Heidegger and das Gestell - Essay Example

?HEIDEGGER AND DAS GESTELL Institute’s Heidegger and das Gestell Heidegger contributed one ofhis very last and short pieces of writing in his address to the 10th annual meeting of Heidegger circle in 1976 in US. In this address the question of technology was raised by him, which by then was the most unrelenting concern throughout the last few years of his life. The purpose of putting forward the concern for technology was essentially to understand the importance of the increasing use of technology and the technical development of the world for the industrial progress. In his writing, he states that the world which is dominated by technology will also result in the forgetfulness and unawareness and he also asks the participants to contemplate and think deeply about the question of technology, its importance and also the possible effects on the human life. The technological change was certainly very significant and transformational shift in a short period of time and Heidegger attempted to capture the most significant aspect of the change by means of a concept called Gestell, which is normally translated as “Enframing” lexically meaning “frame” or “rack” in German, but philosophically it is a newly invented word which acquires its meaning from some of the other related concepts built around the root-verb of stellen (meaning to place); just as in herstellen (to make), & vorstellen (to represent), and also the word Gestalt (meaning pattern) (Ruin, 2010). One of the most famous & talked about essays from Heidegger’s earlier period was “The question concerning technology”, which he delivered in 1953 as a lecture. He writes there, “We now name the challenging claim that gathers man with a view to ordering the self-revealing as standing-reserve: Ge-stell [enframing]” (El-Bizri, 2000: 86). The statement mention is surely puzzling and hard to understand. So in order to comprehend the correct meaning of the statement and the importance of the idea of Gestell as Heidegger believed, the statement needs to be considered in a very specific context based not only on his thoughts and ideas about technology but also his understanding of the meaning of being and history beyond those terms. Gestell is a German word and it was used by the philosopher Martin Heidegger when he was describing the elements behind or beneath modern technology. Das Gestell means enframing and Heidegger used this word for defining our current constellation of intelligibility. When some term is translated from one language to another there are, more often than not, changes in the true meaning of the word and at times such changes lead to major problems concerned with larger concepts of technology and then comes up the idea of “enframing” (Gestell). “In the idea of Gestell lies the idea of information” (Heidegger, 1982). The reason behind Heidegger using this word for defining the notion is that it completely and fully defines the idea. “By etymologically connoting a gathering together (‘Ge-’) of the myriad forms of stellen (’to set, stand, regulate, secure, ready, establish’, and so on), it succinctly conveys his understanding of the way in which our present ‘mode of revealing’ – a ‘setting-upon that challenges forth’ – forces the ‘presencing’ (anwesen) of entities into its metaphysical ‘stamp or mold’ (Pragung) (Thomson, 2001: 248-249). Das Gestell is a metaphysical paradigm and like the other such paradigms, it is also for determining what the world that we know of means and signifies. From the perspective of das Gestell the world is simply a place from where one can get resources. According to Heidegger, das Gestell is “nothing technological, nothing on the order of a machine. It is the way in which the real reveals itself as standing reserve” (Ralkowski, 2009: 159). “We now name that challenging claim which gathers man thither to order the self-revealing as standing-reserve: "ge-stell" (enframing). We dare to use this word in a sense that has been thoroughly unfamiliar up to now. According to ordinary usage, the word Gestell (frame) means some kind of apparatus, e.g., a bookrack. Gestell is also the name for a skeleton. And the employment of the word Gestell (enframing) that is now required of us seems equally eerie, not to speak of the arbitrariness with which words of a mature language are so misused” (Stassen, 2003: 290). Enframing refers to when the setting of man gathers together and put forward to him a challenge of bringing forward and revealing the reality, in such a way that he orders like standing reserve. Enframing refers to the revelation in such a way that has the power with there being modern technology but itself it is not technological. Heidegger had portrayed that Gestell is not such a physical object but rather kind of an idea through which classification could be done. Even though it appears that one can go away from this idea of Gestell it is not possible. Although there are various external effects but in spite of that there appears to be a fundamental revelation which takes place be means of Gestell. The idea of information is embedded in the idea of Gestell. Information is indebted (aion) towards enframing (Gestell) in the same way that enframing is indebted towards revealing (alethia). Alethia, in turn, is indebted towards knowledge (episteme). Technology is perhaps the quintessential issue of our time. It is of the least one of the ideal areas from which elucidates the logic of reality. And we can confirm that this be still, for us, a turning means of overflow: structures of culture that are more integrated in an order that, despite the changes introduced it was seen as enveloping as totalizer. One can say that today technology has decisively the dominant order in our time, the reality (the actualization, the realization, the clumps) that generates, which gives rise, its density dominates other sources of fulfillment. The human technological development has become a critical species, has increased our ability to survive, our expectations of life and, in many cases, the quality thereof (and, if not, it functions as a promise of the possibility of such achievement). For Heidegger, technology is a way of revealing. With the "unveiling" is meant: produce something or bring something to light. The essence of modern technology is that it is used to control nature, edit it and make it available to the people. The Greek "techne" in the sense of produce is a way of revealing. Since technology is a way of revealing, technology generates scientific knowledge. The technology, as Heidegger calls out to nature, represents nature. An essential characteristic of modern technology is the point in the sense of challenge. The Challenge is also a way of revealing. Due to the challenging locations to form some kind, it has substance. Modern technology for Heidegger is the highest risk, since it is, at any time, available to produce and transform. The modern technology is a unit of techne (in the sense of making) and logos (knowledge). So it came to a totalization of the technical-becoming of the world. The modern technology for Heidegger is the sole way of bringing forth and unconcealing. Heidegger states that Ge-stell is the centre behind the idea of technology. A concept that began to develop by the end of 16th century with the rise of modern science, Ge-stell is but just a concept or a way to sum up and bring to awareness, the whole phenomenon of technology and how man perceives the beings; through this concept Heidegger attained the means by which he can assert strongly to think about the core idea behind modernity. In Junger’s terms Ge-stell is not just a means to an end as such, it is ‘optics’ that allows us to take a broader view and see the resourcefulness of nature and how humans are resources in themselves. It is a kind of pragmatism in which everything is considered to be a potential resource. We must make good use of the resources we are given wisely. Ge-stell is not just a simple way to depict a trend in how things exhibit, but more importantly it is about man and his individual existence. Hence Ge-stell is just a way in which man orients himself to the nature. What appears to install humanity in a position of absolute mastery over the natural world is actually something that has been donated to it: we are only able to reveal Being as mere raw material ready for exploitation by modern technology because Being has already revealed itself to us in this form. Modern technology is not a human accomplishment, but a sending of Being. In Heidegger terms, it is a destining [Geschick]. Such a revelation of Being that challenges man to, in turn, challenge nature is what Heidegger calls das Gestell [enframing]. Now, not only does man lack control of the revelation of Being at work within modern technology, but man is himself profoundly subject to that revelation. When the world is considered in relation to das Gestell it is thought that it contains none of the mystery or sublimity and is seen by us as just a bunch of resources and it can be if value to us human beings insofar as it can help us out and serve us. Das Gestell considers the human beings and the earth as being just something like anonymous units of instrumental value. The Rhine River, for instance, is considered by us as just being something that we can use and exploit to our purposes rather than the divine element it actually is. Das Gestell has nothing of importance or necessity. However, its roots lie in Nietzsche’s unthought metaphysics of eternally recurring will to power and as per this notion the human beings are nothing but forces having no purpose whatsoever and are just looking for their own personal increases and gains. Due to this notion Heidegger had the worrying thought that the das Gestell may have such a self-reinforcing effect that the control on intelligibility is maintained through its means. Basically that means that there have to be an increased number of wars of conquest, the environment degrading to a higher extent, increased number of sweatshops in the Third World and dangerous companies looking for their personal interests not taking into consideration the health of the human beings. That also means there can be no chance of recovery or reform. According to Heidegger, the times he was living in was going through a critical state and he also thought that soon it would be in great difficulty and danger. And until and unless this issue was resolved the West would go down and break because of the rotten interior. Heidegger felt that there was a choice “between the will and the acceptance of decline” (Ralkowski, 2009: 160). According to Heidegger this restoration could be possible by overcoming metaphysics by means of schooling in unconcealment, and that man needs to be liberated from that the metaphysical enframing has bonded them to. This enframing is what makes man follow Nietzsche and makes him look at the Being as nothing while perceiving the entities as the resources (Richardson, 1963). Heidegger analysed that das Gestell could be solved and through the solution that he proposed it was implied that the issue of will to power and that of how the West is so fond of matching the world as their resource station, would vanish once we are able to understand Being in a different way. From the era of Gestell it is not just found that the world is a standing reserve of power and that it has to be used for the human’s advantages. Since Gestell has showed the world in this way it has also resolved what direction the human being is willing to go in and besides this it prevents man from finding out about new worlds. Till man is under the influence of Gestell he cannot understand the fact that he is only in so far as he gives up his previous situation. Therefore, this is the reason that when a prisoner wants an honest freedom he needs to become free himself and “stand in the ground of his essence” (Ralkowski, 2009: 70). He has to be able to stand the truth again and look at how the entities glimmer in the lights and through that he should be able to distinguish between each of them, since such ability is what gives a character to his life. It is absolutely necessary to view and experience the Gestell as a demand because Heidegger also withdraws himself through this way of phrasing the analysis. The fundamental work of Heidegger’s work was concentrated towards integrating the how and what parts of the thinking, to create an awareness of what thinking can achieve in its way of conceptualizing being. Hence to bring the aspect of technique in thinking itself, Gestell is required to be perceived by us just in the way as Heidegger suggested. This will at last release us from the inner urge of mastery and encourage us to be freer. The first few lines of the essay "The Question of Technology" clearly explains this strategy by stating that thinking with respect to technology means "to build a way toward technology" by the use of language in order to ultimately lead to a new perception to what we think and what Heidegger clearly specifies as "free". So we need to think about the technology under the mind frame of Gestell as indicated by Heidegger to make us free for and thus finally also from technology. Heidegger argues that Aristotle has been led to the meaning of the term being as something “fabricated, in poiesis”, & thence as something at hand, as a “Hergestelltsein”. It’s important to understand the Greek word at this place. Being is considered in its general essence, in Greek metaphysics, as a thought developed & comprehended into language by its attributes. Heidegger continues to state that this way of making Being appear to be correct is in fact the manner of technics. Therefore the basic model of understanding being actually involves the technological understanding of being, upon which the fundamental conceptual structure of Greek metaphysics was built. Metaphysics attempts to understand, comprehend and therefore conceptualize being along a model of making something. This conclusion doesn’t represent a descriptive theory concerning outgrowth of a metaphysical conceptuality. There is also room for critique as it calls into question the cogency of the original concepts and therefore brings the inherited meaning of being into critical reflection. For Heidegger, technology is a way of revealing. It creates awareness and generates new ideas. Heidegger looks extremely pessimistically at modern technology: it is the rack and there was a risk of destruction by the technique, since it dominates the man. The problem is therefore a mechanization of society in all walks of life. This is reminiscent of mechanization of the life world. Heidegger's concept of technology is both technologically deterministic and pessimistic. Concrete social relationships played no role for Heidegger; his complain was only that he assumed decadence of modernity and technology. References El-Bizri, N. (2000) The Phenomenological Quest Between Avicenna and Heidegger, New York: Global Academic Publishing. Heidegger, M. (1982) The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays, New York: Harper Torchbooks. Ihde, D. (2010) Heidegger's Technologies: Postphenomenological Perspectives, New York: Fordham Univ Press. Ralkowski, M. (2009) Heidegger's Platonism, London: Continuum International Publishing Group. Richardson, W.J. (1963) Heidegger: through phenomenology to thought, The Hague: M. Nijhoff. Ruin, H. (2010) 'Ge-stell: Enframing as the Essence of Technology', in Davis, B. (ed.) Martin Heidegger: Key Concepts, Durham: Acumen Pub Ltd. Stassen, M. (2003) Martin Heidegger: Philosophical and Political Writings, London: Continuum International Publishing Group. Thomson, I. (2001) 'Heidegger on Ontological Education, or: How We Become What We Are', Inquiry, vol. 44, no. 3, September, pp. 243-268. Read More