Die Frage nach der Technik

The Question Concerning Technology

Heidegger delivered this lecture on 18 November 1955, in Munich. It is an enlarged version of his 1950 lecture, Das Gestell (Positionality). In the lecture, he gives an exposition of the origin of technology and its unfolding within modernity. Everyone knows the two statements that answer the question concerning technology: (1) Technology is a means to an end; and (2) technology is a human activity. Heidegger shows that this instrumental understanding of technology is founded upon the representation of causality that was developed in Greek philosophy. According to Aristotle, a cause is that to which something else is indebted for its being. Being is understood as presencing. The cause induces an entity to come forth into presence. This bringing forth into presence is ποίησις. Ποίησις determines not only human activity but also the way of being of nature, φύσις, since “φύσις” is the bringing forth of something out of itself. The word technology stems from the Greek τέχνη, which is the name for both the activities and skills of the craftsman and the arts of the mind and the fine arts, and is therefore a way of revealment. In τέχνη, truth is appropriated.

Modern technology is determined by a challenge. In natural science, we force nature to answer our questions. In this way of revealment, that which is revealed is disclosed as standing-reserve or a stockpile of materials and products that are ready to be used by human beings. Technology gathers entities into positionality. Positionality defines the globalized, self-aggrandizing force of technology as machination. In the danger of positionality and the desecration of the earth, the “saving power” also grows. The famous saying of Friedrich Hölderlin indicates the possibility of looking for other ways of revealment besides technology. This mindfulness of the deeper meaning of technology discovers the nearness of technology to ποίησις. Technology is not the work of evil. In its ownmost origin, the liberating appeal of revealment holds sway and discloses the nearness to art.

The more questioningly we ponder both the historical origin of technology and the threat it poses today, the more mysterious the “saving power” of art becomes. The closer we come to the danger of technology, the more questioning we become. And as Heidegger says in his closing statement, questioning is the “piety of thinking.”