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Preface
- State University of New York Press
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Preface This is a lengthy study attempting to reopen and take a fresh look at a brief text in which Martin Heidegger projected a philosophy of technology . What is offered here is a careful and sympathetic reading of that text in its own terms. I do situate Heidegger’s philosophy of technology within his overall philosophical enterprise, and I follow to their end certain paths that lead not infrequently into ancient Greek philosophy and at times into modern physics. Moreover, never far from the surface is the theme of piety, a theme especially characteristic of Heidegger’s later period ; in play throughout this study is what Heidegger sees as the proper human piety with respect to something ascendant over humans, with respect to the gods. Nevertheless, the focus remains intensely concentrated, and the goal is neither more nor less than a penetrating exposition of a classic text of twentieth century continental philosophy. That such a reading could be urgent, or even called for at all, might seem highly doubtful today, fifty years after the appearance of “Die Frage nach der Technik.” Has not Heidegger’s philosophy of technology already been exhausted of its resources? Was it not time long ago to pass beyond exposition to judgment, perhaps even—in view of Heidegger’s unsavory political leanings—to dismissal? In any case, surely everyone is already familiar with this philosophy of technology in its own terms: the “Enframing,” the “saving power,” the “objectless standing-reserve,” the “constellation,” the redetermination of the sense of essence as “granting ,” and so on and on. Or are all these terms, if they do genuinely express Heidegger’s ideas, still largely undetermined and deserving of closer examination? Have we mastered, not to say surpassed, Heidegger’s philosophy of technology, or are all readers of Heidegger, the present one included , still struggling to come to grips with what is thought there? The modest premise of this book is that the latter is the case. vii Thus I do not pretend to speak the last word on Heidegger’s philosophy of technology, nor do I even purport to offer the first word—in the sense of a definitive exposition that would set every subsequent discussion on sure ground. On the contrary, I merely attempt to take a step closer to the matters genuinely at issue in Heidegger’s thought. In that way, the following pages, even while claiming a certain originality, merge into the general effort of all the secondary literature1 on Heidegger. viii Preface ...