Martin Heidegger | Question Concerning Technology (part 2) | Existentialist Philosophy & Literature

Get the Heidegger Basic Writings book - amzn.to/2uHiAFp
Support my work here - / sadler
Philosophy tutorials - reasonio.wordpress.com/tutori...
Take classes with me - reasonio.teachable.com/
In this lecture on Martin Heidegger's influential essay "the Question Concerning Technology," we pick up with Heidegger's point that the essence of technology cannot be adequately understood through an instrumental interpretation, but must be grasped as a mode of revealing things -- "making-present," "bringing-forward," aletheia.
The specific -- and novel way -- in which modern technology does this with Nature and with the human being, is by challenging nature, by exploiting, reducing, quantifying it -- revealing it as "Standing Reserve" (Bestand). In this essay, and in this lecture, the different intersecting modalities of how standing reserve comes to be treated are discussed, in particular what Heidegger calls "Enframing" (Gestell).
The danger that Heidegger wants to signal is not simply one of destroying the natural environment, but rather a deeper one of cutting ourselves off from our possibilities of grasping and interacting with Nature, and with Being, in other, equally revelatory ways.
If you're unfamiliar with Heidegger's conception of truth as aletheia or uncovering, you may find this lecture video useful: • Martin Heidegger | On ...
If you'd like to support my work producing videos like this, become a Patreon supporter! Here's the link to find out more - including the rewards I offer backers: / sadler
You can also make a direct contribution to help fund my ongoing educational projects, by clicking here: www.paypal.me/ReasonIO
If you're interested in philosophy tutorial sessions with me - especially on Heidegger's thought and works - click here: reasonio.wordpress.com/tutori...
You can find the copy of the text I am using for this video on Heidegger's lecture "The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings, available here - amzn.to/2uHiAFp
My videos are used by students, lifelong learners, other professors, and professionals to learn more about topics, texts, and thinkers in philosophy, religious studies, literature, social-political theory, critical thinking, and communications. These include college and university classes, British A-levels preparation, and Indian civil service (IAS) examination preparation
#metaphysics #philosophy #Heidegger

[@7hinkr14]

Given the world we live, i consider what you're doing with this project on youtube a true work of ART professor. You're letting technology tell us something important, and i'm very grateful to be part of that. Thank you Prof. Sadler for this gift you're offering to us. Cheers from South America!

[@GregoryBSadler]

+Free Thinkr You're very welcome!

[@GregoryBSadler]

the second lecture on this great, difficult, but very fertile work by Heidegger

[@GregoryBSadler]

Fortunately, I start at the beginning of this short work, and continue more or less sequentially all the way to the end. Yes, in general, on the videos I provide for free, I don't give page numbers, but leave it up to those watching to read and reread the text. That practice is not going to change

[@michaeliona8319]

Thank you so much for giving this lecture and making it freely available!

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're very welcome!

[@TheChristos73]

What a service to provide these lectures on KZbin. They are excellent. Thank you so much.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You’re very welcome!

[@Dirtgut]

This really helped me with an essay I had to write for my enviormental ethics class. Thanks for taking the time to make/upload, you are a real g.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome

[@fallingstar6489]

I cannot thank u enough for clarifying such a hard text so easily... hands down u r a great teacher sir! God bless u..please keep doing such videos.

[@GregoryBSadler]

I will - and glad you found the video useful! If you'd like to support my ongoing work, here's my Patreon page - www.patreon.com/sadler

[@fallingstar6489]

can u please do a video on "Hegemony, Intellectuals & the State" by Antonio Gramsci? Thanks in advance.

[@GregoryBSadler]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/rJy7fKeuocp6d5o

[@joer4]

Wow. I read the Question Concerning Technology and felt completely lost in it. This two part lecture has allowed me to understand the essay and to see how it fits within current society. Thank you for this excellent elucidation of the thoughts presented by Heidegger.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad it was helpful for you!

[@loopy094]

Great lecture series! You show such a commendable sense of understanding with what you say.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Thanks! Glad you find it useful

[@kotrynasa1318]

Thank you so much for the videos! Helped me a lot with my dissertation

[@GQBouncer]

1:11:48 - Brother, that's what I said to myself throughout all of Being and Time. You rock, and thanks for all your lectures!

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're very welcome - and thanks!

[@GrlzzIy]

Another rich and insightful lecture, helps alot for my studies!

[@reasoniocritthinking]

Glad to read it!

[@SyntheticFragments]

Hey Dr. Sadler I just wanted to say that I have seen a few lectures on this essay (including Hubert Dreyfus's lecture), and your lecture is the best I have seen! Keep up the great work

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you enjoyed it. That's pretty high praise!

[@metaphysicofmgtow]

I remember going through this essay in a reading group and it entered the conversation that Heidegger saw technology as the conclusion to western metaphysics. What is interesting about that comment is how it interplays with modernity as a whole; from the theological shift towards nominalism, to Nietzsche's critiques of the Enlightenment and the question of where western philosophy will go now. If indeed Technology is the end, the final cause as it were for western speculation, then any original development will need to go back to the pre-Socratics and see what other paths are available.

[@GregoryBSadler]

+Groundwork For The Metaphysics of MGTOW Yes, I guess you could say that technology, in the full Heideggerian sense - where it's an entire way of seeing things, and so forth - is one of the possible culminations of Western metaphysics for him. Then again, Nietzsche is the "last metaphysician" - in the sense of the last guy to some up with a new basic metaphysical take . . . . I'm not sure I buy either of those the way that Heidegger himself wants to sell them. . .

[@Kelpy]

thank you so much for going through this so carefully, and so enlightenedly with us, ....I think that the word Heidegger meant was "threatened," rather than challenged ......

[@diegohv3324]

absolutely amazing. Thank you!

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed it

[@chrome9879]

You are a master of your craft.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Thanks!

[@charlessmyth]

Excellent chalk-and-talk. Must look at the first one and then revisit this one :-)

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you enjoyed it.

[@bfh891]

absolutely brilliant, thank you

[@GregoryBSadler]

You'e very welcome!

[@marshrabbit7565]

The notion that 'correctness' is transitory, and different from 'truth' is nice. This Standing Reserve business very much reminds me of The Matrix and people being turned into batteries.

[@Lee4Gitr]

I would really enjoy a series from this channel on Adorno's and Horkheimer's Dialectics of Enlightenment, specifically the section on the Culture Industry. I'm sure you have more pertinent projects at this time, but maybe there could be a series on Critical Theory and/or The Frankfurt School?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, I've been asked that several times, and have answered that several times, but not, I think on this video. I do have other projects going right now -- including the Half-Hour Hegel series, which is projected to take 2-3 years to see through. No reason I couldn't eventually do stuff on Critical Theory. . . but no promises at present.

[@OnlyTeaGuru]

I watch your lectures to review for exams. Thank you!

[@GregoryBSadler]

+Kate Hudson You're welcome! Glad you find them useful

[@MikeMena]

I've gotten into the habit of checking your videos when having trouble grasping stuff. So, with that flattery in mind, PLEASE MAKE VIDEOS ON DERRIDA!!

[@GregoryBSadler]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/rJy7fKeuocp6d5o

[@PeterPrevos]

Great talk. I am writing an analysis of water utilities and their relationship with nature and with the water users, leaning on Heidegger; s technology conception.

[@GregoryBSadler]

That sounds very interesting -- I'd like to take a look at that, if you're interested in sharing it

[@PeterPrevos]

Sure Gregory. I am a water engineer doing a marketing PhD and am writing a paper for the Journal of Macromarketing. As I have a background in philosophy I like to anchor my work metaphysically. The paper will position water use beyond cubic metres and pathogen counts and look at the meaning people derive from water (I guess you can call that poesis). Water engineers only see water as a 'bestand', without seeing the meaning it creates in people's lives.

[@questioningheart]

its super... thank you prof

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome!

[@Paljk299]

An enjoyable and interesting work. It's nice to have the lecture to watch after reading, very useful. Despite the complexity of the work I found it surprisingly easy to follow, all the new terms are clearly defined which I like. There's some really important ideas here especially with the immense influence of technology nowadays. I wonder if there is an opposition between this mechanised way of seeing ourselves and the more "traditional" ways of being that could develop in some way, like a dialectic?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, the "standing reserve" way of relating to being and beings - at least from Heidegger's perspective - seems to screen out other ways of doing so. Could it be brought within a more adequate perspective? That seems to be what he is up to in the article itself

[@drensuljevic649]

Great lecture Dr.Sadler! Have you ever considered doing these as live Skype type lectures where we can participate and ask questions?

[@GregoryBSadler]

In the past, I've done Google Hangouts on air. I also do videoconferencing in my online classes, and in tutoring sessions

[@ubitubee]

Thank you for this

[@GregoryBSadler]

You’re welcome

[@zdogefizzle]

This was tremendous help! im going to show this to my classmates. i wish your camera would focus though, its almost hurts my head and distracts me when the brightness varies so rapidly. just a suggestion, i really enjoyed your lecture.

[@GregoryBSadler]

There's a fly in every ointment, isn't there. Glad the video was helpful for you

[@taromadden2514]

Thank you. Great lecture. The fact that you put this much effort into providing free tutoring surely counts as an act that transcends standing reserve, at least somewhat. I was wondering whether your last remarks on technology and art preempt the origin of the work of art? I'm sure there is conceptual crossover, but is there a direct link? In the sense that understanding properly one work depends on having understood the other?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you enjoyed the lecture. I'm not sure what you mean by "preempt" in your question

[@taromadden2514]

Sorry. Badly phrased I guess. Ignoring the publication dates for a moment, I was wondering if the question concerning technology illuminates the origin of the work of art in any significant way. I felt as though your remarks at the very least added a sense of urgency to artwork that might not be there in the origin of the work of art text.

[@Benforeva]

Very good

[@GregoryBSadler]

Thanks!

[@edsakowsky5700]

Dr. Sadler, You seem to have left out some important details (at least I think you did). You didn't elaborate on his notion of how Being-Toward-Death and other Heideggerian terms which require understanding to know this text in its entirety. I haven't read his other works, but I know these terms are in play here, because of an intensive survey course. He continually mentions this term of the "destining that challenges forth," and I've been told that he's simultaneously referring to the Being-Toward-Death that somehow affects the enframing that affects us. Can you explain what is going on here? If not, thanks anyways, the video was helpful.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yeah. . . Being towards death in whatever course you took might have been said to be an important part of this particular work. It's actually not. It is important in other Heidegger works, to be sure, but this isn't on those, right? But hey, if you prefer that reading of the text, stick with it. You just won't get it here. I tend to stick pretty close to what I see actually going on in the texts.

[@PeterPrevos]

Regarding the relationship between technology and science could we say that technology does not simply use the laws of nature; it becomes a law of upon nature - regulating nature.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yes, once could say that

[@MrMarktrumble]

contemplation leads to silence, which is the precondition to hear. Interrogation of physis reveals and hides what physis can sound. We only get answers to our well framed questions. But what if our questions are not well framed? what could we be missing by the chauvinistic certainty and forgetfulness of our assumptions?

[@MrMarktrumble]

thank you for transforming the entire matrix of "standing reserve" to the end of philosophic insight.

[@MrMarktrumble]

the freedom I give in letting beings be is reciprocally the freedom that is given to me in being.

[@aezldren]

1.Excellent series. Thank you for this. Is it true that Heidegger dismissed culture? It seems to me that poiesis comes about from a cultural font. A maker needs a frame of reference, i.e., he often needs some idea of what he is looking to reveal, for alethia to be possible. Does modern physics replace this? Does not the art of the Greeks emerge from a shared mythos, language, and form of cultural engagement? Can we return to the high art of the Greeks without reasserting culture and particularism over the supervening currents of technology and the universalist interchangeability capitalism seems to impos on man? 2.Many seem to bemoan the fact that Heidegger didn't conjugate his philosophy with political or economic thought. I would assert that Das Gestell is the supervening category that underlies all materialist modes, capitalism, Marxism, Kojeveianism, etc., these are all 2 Dimensional masks that overlay and personify Heidegger's deeper understanding. One could even say Cthulhu is Das Gestell for the common man. 3. Video ideas I'd love to see from you. A thorough definition of Ereigness (spelling?). Also, watch Disney's Moana some time. I think it is extremely Heideggerian and would love to get your take.

[@TheCardbry]

25:40 we create technology and then technology molds us.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Quite true. Or someone else creates the technology, and then it molds us

[@juliusmcalpine1712]

Maybe your best presentation. Thank you. I will say that I am biased - TQCT is perhaps my favorite essay.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, that is very nice to read!

[@johnhandbag2125]

this was the Best (capital B ;)

[@GregoryBSadler]

Thanks!

[@anonjan82]

Good talk. But I think the quote 'whenever a man opens his eyes and ears ...' actualy says the oposite. It says that whatever our mode, the concealment of technology already happend. So we are to late, technology does not depend on our mode, it has already happend. Heidegger has the habit of appearing to say something else than what he is saying.

[@GregoryBSadler]

+anonjan82 Well, by that reasoning, everything means something else in Heidegger.

[@anonjan82]

hmm, I dont think that follows from what i said. But anyway, I enjoyed your vid. Thanks.

[@anonjan82]

I also think it is not a small issue. I think one important point of Die Technik is that it points out that Entbergen is not a effect of our intention or mode (or haltung). Heidegger seems to say this sometimes in Sien und Ziet and apperently changed his mind in Die Technik. I think this is why it says in the next sentence "..dann entspricht er nur der Zuspruch der Unverborgenheid, selbst dort, wo er ihm widerspricht. Thats also why he is so worried about Technik, because it is not in our power or just an effect of our mode, its before our mode.

[@PrincipledUncertainty]

Why do we only use blackboards at Kindergarden and University? In between it's all white boards and multi media screens. Oh yes, thanks again. :-)

[@GregoryBSadler]

No idea. But, I know there's still plenty of 1-12 classrooms that still have chalkboards.

[@KozzmoKnight]

I'm enjoying the lecture series. Spinoza keeps jumping out behind every corner. Maybe its true what they say, every philosopher was once a spinozan. Out of freedom truth is revealed. You should really do a series on that.

[@GregoryBSadler]

I don't have the same view on Spinoza as you seem to have, I suspect. Glad you enjoy the lectures!

[@KozzmoKnight]

I don't think that he is correct, I would like him to be. To me, I see him as the Parmenides of ethics.

[@MrMarktrumble]

IN the reciprocal determinations of technology and modern physics metaphor is replaced with equations and truth becomes information and calculation ( this is really a different sort of platonism.....unless the physicist states "it is not the real, but it works, and that is all that counts) 50:41 so what has causality become ? calculation and information: what can be in a report. REDUCTIONISM. Nature as a page of paper with equations on it. 51:56. Freedom is potentiality...possibilities.....an openess not determined by actuality ( facticity). I want to be free, and want to want like I did when I was younger. What about NEO from the matrix? What if the whole system makes us all sick? instead of the hammer breaking, we all stop and wonder....what is all this instrumentality for? Nothing is handy if you don't have any hands. INstead of nihilism, anxiety can reveal our authenticity to us. I have to go. Thank you for your lecture (again).

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome!

[@MrMarktrumble]

it is not hard to image plato, with his essential terms, as creating a techne of language.....gaining control of reality by grasping the real in the logos....his tecne would be the dialectic...with the end as the philosopher king. BY modern physics I assume you mean Newton....43:36 got to go.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, one can certainly make a case that Plato was developing a techne of dialectic, but I suppose that it would be Aristotle who actually manages to do so, in the Topics

[@stevejurgens9985]

I cannot help but always make connectinons with catholic teaching when reading Heidegger.

[@GregoryBSadler]

I can, quite easily

[@stevejurgens9985]

@@GregoryBSadler Isn't he saying that "Technics" is "The Antichrist"? In his Parmenides Lectures (which are actually not about Parmenides) he talks about οδος (Way), αληθεια (Truth) and ζωη (life) which he, after some etymologie, says its like physis. Then he talsk about the opposite meanings of this.Then he mentions out of nowhere Johns Gospel that Jesus is the "way the truth and the life".

[@GregoryBSadler]

@@stevejurgens9985 No

[@TheParadiseInc]

How am I supposed to follow a lecture on heidegger with all these ads in my face

[@GregoryBSadler]

Good question to take up directly with KZbin, rather than complaining about here

[@TheParadiseInc]

Gregory B. Sadler but as an uploaded you can manually edit middle ads or remove them altogether. That way I can listen more consistently to your husky voice.

[@GregoryBSadler]

@@TheParadiseInc Yeah. . . . You're taking up my time complaining about free resources. I'm sure you'll put things into perspective and figure out a way to deal with it

[@TheCardbry]

What the hell, this is too depressing for me. I'm going back to Camu.