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Martin Heidegger
Technology
• as a means to an end (instrumental)
• as human activity (anthropological)
What is the essence of technology?
Causality
• Technology brings about change causally
• The cause is what is responsible for the effect, and
the effect is indebted to the cause
• According to Aristotle, there are four ways in
which this relation holds
The Four Causes
• causa materialis
• causa formalis
• causa finalis
• causa efficiens
The Four Causes: Didactic Illustration
Modern Technology
• Both primitive crafts and modern
technology are revealing
• But the revealing of modern technology is
not a bringing-forth, but a challenging-forth
• It challenges nature, by extracting
something from it and transforming it,
storing it up and distributing it.
The Standing-Reserve
• Modern technology takes all of nature to
stand in reserve for its exploitation
• Man is challenged to do this, and as such he
becomes part of the standing reserve
• Man becomes the instrument of technology,
to be exploited in the ordering of nature
Setting Upon
• The setting upon characteristic of modern
technology challenges forth the energy of
nature as an expediting in two ways
– Unlocks and exposes
– maximum yield, minimum expense demands
stockpiling
Examples of “setting upon”
Even the
wind can be
set upon….
Great birds of prey,
1000s and 1000s of them,
who cannot see the
churning vanes
accumulate around the
circumference
of such wind-farms
Enframing
• It is not man that orders nature through
technology, but a more basic process of revealing
• The challenge of this revealing is called
“enframing”
• In enframing, the actual is revealed as a standing-
reserve
• This is “historically” prior to the development of
science
• Enframing is the essence of technology
Destining
• Men are sent upon the way of revealing the
actual as a standing-reserve
• So enframing, and hence technology, is a
“destining”
• The destining of man to reveal nature
carries with it the danger of misconstrual
The Danger
• Man is in danger of becoming merely part of the
standing-reserve
• Alternatively, he may find only himself in nature
• Most importantly, he may think that the ordering
of the world through technology is the
fundamental mode of revealing
• So the real threat of technology comes from its
essence, not its activities or products
The Saving Power
• The poet Hölderlin writes that the saving
power grows where danger is
• The saving would allow a bringing-forth
that is not a challenging-forth
• Both technology and bringing-forth grow
out of “granting,” which allows revealing
But where danger is, grows
The saving power also.
Friedrich Hölderlin
The essence of technology
is nothing technological
Heidegger