Heidegger holds that the every day understanding of technology asserts two things: that technology is instrumental (a means to an end) and anthropological(something controlled by man). How does Heidegger argue that this is not the case using the four causes, the notion of revealing, alethia/poiesis, and destining? I was also wondering why is modern technology enframing?

Science is concerned with beings and nothing further according to Heidegger. Is the nothing a product of scientific/logical negation or is scientific negation grounded upon the nothing for Heidegger? How do we encounter this nothing? Why does Heidegger claim that the essence of the nothing is nihilation? What does that mean? Why does he claim that the metaphysics belong to the nature of man?

I read Steiner's book on H and found it good. It covers quite a bit of ground, puts him in context. I don't feel expert enough to try to answer your many excellent questions. I feel that I could try on a few, but I'm sure that others are more qualified. Perhaps they will pop in....

Oh, it seems that someone less qualified popped in. Let's just say that vegetarians don't give good advice on cooking steak....

Heidegger holds that the every day understanding of technology asserts two things: that technology is instrumental (a means to an end) and anthropological(something controlled by man). How does Heidegger argue that this is not the case using the four causes, the notion of revealing, alethia/poiesis, and destining?

How does Heidegger argue that the every day understanding of technology is incorrect

But suppose now that technology were no mere means: how would it stand with the will to master it? Yet we said, did we not that the instrumental definition of technology is correct? To be sure. The correct always fixes upon something pertinent in whatever is under consideration. However, in order to be correct, this fixing by no means needs to uncover the thing in question in its essence. Only at the point where such an uncovering happens does the true propriate. For that reason the merely correct is not yet the true.

So Heidegger starts off by making a distinction between the correct and the true. Kennethamy, setting aside for the moment your feelings about Heidegger, how do you feel about that distinction?

Science is concerned with beings and nothing further according to Heidegger. Is the nothing a product of scientific/logical negation or is scientific negation grounded upon the nothing for Heidegger? How do we encounter this nothing? Why does Heidegger claim that the essence of the nothing is nihilation? What does that mean? Why does he claim that the metaphysics belong to the nature of man?

...a peculiar calm pervades [Anxiety]. Anxiety is indeed anxiety in the face of... ,but not in the face of this or that thing. Anxiety in the face of . . . is always anxiety for . . . , but not for this or that. The indeterminateness of that in the face of which and for which we become anxious is no mere lack of determination but rather the essential impossibility of determining it. In a familiar phrase this indeterminateness comes to the fore.

The nothing does not merely serve as the counterconcept of beings; rather it originally belongs to their essential unfolding as such. In the Being of beings the nihilation of the nothing occurs...In its nihilation the nothing directs us precisely toward beings. The nothing nihilates incessantly without our really knowing of this occurrence in the manner of our everyday knowledge.

33. Only on the ground of the original revelation of the nothing can human existence approach and penetrate beings. But since existence in its essence relates itself to beings - those which it is not and that which it is - it emerges as such existence in each case from the nothing already revealed. Dasein means: being held out into the nothing.





34. Holding itself out into the nothing, Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole. This being beyond beings we call "transcendence." If in the ground of its essence Dasein were not transcending, which now means, if it were not in advance holding itself out into the nothing, then it could never be related to beings nor even to itself. Without the original revelation of the nothing, no selfhood and no freedom.





35. With that the answer to the question of the nothing is gained. The nothing is neither an object nor any being at all. The nothing comes forward neither for itself nor next to beings, to which it would, as it were, adhere. For human existence the nothing makes possible the openedness of beings as such. The nothing does not merely serve as the counterconcept of beings; rather it originally belongs to their essential unfolding as such. In the Being of beings the nihilation of the nothing occurs.

How does Heidegger argue that the every day understanding of technology is incorrect

I'm interested in how we think of nothingness, infinity, and the Being of beings. Are we dealing primarily with conceptual or emotional content? Rorty's twist on Heidegger has convinced me of the value of some of Heidegger's thought. So I respect him as worth study. But I'm ambivalent about his style. Steiner compares his choked prose style to the texture of Van Gogh's paint. If memory serves, Heidegger highly regarded Dostoevsky, (acc to Steiner) and was a deep if eccentric reader of poetry. The notion that language is the house of being is something that clicks for me. On the other hands, I do have mixed feelings on the "indeterminate."

But being remains undfindable, almost like nothing, or ultimately quite so. Then, in the end, the word "being" is no more than an empty word. It means nothing real tangible, material. Its meaning is an unreal vapor. Thus in the last analysis Nietzsche was perfectly right in calling such "highest concepts" as being "the last cloudy streak of evaporating reality." [from Twilight] Who would want to chase after such a vapor, when the very term is merely a name for a great fallacy! "Nothin indeed has exercised amore simple power of persuasion hitherto than the error of Being" [from Twilight of the Idols]

If being has become no more for us than an empty word and an evanescent signficance , we must try at least to cpature wholly this remaining vestige of significance. With this in mind we ask first of all:
1. What sort of word is "being" in regard to its form?
2. What does linguistics tell us about the original meaning of the word?

From what I've read of and about Heidegger, I wouldn't go so far to say that the everyday understanding of technology is incorrect, but I think he feels it greatly oversteps its boundaries.

I'm just going to nit-pick here and reitterate that Heidegger didn't say every day understanding of technology was incorrect but rather he said it didn't get down to the essence of what technology really is i.e. the truth about technology.

Reco, is this what is meant by "language is the house of being"?

I feel that is exactly the case.

In other words, Language is the vehicle for the true essence of Being.

Only Dasein/humans can understanding Being because only we can truthfully express ourselves linguistically.

Now if we can say anything about Heidegger we can say just that - he went chasing after that vapor called "Being" perhaps even found it a few times and indeed that is

Reco, is this what is meant by "language is the house of being"?

I have some understanding of what Dasein is and why it is important - Dasein is a being that is aware of Being and thus interrogates and attempts to describe Being - Dasein is a being that asks questions like "Why are there somethings rather than nothing?" and I do understand that Language is necessary to ask such questions. This makes Language the vehicle or the house of Being ... but only for Dasein. Being would still be without Dasein and without Language.

I would say that what technology essentially is, is a means for humanity to advance, and that is solely how it should be treated. Many people today live for technology instead of using technology to live.

Only Dasein/humans can understanding Being because only we can truthfully express ourselves linguistically.

Is Heidegger a philosopher or a philologist?

I don't know Being and Time so maybe this is just a stage but what I am seeing in these texts from the mid 50's is what I would call philology or a method of philosophizing that relies heavily on philology. But since philology is a discipline that been replaced by linguistics I'm not so sure I know what philology is except to say that perhaps for linguistic the sign is arbitrary whereas for the philologist this is not always the case. Heidegger seems to believe that the signs themselves might have the answer if only we can go back to the philosophical Ursprache i.e. the Greek.




I have some understanding of what Dasein is and why it is important - Dasein is a being that is aware of Being and thus interrogates and attempts to describe Being - Dasein is a being that asks questions like "Why are there somethings rather than nothing?" and I do understand that Language is necessary to ask such questions. This makes Language the vehicle or the house of Being ... but only for Dasein. Being would still be without Dasein and without Language.

Do you think he's ultimately a sort of moralist concerning technology? Or how would you describe him?