
 When we challenge nature's resources, we
always want the maximum yield with minimum  Instead of allowing nature es gibt or “TO GIVE”
expense. and to reveals in its own terms (or bringing
forth), we enframe -takes its' resources for
So what do we also do?
granted and appropriate them as standing
We store energy if we are not using it. reserve.

Heidegger quoted:

“Such challenging happens in that the energy concealed

in nature is unlocked, what is unlocked is transformed,
what is transformed is stored up, what is stored up is, in
turn distributed, and what is distributed is switched
about ever anew.”
For Heidegger: aletheia is truth; and technology reveals truth.

“We are questioning concerning technology in order to With this unconcealment, we can use technology to also
bring to light our relationship to its essence.” save us from technology.

ENFRAMING is the essence of modern technology. Heidegger quoted:

Does this mean we see the entire world as our standing “The closer we come to the danger, the more brightly do
reserve? the ways into the saving power begin to shine and the
more questioning we become. For questioning is the
Let's look at the contemporary example that eloquently
piety of thought.”
addresses the standing reserve, gestell “enframing” and
also Heidegger's concern on the dangers of modern
technology.

We see that even in the peak of human survival, we still

use or enframe the universe as an alternate home.

We've completely destroyed mother earth because we

continue to enframe and see it as our standing reserve.

Heidegger quoted:

“Where enframing reigns, there is danger in the highest

sense.”

We see the danger that technology has on the world

today: pollution, the extinction of animals, global
warming, the amount of garbage accumulates over
time.

Heidegger conveys that technology can work against us,

that we are not only harming nature, we are also
harming ourselves.

Going back to poiesis, heidegger infers enframing as

also a way of revealing; so, man also has the power to
save.

“But where danger is, grows, the saving power

also... ...poetically dwells man upon this earth.”

 Fundamentally, if we realize how our

orientation fits with the world and realize that
we enframe the world around us.
 We can save ourselves from the damage
enframing has done.
 When we do this, we achieve a free
relationship with technology.

According to Heidegger:

 We cannot escape the fate of technology but

we must always question technology.
 In order to avoid such catastrophes (such as
global warming).
 We must question how to use technology
without hurting the world around us.
 We need to go back not only to encompassing
techne but also encompassing more poiesis.

Heidegger summarizes that human race as a whole

needs to be more like poets in bringing-forth.

As poets or artist, we need to see the world for what it

is because art and poetry also reveals aletheia.