Martin Heidegger | Question Concerning Technology (part 1) | Existentialist Philosophy & Literature
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- Опубліковано 8 січ 2014
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In this lecture (part 1 of 2), I begin setting out some of the key movements and themes of Martin Heidegger's seminal essay "The Question Concerning Technology". He discusses the difference between technological apparatus and the essence of technology, and pushes past an admittedly "correct" understanding of technology as a means and as human activity (the instrumental- anthropological interpretation), to press into metaphysics.
Then Heidegger considers the nature of causality, starting out with the traditional schema of the four causes (material, formal, final, efficient), arguing that these are not sufficient for adequately understanding how all four causes are bound or brought together, and who brings them together in the process of making, the technical process of production.
Heidegger then brings us into a discussion of "unconcealment", in Greek, aletheia, which he interprets as a primal form of truth. All technology and every techne involves an unconcealment of being -- bringing-forth of what was not yet present into presence and appearance. So, technology -- in its essence -- is more than just a means or a human activity. It is a way of revealing. . . . .
(part 2 picks up with this insight, and runs through the rest of the essay)
If you're unfamiliar with Heidegger's conception of truth as aletheia or uncovering, you may find this lecture video useful: • Martin Heidegger | On ...
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You can find the copy of the text I am using for this video on Heidegger's lecture "The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings, available here - amzn.to/2uHiAFp
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#metaphysics #philosophy #Heidegger
Damn, you're an amazing teacher, pleasure to listen
Thanks!
@@GregoryBSadler Proffessor can you please explain briefly dasein's evasion... i have understood the the throwness but i need to explain evasion. I am kind a lost.
@@mayanl2524 Heidegger is tough and complex. There's really no "briefly explain" beyond what I've provided here. If you're interested in booking time for tutorials, here's my site - reasonio.wordpress.com/tutorials/
Reading this on a tablet instills a mood of curious irony.
I'm sure
i know this video was made ten years ago but I just wanted to say its value is enduring because a decade later it is very very helpful and illuminating for me. Thank you for taking the time to make this freely available to us!
You're very welcome. The text and its insights shouldn't change in a decade, I'd say
@@GregoryBSadler Right you are!
I've read the essay in German. It's interesting to hear it in English from you. The difference in language reveals a deeper meaning of Heidegger's thoughts. To give an example, standing reserve was originally referred to as Bestand. It stands opposite to the German word Gegenstand, which means thing. Gegenstand literally means "stand against". So a thing in essence stands against the observer. It's not a mere object of use. It reveals itself against the observer. A Bestand on the other hand is a mere object constituted by the person that ordered the Bestand. Heidegger called this the process of ordering (in German Bestellen).
In short I learned a lot from these clips, both because of the interesting use of language and your animated way of explaining.
Glad you found the video useful
Terrific lecture! Thanks Dr Sadler! As a Computer Science and Economics student, this vid is extremely interesting; it is as much revealing as the fact that technology is a way of revealing!
One of my favorite essays from Heidegger! Thank you very much for the upload professor Sadler
You're very welcome! Glad you enjoyed it.
45:08-45:23 - Interesting. A helpful way to think about Heidegger's thought overall also.
Dr. Sadler: I cannot thank you enough for your videos.
Your lectures on Hegel especially helped me "sweat through the fog" of some of his writings.
Glad they've been helpful so far. We're only about 10% through the Phenomenology
New video (part 1 of 2) in the Existentialism series
Thank you so much for taking the time to make these videos.
i was hanging on for those last words! i've never been so enthralled by a philosophy lecture and i'm just sitting here baked in my room. a mixture of beautiful content and your wisdom has delivered part of heidegger's message to my brain tonight. thank you good sir!
You're very welcome! You should follow it up with part 2!
Thanks a lot for putting these out. I am a UBC philosophy major and it almost feels like cheating, getting access to such quality content which helps me make sense -or at least more sense- of my studies. You have my gratitude
Glad the videos are helpful for you!
Dasein is the being who questions about his own being - this is exactly the opening aphorism in the Vedanta sutra ("conclusion - ante of veda - knowledge") of ancient India: athatho brahma jijnasa - " now, therefore, it is time to ask about brahma (Being)".
This is philosophy per excellance.
I have studied both Heidegger and Vedanta and it is striking.
Also, it's not simply that u feel as though I'm missing out on something important but when I observe your facial expressions when you're putting everything together, in particular, I can see the joy you get in being able to think through these ideas as he did, something I often get when reading other thinkers. Maybe I need to immerse myself in him for as long as it takes and read/listen to other commentators at the same time. I feel, and this may turn out to be wrong, that I'm not understanding something important. Regards.
Thank you for making these videos. I was a little nervous hitting Heidegger in our course but your video here was so clear I had no problems!
Glad you found it useful. You're welcome!
Thank you for your amazing quality; your quality to make complex things look like cake! I deeply enjoy your work!
You're very welcome!
Thank you very much Mr Sadler! I hoped that you would choose this theme some time!
I really enjoy your great videos!
You're very welcome!
Another brilliant lecture - Cheers to you, Dr. Sadler!
Thanks!
An example of how to put tools (youtube) to great use. Thanks.
Shellmaster 185 You're welcome!
The section on the four causes was amazing Dr. Sadler. I was always wondering why 'final cause' seemed to recede into the background of philosophy with the transition from medieval and greek philosophy to modern philosophy. I will definitely have to give this essay of Heidegger's a reread.
Thank you again for all this free material you provide. I can't wait to dig into your lectures on Hegel next summer.
Glad you got so much out of the video! Yes, it's always worth rereading Heidegger.
I’m so grateful for your amazing and inspiring teaching (structuring) of this so important and relevant text. I’m Dutch, I read German but this English translation is very helpful!
Glad you found it useful
Perhaps not one of your usual viewers but i really enjoy your teachings while on medical herbs.
I suppose that's a good thing
Thank you for existing
Incredible. It was very easy to follow along.
Glad to read it
You're the best. Thanks!
Fantastic! Thank you!
outstanding video, thank you so much! forever wishing you were my professor.
Glad you enjoyed it!
thank you sir your video very very helpful and clear comparing with reading the essay only.
Glad it was useful for you
Gregory B. Sadler always proves himself one of the best lecturers around. I think today Heidegger would be especially horrified by how we can’t take a walk in the woods anymore without thinking about potential tweets or posts we could make about our walk. Our “towardness” to the world has changed: everything is a potential commodity for our online lives. This by extension controls our horizons and ways of life in ways that even captures and “fences in” our imaginations: we live in societies of control in many ways.
Because we want material for social media, in one sense, that means we might notice stuff better, but it’s like us noticing a broken doorknob: the fact stuff comes to our attention is a sign there is something broken. We are not immersed in being; instead, being has to prove itself worth being commoditized. Additionally, because everything could be a potential post, we often ask ourselves “Why don’t I make a post about this?” Since we can call our friends anytime, we have to wonder “Why don’t I call my friends?” and furthermore wonder what this means about us and if our friends our upset, etc. All of this makes it harder to be present and can increase existential anxiety (due to an increase of choices, as Barry Schwartz and Eric Fromm discuss).
Walker Percy wrote about how it’s impossible now to fully experience the Grand Canyon because we’ve seen pictures of it ahead of time: the power of the Grand Canyon has been reduced. Additionally, when we see something beautiful, we say “that’s as pretty as a picture,” suggesting that our standards of beauty are representations of beauty, a strange paradox. It reminds me of how we confuse being(s) with Being, alluding to Heidegger.
As Johannes Niederhauser puts it, everything today is “pre-formed,” and considering Walter Benjamin, perhaps what follows is that the world has lost its aura (not just art). It’s hard now to experience anything “in its origin,” and from this follows a kind of enslavement. “Being captured” entails being stuck seeing the world a certain way, which makes us like a cow in a fenced pasture: we have “free-range,” but not freedom. Escape requires learning to see things “for what they really are,” but how do we do that?
I think Baudrillard might be important to note here, because once we are “entrapped” or “captured” by technology, there can be a “death of the real” that can make it hard to even see things for themselves to escape entrapment. If we cannot say for sure that the real is in fact real, then “captured-ness” becomes ontologically integrated into us, and the Heideggerian solution might prove particularly difficult to exercise. That leaves the Deleuzian option for escape, and certainly, art and creativity seem to play a key role, but can we go too far and erase all “givens,” which sociologists like Philip Rieff warn could be a dire mistake? I’m not sure.
“Enframing” is what we’re trapped in today: technological, sociological, economic, academic political, and so on. Arguably, nearly everything is in the business of trying “enframe” us, countless means of socialization (as Jordan Peterson discusses), which again, might not be all bad if sociologists like Peter Berger are correct. And it’s not just elites or “rulers” who engineer our “capture”: we do it to ourselves. When my friends have cellphones and know I have one too, they can expect me to always be on call, and if I’m not, the friendship can be hurt (similar situations arise with work and laptops, etc.). Thus, I’m pressured to live with technology in a way that will shape my orientation to the world: “enframing” proves emergent and socially reinforced. If I want to be part of the solution then, part of the answer a least is that I free my friends, family, and coworkers from expectations that force them to be constantly plugged-in.
From each “enframing,” different rationalities spring which only worsen the ways in which we are “captured.” To escape our rationalities, which are shaped by our “truths,” as I argue elsewhere, we need to learn how to move between truths and axioms without being nihilistic relativists. Indeed, like Murphy and Niederhauser, I think creativity and play are secrets to this program. At the same time, I think we can stay balanced by not losing sight of a “common life,” as described by David Hume, which is also key to avoiding “autonomous rationalities” in which “enframing” is especially likely and problematic.
I agree with Hans Balthasar that beauty is primary in the formation of our lives and wonder if changes in our “towardness” due to technology impacts our capacity to be moved by the beautiful. If Gadamer is correct that aesthetics are important for overcoming “the hermeneutical circle” (which has ontological significance), this could prove to be a problem. I wonder if there is an inverse relationship between the presence of beauty and the presence of technology, but I also don’t deny that technology unlocks new artistic possibilities. I tend to side with Neil Postman: technology is always a Faustian bargain. I think today we are too far on the side of just accepting technology without any skepticism. For More:
ua-cam.com/video/82N3y3an8JM/v-deo.html&feature=emb_title
Thanks again, Dr. Sadler!
You're welcome!
@@GregoryBSadler I've learned a lot from you, Dr. Sadler: thank you for all the amazing work you do on this channel.
There needs to be a Gregory B Saddler app. UA-cam is a big place. GBS is all you need on it.
Well, that would be interesting
I read this again, so I am viewing the video again. Thank you."Questioning builds a way. "true questioning means being attentive to what it is you are asking questions about".You wouldn't want to pigeon hole them immediately, and understand them as standing reserve when they may be much more than that one abstraction. You have to be patient, and open, and this openess is what man brings to being to let being speak to him. But with all being becoming `standing reserve`, both being and the essence of man as openness is severely limited. `free relationship`` it opens our human existenz to the essence of technology."a connection between existenz and essence. How do they fuse together?How does my existenz as a human being find itself revelaed by the essence of technology? Human beings by their nature are questioning beings. Technology as a means and a human activity.This is correct but superficial. synonyms for essence..."roots" "foundation" Metaphysics: The correct is a concealment, whereas the metaphysical reveals to us what he essences of what things are. "technology is not equivalent to the essence of technology. A cat is not the essence of a cat, or the death of tabby is the death of all possible cats. "examples or instances of technology. "The essence of technology will not be a piece of technology". We want to know, for all instances of technology, what is it that they have in common? not a notional characteristic ( not a eidos, a picture-concept, or maybe even a proposition) What they all have in common is the human comportment, and the human making meaning out of technology. It is neither being absorbed by technology, or being a deliberate luddite that we will experience the essence. of technology. essence as quiddity. Two whats: means to an end, and human activity. Okay which is correct? both are right. "positing means for ends is the distinctive human activity"(THE??)Technology is instrumental."technology is a mode of revealing.Human activity means that the tech is a product of human ingenuity. The instrumental understanding of tech conditions every attempt to try to understand tech. default or de facto default position that people being with. is it correct YES. is it adequate? NO. but why is it inadequate?)Because it does not tell us the essence. "Suppose that technology is no mere means"19:00 mins ending.
thank you again.
You're welcome
Do you have any lectures on "Being and Time"? I really enjoyed this lecture, thank you Professor Sadler.
+danhutchings I don't yet, but hopefully will down the line
we are still waiting
Curtis Walton I'm still busy as always
ok
Terrific!
Thanks!
Good. Very good.
Thanks!
How would we understand in Heidegger 's terms the worker who works on something that doesn't really understand,a case in which causa finalis and causa sufficiens don't meet each other in such a way as it was described?
Would that alienation be able to describe the way in which we use technology today,that is ,a way in which we have become subordinate our tools ?
Do alienated workers obscure instead of reveal?
For Heidegger, concealing and revealing are not like an on-off switch. There’s always some of each going on, sometimes more one than the other
thank you.
Mark Trumble You're welcome
Thanks.
You're welcome
Can somebody give little explanation on Heidegger accounts on throwness, understanding, and evasion... i understand the throwness but confuse on understanding term and evasion... just little hint i need on these two terms... anyone please help me
Good job thanks
You're welcome!
Do you agree with martin Heidegger in his idea that technology should only be seen as one of the approaches in perceiving truth? What are other possible approaches we should consider?
Can you help me answer this
ua-cam.com/video/OV_T8Emyf6I/v-deo.html
Sorry, this applies to your video on his description of metaphysics. I've been stuck on the intellectual negation of everything to describe nothing for ever but I've always intuited, perhaps the insufficiency of this approach. I'm getting glimpses of what you mean by the nothing but no sufficient recognition or understanding of it. I feel like I really need to understand this in order to appreciate not just Heidegger but others. Should I just keep plugging my way at it or was there something else that helped you to fully appreciate it? regards, Jason.
No idea why you're asking questions about a different video on this one
superb
Thanks
So how would you answer the question: what is the essence of technology?
There seems to be quite a bit of speculation regarding the question but little resolution
It's answered, both in the text - which I assume you're reading - and in the series of videos here
43:16 things coming from nothing to being (wesen) as poesis. things in physis "spring up"intrinsic potetnitality!!!!Occasioning is presenceing. let it come forth.....either from intrinsic potentiiality or by someone working on it.....How does this bringin forth happen? Occasioning has to do with the presencing ofthat which at any time appears through brining forth. going from concealment to unconcealment. (potentiality to actuality?) unconcealment=a-lethe-ia. come to being out of forgetfulness. Alethia is revealing. 48:12 unconcealment=a-lethe-ia=truth. concealment seems like a synthasis of both potetnialty and lethe. Technology is reveling , creates bounds and demarkations, metron, draws out beings....techne and episteme (used for political science, generalship) tecne truth is production. A GOOD WORKER HAS THE FINAL END IN MIND when making in techne. All four causes are at play, but the worker is prime (instead of a god who fixed all final ends prior to the workers work) Consider Aristotle,s architectonic view of the ends of goods. A real technician would need to know the whole architectonic to create his product that would work in the whole. gotta go.56:32
Drat! Lost my notes up to the absence of telos.! What does cause really mean? cause "To fall". aiton that to which something is en debited. All are interconnect to each other, all ways of being responsible. "co-responsible " owes thanks to.That which in advance confines the chalice wihtin the realm of consecration and bestowal. Through this the chalice is circumscribed s sacrificial vessel. circumscribing gives bounds to a thing. The final end precedes the efficient cause, its the reason why the smith made it, and also gives limit to its form. The final cause is more important, more causal. NEW CAUSE!!!!!!!!!!silversmith is a maker. Why not is this the same as the efficient cause? THe silver smith gathers together the three ways of being endebited. You know, this is true. Hume's billiard balls don't have the means to make chalices.....wait.....what about natural selection...hmmmm... not all causation is through human agency...but technology is.....what unites the four ways together?what does owing mean? WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE MAKE SOMETHING? "occasioning" "bring something into appearance" Wen something comes into appearance it shows for human subjects which are able to see those things s objects. The language he is using is like the soft light of dawn revealing shapes in a misty field. vague outlines lack completeness, and thus are indeterminate, until shapes are closed enough that one can identify the cow . Do we educe the form of the cow out of the mist, or do we stand open and observe, and wait until enough of the form is complete and we can identify the cow? Potentiality presences in its own time and its own way, and the silversmith allows the chalice to grow in his hands to meet its final end. 42:49. I have to go.
I'm just here for policy debate
+Somil Jain Ok then. Good luck with that
Gregory B. Sadler
Yup :)
Is there a danger with talking about the essence of a thing and falling into a mere functionality.
In other words where the is line between the essence and the functionality?
If what you're asking is this - can a person engage in talking or thinking about what one takes to be the essence of a thing, and then mistakenly fall into treating that thing in terms of its function(s) as if that was its essence - sure. One can always make mistakes, and they're pretty common, enough so to become part of the general culture
Thanks for your resonance.
I misstated my point.
How one can tell the difference between the essence and the function?
Because it appears to me that the essence manifests thru the function of a thing.
Lets say if a vase is not designed to not hold a water in the first place its essence of "vasenss" disappears.
Is it a correct assumption?
-Thank you!
"Quantity has a quality all its own"
So yes, I think the industrial revolution is qualitatively different.
Once we figured out how to harness the energy in fossil fuels, it was like having unlimited slaves.
This is like meth for the mind.
So long as you don't end up a tweaker
Even though you blocked me on Twitter, I’m still watching your lectures because, quite simply, they’re outstanding.
Thank you for all your hard work.
You're really good, but I find it so infuriating and concealing for Heidegger to talk so much about all that Greek four causes bullshit. That is surely completely irrelevant and concealing, no?
+sdkjgbasdkgv In a word, No. I'd say the sweeping "surely" is probably an impediment here.
If you find Heidegger's discussions infuriating, then simply don't watch or read materials by him or on him.