Review Video on “The Questioning Concerning Technology”

 We can’t speak and discuss with technology, what we can do is understand the nature of it.
 We only see technology as a mere separation from us.
 What is technology?
o Means to an end? – Instrumental
o Human Activity? – Anthropological
 But according to Heidegger, he rejects the separate of us to the technology.
Humans are questioning beings,
 What is the essence of technology?
 Why did Heidegger rejects the notion that technology is neutral and has no moral baggage to it? How
did he explain his position?
 Technology is a means and that technology is a form of human activity, yet he wants to convey that it
actually doesn’t get at the essence of technology and that both of these viewpoints doesn’t necessarily be
wrong and contradict one another.
 The Question Concerning Technology:
o 1.) Technology is a mode of understanding
 Technology is not a mere instrument, it is not a mere neutral tool, it ultimately a
way of understanding the world.
o 2.) Technology develops beyond our comprehension and control
 Technology is not necessarily a human activity alone, but it is ultimately develops
beyond human control and comprehension.
o 3.) Technology is the ultimate danger to our existence
 It is something we must use extremely caution towards, not necessarily in a
physical sense, but in a metaphysical and conceptual sense that we risk seeing the
world only in a technological lens.
 Technology as a means of understanding the world
o Clearing: when an idea or thing shows itself to us.
 Technology sways our being as a way of understanding the world, it is a way of
revealing, it is like seeing an open field when you are lost in the woods.
 “Technology is a poiesis (bringing forth) that discloses or reveals (aletheia) the
truth.” – Essense of Technology
 Heidegger saw technology as a way of revealing that continue to
demand for something to be brought out into the open. The bringing
forth is a two-way relationship: the concealed is calling out for
someone to set upon it and bring it to unconcealment, and the one who
receives the call sets upon to unconceal the concealed.
 Heidegger explained that revealing in MODERN TECHNOLOGY is
not a bringing-forth, but a CHALLENGING-FORTH. This is a
nonstop revealing.
 ENFRAMING is the way of revealing in Modern Technology. It is as
if nature is put in a box.
 Nature is viewed as an orderable and calculable system of information
(CALCULATIVE THINKING) in order to: unlock and expose nature,
and view it as a stock piles for future use.
o Standing Reserve
 Meaning that the world is a one large resource waiting to be used, waiting to be
processed. In the present, the resource-focused-world is already so engrained in
our brain that even hearing something is not even seen problematic.
 What did Heidegger meant by Standing Reserve (Bestand)?
 The continuous revealing takes place as we allow ourselves to be
agents in the setting upon of challenges to nature but Heidegger argues
that this is not more human doing.
 Human is able to set upon which was already unconcealed as he/she
responds to the call of unconcealment but when human, “investigating,
observing, pursues nature as an area of his(her) own conceiving,
he(she) has already been claimed by a way of revealing that challenges
 him(her) to approach nature as an object of research, until event the
object disappears into objectlessness of standing-reserve.”
 Modern technology takes all of nature to stand in reserve for it
exploitation.
 Man is challenged to do this, and as such becomes part of the standing reserve.
 Man becomes the instrument of technology, to be exploited in the order of nature.
 Do you agree that “technology poses the highest danger of making humans from
beings into not-beings?”
 Humans, Animals, Water, Plants are standing reserve, we lose the very
core element of what makes us core-beings, that is our relationship to
one another, and our direct importance to one another.
o Poiesis
 Means to bring something for a purpose (Aristotle). It also means poetry,
composition…
 It is bringing something concealed to uncealment which then makes
TECHNOLOGY as not only means to an end but also a mode of revealing.
 Again, technology offers itself as a revelation, as a way and means of understanding, rather than just a
neutral tool, further, it offers itself as a state of mind that has completely encapsulated the west in
Heidegger’s eyes. This mindset threatens the authenticity of our lives, our relationship. The most
important points is how it makes us complacent to existential danger, with this mindset we could ruin
ourselves.
 Technology is a mode of being, and is a mode of revealing.
 The Questioning Concerning Technology must be viewed as a reminder to look deeper into something,
that the metaphysical may not be dead and that we must become complacent (self-satisfied) to
technology, we must not rely on the idea that technology will solve every single existential crisis. And
further, we should examine our relationships closer, we should not partition important things like
technology a way into a neutral arbiter or a neutral tool as we can potentially jeopardize everything that
makes us human and the very meaning that encompasses our humanity.
 The human condition is not of without hope. Heidegger argued that this can be prevented if we will not
allow ourselves to be overwhelmed with the enframing that we set upon.
 Pause for a while, question, and reflect on the value of what (technology) is presented before us.
 Heidegger proposes ART as a way out of enframing.
o Art allows us to see the poetic in nature and guides us to see things from calculative to
meditative thinking. Meditative thinking means we let nature reveal itself without forcing it.
 Technology is not technological, it is a way of revealing and not a means to an end.

Video Lecture Notes

 Technology is important as it can extend our lives and is very much connected to progress and
improvement of the quality of life.
 Common Attitudes to Technology: Progress, Advancement, and Development.
 Technology is our (humanity’s) way of applying science in various situations to improve our lives.
 We are in control of technology, we can use it in whatever way we can, is our instruments and tool to
obtain our objects. As a tool, technology is neutral.
 Major Assertions of Heidegger on Technology
o Technology is a way of understanding the world
 Heidegger mentioned technology as a clearing, a way of revealing. And when
there is clearing, we begin to see perspectives that we may not have seen before,
an idea will be exposed.
 For example is sculpture, the process of bringing forth (poises) an image in a
given material, such as wood or stone is through carving, techne is the art or
expertise of the sculptor, the aletheia (truth) is the final form or what is being
revealed.
 The sculptor did not manufacture, he revealed. The dignity of the stone
itself still stands, just in a new form.
  Apply this principle to other things that we obtain through technology,
treating aspects of nature as having a metaphysical essence, a certain
necessity for reverence.
 Technology is a means towards fulfilling our needs while respecting
nature’s needs.
o Technology as “the highest danger” – Standing reserve
 Resources that are ready to be used in the future.
 We no longer see the “being” of our world, we only see it as profit.
 Calculative thinking and exploitation.