Author: Matthew Sanderson
Categories: Phenomenology and Existentialism, Historical Philosophy, Ethics
Word Count: 1000
In today’s world it often seems like we can’t do anything without technology. Friends and family gather only to spend the whole time on their phones. Presentations are canceled if the slide deck software isn’t working. Posting photos of real-life events on social media can feel more important than the events themselves.
The main problem with technology’s dominance, says philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), is how it limits our thinking and what we experience as human beings. Heidegger presents this view in a philosophy of technology that seeks to identify the defining characteristic or essence of modern technology. This essay summarizes Heidegger’s theory.[1]
1. “Enframing”
Heidegger says that the essence of modern technology is a certain worldview that’s the driving force behind the technology.[2] Heidegger names this technological worldview “enframing.”[3] As a worldview, enframing is not a subjective mindset, but the way our world usually “looks” today.
The modern world often appears to us “enframed” as a collection of problems that need to be resolved through the most efficient and effective solutions possible—technological solutions.[4] Enframing doesn’t just motivate our creation and use of technological devices: it defines and dominates our entire modern way of life, determining how we see and do nearly everything.[5]
2. “Challenging-forth”
Due to enframing, almost all human activity becomes what Heidegger calls “challenging-forth:” forcing or “challenging” people and things to provide what is needed to satisfy our demands as quickly as possible.[6]
So, we use technology to “challenge” nature by forcefully extracting “natural resources” for accomplishing our goals: mining for coal, clear-cutting forests, drilling for oil, splitting atoms, damming water, etc.[7] Whereas pre-modern technology—e.g., windmills, woodworking, traditional farming, etc.—worked in harmony with nature, modern technology basically assaults it.[8]
We not only use technology to challenge-forth; we also challenge technology itself, e.g., AI to write real estate descriptions, 3d printers to make prosthetic limbs, etc. People are challenged too: to be productive employees, to adapt to technological advancements (ironically!), etc.
We even challenge activities that might seem like breaks from challenging. For instance, we challenge vacations to “recharge our batteries”—so we can challenge better (i.e., be more productive) when we return!
3. “Standing-reserve”
Because of enframing, nearly everything becomes what Heidegger calls “standing-reserve,” stockpiles of resources valued only for how useful they are for meeting our needs.[9] People are considered “human resources;” natural things are “natural resources;” libraries contain “information resources;” education consists of “learning resources;” lives are allocations of “time resources,” etc.[10]
Technology is also itself standing-reserve, i.e., a “capital resource.” Think of all the devices and machines stockpiled in your residence, or apps on your phone, “on call” awaiting your command to help with seemingly all tasks.[11]
We now expect everything to be standing-reserve: on standby, ready and available at our fingertips to serve our desires at a moment’s notice.[12] We want to be able to stream all media (e.g., movies, music, etc.) anytime and from anywhere. Some even expect dating apps to help stock a “hookup homie roster,” i.e., a standing-reserve of romantic partners available for whenever the mood strikes.[13]
According to Heidegger, we challenge-forth—i.e., we force everything to be useful for achieving our objectives—to obtain, organize, store, and efficiently use standing-reserve. Managing standing-reserve is then the ultimate focus and goal of challenging-forth.[14]
4. The Danger
Heidegger shows no indication that he would be worried about the typical dangers associated with technology in the 21st century, e.g., fossil fuels destroying the environment; nuclear weapons annihilating humanity; automation and AI replacing jobs; smartphones ruining attention spans, etc.[15]
Instead, Heidegger’s main concern is that technology will forever degrade what it means to be human.[16] In particular, the danger is that humanity, defined by Heidegger as our ability to see the world in different ways, will become unable to see outside the seemingly all-pervasive technological worldview.[17]
Heidegger is most worried about how enframing can restrict human thinking and experience only to what is enframed, i.e., only to challenging-forth and standing-reserve. Especially troubling for Heidegger is the threat of losing our capacity to appreciate what he considers the most meaningful type of value, i.e., non-technological value (e.g., seeing a forest as sacred rather than as simply a resource for wood).[18]
For instance, Heidegger says a hydroelectric plant “enframes” the water as valuable only for supplying energy. This contrasts with a pre-modern wooden bridge that invites us to contemplate the water’s non-technological value, e.g., its beauty.[19]
5. Conclusion: Heidegger’s Recommendation
To combat the dangers of modern technology, Heidegger doesn’t want us to destroy it to return to a simpler age.[20] Instead, he believes we need to learn how to become free in our use of technology.[21]
That doesn’t mean to completely free ourselves from technology.[22] That would be detrimental and futile, and, e.g., everyone “going off grid” is just more challenging-forth (i.e., challenging nature to free us from challenging)![23]
Instead, developing a free relationship with technology means becoming as free to put it down as to use it, e.g., as free to ignore your notifications as to check them, etc.[24] We achieve this, Heidegger says, not only through practice, but most of all by remaining mindful that enframing is but one of many possible worldviews.[25]
By learning to put technology away when appropriate (e.g., on a first date, etc.), we develop a better “technology/life balance,” becoming free to engage in life and with people in non-technological ways. For example, we are able to spend quality time with loved ones without being on our phones.[26]
Thus, Heidegger thinks that freedom isn’t found in rejecting technology, but rather through developing the capacity to set it aside. Whether enframing still allows for such a free engagement with technology is open to debate.[27]
Notes
[1] This essay mostly concentrates on summarizing key concepts from Heidegger’s major and most focused statement on technology, the essay “The Question Concerning Technology,” originally published in 1954, in Heidegger (1993). For helpful discussions of Heidegger’s views on technology, see Braver (2009), Braver (2014), Cerbone (2008), Polt (1999), Richardson (2012), Wrathall (2005), and Young (2002).
The philosophy of technology is a subfield of philosophy that focuses on how best to define technology as well as ethical issues related to technology. For more about the philosophy of technology, see Franssen, et. al. (2023).
It is important to note that Heidegger was a member of the Nazi party in Germany. While he was not a vocal supporter of the Holocaust, and some argue that he vehemently disagreed with Hitler, he never publicly criticized Hitler, renounced his membership in the party, or apologized for his involvement. For more on Heidegger’s relationship with Nazism, see Polt (1999). For reflections on how we should regard philosophers who displayed morally flawed characters, see Responding to Morally Flawed Historical Philosophers and Philosophies by Victor Fabian Abundez-Guerra and Nathan Nobis.
[2] Heidegger (1993: p. 311) famously says, “the essence of technology is by no means anything technological.” In other words, the essence of technology is not the technological devices, software, etc.. He argues that the essence of something is never that thing itself, e.g., the essence of tree or “tree-ness” is not a tree, and thus the essence of technology is not a piece of technology or even the collection of all examples of technology. Rather, the essence of something, including technology, is what is behind or at the basis of that thing, i.e., what causes, brings about, defines, motivates the use of, etc. the thing. Heidegger (1993: p. 337) writes, “So long as we represent technology [i.e., the essence of technology] as an instrument [i.e., as the technology itself]…[w]e press on past the essence of technology [i.e., we fail to understand its essence].”
Arguably, the central philosophical concept of Heidegger’s thought is what he calls “Being,” i.e., not a being or beings, but existence in general, that is, what makes beings be or exist. For more on Heidegger’s concept of Being, see Martin Heidegger on Being: Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing? by Matthew Sanderson. Heidegger believes there is a unique way in which Being appears (or “presences,” as in “comes into presence” or “becomes present”) during each historical period. In other words, existence (i.e., Being) “looks” different in each time period. Said differently, in Heidegger’s view, each historical age is a different and unique “world,” in the sense that we use when we refer to “our world today.” In his essay on technology summarized here, he refers to this idea (i.e., how Being appears in history) simply as a “revealing” or “unconcealment.” This means technology, for Heidegger, is ultimately in its essence the way Being appears or is revealed in today’s world. This essay expresses the idea that technology is a certain revealing of Being by calling technology a “worldview.”
Heidegger does not give an exact date or general timeframe when he believes modern technology began. His only comment in the essay (1993: p. 327) summarized here regarding the beginning of modern technology seems to be this: “. . machine-power technology develops only in the second half of the eighteenth century. But modern technology, which for chronological reckoning is the later, is, from the point of view of the essence holding sway within it, historically earlier.”
[3] “Enframing” is the standard English translation of Heidegger’s German term “das Gestell.” In ordinary German, the term means frame, rack, shelf, or stand, but Heidegger seeks to give the word an expanded meaning in his philosophy of technology. The root verb of “Gestell” is “stellen,” which means to supply, posit, place, put forth, and the like. Heidegger says that he intends the prefix “Ge” to refer to the gathering or unification of “stell,” i.e., of what is supplied. Thus, “Gestell” refers to how the world appears, in the age of modern technology, as a unified whole of supplies or stock ordered for maximum use. In other words, it refers to how the technological worldview “frames” the entire world as an interconnected system of organized, usable resources. A more colloquial translation of the term would be something like “framework.” In Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy, written much earlier (1936-1937) than his essay summarized here (1954), he (1999: p. 88) calls enframing “machination,” which he says is “a manner of the essential swaying of being,” i.e., the way in which existence (i.e., “Being”) appears in the modern world.
[4] Heidegger would likely point out that the common use today of the expression “technological solutions,” and even just referring to forms of technology solely as “solutions,” is indicative of our modern worldview where we see everything as problems to be solved through the creation and use of technology.
[5] The essence of technology is a type of worldview or what Heidegger (1993: p. 318) calls a “revealing” (i.e., it reveals or shows beings as “standing-reserve” or stockpiles of resources) which is unique in that, because it is so dominant and pervasive (more so, Heidegger believes, than other revealings), it drives out all other possible worldviews, i.e., other possibilities for revealing (e.g., beings revealed as non-resources, etc.) and also blinds us to the fact that it does that. Heidegger (1993: p. 333) writes, “Thus, the challenging-enframing not only conceals a former way of revealing (bringing-forth) but also conceals revealing itself [conceals that the essence of technology is a type of revealing, and thereby conceals the fact that we always live within a type of revealing of some kind] and with it that wherein unconcealment, i.e., truth, propriates.” Heidegger (1993: p. 339) writes, “The essential unfolding of technology threatens revealing, threatens it with the possibility that all revealing will be consumed in ordering [i.e., a type of challenging-forth or technological activity] and that everything will present itself only in the unconcealment of standing-reserve [i.e., everything appears as resources stockpiled for maximum use].”
It should be noted that, while it’s the nature of enframing to be all-pervasive and dominant (more so, in Heidegger’s opinion, than other types of revealing or worldviews), like any worldview, enframing does not completely dominate, i.e., it does not completely determine us, render us powerless, and entirely block out all other worldviews. Instead, there is still space, according to Heidegger, for viewing the world and behaving differently, i.e., in a non-technological manner. Heidegger (1993: pp. 330-331) writes that enframing “in no way confines us to a stultified compulsion to push on blindly with technology.” In other words, enframing does not wholly determine us or force us to remain in enframing forever.
For Heidegger, humans are only partly responsible for enframing. We are responsible, at least in the sense that we help perpetuate enframing, simply because we are the users of technology, i.e., we are the challengers who perpetuate challenging-forth. However, we are certainly not entirely responsible, in Heidegger’s view, for the creation and start of enframing as a worldview (i.e., a “revealing”). Heidegger (1993: p. 323) writes, “Who accomplishes the challenging setting-upon through which what we call the actual is revealed as standing-reserve? Obviously, man. To what extent is man capable of such a revealing? Man can indeed conceive, fashion, and carry through this or that in one way or another. But man does not have control over unconcealment itself [i.e., how beings appear or show up during different historical periods], in which at any given time the actual shows itself or withdraws.” Also (1993: p. 324), “Since man drives technology forward, he takes part in ordering [i.e., a type of challenging-forth] as a way of revealing. But the unconcealment itself [i.e., enframing, in this case], within which ordering unfolds, is never a human handiwork…” In summary, then, humans are the users of technology and the performers of challenging-forth, and in doing so we are partly responsible for the perpetuation of the technological worldview. However, no one person or group is responsible for the start of the worldview, or will be responsible for its end. In short, we create and use technology, but we didn’t create the technological worldview behind the creation and use of technology.
[6] Heidegger (1993: p. 320) writes, “The revealing [i.e., worldview] that rules in modern technology is a challenging.” He (1993: p. 321) says, “The revealing [i.e., worldview] that rules throughout modern technology has the character of a setting-upon, in the sense of a challenging-forth.” Heidegger (e.g., 1993: p. 321) calls challenging-forth “setting-upon” to express how challenging-forth sets things to work, e.g., extracts things to put them to use. Or in the sense of challenging-forth setting (i.e., placing) a burden or demand upon things so that they are useful to us in certain ways.
Heidegger’s main example of “challenging-forth” when he first introduces the concept is extracting various forms of energy from nature, i.e., extracting what we today call “natural resources.” However, it’s clear that challenging-forth for Heidegger is overall a much broader concept and not limited solely to extraction. For example, Heidegger (e.g., 1993: p. 325) often defines challenging-forth in part as what he calls “ordering,” i.e., organizing resources such that they can be put to maximum use. Like extracting, ordering is a way of forcing the world to give us what we want in the form of order and organization.
Examples of ordering in modern society are abundant. Think, for example, of how you organize devices in your home (e.g., each might have their own charger and location), apps on your phone, or documents in virtual “folders” within online storage systems. Businesses “order” their “human resources” by placing every employee somewhere on an “org [i.e., organization or order-ization] chart.” Indeed, the ideal in our society is arguably for everything to be “ordered” in Heidegger’s sense of the word.
Notice that, after extracting resources, ordering them always involves storing them in some way, and we order and store resources in order to put them to maximum use in the most efficient manner possible. Thus, we can say there are at least four major types of challenging-forth: extracting, ordering, storing, and using. For this reason, it can be helpful to think of challenging-forth as any goal-oriented activity where we do something solely as a means to some end (rather than engaging in an activity for its own sake.)
[7] Heidegger (1993: p. 320) writes that challenging-forth “puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy which can be extracted and stored as such.” Note, however, that challenging-forth doesn’t solely involve extracting resources; it also consists, for instance, of what Heidegger (e.g., 1993: p. 325) calls “ordering” the resources we extract. “Ordering” resources means organizing them, but it also refers to how, for instance, we seek to transform or design resources to force them to adapt to our needs, i.e., to bend them to the will of humanity so that they best “serve” us. A prime example of this is genetically engineering crops: we don’t just harvest (i.e., extract) fruits and vegetables, for instance; we also seek to “order” (e.g., genetically engineer, etc.) them so that they better meet our needs.
[8] Humans have arguably always used technology, at least in the form of rudimentary tools. However, Heidegger (1993: p. 312) says that modern technology is, “in contrast to the older handicraft technology, something completely different and therefore new.” What sets modern technology apart from pre-modern technology, according to Heidegger, is not the sophistication of our technological devices, but rather challenging-forth. Whereas pre-modern technology operated in accordance with nature, and sought to bring out the best in it, modern technology challenges nature, forcing it to meet our demands. For example, Heidegger (1993: p. 320) argues that the pre-modern windmill works with nature in the sense that it “lets” the wind blow it rather than forcing the wind to do something, as opposed to the modern hydroelectric plant that forcefully extracts and impounds water.
Even arguments against using nature as a resource often end up still based in the technological worldview. For instance, an argument against cutting down trees in a state park might be that it will deprive humans of a resource for enjoyment, recreation, hiking, etc. In other words, the argument says, “Don’t challenge the trees for wood. Instead, challenge them for human leisure.”
[9] Heidegger (1993: p. 322) writes, “What kind of unconcealment [i.e., revealing or worldview, in the sense of how everything in the world appears or shows up] is it, then, that is peculiar to that which results from this setting-upon that challenges? Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately on hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering. Whatever is ordered about in this way has its own standing. We call it the standing-reserve…It designates nothing less than the way in which everything presences [i.e., presents or shows itself to us] that is wrought upon by the revealing that challenges.” Humans have arguably always collected, stored, and used resources. However, according to Heidegger, the modern technological worldview (i.e., enframing) is unique because it consists of nearly everything appearing as resources (i.e., standing-reserve).
[10] Thus, as Heidegger (1966: p. 50) himself puts it, enframing causes nature, if not also our entire modern world, to appear like it is just one big giant gas station: “The world now appears as an object open to the attacks of calculative thought [i.e., technological thinking], attacks that nothing is believed able any longer to resist. Nature becomes a gigantic gasoline station, an energy source for modern technology and industry.”
Indeed, there’s hardly anything in our world today that isn’t at least sometimes referred to, or could be referred to, as a “resource.” In many ways, the word “resource” is now synonymous with “stuff,” “thing,” “item,” and other generic words that designate something (i.e., literally anything).
Heidegger (1993: p. 322) writes that, within enframing, we no longer relate to things as “objects,” and (1993: p. 324) “…the object disappears into the objectlessness of standing-reserve.” We no longer see things as objects in the sense that we don’t see them for what they are (e.g., we don’t appreciate their intrinsic value or their identity separate from how humans view them); we only see them for what they can do for us, i.e., only as standing-reserve.
Heidegger argues that within enframing humans become standing-reserve as well. An example of this is how businesses now often say that “people are our most valuable resource.” Heidegger, in fact, already in 1954 noticed the use of the term “human resources” and cites it as an example of how humans have become standing-reserve. He (1993: 323) writes, “…[M]an for his part is already challenged to exploit the energies of nature…If man is challenged, ordered, to do this, then does not man himself belong even more originally than nature within the standing-reserve? The current talk about human resources…gives evidence of this.”
[11] Indeed, there are seemingly technological “resources”—devices, machines, programs, apps, etc.—to solve every modern problem and need: microwaves for cooking; televisions and smartphones for entertainment; dating apps for relationships, etc.
[12] Heidegger (1993: p. 322) writes, “Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately on hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering [i.e., the type of challenging-forth that involves organizing resources for maximum use].”
[13] As another example, consider how surprised and disappointed we often are to discover that something is “out of stock” (i.e., not available as standing-reserve.) We seem to expect an endless stock (i.e., standing-reserve) of every product sold, in case we should ever want or need to buy it some day.
[14] For instance, this essay began by challenging a cloud-based document system (i.e., a type of standing-reserve) on a computer (standing-reserve again) to write and store words (also standing-reserve). Then email (more standing-reserve) was challenged to send the essay (standing reserve yet again) to editors (i.e., human standing-reserve). Next the internet (you guessed it: standing-reserve!) was challenged to display the essay. Social media (another type of standing-reserve, of course) was then challenged to promote the essay. In this way, challenging-forth leads to standing-reserve, which then leads to more challenging-forth, which results in more standing-reserve, and so on. That never-ending system dominates almost all of our waking hours in our modern enframed world, according to Heidegger.
[15] Heidegger (1993: p. 333) writes, “The threat to man does not come in the first instance from the potentially lethal machines and apparatus of technology.”
[16] Heidegger (1993: p. 333) writes that the danger of technology threatens “man in his essence. The rule of enframing threatens man with the possibility that it could be denied to him to enter into a more original revealing and hence to experience the call of a more primal truth.” Also (1993: p. 337), enframing “thrusts man into the danger of the surrender of his free essence…”
[17] “Ability to see the world in different ways” is here intended to summarize Heidegger’s idea that humanity stands in the “clearing” of Being. Being is the basic fact of existence, which Heidegger defines as revealing or presence-ing, which he sometimes calls a clearing, like a clearing in the forest in which different things can appear or come to presence. Hence, our standing in the clearing of Being means that many different things can appear before our awareness, i.e., we can see the world in an innumerable amount of different ways. In other words, it’s our human essence to be capable of being aware of many different ways the world can reveal or presence itself to us, i.e., in the language of this summary, we can inhabit an endless amount of “worldviews.”
Heidegger (1993: p. 331) writes that, in enframing, humanity “is continually approaching the brink of the possibility of pursuing and promulgating nothing but what is revealed in ordering [i.e., being unable to see outside of enframing], and of deriving all his standards on this basis. Through this the other possibility is blocked – that man might rather be admitted sooner and ever more primally to the essence of what is unconcealed and to its unconcealment [i.e., might become aware that enframing is a type of revealing or worldview, i.e., an unconcealment], in order that he might experience as his essence the requisite belonging to revealing [i.e., an essence which is here summarized as ‘the ability to see the world in different ways.’]”
Heidegger (1993: p. 332) writes that enframing “drives out every other possibility of revealing [e.g., non-technological value]. Above all, enframing conceals that revealing which…lets what presences come forth into appearance [e.g., non-technological value, etc.]. As compared with that other revealing, the setting-upon that challenges forth thrusts man into a relation to whatever is that is at once antithetical and rigorously ordered. Where enframing holds sway, regulating and securing of the standing-reserve mark all revealing [i.e., in enframing, everything appears as standing-reserve]. They no longer even let their own fundamental characteristic appear, namely, this revealing as such [i.e., enframing is a unique type of revealing in that it is so pervasive and dominant that it blocks awareness precisely of the fact that it is a revealing or worldview].”
Heidegger’s worry is not so much that we are too dependent on technology, but rather that its worldview (i.e., enframing) dominates, to the exclusion of all else, how we see and do almost everything, thereby degrading our humanity and how we see the world. Thus, Heidegger is not saying we need to become independent of technology, or detached from it (for these would require forceful effort and thus still be types of challenging-forth), but rather we need to develop the capacity for using technology when needed and appropriate, but also regularly letting it be, i.e., putting it down and setting it aside, especially at times that do not require it or where another non-technological mode of living is called for, e.g., silencing and storing your phone during an in-person social event, etc.
Part of the danger for Heidegger is that we will become (or already are) indifferent to, or even wholly ignorant of, the loss of our essence as humans (i.e., our ability to see the world in different ways, or our awareness of various types of revealing), thereby also confining us to that loss indefinitely, i.e., making it impossible to ever regain our human essence. Heidegger (1993: p. 332) writes, “Man stands so decisively in subservience to the challenging-forth of enframing that he does not grasp enframing as a claim, that he fails in every way to hear in what respect he ek-sists [i.e., in what respect he can become aware of different types of revealing or worldviews], in terms of his essence, in a realm where he is addressed, so that he can never encounter only himself.”
In his Contributions to Philosophy, Heidegger (1999: p. 8) refers to our indifference toward what we have lost in the technological worldview as “the hidden distress of no-distress at all.” Heidegger says it’s “no-distress at all” in the sense that we are ignorant of and indifferent to the distress, and thus we act as though there is no distress. Heidegger nonetheless calls it a form of “distress” because he believes we experience it as a loss of meaning and value, insofar as he considers what this essay summarizes as “non-technological value” to be the most meaningful type of value. Heidegger (1999: p. 91) believes we attempt to compensate for this distress through “exaggeration and uproar” (e.g., consuming entertainment such as TikTok, etc.)
[18] Many examples could be given of where Heidegger seems to say that what this essay calls “non-technological value” is the most meaningful type of value for humans. For instance, Heidegger (1993: p. 333) writes that the danger of enframing is that it “threatens man with the possibility that it could be denied to him to enter into a more original revealing and hence to experience the call of a more primal truth.” What Heidegger calls a “more original revealing” (i.e., more original or “true” worldview) and a “more primal truth” is what is summarized here as “the most meaningful type of value,” i.e., non-technological value, since he believes the more original revealing and primal truth are more metaphysically fundamental, so to speak, than enframing (i.e., the technological worldview), and thus outside of or prior to enframing, i.e., where non-technological value resides.
Heidegger believed this danger was the root cause of all the other dangers people associate with technology (e.g., environmental disaster, etc.) insofar as our loss of the capacity to appreciate non-technological value causes, for instance, a loss of respect for the natural world (because we view it as just a resource for our needs, and view ourselves as “master” over it, or what Heidegger (1993: p. 332) calls “lord of the earth”), whereby we treat it solely as standing-reserve, and thus fail to care for and safeguard it, thereby leading to things like climate change, etc.
[19] See Heidegger (1993: p. 321) for this example. Note that this doesn’t mean Heidegger thinks we should remove all hydroelectric plants and replace them with wooden bridges. One reason why is because such a move would likely be an action of just more challenging-forth and thereby only ensnare us further in enframing.
[20] Heidegger is not a Luddite and doesn’t hate technology. Heidegger (1993: p. 333) writes, “What is dangerous is not technology. Technology is not demonic; but its essence is mysterious. The essence of technology…is the danger.” Regarding Heidegger’s own personal use of technology, Polt (1999: p. 174) reports that Heidegger never owned a television but he did enjoy watching sports on other people’s televisions. Also, Heidegger despised the thought of composing his texts on a typewriter, so he wrote everything by hand, but then had his brother type up all of his writings for him.
[21] Heidegger (1993: p. 311) writes that he is trying to prepare us to develop a “free relationship” to technology. Heidegger (1993: pp. 330-331) writes that enframing “in no way confines us to a stultified compulsion to push on blindly with technology…Quite to the contrary, when we once open ourselves expressly to the essence of technology [i.e., once we begin to reflect upon the fact that enframing is a worldview or type of revealing whereby we realize that other worldviews are possible] we find ourselves unexpectedly taken into a freeing claim [i.e., realizing that other non-technological worldviews are possible enables us to engage with technology in a free manner].” For more about the concept of freedom in philosophy, see Free Will and Free Choice by Jonah Nagashima and Free Will and Moral Responsibility by Chelsea Haramia.
[22] Heidegger (1993: p. 330) writes that our response to enframing should not be “to rebel helplessly against it and curse it as the work of the devil.” It should be noted that while Heidegger doesn’t recommend attempting to completely free ourselves from technological devices, he is advocating that we should work to free ourselves from our technological worldview (i.e., enframing), and that developing a free relationship with technology would help accomplish that. But it should also be noted that, for Heidegger, humans are not solely responsible for freeing ourselves from enframing; instead, we must ultimately “wait,” so to speak, for Being to show or reveal itself differently, as worldviews or types of revealing do not arise, according to Heidegger, primarily as the result of human choice and effort. Nonetheless, Heidegger does think we need to “prepare” for the next worldview by at least not perpetuating the constant, pervasive use of technological devices that has become typical within enframing.
[23] In counseling us not “to rebel helplessly against [technology],” Heidegger (1993: p. 330) regards attempts at forcefully rejecting technology as challenging-forth efforts typical of precisely the technological worldview, i.e., enframing. In other words, attempting to completely escape enframing, in Heidegger’s view, only further ensnares us in enframing. Thus, Heidegger says rebelling against technology is helpless or futile, in the sense that fighting technology is just another example of technological activity (i.e., challenging-forth).
[24] Heidegger (1966: p. 54) writes, “We can use technical devices, and yet with proper use also keep ourselves so free of them, that we may let go of them at any time. We can use technical devices as they ought to be used, and also let them alone as something which does not affect our inner and real core. We can affirm the unavoidable use of technical devices, and also deny them the right to dominate us, and so to warp, confuse, and lay waste our nature.”
It should be noted that, just as Heidegger doesn’t think humans are wholly responsible for the start of enframing, he also doesn’t think it’s possible for us to “escape” it solely through our own efforts and choices, i.e., he doesn’t believe we are wholly responsible for ending enframing either. Heidegger (1993: p. 339) writes, “Human activity can never directly counter this danger [i.e., the danger posed by enframing]. Human achievement alone can never banish it. But human reflection can ponder the fact that all saving power must be of a higher essence than what is endangered, though at the same time kindred to it.” Thus, becoming free in relation to technology does not mean being able to freely choose our way out of it. Instead, while we must work to cultivate an appreciation for non-technological value and maintain an awareness that enframing is but one possible worldview (i.e., type of revealing), we must also (and perhaps ultimately) essentially “wait” for enframing to change or give way to another worldview, as Heidegger does not think humans alone can create and instantiate new worldviews. However, this leaves Heidegger’s philosophy of technology open to the criticism that his view makes us too passive and perhaps renders us essentially powerless in the face of enframing. See Polt (1999) for more on this criticism.
The danger of the technological worldview – i.e., that it will permanently block out all other possible worldviews or types of revealing – also contains “the saving power,” according to Heidegger (1993: p. 333), in precisely this sense: if we reflect on and maintain an awareness of the essence of technology, whereby we see that it is a worldview (i.e., a revealing), but one which blocks out all other possible worldviews, we then see that other worldviews are in fact possible, which thus suggests possible paths out of enframing (i.e., the technological worldview), and thus the danger has also given us the salvation from the danger. Heidegger (1993: p. 337) writes that “the saving power lets man see and enter into the highest dignity of his essence. This dignity lies in keeping watch over the unconcealment – and with it, from the first, the concealment – of all essential unfolding on this earth. It is precisely in enframing, which threatens to sweep man away into ordering [i.e., challenging-forth, because it orders or organizes standing-reserve] as the ostensibly sole way of revealing, and so thrusts man into the danger of the surrender of his free essence – it is precisely in this extreme danger that the innermost indestructible belongingness of man within granting [i.e., the way in which humans are always aware of different worldviews or types of revealing, and thus always ‘belong’ in the clearing of Being whereby things appear or are ‘granted’] may come to light, provided that we, for our part, begin to pay heed to the essence of technology.”
[25] Heidegger’s basic logic here is that thinking about technology frees us in relation to it. More specifically, according to Heidegger, if we get beyond thinking that the essence of modern technology is the technology itself (i.e., the devices, etc.)—i.e., if we see and continually reflect upon the fact that the essence of technology is a worldview (i.e., a revealing or unconcealment) – then we also simultaneously maintain an awareness that it is only one of many possible worldviews, whereby we realize there are other possible non-technological worldviews we can also inhabit. Thus, reflecting on the essence of technology—i.e., doing exactly what Heidegger is attempting to model for us in his essay on technology—is also itself developing a free relationship with technology.
[26] This would not be a trivial or futile example for Heidegger, as he (1993: p. 338) writes that we can help cultivate our salvation (i.e., “foster the saving power in its increase”) from enframing “[h]ere and now and in little things [emphasis added].” Another example is viewing nature as a poet might: as wondrous, awe-inspiring, etc., rather than as just a useful resource. Heidegger (1993: p. 340) writes that poetry and art are examples of engaging in the world in a non-technological manner, and thus may serve as models for how we might “overcome” enframing.
[27] Arguably there are contemporary examples of people attempting to develop the type of free relationship with technology that Heidegger recommends. Consider, for instance, what’s called “rawdogging,” i.e., engaging in an activity without the aid of consuming media (e.g., music, etc.) via some form of technology. For instance, “rawdogging” a walk, also known as “silent walking” or engaging in an “awe walk,” is taking a walk without earbuds or other headphones for listening to music, podcasts, etc. in order to savor the sights and sounds of the walking path and perhaps feel a sense of awe in response. A person who “rawdogs” a walk likely uses technology on a regular basis but, as Heidegger recommends, is able to set technology down for the walk.
References
Braver, Lee. (2009). Heidegger’s Later Writings: A Reader’s Guide. Continuum.
Braver, Lee. (2014). Heidegger: Thinking of Being. Polity Press.
Cerbone, David R. (2008). Heidegger: A Guide for the Perplexed. Continuum.
Heidegger, Martin. (1999). Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning). Indiana University Press.
Heidegger, Martin. (1966). Discourse on Thinking. Harper and Row.
Polt, Richard. (1999). Heidegger: An Introduction. Cornell University Press.
Richardson, John. (2012). Heidegger. Routledge.
Wrathall, Mark. (2005). How to Read Heidegger. W. W. Norton & Company.
Young, Julian. (2002). Heidegger’s Later Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
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Matthew Sanderson is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at West Shore Community College in Scottville, Michigan. He specializes in philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and 19th and 20th-century continental philosophy. philpeople.org/profiles/matthew-sanderson
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