Heidegger, techne as a mode of truth and the end of philosophy
Heidegger, a techne como um modo da verdade e o fim da filosofia
Luís Gabriel Provinciatto
luis.provinciatto@puc-campinas.edu.br
PUC/Campinas – Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas
Recebido: 01/10/2024
Received: 01/10/2024
Aprovado:17/12/2024
Approved: 17/12/2024
Publicado: 31/12/2024
Published: 31/12/2024
RESUMO
Este artigo analisa a relação entre τέχνη e ἀλήθεια, mostrando como Heidegger recorre a essas concepções gregas para afirmar que a técnica moderna representa o fim da filosofia. Trata-se de ler Heidegger a partir de sua própria obra, assumindo como ponto de partida as preleções O Sofista de Platão (1924/1925). Nestas, ao preparar a interpretação do diálogo platônico, Heidegger mostra que, em Aristóteles, ἐπιστήμη e τέχνη são os dois modos imediatos do ἀληθεύειν e dizem respeito, respectivamente, àquilo que propicia o saber (ἐπιστημονικόν) e a reflexão (λογιστικόν). Em sua obra tardia, Heidegger postula a técnica moderna, cuja essência é denominada Ge-stell, como o fim da filosofia. Nesse cenário, este artigo propõe construir uma chave de leitura para a técnica moderna como fim da filosofia a partir da interpretação que Heidegger apresenta sobre a τέχνη em Platão e Aristóteles. Argumenta-se que a técnica moderna não é apenas um meio para um fim, mas um modo da verdade que subjugou até mesmo o pensar filosófico, culminando no domínio da técnica sobre todas as esferas da existência.
Palavras-chave: técnica; verdade; fim da filosofia; Aristóteles; Platão.
ABSTRACT
This paper analyzes the relationship between τέχνη and ἀλήθεια, showing how Heidegger draws on these Greek conceptions to assert that modern technology represents the end of philosophy. The ap-proach is to read Heidegger through his own work, taking as a starting point his 1924/1925 lectures on Plato’s Sophist. In these lectures, while preparing the interpretation of Plato’s dialogue, Heidegger demonstrates that in Aristotle, ἐπιστήμη and τέχνη are the two immediate modes of ἀληθεύειν and pertain, respectively, to that which provides knowledge (ἐπιστημονικόν) and reflection (λογιστικόν). In his later work, Heidegger postulates that modern technology, whose essence is termed Ge-stell, marks the end of philosophy. In this context, the article aims to develop a framework for understanding modern technology as the culmination of philosophy, based on Heidegger’s interpretation of τέχνη in Plato and Aristotle. It argues that modern technology is not merely a means to an end, but a mode of truth that has even subor-dinated philosophical thought, resulting in the dominance of technology over all spheres of existence.
Keywords: technology; truth; the end of philosophy; Aristotle; Plato.
Introduction
In Plato's Sophist, lectures from the winter semester of 1924/1925, Heidegger proposes to interpret the Platonic dialogue from Aristotle's perspective, precisely because it is from the interpreter's perspective that one sees what was not said in the dialogue:
For one who has learned to understand an author it is perhaps not possible to take as a foundation for the interpretation what the author himself designates as the most important. It is precisely where an author keeps silent that one has to begin in order to understand what the author himself designates as the most proper (Heidegger, 2003, p. 32-33).
In this study, we intend to use this same method of interpretation, but reading Heidegger from Heidegger. The aim is to interpret the essence of modern technology based on Heidegger’s own reading of the Aristotelian and Platonic conceptions of τέχνη, rigorously exposed in the aforementioned lectures on The Sophist. We will do this with the aim of showing that the Greek conception, as presented by Plato and Aristotle, is fundamental to understanding the essence of modern technology and its characterization as the “end of philosophy”.
To this end, we will follow a two-pronged approach: first, we will analyze Aristotle's conception of τέχνη, as set out in Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics. Our analysis will be based on Heidegger's interpretation, present both in the lectures on The Sophist and in the opening passage of The Question Concerning Technology (1953). By explicitly citing Aristotle in the 1953 text (cf. Heidegger, 1977, p. 4-7), Heidegger highlights the importance of this figure for his own reflection on technology.
Next, we will turn our attention to the Platonic conception of τέχνη, present in the dialogue The Sophist. In this dialogue, the figure of the “angler” exemplifies in an outstanding way the appropriative character of τέχνη, an aspect that will be crucial for the understanding of modern technology. Finally, we will compare the Platonic and Aristotelian conception of τέχνη with the Heideggerian conception of Ge-stell (cf. Heidegger, 1977, p. 20; Heidegger, 2012, p. 31-32). By analyzing the similarities and differences between these conceptions, we will be able to understand how modern technology, with its structuring structure, represents an unfolding and, at the same time, a rupture in relation to the philosophical tradition.
1. τέχνη as a mode of truth
In Greek, being-true is expressed by the word αληθεύειν, which means the same as discovering (entdecken) (Heidegger, 2003, p. 64) or revealing (entbergen) (Heidegger, 1977, p. 11), in the sense of removing the covering of something. Truth, in turn, is expressed through a privative word: ἀλήθεια, whose meaning is “to be hidden no longer, to be uncov-ered” (Heidegger, 2003, p. 11). This privative form indicates that, for the Greeks, uncovered (Unverdecktsein) is not something available from the beginning and, most of the time, needs to be conquered. Thus, knowing what is true means understanding how it is uncovered, that is, also knowing its come-to-being. Asking for the truth, ultimately, is asking for the way something is.
In the sixth book of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle assumes that there are five dispo-sitions through which human Dasein reveals something in its being, that is, “attains truth by means of affirmation or negation” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics [Nic. Et.], VI, 3, 1139b): τέχνη, επιστήμη, φρονεσις, σοφία and νους. For the moment, we are only interested in τέχνη, whose proper mode of realization is ποίησις.
First, the mode of being of something specifically uncovered by means of τέχνη, to-gether with that uncovered by φρονεσις, provides for reflection (λογιστικόν), while that un-covered by means of επιστήμη and σοφία provides for knowledge (ἐπιστεμολονικόν) (cf. Aristotle, Nic. Et., VI, 1, 1139a). Knowledge and reflection are not ontological regions es-tablished from a theoretical consideration, but rather orientations given by the very way of uncovering the being of something. In επιστήμη, for example, being possesses the aspect of that which is always present, being preserved in its having been uncovered and, therefore, being able to be demonstrated. In τέχνη, which enables reflection, what is first uncovered is the εἶδος, the founding aspect of the being-that-will-come (Sein-Werdende), which will gain a specific form and, through an efficient cause, a subsistence in a matter, with a view to a certain end. In everyday life, however, τέχνη is επιστήμη (Aristotle, Nic. Et., VI, 7, 1141a), since this already brings with it an εἶδος, which, in the end, is what remains and can be known.
The object of τέχνη is given in the εἶδος, so that τέχνη is always a rectification by the εἶδος that thus presents itself and that must be produced in a certain way. In other words, τέχνη does not at all times hold the αρχέ of something, since it is given to it in function of knowledge, capable of projecting an εἶδος that already brings with it an end (τέλος). In this way, ποίησις – the producing proper to τέχνη – differs radically from φύσις, which has the origin of its being in itself. In φύσις, αρχέ is found both in the producer and in the produced, whereas in ποίησις, the finished work is already beyond the “poietic making”. The work be-longs to “technopoietic knowledge” only while it is not yet ready, that is, τέχνη does not have “in its hands” the work itself, but only the image of what will become: “[…] it does not have at its disposal, with absolute certainty, the success of the work. In the end the ἔργόν is out of the hands of τέχνη. Here we see a fundamental deficiency in the αληθεύειν which characterizes τέχνη” (Heidegger, 2003, p. 31).
Furthermore, there resides in τέχνη a tendency to free itself from mere production, becoming autonomous in itself, that is, an επιστήμη. This tendency, as exposed by Aristotle in the Metaphysics (I, 1, 981b13ff), resides in the wonder – or admiration (θαυμάζειν) – that it provokes. In this regard, Heidegger states, citing precisely this passage from the Meta-physics:
“The τεχνίτης [someone endowed with τέχνη], he who, beyond what everyone sees, ‘dis-covers’ something, is admired”, i.e., he is respect as one who distin-guishes himself, who makes something that other people would not be capable of, yet precisely “not because what he invents might be very useful” but be-cause he advances the grasp of beings, no matter whether what he discovers is great or small: i.e., because he is σοφώτερος. His discovering goes beyond the immediate possibilities in the power of Dasein. In this way, the admiration dis-pensed by everyday Dasein demonstrates that in Dasein itself there lives a spe-cial appreciation of dis-covery. Dasein is itself directed toward discovering be-ings and toward that by itself (Heidegger, 2003, p. 64).
Discovering for the sake of discovery itself, not of utility, is configured as the tendency of τέχνη to be an επιστήμη. This autonomy does not concern the mastery of different modes of production, but the occupation with the projected εἶδος, in such a way that, by specifically occupying itself with the εἶδος, that is, with the αρχέ of τέχνη, τεχνίτης tries to dominate it in its totality, not being only the efficient cause that gives form to a matter with a view to an end, but the cause that directs the becoming of something in a certain way, with this or that end. Ultimately, the tendency for τέχνη to be an end opens up the possibility for τέχνη to be an end in itself.
Thus, τέχνη is originally characterized as a means to ends and as a doing of human Dasein. Exactly these two statements are reproduced by Heidegger at the beginning of The Question Concerning Technology: they characterize the first definition of technology, an instrumental-anthropological definition, which says that human Dasein wants to keep technology under its control, which characterizes it as the will to mastery (Meistern-wollen) (Heidegger, 1977, p. 5). This becomes increasingly evident as the production process escapes its control, or rather, when the end is no longer just the product produced, but technical advancement itself, which, by appropriating itself, becomes technological and, why not, technocratic. This Aristotelian definition of τέχνη, although correct, is not enough to describe the essence of modern technology, hence Heidegger's proposal that, in order to reach its essence, we must look for what is true by passing through what is correct:
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 come to pass. For that reason the merely correct is not yet the true. Only the true brings us into a free relationship with that which concerns us from out of its essence. Accordingly, the correct instrumental definition of technology still does not show us technology's essence. In order that we may arrive at this, or at least come close to it, we must seek the true by way of the correct (Heidegger, 1977, p. 6-7).
It is not a matter of simply rejecting the instrumental-anthropological conception, but, on the contrary, of taking it as a starting point, that is, it is a matter of assuming the everyday, widely accessible understanding: if it says that technology is a means to ends, then it is a matter of investigating, first of all, the original producing, that is, the bringing something out and ad-vance (her-aus-bringen), making it appear. This is understood as the emphasis given to τέχνη in The Question Concerning Technology and not to the other modes of uncovering, which helps to justify the resumption of the theory of the four causes (cf. Heidegger, 1977, p. 6), since these configure τέχνη from an instrumental-anthropological perspective: “wherever ends are pursued and means are employed, wherever instrumentality reigns, there reigns causality” (Heidegger, 1977, p. 6). In The Question Concerning Technology, therefore, the reference to Aristotle concerns τέχνη as a way of uncovering the being of the entity, that is, it concerns τέχνη as a modality of truth.
For now, this is enough to advance our reading with a view to also finding Heidegger's reference to Plato, which, in turn, requires us to briefly dwell on his Sophist dialogue, in which τέχνη is doubly characterized: as producing and as apprehending.
2. Appropriation and production: the duality of τέχνη in the Sophist
In fact, the theme of τέχνη (Plato, Sophist [Soph.], 219a-221c1), in Plato's dialogue Sophist, appears when the figure of the angler (ἀσπαλιευτής) is brought up by the stranger who dialogues with Theaetetus as an example capable of providing the beginning of the in-vestigation regarding whether or not there is a difference between the philosopher, the poli-tician and the sophist (cf. Plato, Soph., 216c1-217b1). It would not be a mistake, then, to say that the theme of τέχνη is not central to the dialogue, but serves as a path to reach what real-ly matters there. Although it is not the main focus, it is precisely this theme that will be ex-plored and developed in the rest of the article.
In the dialogue, first of all, the question is raised whether the fisherman is someone endowed with a τέχνη or not, and therefore, whether he is τεχνίτης or ατεχνος. It is assumed that he is endowed with τέχνη (cf. Plato, Soph., 219a5ff), and it is established that τέχνη, for the dialoguers, is thought of from the δυναμις, used to indicate a power, that is, a capacity to do something, an aptitude (cf. Plato, Soph., 219b8ff).
The τέχνη, in turn, concerns not only the fisherman and fishing, but also the cultiva-tion of the soil, the handling of things on land and in the sea, the manufacture of tools and utensils for everyday use, and the production of works of art through imitation (cf. Plato, Soph., 219a10). What is common to these cases is noteworthy: in them something is brought to light, something is produced that did not exist before. Production, therefore, is understood as this passing from non-being to being (cf. Plato, Soph., 219b4ff), whence Heidegger’s con-clusion: “this τέχνη, as know-how, is related to an ἄγειν, ‘conducting, bringing’, in the broadest sense, in action we can also call πρᾶξις” (Heidegger, 2003, p. 186). We then have the following:
Here, therefore, Being signifies, in a wholly determinate sense, the presence of definite things in the circuit of everyday use and everyday sight. οὐσία means availability for this use. εἰς oὐσίαν ἄγειν, to conduct into being, means there-fore: to con-duce into availability for everyday life, in short: to produce (Heidegger, 2003, p. 186).
This conception says that being means “being at disposal”, “being present there”, as something produced. The first aspect of τέχνη that appears in the dialogue is that of producing something, and it can be said, then, that ποίησις is in vogue here, which, in Heidegger’s interpretation of the Platonic dialogue, is nevertheless linked to πρᾶξις, since the know-how of τέχνη corresponds to a doing in a maximally broad sense, beyond that of techno-poietic production. Precisely this conception of being as producing and as making available encourages reflection.
However, in the Platonic dialogue, producing and making available are not the only aspects of τέχνη, since it also designates “there is that whole form that has to do with learning and coming to know, there is the money-making one, and there are those that have to do with combat and hunting” (Plato, Soph., 219c2ss). In other words, τέχνη also concerns appropriation, or rather, the “bringing-to-oneself” of that which is already available, referring to the capacity to take possession of – to appropriate – something that, in turn, does not necessarily need to be produced by means of ποίησις, since φύσις is also a producer. What is first appropriated, however, is not the thing in itself, but its εἶδος, which justifies the tendency of τέχνη to be an επιστήμη, which, in turn, provides knowledge. In this way, τέχνη is configured as a privileged mode of the truth of being, as it provides both reflection – through production – and knowledge – through apprehension.
The angler is someone who holds a τέχνη in its appropriative aspect (cf. Plato, Soph., 219d4). This aspect, in turn, as the dialoguers further explain, can refer both to “exchange”, to “change” (μεταβλητικόν) and to “that which can be seized” (χειρωτικόν) (cf. Plato, Soph., 219d5ss). In “exchange,” there is no unilateral appropriation, since someone gives me something that I appropriate, and I give something for this thing that is appropriated by me. In “appropriation,” there is unilateral appropriation, in which I take hold of and snatch something. This unilateral appropriation proper to appropriation can be consented to or not consented to (cf. Plato, Soph., 219c7ff): there is consent when there is a possibility of defense, for example, the fight for something indicates a consented unilateral appropriation; there is non-consent when there is no possibility of defense, so that what is appropriated does not “gain a voice”.
The fisherman takes possession of his prey without consent and can do so in different ways, or rather, by means of various tools: surrounding it with a net (cf. Plato, Soph., 220c5ff), wounding it with a harpoon or hooking it with a fishhook (cf. Plato, Soph., 220c10ff). The net, once set, acts on its own, capturing the prey while it is still alive; the harpoon wounds the fish from top to bottom (cf. Plato, Soph., 220e2ff), producing a wound in that which is seized – a blemish; finally, the fishhook catches the fish in a successful manner, wounding it as well, but not from top to bottom, that is, without generating a visible blemish, since it is hooked in a specific place – the head or the mouth. Fishing with a hook brings the fish from the bottom to the surface, from bottom to top (cf. Plato, Soph., 220e8-221a4) – outward and forward – in a precise manner, hooking the prey at the exact point, wounding it without blemish. The angler captures his prey in the right place, bringing it to the surface in its entirety, but without granting it the power to react, as in the case of fishing with a net, nor imposing a blemish on it, as in the case of fishing with a harpoon. In this regard, Heidegger states:
[…] it is characteristic of the πληγή [wound] of the angler that, unlike the harpoonist, he is not simply out to strike the hunted object and wound it in any which way. Instead, he must see to it that it bites: περὶ τὴν κεϕαλὴν καì τò στóμα (221a1), the booty is to be grasped only in a quite determinate place (Heidegger, 2003, p. 197).
The appropriative aspect of τέχνη, in the Platonic dialogue, finds its supreme possibility in the non-consensual appropriation, which brings something into view in its entirety and, at the same time, takes away its power of reaction, subjugating it (cf. Plato, Soph., 221a6-221c3). It is interesting to note that the non-consensual appropriation is presented as being the most precise, the one that serves as a model for the dialoguers (cf. Plato, Soph., 221c6ss). In other words, the appropriation that does not generate blemish, that captures the prey in its entirety and does not allow for reaction is the most refined completion of τέχνη, its most proper end. In this sense, based on the Platonic dialogue, it can be said that the initial moment of τέχνη occurs in ποίησις, that is, in producing, which makes the transition from non-being to being, and that its completion occurs in the non-consensual appropriation of what is not necessarily produced in a techno-poietic manner, since the fish – in the case of the angler – is not produced by him. However, the appropriation carried out there demands the use of τέχνη, not only with regard to the production of the artifacts necessary for fishing, but to the mastery of the mode of capture, that is, not necessarily of the objectual what (Was), but of the how (Wie) of realization. Only in this way is it possible to understand the passage from τέχνη to επιστήμη.
3. The essence of modern technology and the end of philosophy
But what does the Platonic conception have to do with modern technology? First of all, we must describe modern technology as being, above all, “machine technology” (Mas-chinentechnik), “the most visible outgrowth of the essence of modem technology, an essence which is identical with the essence of modem metaphysics” (Heidegger, 2002, p. 57). The characterization of modern technology, then, includes machination (Machenschaft) (Heidegger, 2009, p. 287; Heidegger, 2012, p. 28), which is still a means to an end and “which makes the world a gigantic factory” (Borges-Duarte, 2019, p. 138). More precisely, machination describes a functioning system, a system that mechanically repeats and propa-gates the same production model over and over again, a model based on the exact science of nature, on the “‘triumph of method over science’, [which] enables a generalized and uniform calculability and, in this sense, universal, that is, a capacity to dominate both the inanimate and the living world” (Borges-Duarte, 1993, p. 179). It is not wrong to say, then, that modern technology projects another way of being of nature, discovering it from a new perspective, no longer identifying it with φύσις (Nunes, 2004).
If we look at §69 of Being and Time, where Heidegger's concern is, above all, to pre-sent an existential concept of science, Mathematical Physics already appears as a singular example of the ontological genesis of modern science, evidencing the project of this new way of being:
What is decisive for its development lies neither in its higher evaluation of the observation of “facts”, nor in the “application” of mathematics in determining events of nature, but the mathematical project of nature itself. This project discovers in advance something constantly objectively present (matter) and opens the horizon for the guiding perspective on its quantitatively definable constitutive moments (motion, force, location, and time). Only “in the light of” a nature thus projected can something like a “fact” be found and be taken in as a point of departure for an experiment defined and regulated in terms of this Project. […] What is decisive about the mathematical project of nature is again not primarily the mathematical element as such, but the fact that this project discloses a priori (Heidegger, 1996, p. 331).[1]
It is from this a priori opened by the mathematical project that modernity discovers nature, which “is not there surrounding man with an abundance of objects” (Nunes, 2004, p. 286), but as a source of resources to be investigated, explored, transformed, stored and distributed. As Heidegger would later say in The Question Concerning Technology, this project has an intrinsic challenging character – a challenge (Herausfordern) – “which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy that can be extracted and stored as such” (Heidegger, 1977, p. 14). In other words, nature begins to be appropriated in a non-consensual manner, since, for nature, there is no possibility of refusal, of not providing energy, of not submitting to domination. Even human beings themselves begin to be required as labor and, for them, at first, there seems to be no possibility of return, since, from their perspective, any progress only happens through technical progress.
The machination of modern technology does not only concern the acquired capacity to build machines with a view to merely “doing something” – to producing:
Technique is not only the construction of driving machines, only their incorporation into work, only their use and control, only driving machinery (mechanical-industrial relationship), but in all this a transformation of the ‘being’ and not only a completely indeterminate and aimless ‘transformation’, but an attack on the being in its totality for the achievement of the self-affirmation of the human being; not only that, but before that the merging [Fügung] of the fundamental relation with the being in its totality as such; the fundamental character of which is determined by means of ‘thinking’ (in the sense of the project of the condition of possibility of objectuality [Gegenständlichkeit] as efficiency – power – of beings). Technique is this already and precisely in the construction of the first driving machine, and the fact that its essence remains veiled says that precisely for this reason it is ‘metaphysical’; and this means not only a type and a configuration and a consequence of metaphysics, but the fundamental form [Grundgestalt] itself of the fulfillment of metaphysics as an escape from beings in totality in the concomitant sense of the foundation of the essence of the history of Western humanity (Heidegger, 2009, p. 288-289). (Our translation, from German to English).
Modern technology is a challenging discovery (cf. Heidegger, 1977, p. 15), which brings together and controls all production processes, ensuring their indistinct reproduction, as well as the fair positioning of what is produced in a given place. Modern technology “controls” and “guarantees” the entire process – it holds it in check. Its end is not the thing produced, but the maintenance of the scheme of functioning itself. Its essence is like a structuring structure, which Heidegger calls Ge-stell, which subjugates everything and, why not, everyone to its own way of discovering. In the era of technical dominance, Ge-stell becomes the only modality of truth, since every significant unity is only achieved – produced – by means of it:
If we therefore respect Heidegger’s reasoning, we realize that Ge-stell, in its essential sense, does not properly manifest the modern representative “putting”, being much closer to the Greek, to ποίησις. In this sense, it preserves the truth of the original happening of every “place”: it is a making (of) a site, a “giving place” to the being that thus presents itself (Borges-Duarte, 2019, p. 160). (Our translation)
However, when stating that Ge-stell is the essence of modern technology, which shows itself as “control” and “guarantee” of the process, as this “structuring structure”, Heidegger also says that it is no longer about τέχνη in its original sense:
“Technique” in the broad sense: manual and instrumental work; use of tools. “Technique” in the stricter and more modern sense: the institution of the mechanism of the driving machine (driving and working machine, industry). What other difference is there? “Technique” in the broadest sense: τέχνη, know-how of handling, ability, “art”; the pro-posing production [vor-stellende Her-stellen] (τέχνη, ούσία, ίδέα) is already the decisive step towards the forgetting of being and its consolidation; necessary and comprehensible εἶδος – subjugation of force. The unleashing and capturing of “force” (generation, connection, storage, displacement, acceleration, distribution, transformation, commutation) (Heidegger, 2009, p. 293). (Our translation, from German to English).
By stating that the modern era is one of mastery of technology in the strictest sense, Heidegger says that we are already living in an era in which even production has been subjugated by appropriation. In other words, it is important to know, in the sense of having mastery, control and security over everything that exists and can be produced – we are already living in the era of the consummation (Vollendung) of philosophy.
By chance, isn't this appropriation that subjugates production precisely what happens to the river subjugated by the hydroelectric plant, as Heidegger himself narrates in The Question Concerning Technology? Isn't the river captured without consent by the hydroelectric plant in the exact place from which all its power/hydraulic energy can be brought to the surface to be transformed into electrical energy? In this case, it is not the hydroelectric plant that is installed on the river, but the river itself. Doesn’t the same happen with the environmental park, which is subjected to carbon emissions by the industry that maintains it? For the latter, the former is not seen as “preserving the environment”, but as a means capable of guaranteeing the possibility of emitting a quantity of carbon dioxide without “causing greater impacts” on nature, thus ensuring production. This is also the case of human beings, claimed here and there as labor – as “the standing reserve” (Bestand-Stück) (cf. Heidegger, 2012, p. 33-35) – easily replaceable: “in the age of technological dominance, the human is placed into the essence of technology, into positionality, by its essence. In his own way, the human is a piece of the standing reserve in the strictest sense of the words ‘piece’ and ‘standing reserve’” (Heidegger, 2012, p. 35). In these cases, are not the river, the environmental park and the human being present in their entirety, having been appropriated in a precise manner, all without the power to react? Well, in these cases, it is no longer the “angler”, equipped with a τέχνη, who appropriates his prey, but rather the technique itself transformed into technological progress that appropriates everything there is:
Where this ordering holds sway, it drives out every other possibility of revealing. Above all, Enframing [Gestell] conceals that revealing which, in the sense of ποίησις, lets what presences come forth into appearance. […] Where Enframing holds sway, regulating and securing of the standing-reserve mark all revealing. They no longer even let their own fundamental characteristic appear, namely, this revealing as such (Heidegger, 1977, p. 27).
The essence of modern technology no longer allows for any other form of uncovering, and that is the danger. It “is the form of obedience of things to Western technical-scientific dominance” (Borges-Duarte, 2019, p. 169).
Resuming the language of Platonic dialogue, in this modern era there is only non-consensual appropriation. For this reason, mastery of technique is the conclusive act of this way of uncovering the truth, its end (Ende), since its most specific possibilities are gathered there:
The old meaning of the word “end” means the same as place: “from one end to the other” means: from one place to the other. The end of philosophy is the place, that place in which the whole of philosophy’s history is gathered in its most extreme possibility. End as completion means this gathering. […] As a completion, an end is the gathering into the most extreme possibilities. (Heidegger, 1972, p. 57).
Ge-stell, as the essence of modern technology, is the end of philosophy par excellence, since it combines in itself the discovery and the ultimate capacity for appropriation, the most precise. This means that the hydroelectric plant installed on the river, the environmental park maintained by industry and the workforce demand from human beings whether they are, from the outset, good or bad things. All of them are technical products – productions – and, precisely for this reason, they essentially invite/lead to reflection, as already indicated by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics. None of them brings with them an added value, since this must be the fruit of deliberation – of thinking. The biggest problem or, as Heidegger says, the most serious of them is that the essence of modern technology has subjugated even thinking. And, nowadays, people no longer think (cf. Heidegger, 1968, p. 4).
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Luís Gabriel Provinciatto
Doutor em Ciência da Religião pela Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF) e em Filosofia pela Universidade de Évora (Portugal). Docente da Faculdade de Filosofia da PUC-Campinas. Atualmente, realiza estágio pós-doutoral no Departamento de Filosofia da PUC-Rio.
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[1] However, we cannot deduce from this that already in Being and Time there was a conception of technique as the essence of modern science. Regarding the relationship between technique and technology in the period of Being and Time, see the article by Hubert Dreyfus (1984), Between Techne and Technology: The Ambiguous Place of Equipment in Being and Time.