Although American scholars sometimes consider European legal scholarship as old-fashioned and inward-looking and Europeans often perceive American legal scholarship as amateur social science, both traditions share a joint challenge. If legal scholarship becomes too much separated from practice, legal scholars will ultimately make themselves superfluous. If legal scholars, on the other hand, cannot explain to other disciplines what is academic about their research, which methodologies are typical, and what separates proper research from mediocre or poor research, they will probably end (...) up in a similar situation. Therefore we need a debate on what unites legal academics on both sides of the Atlantic. Should legal scholarship aspire to the status of a science and gradually adopt more and more of the methods, (quality) standards, and practices of other (social) sciences? What sort of methods do we need to study law in its social context and how should legal scholarship deal with the challenges posed by globalization?" -- Page i. (shrink)

O artigo discute o impacto do pensamento tardio de Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) nas linhas gerais do pensamento ecológico atual, o qual, em tese, aproximar-se-ia da crítica do autor alemão ao fenômeno da Gestell. De fato, embora em alguns aspectos se aproxime e em outros se distancie do projeto original de Heidegger, essa discussão ressoa em alguns autores contemporâneos, como Michel Maffesoli e Félix Guattari. Nesse sentido, o trabalho visa demonstrar até onde a crítica de Heidegger ao fenômeno da (...) class='Hi'>Gestell repercute nessa esfera de atuação da Ecosofia, que, em termos gerais, busca resgatar uma relação pluridimensional (estética-política-social-ambiental) entre o ser humano e a eco (oikos) natural. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article takes Judith Butler’s epistemological problem of “framing” alongside Dana S. Belu’s notion of “reproductive enframing” to analyze whose bodies lie outside the borders of who is considered the appropriate reproductive citizen. Are all bodies subject to reproductive enframing under a totalizing technological ideology that Martin Heidegger refers to as Gestell? Or, does Belu’s notion of “partial enframing” allow a space to queer, or upset, our current understanding of such ideology? By queering the way that we currently (...) view assisted reproductive technology, can we widen the frame or cross its borders? In this article, I am primarily concerned with the necessity to queer French reproductive policy, though the questions I raise can be extended to any critiques of ART. (shrink)

Les débats sur la technique voient s'affronter souvent des positions tranchées entre technophiles et technophobes. On avancerait sans doute en déplaçant la question de la valeur et des dangers des artefacts techniques vers une réflexion philosophique plus profonde sur la technicisation de la vie et du monde, qui mérite généalogie et archéologie. Cet ouvrage, qui réunit plusieurs philosophes réputés de la question, veut à cet égard convoquer au débat les pensées de Martin Heidegger et de Michel Foucault qui ont permis (...) à travers leurs usages de la terminologie du Gestell et du dispositif de renouveler la question de la technique. Même si M. Foucault a été marqué par les analyses heideggériennes, il s'agit d'aller bien au-delà de la question des influences. Les langues d'appartenance de ces termes, leurs traductions deviennent aussi l'occasion d'explorer à nouveaux frais la complexité de la question. (shrink)

‘America’, bloated with philosophical significance, serves as a meeting grounds for Heidegger and Derrida, flagging theoretical standoffs, identity crashes, a Nietzscean tipoff, and unstoppable poe...

Se trata de captar la evolución del concepto de hombre y de tecnología desde la perspectiva de Martín Heidegger, desde los parámetros presentados en la pregunta por el ser y la pregunta por la técnica a lo largo de su obra. Se revisan las nuevas concepciones sobre el mundo y se plantea una visión crítica sobre la relación sujetoobjeto; para ello se intenta clarificar los conceptos de Dasein y Gestell, como puntos vitales desde donde se puede emprender dicha indagación. .

Straipsnio tikslas – atskleisti įrankio (Zeug) ir technikos (Technik) skirtumą M. Heideggerio technikos filosofijoje. Analizuojami skirtumai nurodo pasaulio konstitucijos problematiką. Dasein santykį su įrankiu M. Heideggeris pristatė kaip parankų (Zuhandenheit), o štai santykį su technika įvardijo priešingai. Technika, kylanti iš gamtos mokslų, susaistytų machinacija (Machenschaft), filosofo pristatoma kaip Dasein kūrybines galias nuostatyne (Gestell) slopinanti terpė. Straipsnyje atskleidžiama dvejopa problematika. Pirma, parodomi įrankio ir technikos ontologiniai skirtumai. Antra, atskleidžiamas nuostatyno ontologijos ambivalentiškumas. Nuostatynas M. Heideggeriui nėra tik techniškai orientuoto pasaulio užvaldymo (...) mechanizmas, bet ir „gelbstintis“ pradas. (shrink)

The article discusses in a broader historical context the well-known thesis of V. I. Lenin that capitalism was formed as a result of a change in the behavior of large merchants, who, after the state achieves political unity and forms a unified market, switch from trade to the organization of production. Researchers of the 17th century Siberia do not find historical confirmation of Lenin’s scheme, however, it is quite applicable to other countries of the early modern period and to the (...) mechanism of the early stage of the colonial expansion of European powers (I. R. Sokolovsky, 2019). At the same time, J. Diamond’ research pointed out the boundary between “normal” human behavior in the new lands and the behavior of the colonizers of the early modern period. This boundary is a rational or quasi-rational accounting of one’s actions. M. Heidegger calls this approach Gestell. Gestell considers the surrounding world as a calculated resource for self-increasing profit. Using the example of a Swiss wine merchant who died in North America in 1736, the Italian micro-historian K. Ginzburg showed how the merchants and “capitalists” actually acted and what the Gestell that determined their actions looked like in everyday life: predatory appropriation of material and labor resources is gradually getting a solid base of rational calculation. (shrink)

Marc Van den Bosche suggests that Heidegger’s conceptions of Gestell and Gelassenheit, taken together with his analysis of Nietzschean Nihilism, depicts our era in a way that “supplements” Andrew Feenberg and Don Ihde’s work. Weaving these sources together, he sees the possibility of our becoming “technicians” that “live, in a released way, within the groundless.” Here, I raise some questions about whether the author has really fitted all these sources together and argue that his idea of becoming post-modern “technicians” (...) appears to require that we first practice a very un-Heideggerian kind of “renunciation.”. (shrink)

If we interpret ‘death’ in Heidegger not, like most readers, as the end of a particular person’s life or culture’s way of life, but more broadly as the absolute end of any capacity for sense-making whatsoever, I argue, we can best account for its role in Being and Time’s ontology of Dasein; find a systematic place for the various, more ‘local’ forms of breakdown that get called ‘death’ on the most prominent readings of the text; and highlight the continuity between (...) Heidegger’s early concerns about death and his later worries about nihilism and the technological worldview he calls ‘enframing’ (Gestell). (shrink)

El propósito del presente estudio es analizar las implicaciones políticas derivadas del concepto heideggeriano de Ereignis (“acontecimiento” o “evento apropiador”). Se trataría, tomando como hilo conductor el sentido de la expresión “nacionalsocialismo privado”, de mostrar el modo en el que Heidegger despliega (fundamentalmente en sus cursos y tratados inéditos de los años treinta) un larvado proyecto político derivado de sus tesis ontológicas. Un proyecto tendente a la disolución del sujeto como protagonista del devenir histórico, así como a su sustitución por (...) la primacía de poderes supraindividuales y externos a la subjetividad tales como la “comunidad popular” o la “tierra natal”. (shrink)

This article aims at contributing to the contemporary reception of Heidegger’s thought in eco-philosophical perspective. Its point of departure is Heidegger’s claim, in his Bremen lectures and The Question Concerning Technology, that today the earth is submitted to permanent requisition and planned ordering, and that, having thus lost sight of its auto-poiesis, we are no longer capable of listening, tuning in, and singing back to what he calls in his course on Heraclitus the “song of the earth.” Accordingly, first we (...) examine how the inherently reciprocal dynamics of “earth” and “world,” as thematised by Heidegger in The Origin of the Work of Art, have become opaque. Second, we analyse whether it is possible to find those same dynamics at play behind Heidegger’s “Fourfold,” which we propose to reread in binary key in dialogue with contemporary anthropology, from Bateson and Lévi-Strauss to Wagner and Viveiros de Castro, and in light of Guattari’s notion of “trans-entitarian generativity.” Third, we stress the need to reposition Heidegger’s thought alongside contemporary concerns on “worlding” and we explore its plausible intersections with today’s object-oriented ethnography. Lastly, we discuss the possibility of rereading Heidegger’s Fourfold afresh against the backdrop of Heidegger’s non-foundational thinking, as a conceptual metaphor for the joint dynamics of Abgrund and Grund. (shrink)

The article examines the impact of contemporary intellectual technologies on human subjectivity through the lens of 20th-century philosophical reflection. It explores the transformation of the relationship between humans and technology in a context where technological systems transcend the traditional understanding of technology as merely an extension of human capabilities. Drawing on the conceptual framework of the philosophy of technology (M. Heidegger, J. Ortega y Gasset, J. Ellul, H. Marcuse), the author identifies three key aspects of this transformation. First, the article (...) considers the process by which various facets of human activity – cognitive processes, emotional reactions, social relationships, and creativity – are transformed into “standing-reserve” (Bestand) for technological systems. Second, it analyzes the phenomenon of the erosion of practices that reproduce and develop human experience, as evidenced by the standardization of cognitive processes, the emergence of intellectual dependency, and cultural homogenization. Third, it investigates the problem of technological determinism, which, in the context of intellectual technologies, takes on the character of not merely an external constraint but an active construction of human subjectivity, agency. Special attention is given to the mechanisms through which intellectual technologies transform processes of identity formation, decision-making, and social interaction. Furthermore, the article considers the intersubjective interaction between humans and intellectual technology, emphasizing that an imbalance in this relationship may lead to the erosion of human subjectivity. In closing, the article advocates for the development of new approaches to the legal regulation of intellectual technologies to preserve the balance between technological advancement and the maintenance of human autonomy. The author concludes that the relationship between humans and intellectual technologies has become a central issue in contemporary philosophical anthropology: preserving human subjectivity in the era of artificial intelligence will require a critical rethinking and partial transformation of traditional conceptions of human nature, values, and the normative foundations of human activity. (shrink)

This article distinguishes between two constituents of modernity which together stand for the essence of modernity. It also distinguishes between three logics or tendencies in modernity. In pursuit of these aims it concentrates on a single issue, arguing that one cannot understand modernity, particularly not its heterogeneous character, from the viewpoint of the technological imagination (the Heideggerian Gestell) alone. The article interprets modernity as a world that draws on two sources of imagination: the technological and the historical. Most of (...) this article is devoted to discussing these two kinds of imagination, their conflicts, balances, and imbalances within each of the three logics of modernity. The article demonstrates that the balance between the two kinds of imagination is different in each of the three logics, and that the role of the historical imagination is different not only in terms of force and magnitude but also in kind. (shrink)

Dieses Buch rekonstruiert, ausgehend von der Rektoratsrede von 1933, in systematischer Lektüre die Dimension des Politischen im Denkweg Martin Heideggers. Zumindest bis zur Katastrophe Deutschlands strebt Heidegger eine Art Utopie der Polis an: Er hegt die Hoffnung, der Nationalsozialismus könne den großen Anfang der abendländischen politischen Geschichte erneuern, d.h. eine Idee des Politischen, die, von der 'Last' der Geschichte der Metaphysik befreit, ihren Höhepunkt im 'Willen zur Macht' erreicht. Nach der Niederlage Hitler-Deutschlands führt die Reflexion über das 'Wesen' der Technik (...) als 'Gestell' Heidegger zu der Überzeugung, daß eine Polis als Ort der Begegnung eines Volkes mit seinen Göttern nicht mehr kommen wird. Mit der Geschichte der Metaphysik endet auch die Geschichte der Politik. Nur die Dichtung und das Denken können das Welt gewordene und durch die Technik vereinte Abendland 'auf den Weg zur Sprache bringen', es zum Vernehmen des Seins führen und in eine 'Stimmung' versetzen, welche die Ankunft der Götter vorbereitet. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Unverborgenheit is truth in Heidegger's Greek-inspired view that happens in Entbergen, or bringing forth. Technology is a way of bringing forth and the truths brought forth in ancient and contemporary science-based technologies are essentially different, the latter being destined by enframing or Gestell that is the essence of contemporary science and technology. Here I give an etymological-ecological-feminist interpretation to the essences of ancient and contemporary technologies as ontogeneses and their unconcealments. A turning point is also identified, on the (...) basis of Carolyn Merchant's eco-feminist account of the mental-spiritual change due to technical change of earth-bound practices, specifically mining, during the commercial revolution and the rise of contemporary science. As Heidegger's wording strongly hints to mountains as salvaging the not-yet-concealed, and human relation to mountains as finding the concealed, Merchant's account of the female nature, or Mother Earth, and male science as penetrating her dark plots for secrets to be exploited by humans, and its connection to mining practices, seems in some respects to clarify Heidegger's somewhat dark notions of unconcealment and truth. RESUMEN Unverborgenheit es la verdad en el pensamiento heideggeriano de inspiración griega, esto ocurre en el Entbergen, o desocultamiento. La tecnología es una forma de desocultar, y las verdades desocultadas por las tecnologías de base científica en la antigüedad y en la época contemporánea son esencialmente diferentes; la última estaría determinada por lo dispuesto, o Gestell, que sería la esencia de la ciencia y tecnología contemporáneas. En este texto presento una interpretación etimológico-ecológico-feminista de las esencias de la tecnología antigua y contemporánea como ontogénesis y sus desvelamientos. También se puede apreciar un punto crucial en la aproximación eco-feminista de Carolyn Merchant al cambio mental-espiritual debido al cambio tecnológico de las prácticas ligadas a la tierra, en especial la minería, durante la revolución comercial y el surgir de la ciencia contemporánea. Como la terminología de Heidegger sugiere fuertemente a las montañas como salvando lo todavía no oculto, y a las relaciones humanas con las montañas como encontrar lo oculto, el enfoque de Merchant sobre la naturaleza mujer, o Madre Tierra, y la ciencia masculina que penetra en sus oscuras parcelas en busca de secretos para ser explotados por la humanidad, y su conexión con las prácticas mineras, parece clarificar en ciertos aspectos las oscuras nociones heideggerianas de desvelamiento y verdad. (shrink)

This essay examines the notion of “poetical rescue” in Heidegger, which derives from Heidegger’s commentary on Hölderlin’s lines from “Patmos,” “Yet where danger is, grows also that which rescues.” Heidegger’s remarks on the two-faced essence of technology draw on these lines, characterizing the enframing as both the danger and the possibility of saving. The turn from danger to rescue depends on the possibility of a poetic revealing, which has been overshadowed, even disallowed, by the dominant revealing in modernity—namely, das (...) class='Hi'>Gestell. To free the possibility of the poetic revealing and the rescue spreading from it, humans, as Heidegger remarks, need to learn to become mortals. To be mortal means here being “capable of death as death”—that is, becoming attentive to the nothingness pulsing in every moment. The rescue Heidegger explores is thus the freeing of the experience proper to being mortal in the midst of a revealing that orders all that exists into the ready availability of a standing-reserve. (shrink)

This article attempts an organological and pharmacological re-interpretation of the later Heidegger’s understanding of modern technology as a provocative mode of revealing of beings, in particular of its central notions of Gestell [enframing] Gefahr [danger], Kehre [turning] and Ereignis [event]. Although these notions in principle allow us to think what is at stake currently in the Anthropocene as the age of total automation, generalized toxicity of the technical milieu and post-truth calling for a radical bifurcation, they need to be (...) reframed and re-imagined in terms of the process of exosomatization issuing from humanity’s original and necessary default of origin and situated within the perspective of entropy and negentropy, both unthought by Heidegger. Only thus will it become possible to really think and take care of what Heidegger called the danger of technology and its turning into the event as the destiny of enframing. This also requires a rethinking of Aristotle’s theory of four causes as it is invoked by Heidegger in his analysis of technology, in particular the efficient and final causes, in terms of what Deleuze called quasi-causality, here understood as the need and the obligation for mortals to make their fault come true, i.e., to make it truly happen or make it advene in truth, out of the experience of the danger as the ordeal of the necessary default. Thus becoming the anti-anthropic cause of anthropic toxicity, humans would restore final causality as quasi-causality and inaugurate, as neganthropos, the bifurcation into the Neganthropocene. (shrink)

This collection offers the first comprehensive and definitive account of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of technology. It does so through a detailed analysis of canonical texts and recently published primary sources on two crucial concepts in Heidegger’s later thought: _Gelassenheit _and _Gestell_. _Gelassenheit_, translated as ‘releasement’, and _Gestell_, often translated as ‘enframing’ or ‘positionality’, stand as opposing ideas in Heidegger’s work whereby the meditative thinking of _Gelassenheit _counters the dangers of our technological framing of the world in _Gestell_. After opening with (...) a scholarly overview of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology as a whole, this volume focuses on important Heideggerian critiques of science, technology, and modern industrialized society as well as Heidegger’s belief that transformations in our thought processes enable us to resist the restrictive domain of modern techno-scientific practice. Key themes discussed in this collection include: the history, development, and defining features of modern technology; the relationship between scientific theories and their technological instantiations; the nature of human agency and the essence of education in the age of technology; and the ethical, political, and environmental impact of our current techno-scientific customs. With contributions from a number of renowned Heidegger scholars, the original essays in this collection will be of great interest to scholars and students of philosophy, technology studies, the history and philosophy of science, critical theory, environmental studies, education, sociology, and political theory. (shrink)

Rassemblant douze textes rédigés entre 1934 et 1976, ce recueil remet les Essais hérétiques en perspective en permettant de saisir quelques-unes des principales lignes de force qui font l'unité intime de l'œuvre de Patocka et communiquent à sa pensée la tonalité et la tension éthiques qui lui donnent son éclat particulier à l'intérieur du mouvement phénoménologique. Ligne de force de la liberté en tant qu'expérience fondamentale de l'être historique qu'est l'homme, transcendance qui, dans sa négativité, rejoint le " pas en (...) arrière " des analyses phénoménologiques. Ligne, négative là encore, de la problématisation socratique. Ligne du destin qui s'ensuit et qui, incarnation exemplaire du conflit de la philosophie avec le monde comme il va, renvoie en direction du " sacrifice radical " à travers lequel la liberté, reniée à force de trop se revendiquer, refait signe à l'époque moderne, poussant Patocka, dans un regard qui embrasse toute l'étendue de l'histoire spirituelle de l'Europe, à considérer le Gestell heideggérien à travers le prisme du polemos dont parlait Héraclite. Écrits " polémiques " donc et " pathétiques ", autant que " politiques ", qui nous parlent de l'humanisme, de la modernité et de ce qui ne prétend pas " sauver ", mais qui résiste dans l'expérience philosophique vécue en tant que " soin de l'âme " - à la fois ébranlement radical et mode fondamental de la responsabilité vis-à-vis d'un sens à jamais problématique. (shrink)

As recent studies in economic and financial sociology have underscored, calculation is central to economic practices. While some sociological accounts locate the performance of calculation within individual ability, networks of human agents or their cultural embeddedness, studies operating on the background of the sociology of (scientific) knowledge conceive of calculation as situated in the practice of the participants engaged, the technological tools used and their requirements. The article explores this point further, using a distinction which can be traced back to (...) Heidegger’s notion of Gestell (enframing): the ‘calculation of something’ and the ‘calculation with something’ are analysed taking the practices of risk management departments of big international banks as an example. It is argued that, through the use of calculation tools, the corporate clients are constituted anew and that written documents which are the outcome of this process constitute a social prosthesis for remote communication taking place between subsidiaries and the headquarters of international banks. (shrink)

Il est judicieux de faire appel au concept heideggérien de Gestell – « dispositif », « arraisonnement » – pour observer et interpréter les figures contemporaines de la violence : celle qui est faite non seulement aux hommes, mais plus généralement à la Terre tout entière, aux natures comme aux cultures qui se voient détruites ou empêchées de se déployer librement. Mais il y a à distinguer entre deux questions : celle de l’exacerbation de la violence – qui advient (...) lorsque celle-ci s’industrialise – et celle, fort complexe, de ses origines. Lorsqu’il s’agit de prendre en compte l’origine raciste des politiques de purification ethniques qui ont structuré l’extermination de masse au xx e siècle, en particulier sous le nazisme, l’interprétation heideggérienne de la violence se révèle des plus problématiques. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem como objetivo apontar a metafísica da época das imagens de mundo em Heidegger, sua consumação no mundo tecnológico e sua possível superação através da experiência do pensamento afinado na serenidade enquanto relação do homem com a Região do ser. Observar-se que a época das imagens de mundo se fundamenta na noção de sujeito, que é a ascensão moderna do homem ao posto de subjectum da realidade. Enquanto subjectum, o homem representa o mundo como objeto passível de (...) análise, pesquisa, cálculo e exploração. Além disso, vê-se como essa concepção de mundo se consuma na época dominada pela tecnologia, mais precisamente pela essência da técnica. Nesta época, o homem, enquanto subjectum, tem disponibilizado tão demasiadamente o mundo como objeto, que ele, como parte do mundo, tem sido também objetificado. Assim, o homem é dominado pela essência técnica, onde sua essência corre um grande perigo, que é o de perder de vista outras formas de compreender o mundo e o ser que não seja Gestell. Por isso, é preciso haver uma resistência ao mundo tecnológico, e esta não pode se dar à maneira humanista, já que o homem está inserido em um destino que não responde mais à sua vontade. A resistência contra a essência da técnica deve advir da experiência do pensamento, a partir da meditação da verdade do ser, que se revela na sua Região, com a qual o homem somente se relaciona genuinamente na serenidade. Na serenidade, o homem enfim poderá visualizar os objetos tecnológicos sem ser dominado por eles, deixando-os repousarem em si mesmos, em virtude do essencial que se abre ao pensamento. (shrink)

According to Martin Heidegger language is the “house of Being”. It is the language that allows us to be in the world, and at the same time it is the language which throws light upon how we are there. The air of Being is called with the ancient Greek Rhythmos as a first measurement of time, and thus the articulation of our speech points out the articulation of time. With reference to the musicologist Thrasybulos Georgiades the two formations of language (...) will be shown as articulations of time that are most decisive for the Occident: the archaic rhythm of quantity which originates from a “filled time”, and the rhythm of accentuation that belongs to the arythmic principle of counting. The counting-principle of “empty time” is the allincluding reality of the present world. Heidegger calls it the “Gestell”. In this connection we have to repeat the question about the Rhythmos. The problem of Being in an epoch of an all dragging away processuality means nothing else than the question about the historical dimension of Rhythmos as a first measure of time. (shrink)

Heidegger’s understanding of technology advances a conceptual critique of what he calls “the enframing” (Gestell), the epistemological and ontological presuppositions underlying technology. Reconstructing the central argument of Country Path Conversation (1945), the chapter focuses the positive contrast to “the enframing” Heidegger finds in the idea of Gelassenheit (“releasement”): releasement defines a form of life marked by an intellectual independence from technology achieved through a specific form of thinking. Drawing from Haugeland, section 1 establishes “enabling” as genuine sense of the (...) German verb lassen (to let); in contrast to the form of thinking determinative of technology, which Heidegger describes as imposing, the “released” and genuine form of human thinking is an enabling thinking. In sections 2 and 3, I reconstruct the reductio ad absurdum Heidegger uses to distance this form of thinking from forms of transcendental philosophy embracing (mediational) representationalism. In section 4, I highlight the (ontic) correlate of such thinking, namely the individual things (Dinge) manifest outside the horizon of understanding presupposed by technology. Not based on or anticipating any positive ontology, I argue that “enabling” thinking is ontologically non-committal. Section 5 contrasts this understanding of Gelassenheit with views advanced by Dreyfus, Rojcewicz, Belu, and Feenberg. (shrink)

In his two works from the 1970s, Patočka proposes a very personal way that the spiritual crisis, which manifests itself as a techno-scientific reality of Gestell, can be overcome. Patočka argues that the only way to escape spiritual decline is through sacrifice. This study examines how the ethical is represented in Patočka’s philosophy. It focuses on his two main concepts of sacrifice and care for the soul and explores the relationship between them. Through a close reading of Plato and (...) Europe, ‘Four Seminars’, and his essay ‘The dangers of technicization’, this study reveals how Patočka proposes that the ethical can be implemented within the realm of the political. Drawing a parallel between Socrates’ and Patočka’s lives and fates, this study points to the significance of ethics in political life – both in the ancient Greek polis of Socrates’ time and in communist Czechoslovakia in Patočka’s time. This approach highlights the influence that the philosophy of Socrates had on Patočka’s thinking. (shrink)

This essay serves as a guide for scholars, especially those in education, who want to gain a better understanding of Heidegger's essay, ‘The Question Concerning Technology’. The paper has three sections: an interpretive summary, a critical commentary, and some remarks on Heidegger scholarship in education. Since Heidegger's writing style is rather opaque, the interpretive summary serves as a map with which to navigate the essay. The critical commentary offers a careful analysis of some of the central concepts in the essay. (...) These concepts, which include bringing‐forth, challenging‐forth, and gestell, are intriguing but problematic. The problems and possibilities of these ideas are analyzed, and an overall assessment of Heidegger's ideas on technology is offered. In the final section, the work of several scholars in education is examined. Some of this work is excellent, but there is also a significant amount of confused and confusing scholarship. (shrink)

Starting with two enigmatic statements from the Thor Seminar (1969): ‘With the Ereignis, it is no longer Greek at all’; ‘One of the best ways to access the Ereignis would be to look into the essence of the Gestell’ (the enframing, the device, the whole constellation of the Stellen, Bestellen), this contribution critically examines the interpretations/translations of the Ereignis in terms of an event. While Heidegger still thinks of the Ereignis in terms of the ‘destinical sending’ (Geschick, Schicken), this, (...) far from being inscribed in a temporal dimension, opens up a space of joined relationships (the Ereignis understood as Verhaltnis aller Verhaltnisse) brought together in the crossing (Vierung, in the sense of the crossing of ogives) which holds and maintains together the agreement of the Four: Earth - Heaven, Mortals - Immortals). This explains how the Ge-Stell can be seen as the (photographic) negative of the Ereignis. (shrink)

This essay presents ecosemiotics as an approach to interpreting Heidegger in environmental philosophy. Comparisons between Heidegger’s philosophy and ecosemiotics have often focused on the 1929–1930 lecture course where Heidegger discusses Jakob von Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt. These and other ecological interpretations reach an impasse with the sharp ontological boundary Heidegger places between Dasein and more-than-human lifeforms. This essay revisits the theme by focusing on a central concept from Heidegger’s later work: enframing [Gestell]. Enframing, it is argued, can be understood (...) as a rupture between human (cultural) and natural signs, which is a consequence of technological modernity. Although this interpretation diverges from Heidegger’s philosophy, such critical readings may be necessary if Heidegger’s work is to speak to today’s technologies and ecological issues. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a critical reading of some aspects of Heidegger’s late philosophy and evaluate how these relate to his nationalist claim that we need to stay rooted in the soil of our homeland. In response to this claim, Žižek suggests thet being-rootless is the primordial state of being-human and that what we represent as our roots are secondary attempts to obfuscate this dimension. First, I will present Heidegger’s philosophy of technology to elucidate his thesis that the essence (...) of modern technology determinates the way we come to experience the totality of beings in our times as “standing reserve”. In the second section, I expound his aesthetics where art is seen as a mode of approaching entities that follows a different logic to that of the Gestell. However, this analysis of Heidegger’s philosophy of art will reveal a political dimension to the concept of earth which I take to be a reactionary attempt to neutralize the eventual dimension of the Gestell. In the third section, I offer a critical re-interpretation of Heidegger’s philosophy following Žižek’s clue. I argue that modern art is characterized by its self-reflexive character which can be deemed transcendental once we accept the ontological dimension of art following Heidegger. These works offer a rooting in our own rootless condition analogous to the grounding in the Abgrund of Hegel’s absolute knowledge. Finally, I offer an analysis of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorius Basterds from the perspective of the conceptual framework developed in the previous pages. (shrink)

This essay attempts to interrogate the distinct character of Peter Sloterdijk’s declaration of the absolute imperative that concludes his work, You Must Change Your Life, by contextualizing it within the development of his notion of anthropotechnics. In particular, the essays examine the claim that his is a new and unprecedented form of the absolute imperative that is alone able to address, in an effective way, the contemporary global crises that are confronting us now. The first sections trace out the ways (...) in which this new imperative differs from previous forms of the imperative, including the categorical, the aesthetic, and the existential-ontological. The latter sections then discuss how the new form of the imperative is connected to Sloterdijk’s radical attempt at a rethinking of the essence of the human as always already technological, which is the very project of anthropotechnics. This leads finally to a discussion of Sloterdijk’s polemical engagement with Heidegger’s question concerning technology, in which I trace out his attempt at a sweeping translation of Heidegger’s notion of enframing [Gestell] into enhousing [Gehäuse] and the consequences thereof. (shrink)

Any attention paid to the positioning of telecommunications installations in natural landscapes usually relates to the aesthetic impact. However, such paraphernalia, particularly when contrasted with “natural” surroundings, invites us to think beyond the visible. Through Heidegger’s accounts of Zuhandenheit and Vorhandenheit, as well as his later articulations on Nature as it is subjected to the ordering principles of Gestell, this paper aims to highlight the overlaps of the natural and the technological worlds inhabited by communications structures, considering the relationship (...) between the human and the natural realms, through the uncertain electromagnetic phenomena that envelops the two. The essay is underpinned by the extended phenomenological description of an encounter with such technology that includes, following Anthony J. Steinbock’s outline of a phenomenological approach that might begin with the facts of the everyday sciences, some reference to the basic concepts of physics involved in transmissions technology. (shrink)

Heidegger maintains that the root of modern technology, like that of all other technologies, lies in technē. However, because the art dimension of technē is suppressed in modern technology, the essence of this technology becomes a Gestell that enforces product-making, and thus drives technology beyond the control of human beings. The more fundamental reason underlying this “frame-becoming” nature is “the mathematical” that emerges in ancient Greece, which, through the Cartesian subject-object dichotomy, turns the world into the images represented by (...) the subject, and things into definite objects. To escape the dictatorship of the Gestell, it is necessary to re-realize the art-dimension of technē in modern technology, i. e. to let the gentle granting nature of the enowning re-master technology. In this respect, both Heidegger and Heisenberg were inspired by or at least resonated with Lao Zi or Zhuang Zi’s Dao. Confucians will greatly appreciate the critique of modern technology by Heidegger, and especially his view of returning “home” to overcome the possible dangers brought about by technology. However, from the perspective of Confucianism, Heidegger’s critique contains some shortcomings: for example, his ignorance of the individualistic impact in the Gestell and his unidirectional “ontological difference,” which leads him to a view of “home” that lacks “family” and therefore renders his solution loose and rootless. Only an organic community originated in the family, be it Confucian or Amish, can effectively reduce the control of modern technology over the human being. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to read Martin Heidegger’s later philosophy in terms of the assertion that themes such as the fourfold (das Geviert) and poetic dwelling could be interpreted as mythical elements within his writing. Heidegger’s later thought is often construed as challenging and difficult due to its quasi-mystical nature. However, this paper aims to illustrate that if one approaches his later thought from the perspective of myth, a different dimension of Heidegger’s thinking is revealed which is perhaps (...) more tenable than attempting to address his later thought purely from a philosophical position. In brief, Heidegger’s concept of the fourfold involves the following entities: mortals, divinities, the sky and the earth. His argument is that for mortals to dwell poetically (implying the living of a meaningful, holistic life) they must recognise and assume the guardianship of Being (which is inclusive of all the elements of the fourfold). Heidegger argues that our guardianship of Being will be a natural extension of our existence, once we realise the holiness or sacred nature of Being as such. Thus, the concept of the fourfold represents the possibility of existing in a harmonious, caring (or saving), relationship with Being. However, following Heidegger this holistic (and, arguably mythical) depiction of our existence is extremely unlikely due to the rampant nature of technological enframing (Gestell) that dictates the use of human and natural resources. Conceptually though, if this holistic depiction is approached taking into account Ricoeur’s argument regarding myth then it becomes tenable. Ricoeur writes that myth has a symbolic function in terms of its power of discovery and revelation and this implies that myth has a projected horizon. This horizon, Ricoeur writes, is a ‘disclosure of unprecedented worlds, an opening on to other possible worlds which transcend the established limits of our actual world’ (1997: 8). Thus, applying these characterisations of myth to elements of Heidegger’s later philosophy will reveal a justifiable and coherent interpretation of his concept of the fourfold from a mythical perspective. Such a reading demonstrates the centrality of the fourfold in Heidegger’s later thought, which more strictly philosophical approaches may undervalue. In closing this paper suggests the usefulness of a mythological approach to the later Heidegger, and demonstrates the continued vitality of myth, as a profoundly human paradigm which, as Heidegger recognised, can simultaneously complement and transcend our more restricted rational endeavours. (shrink)

Critical Constructivism and postphenomenology are two possible ways of describing, analysing and evaluating the role and meaning of technology in contemporary society and world. Whereas Critical Constructivism looks at the way technologies are dealt with on a macro level considering systems and programs, then postphenomenology digs into the individual and personal appropriation and understanding of technology in everyday life. This means that there is a gap for what concerns levels, but also in relation to what they want to accomplish. The (...) critical stance of Andrew Feenberg in conceiving societal and political problems as ripe for radical technological change is met by postphenomenology’s pragmatic focus on how to build appropriate and meaningful structures for handling of emergent and imminent problems together with and through technology. This paper tries to bridge this gap by introducing the concept of scaffolding, which is inspired by Heidegger’s “Gestell,” but re-read in a new and different way than the usual pessimistic and deterministic interpretation where exploitation and “enframing” is at hand. Scaffolding is read as a common enterprise where we stretch and reach out towards each other in order to create platforms for interventions and activism. The paper is an attempt to direct this common enterprise in specific directions, and this directedness is indicative for our aims and goals. It is the claim that Critical Constructivism and postphenomenology should meet, and perform a certain kind of Techno-Activism when confronted with problems in technological society. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz wird das Verhältnis zwischen den Begriffen Gelassenheit und πόλεμοσ, von Heidegger als „Auseinanderset- zung“ übersetzt und aufgefasst, untersucht. Der Betrachtung liegt dabei die Frage zu Grunde, ob der späte Heidegger sich mit den Begriffen Gestell und Gelassenheit überhaupt noch im Sinne grundlegender Gestalten der mensch- lichen Lebensweise auseinandersetzt, so wie er es in den 30er Jahren tat und behauptete. Weitergehend wird die Beziehung des Begriffs der Gleichförmig- keit, verstanden als eine Folge der technischen Herrschaft über die (...) Erde, zu C. Schmitts Begriff der Neutralisierung als eine der Konsequenzen der zu- nehmenden Technisierung hergestellt und diskutiert. (shrink)

Straipsnyje nagrinėjama dvejopa machinacijos (Machenschaft) samprata Martino Heideg-gerio technikos filosofijoje. Pirmoji susijusi su Vakarų metafizikos destrukcija (Destruktion) ir jos kulmi-nacija reflektuojama moderniosios technikos plotmėje. Pirmiausiai machinaciją Heideggeris pristato kaip pačios Būties atsivėrimo būdą „pirmoje pradžioje“ (ersten Anfang). Machinacija lemia μετά judesio pamatą, nurodantį į nuolatinę transcendencijos aspiraciją bei „techninį“ esinių atvėrimo pobūdį, nors savo „pajėgumų“ prasme machinacija graikų metafizikoje dar glūdi implicitiškai. Eksplicitiškai machi-nacija pasirodo tik moderniojoje technikoje. Kiek kitokią machinacijos sampratą galime aptikti Heideg-gerio „Juoduosiuose sąsiuviniuose“ (Schwarze Hefte), rašytuose 1931–1938 (...) m. Juose pačią modernybės epochą filosofas pristato kaip machinaciją. Taigi straipsnyje siekiama išryškinti šių dviejų Heideggerio sampratų jungtį, kuri yra machinacijos galios (Macht) augimo tikrovės atžvilgiu nuoroda. (shrink)

El presente artículo propone explorar la tesis heideggeriana respecto a cómo en el supremo peligro que supone la época de la esencia de la técnica moderna, tomada como “Lo- Dispuesto” [Gestell], encontramos también “lo salvador”. Para ello, se ha dividido el análisis en dos partes. En primer lugar, se esboza una caracterización de la época de la esencia de la técnica moderna, que observa tanto la relación que tenemos con todo ente, como el conocimiento que surge a partir de (...) ella, lo cual es ya un modo de develarse propio del Ser. En segundo lugar, se analiza la estrecha vinculación entre la Τέχνη griega y el concepto de verdad en cuanto αλήθεια (desocultamiento), para posteriormente explorar, a través del análisis de una escultura chilena llamada “Recurso Humano”, el desocultamiento propio del arte frente al desocultamiento de la esencia de la técnica moderna tomada como Gestell. Palabras clave: Heidegger - Gestell - Arte - Verdad - Técnica. (shrink)

The content of this paper is primarily the product of an attempt to understand consciousness by working through the Gestell - conventionalised epistemology, at least some of several foundational concepts. This paper indirectly addresses the ancient question: “How is objective reference – or intentionality, possible? How is it possible for one thing to direct its thoughts upon another thing?” As such, I have adopted a holistic methodology; one in which I develop a framework based on a form of process (...) philosophy and descriptive emergentism. Many of the problems associated within the philosophy of mind arise because of a failure to understand the interrelations among the concepts we employ when we talk about consciousness and perception. These concepts are generally associated with certain structural features of reality. Hence, the paper advances through a series of attempts at defining the concept of time, moving through to some of the central figures, their thoughts and arguments and problems associated within the philosophy of time. Given the intertwined nature of the associated concepts, I have expanded on these to a level of conceptual integration. (shrink)

HEIDEGGER COULD NEVER RESIST A GOOD STORY. He could never resist giving what he had discovered about alëtheia and the oblivion of Being a narrative form. In Being and Time we were promised a story--which was to be written backwards--of the "destruction of the history of ontology." Beginning at the end, with Kant, it was to feel its way back through the tradition in a deconstructive gesture, looking for what had all along been blocking the discovery of the temporal meaning (...) of Being which had at last begun to emerge in Kant. In the later works this story is considerably recast. Again, the vantage point is the end, but now the end is the age of the Gestell, the enframing, the "end of philosophy," which holds us all in its grip. The end is not conceived as a modern breakthrough but as an eschaton, a dead end into which the West has run. The task of thought is to make its way back into the primordial "Beginning" in order to recapture that fleeting moment which will make it possible for us today to begin anew, to make the present into an "authentic" end, which means a transition to another beginning. (shrink)

Seeking to contribute to the recent emergence of critical phenomenology by clarifying the relation between ontology and ethics, this article offers a new account of the sources of normativity in the context of Heidegger’s critique of technological enframing (Gestell) and Derrida’s political philosophy. I distinguish three levels of normativity in Heidegger and show how moving between the levels permits the critical deployment of the affirmation (Zusage) in response to being’s address. On this view, not only are humans constitutively claimed (...) by being, but the claim calls for its express hearing and critical elaboration. I then show how Derrida reconceives Heidegger’s normativity by developing a notion of double affirmation that communicates with key concepts from his moral-political work, such as the gift, the advance, and friendship. I conclude by indicating what double affirmation entails for critique today. (shrink)

Movements, in the last fifty years, have been bringing knowledge closer to the new knowledge coming from the neurosciences. In this brief essay, we intend to analyze neuropsychoanalysis and neuroaesthetics, as promising areas in these terms. Such an analysis will be based on critical theory, conceptualized mainly by Adorno and Horkheimer, especially considering that “On the path to modern science, men renounced meaning and replaced the concept with the formula, the cause with the rule and probability”. Therefore, in relation to (...) neuropsychoanalysis, its historical and scientific foundations, the international movement that gave rise to the area, its purposes and objections attributed to it will be analyzed. Regarding neuroaesthetics, its emergence, its relations with conceptual art and the neurohistory of art will be presented, as well as possible intrinsic parallels to sensation and experience. Finally, following the objective of the essay, the epistemological critique of these areas will be done through the concepts of Gestell (Heidegger) and Ecosofia (Guattari), as well as supported by Valéry and Teresa D’Ávila. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem como objetivo apontar a metafísica da época das imagens de mundo em Heidegger, sua consumação no mundo tecnológico e sua possível superação através da experiência do pensamento afinado na serenidade enquanto relação do homem com a Região do ser. Observar-se que a época das imagens de mundo se fundamenta na noção de sujeito, que é a ascensão moderna do homem ao posto de subjectum da realidade. Enquanto subjectum, o homem representa o mundo como objeto passível de (...) análise, pesquisa, cálculo e exploração. Além disso, vê-se como essa concepção de mundo se consuma na época dominada pela tecnologia, mais precisamente pela essência da técnica. Nesta época, o homem, enquanto subjectum, tem disponibilizado tão demasiadamente o mundo como objeto, que ele, como parte do mundo, tem sido também objetificado. Assim, o homem é dominado pela essência técnica, onde sua essência corre um grande perigo, que é o de perder de vista outras formas de compreender o mundo e o serque não seja Gestell. Por isso, é preciso haver uma resistência ao mundo tecnológico, e esta não pode se dar à maneira humanista, já que o homem está inserido em um destino que não responde mais à sua vontade. A resistência contra a essência da técnica deve advir da experiência do pensamento, a partir da meditação da verdade do ser, que se revela na sua Região, com a qual o homem somente se relaciona genuinamente na serenidade. Na serenidade, o homem enfim poderá visualizar os objetos tecnológicos sem ser dominado por eles, deixando-os repousarem em si mesmos, em virtude do essencial que se abre ao pensamento. (shrink)