Concerning Technology: Heidegger and the

Question of Technological Essentialism

Tracy Colony

Abstract: Martin Heideggers 1953 lecture The Question Concerning Technol-

ogy has been one of the most influential texts in English language philosophy
of technology. However, within this field Heideggers understanding of technol-
ogy is widely seen to be a conventional essentialist account of technological
phenomena. In this essay, I argue that a close reading of what Heidegger exactly
demarcated as the essence of technology can be seen to limit the degree to which
Heideggers understanding of technology should be interpreted as a traditional
form of technological essentialism.

The essence of modern technology shows itself in what we call enframing. But simply
to point to this is still in no way to answer the question concerning technology.1

Martin Heideggers 1953 lecture The Question Concerning Technology2 remains one
of the most influential texts in English language philosophy of technology.3 However,
despite its extensive reception, Heideggers essay is still widely seen as an essentialist
interpretation of technology. This charge of essentialism has been recently reasserted
by such philosophers of technology as Andrew Feenberg and Peter-Paul Verbeek.4 Even
philosophers more sympathetic to Heideggers views on technology such as Iain Thomson
have conceded that the essay offers, at best, a largely reductive account of technology:
Heidegger does seem to be a kind of technological one-dimensionalist.5 Unquestionably,
Heideggers essay presents technological phenomena as having an essence which shows
itself at the level of what he terms enframing: The essence of modern technology shows
itself [zeigt sich] in what we call enframing [Ge-stell] (BW: 328; FT: 27). For Heidegger,
enframing names the specific manner of revealing which characterizes beings as a whole
within the current epoch of the history of being. However, what has often been overlooked
is the fact that Heideggers description of the essence of technology as enframing is merely
an initial and diagnostic stage of this essay and does not encapsulate the entire scope of
what Heidegger understood as the essence of technology.
While Heidegger often states that the essence of technology lies in enframing, this is
not the full extent of what is encompassed by Heideggers understanding of the essence of
technology. Rather than culminating in Heideggers descriptions of the particular manner
of revealing characteristic of enframing, the essence of technology is further defined at
the level of what constitutes the essence of enframing. This essence of enframing is what
Heidegger refers to in this essay as the essence of truth itself. The essence of truth is not

2009. Idealistic Studies, Volume 39, Issues 13. ISSN 0046-8541. pp. 2334
24 Idealistic Studies

described in terms of revealing, but rather, more primordially in terms of what Heidegger
designates as the mystery of all revealing (BW: 338). While many readings of this essay
have interpreted Heidegger as simply equating the essence of technology with enframing
as a granted historical continuity of revealing, I will argue that Heidegger in fact ultimately
defines the essence of technology in terms of the essence of truth itself. Accordingly, it is
only within this wider context that the charges of essentialism in Heideggers understand-
ing of technology can be adequately evaluated.
My argumentation is structured in three sections. In the first section, I present the
common critique of Heideggers essay as essentialist. In the second section, I argue that
the charge of essentialism is indeed valid for Heideggers initial description of technol-
ogy at the level of enframing, however, it is not valid for his full definition of the essence
of technology as the essence of truth itself. In the final section, in light of my reading of
the essence of technology as the essence of truth itself, I make a suggestion for better
understanding Heideggers much questioned depiction of technology as containing both
the most extreme danger and also what might save.

I
Martin Heideggers The Question Concerning Technology was first translated into
English in 1977.6 Unquestionably, the foremost criticism which has dominated the Eng-
lish language reception of this work has been the charge that Heideggers approach to
technology is essentialist in that it explains individual technological phenomena as the
expression of a single metaphysical essence. The major difficulty which this definition of
technology creates is that the essence of technology at the level of metaphysical being,
i.e., enframing, characterizes every individual instance of technology in advance and thus
leads to a reductive and one-dimensional account of all technological phenomena. The
recent work of Peter-Paul Verbeek is representative of this concern: Specific technologies
are secondary, for him, with respect to the essence of technology, and only from this
essence can technology be understood. Heidegger does not look at technology ontically
but ontologically, regarding the former as derived from the latter. When he speaks about
technology, he means not specific technologies but rather the Gestell.7 However, while
Heidegger indeed initially grounds individual instances of technology in the Gestell, what
has often been overlooked is that this is not the final level at which Heidegger thinks the
relation of individual beings to the essence of technology.
For Heidegger, the way in which enframing constitutes the essence of technology
is not to be understood in terms of the unchanging uniformity which characterized the
Platonic idea or the traditional concept of essentia. Nor is enframing to be understood
as a mere genus underlying all instances of technology. Rather, enframing is the essence
of technology in the sense of a specific historical continuity of revealing that has been
granted by being. However, this granted historical continuity is not to be understood as
the full determination of what Heidegger understood as the essence of technology. Even
those more nuanced readings which locate the essence of technology in its character as
having been granted, such as those of Hubert Dreyfus and Richard Rojcewicz, still remain
within the foreground of Heideggers full determination of the essence of technology.8
In addition to the particular manner in which enframing shows itself as the essence of
 Concerning Technology 25

technology, the full sense of the essence of technology is only first arrived at with Heide-
ggers further designation of the essence of technology as mysterious (BW: 333) and
ambiguous (BW: 338). However, the importance of these descriptions of the essence
of technology have often been overlooked because it would seem that the essence of
technology is simply identical with the totalizing grasp of enframing which exactly does
not admit of any mystery or ambiguity.
While Heidegger clearly describes individual instances of technology in terms of meta-
physical being as enframing, what Heidegger understands by the essence of technology
is not simply identical with enframing. The indeed reductive grounding of technological
beings at the level of enframing is merely a diagnostic and initial characterization. However,
in the secondary literature it is often maintained that Heidegger simply equates the essence
of technology with enframing: In the Gestell, according to Heidegger, the essence of
technology is to be found.9 The central claim in Heideggers view of technology is that
its non-metaphysical essence lies in enframing [Gestell].10 Heidegger understands the
essence of technology in terms of the various interconnected moments of a willful Stellen.
Gathering these forms of Stellen together, Heidegger names the essence of technology
with the word: Ge-stell.11 Iain Thomson has even supported this view by misquoting
Heidegger: Thus, as Heidegger bluntly states in The Age of the World Picture (1938),
the essence of technology ... is identical with the essence of contemporary metaphysics.
In other words, the referent of Heideggers phrase the essence of technology is our cur-
rent constellation of historical intelligibility, enframing (das Gestell) an historical mode
of revealing in which things increasingly show up as resources to be optimized.12 The
sentence which Thomson misquotes actually reads: Machine technology still remains the
most visible outgrowth of the essence of modern [neuzeitlichen] technology, an essence
which is identical with the essence of modern [neuzeitlichen] metaphysics.13 Rather than
bluntly equating the essence of technology itself with contemporary metaphysics, what
Heidegger is equating is modern technology with modern metaphysics. While it is indeed
correct that one aspect of the essence of technology shows itself as enframing, it is an
unwarranted assumption that this encompasses or is simply synonymous with the whole
of what Heidegger defines as the essence of technology.
When the breadth of Heideggers questioning toward the essence of technology is seen
as extending only between beings and enframing as the granted destiny of a particular
manner of revealing, a grave constriction in the scope of Heideggers understanding
of the essence of technology takes place. The inevitable conclusion which arises from
these constrictive framings is that Heideggers account of technology is ultimately one-
dimensional in its reduction of all technological phenomena to expressions of this one
metaphysical essence. This conclusion is also drawn by Thomson: Nevertheless, the
question of whether Heidegger is a technological one-dimensionalist remains; and the
answer, I think, is a qualified yes. Why? Because, as we have seen Heidegger holds that
the essence of technology is nothing less than the ontological self-understanding of the
age.14 While this assessment is undeniably correct, it is also crucially insufficient in that
it does not take into account Heideggers descriptions of the deeper character of the es-
sence of technology as the essence of enframing itself. What has been overlooked in such
readings is the fact that Heidegger describes the essence of technology as ambiguous,
26 Idealistic Studies

i.e., as both the manner of revealing characteristic of enframing and, more primordially,
the deeper, mysterious essence of truth itself which is not merely identical with a specific
historical continuity of revealing. While enframing at once obfuscates this more originary
dimension of truth, enframing at a deeper level retains an unbroken structural link to this
primordial sense of truth as its own-most proper essence.15 Heideggers demarcation of
the essence of technology includes both of these aspects. As I will now argue, it is only
when this duplicity within Heideggers understanding of the essence of technology is
properly taken into account that the traditional charge of essentialism can be more ad-
equately evaluated.

II
Heideggers question concerning technology is clearly structured as a question regarding
the essence of technology. When the scope of this question is understood as extending only
between technological beings and the metaphysical aspect of the essence of technology,
Heideggers position can indeed be seen as essentialist in that, at this level, technological
beings are reduced to expressions of a single metaphysical essence. However, this provi-
sional framing of technology within the domain of metaphysics is not Heideggers final
determination of the meaning of technology but exactly what Heidegger is attempting to
bring into question by further inquiring into the essence of enframing itself. The domain
in which this further determination of enframing takes place is the dimension of originary
concealment and unconcealment from out of which the specific mode of revealing charac-
teristic of enframing is made possible. Heidegger repeatedly describes enframing as what
blocks and endangers this more original dimension of truth: [E]nframing challenges
forth into the frenziedness of ordering that blocks every view into the propriative event
of revealing and so radically endangers the relation to the essence of truth (BW: 338).
However, what has often been overlooked is that what enframing endangers is exactly
the truth of its own essence. More original than enframings occultation of the essence
of truth is the unbroken structural link to this essence as what is own-most to enframing
itself. From this perspective, what is most essential about technology is not enframing,
but rather the ontological promise and freedom of originary truth which extends beyond
the totalizing enclosure of metaphysics.16 This expansion of the question of technology
beyond its metaphysical framing is announced by Heideggers description of the essence
of technology as ambiguous.
When Heidegger states that [t]he essence of technology is in a lofty [hohen] sense
ambiguous [zweideutig] (BW: 338; FT: 37), this ambiguity is not to be understood as a
mere lack of clarity, but rather in the sense that the essence of technology is a constellation
of two diverging aspects held within a more originary relatedness. Heidegger would later
express this concurrent instance of two aspects by saying: It [Gestell] offers a double
aspect, one might say, a Janus head.17 This is the reason why Heidegger can simultane-
ously claim that [t]he essence of technology lies in [beruht im] enframing (BW: 331;
FT: 29) and that the essence of technology is mysterious (BW: 333). For Heidegger,
the essence of technology is not reducible to its metaphysical visibility but additionally
must be thought in its deeper structural relatedness to what he terms the mystery. This
sense of mystery should be interpreted within the context of Heideggers terminological
 Concerning Technology 27

employment of this expression in his earlier descriptions of the essence of truth to designate
the most original sense of withdrawal which is prior to, and yet opens the possibility of,
any specific configuration of revealing.
Heideggers account of the essence of technology in terms of freedom and mystery are
consistent with his previous meditations on the essence of truth in his earlier essay by that
name: Freedom ... is the essence of truth (in the sense of the correctness of presenting)
only because freedom itself originates from the primordial essence of truth, the rule of the
mystery.18 In the essay on technology, a sense of mystery within the essence of truth is
also described as that which frees (BW: 330). Accordingly, it is this ontological sense
of freedom within the essence of technology as the essence of truth which the entire essay
is directed at establishing a relation to: [W]hen we once open ourselves expressly to the
essence of technology we find ourselves unexpectedly taken into a freeing claim (BW:
331; Heideggers italics). However, this double aspect of Heideggers understanding of
the essence of technology has often been overlooked with the effect that every description
of the essence of technology is taken as referring to the specific revealing characteristic
of enframing. In fact, as with the above example, many of Heideggers references are
referring to the deeper aspect of the essence of technology as the essence of truth itself.
Unquestionably, one of the reasons why Heideggers 1953 lecture has been approached as
merely equating the revealing characteristic of enframing with the essence of technology
itself is that it is widely assumed that the 1953 lecture is merely an expanded version of
Heideggers 1949 Bremen lecture entitled The Enframing.
Heidegger always acknowledged that The Question Concerning Technology grew
out of his December 1949 Bremen lecture cycle Insight into What Is. This lecture cycle
consisted of the individual lectures The Thing, The Enframing, The Danger, and The
Turning. This close relation is demonstrated by Heideggers decision in 1962 to publish The
Question Concerning Technology along with the fourth lecture, The Turning. Moreover,
in the preface to this edition, Heidegger described his 1953 lecture as an enlarged version
of the second lecture. This remark has lead commentators to view the whole of his 1953
lecture as also merely an articulation of the enframing aspect of the essence of technology.
However, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that the 1953 lecture is entirely rewritten
and bares almost no resemblance to the second 1949 lecture. Moreover, Heidegger would
later explicitly caution against reading The Question Concerning Technology as simply
reducible to an expanded version of the second Bremen lecture: In the lecture on technology
which is not merely another version of the lecture just mentioned, das Gestell.19 Rather than
looking only to this second, still diagnostic and initial lecture, the way in which Heideggers
description of enframing functions within his questioning toward the essence of technology
only becomes clear in light of Heideggers move in the third lecture The Danger to then
further describe the essence of enframing itself. This important lecture for understanding
Heideggers thought on technology is still, as of yet, unavailable in English translation. The
crucial transition is announced in the final sentence of the second lecture: Technology es-
sences as enframing. What, however, holds sway in enframing? From where and how is the
essence of enframing itself enowned?20 While still implicit in the 1953 lecture, Heideggers
understanding of enframing as endangering its own essence as the essence of truth is more
explicitly developed in the third 1949 lecture dedicated to this theme.
28 Idealistic Studies

In both the 1949 lecture The Danger and four years later in The Question Concerning
Technology, Heidegger describes the essence of enframing as the danger: The essence
of enframing is however the danger.21 This sense of danger is not to be confused with the
endangerment of any specific being, but rather describes the way in which the metaphysical
understanding of being endangers the truth of its own essence: Enframing is the danger
not as technology, but as being. What holds sway in the danger is being itself in so far as
it stalks [nachstellt] the truth of its essence with the forgottenness of this essence.22 For
Heidegger, metaphysical being is the endangerment of its own essence. However, deeper
than this danger remains the unbroken structural link to that which metaphysical being is
endangering, i.e., the truth of its own essence: In that enframing holds sway, being evades
the truth of its own essence, without ever being able, even in this evasion and distancing-
itself, to separate itself from the essence of being.23 For Heidegger, metaphysical being as
enframing endangers the truth of its own essence. However, the intelligibility of this sense
of endangerment relies upon the fact that Heidegger understands metaphysical being as
irrevocably linked to the truth of its own essence. This sense of endangerment is not the
result of any merely contingent historical shortcoming on the part of metaphysics. Rather,
the history of metaphysics, which has culminated in the epoch of enframing, is exactly the
history of the obfuscation of its own essence as the truth of being: In so far as being as
enframing stalks [nachstellt] itself with the forgottenness of its essence, being as being is
the danger for its own essence. ... Being is in itself, from itself, for itself the danger as
such.24 Although less explicit in the shorter 1953 lecture, the sense in which enframing
is endangering can be seen as the same as what Heidegger more fully articulated in the
1949 lecture. In both lectures, enframing is not endangering something which is ultimately
other to it, but rather, it is endangering the essence of truth in which enframing itself is
rooted and from out of which its essence is ultimately defined.
The essence of technology is ambiguous in that it at once has a metaphysical aspect
as enframing and a deeper aspect which is occulted by this first aspect. The second as-
pect is the more original root of technology which reaches beyond the totalizing closure
of enframing and into its own essence as the essence of truth as such. This is the reason
why the final step within Heideggers path of thinking toward the essence of technology
is described as looking exactly into the danger: In order to consider this it is necessary,
as a last step upon our way, to look with yet clearer eyes into the danger (BW: 334).
Moreover, this is the reason why Heidegger claims the question concerning technology
is not answered at the metaphysical level of enframing but only first properly posed as
a question about the constellation of revealing and concealing within the more origi-
nary mystery of the truth of being itself: When we look into the ambiguous essence of
technology, we behold the constellation, the stellar course of the mystery. The question
concerning technology is the question concerning the constellation in which revealing and
concealing, in which the essential unfolding of truth propriates (BW: 338). Heidegger
describes the relation between the two aspects of the essence of technology as two aspects
which [d]raw past each other like the paths of two stars in the course of the heavens.
But precisely this, their passing by, is the hidden side of their nearness (BW: 338). Each
is, at once, an apparently wholly isolated element, yet exactly in their passing attesting
to a deeper unthematized continuity with the other. What Heidegger is illustrating is that
 Concerning Technology 29

at the basis of a supervening divergence between enframing and the essence of truth is a
deeper rootedness of enframing exactly within the essence of truth as enframings own-
most essential character. It is only when this final level of Heideggers demarcation of
the essence of technology is taken into consideration that the charges of technological
essentialism can be adequately appraised.
Rather than equating the essence of technology as such with the revealing character-
istic of enframing and stressing the seeming absolute divergence between this mode of
revealing and the essence of truth, the question of essentialism must be posed with respect
to Heideggers understanding of the deeper relatedness of these two aspects. When the
essence of technology is interpreted as simply identical with the revealing characteristic
of enframing, Heideggers explanation of technological phenomena with respect to this
single metaphysical essence is indeed one-dimensional and reductive. However, when
this moment within Heideggers questioning toward the essence of technology is properly
contextualized as merely diagnostic and not itself exhausting the meaning of the essence
of technology, a more adequate perspective for assessing the charges of essentialism in
Heideggers understanding of technology is opened. If what characterizes technology
most originally is not its metaphysical construal as enframing but the more original, al-
though concealed, essence of truth itself, the initial reduction of individual beings to the
metaphysical aspect of technologys essence should not be seen as final, but rather, as a
supervening aspect upon a more original characterization of technological beings. This
more original depiction can be seen to be the understanding of individual beings from
the perspective of their concealed, however undiminished, relatedness to the ontological
sense of freedom within the essence of truth at the root of enframing.
In relation to the more original dimension of the essence of technology, individual
beings are not reduced to or exhausted in their metaphysical construal, but are rather
characterized in relation to an essence that is exactly not unitary, ordering or even finally
determined. Rather, when individual technological phenomena are thought from beyond
the limit of their metaphysical construal and in light of their more original and proper
inherence within the clearing of being itself, the sense of essence which ultimately char-
acterizes technology is not one of metaphysical domination, but instead one of ontological
freedom and possibility. While Heideggers question concerning technology is clearly
structured in terms of the essence of technology, what he ultimately understands as this
essence can be seen to escape the traditional charge of essentialism in that the ultimate
characterization of technology passes beyond the metaphysical level of enframing and is
thought from out of its deeper relatedness to originary truth.
In light of this full characterization of the essence of technology as most properly
the essence of truth, what is most essential within technology is an ontological sense of
freedom and possibility. However, one of the weaknesses in Heideggers treatment of
technology is that it does not elaborate further upon this possibility which is glimpsed
within the essence of technology. However, it should be seen that his understanding of
technology is not ultimately a form of technological essentialism but precisely an attempt
to think technology in relation to a sense of essence which is not one-dimensional. Rather
than an unchanging metaphysical sense of essence, the actual meaning of what Heidegger
understood as the essence of technology can be seen to be a mobile constellation which
30 Idealistic Studies

is exactly not unitary, determined or even metaphysical. As I will now argue, this fuller
characterization of what Heidegger understood as the essence of technology can help to
shed light upon his often questioned descriptions of the essence of technology as harbor-
ing both the most extreme danger, and equally that which might save.

III
One of the most questioned aspects of Heideggers essay on technology has been its de-
scription of the essence of technology as containing within itself both the extreme danger
and equally that which might save: The essence of technology, as a destining of revealing,
is the danger (BW: 333). [P]recisely the essence of technology must harbor in itself the
growth of the saving power (BW: 334). Heidegger illustrates this apparently impossible
coinciding by quoting from Friedrich Hlderlins Patmos: But where danger is, grows
the saving power also (BW: 333). This has often created the impression that Heidegger
is momentarily relying upon the poetic authority of Hlderlin to establish one of the most
important links in the structure of this essays argumentation. And indeed, it is not imme-
diately clear how that which endangers could lead toward awareness of what might save
or how such divergent elements could both simultaneously inhere within the essence of
technology. Andrew Feenberg has recently expressed his concern regarding this apparent
lack of argumentation in Heideggers essay stating: Never has such a succession of non
sequiturs played such an important role in the history of philosophy! ... How can technol-
ogy, the revealing which precisely blocks awareness of revealing, itself be the bridge to
that very awareness?25 Moreover, Heideggers decision to structure his inquiry into the
essence of technology in a terminology borrowed from one of Hlderlins most religious
works has given rise to the view that the saving power was of a piece with Heideggers
contemporaneous understanding of the divinities and the holy. Rather than relying upon
the poetry of Hlderlin or a specifically religious meaning, Heideggers description of the
relation between the danger and what might save should be seen as based upon his purely
philosophical articulation of the two-fold aspect of the essence of technology.
While many readings of this apparently impossible co-incidence of danger and saving
have focused on the quote from Hlderlin, what has often been overlooked is the fact that
Heideggers description of the relation between the danger and what might save is couched
in terms of his description of the two aspects of the essence of technology. Heidegger clearly
states: The essence of technology, as a destining of revealing, is the danger (BW: 333;
my emphasis). When the essence of technology as such is incorrectly understood as the
revealing characteristic of enframing, it would then seem that the essence of technology
is simply also the danger as such. However, this sentence should be read in light of the
ambiguous essence of technology. What Heidegger is claiming here is not that the essence
of technology itself constitutes the danger, but rather it is dangerous only in its aspect as
enframing. Moreover, this sense of danger is not simply equated with enframings specific
mode of revealing but characterizes revealing as such. Heidegger clearly states that all
modes of revealing within the history of metaphysics represent this danger with respect to
the truth of their essence: The destining of revealing is as such, in every one of its modes,
and therefore necessarily, danger (BW: 331). The destining of revealing is in itself not
just any danger, but the danger (BW: 331). This also applies to earlier modes of revealing
 Concerning Technology 31

as poisis. It is not the case that Heidegger is simply contrasting later modes of revealing
with what has gone before and calling for a nostalgic return to the Greek experience of
revealing as poisis. Rather, the proper sense of danger which characterizes metaphysical
being itself in all of its different epochs and specific modes of revealing is fundamentally
the same across the tradition. The sense in which Heidegger understands enframing to
constitute the supreme danger (die hchste Gefahr) (BW: 332; FT: 30) is that it further
obscures and forgets this original danger of metaphysical being for its essence as the truth
of being. While Heidegger indeed designates enframing as the supreme danger, this sense
of danger applies only to the metaphysical aspect of the essence of technology and does
not exhaustively characterize the essence of technology in its fuller sense.
Rather than equating enframing with the essence of technology and interpreting the es-
sence of technology as synonymous with the danger itself, Heidegger should be understood
as locating the danger only at the level of the metaphysical aspect of the essence of technol-
ogy. That which might save is also located within the essence of technology, however, at the
deeper level of the essence of truth which more originally constitutes any specific mode of
revealing. When Heidegger states that all saving power must be of a higher essence than
what is endangered (BW: 339), the sense in which that which might save is of a higher
essence can be seen to be the sense in which the essence of truth is the deeper essence of all
specific modes of revealing as such. Both of these levels of danger and saving are contained
within Heideggers full characterization of the essence of technology: To save is to fetch
something home into its essence in order to bring the essence for the first time into its proper
appearing. If the essence of technology, enframing, is the extreme danger ... then the rule
of enframing cannot exhaust itself solely in blocking all lighting-up of every revealing,
all appearing of truth (BW: 333). The sense of saving in this description is understood in
terms of the deeper truth of revealing as the essence of truth itself. What enframing covers
over and endangers is exactly the inextricable rootedness of its own figuration of revealing
in the deeper and more original aperity of the essence of truth itself. From this perspec-
tive, Heideggers apparently contradictory or merely mystic description of the essence of
technology can be seen as both argumentatively consistent and sound.
At the very opening of his essay on technology, Heidegger describes his thinking toward
the essence of technology as a questioning which is attempting to build a way. Stressing
that what is important is the way itself he explicitly cautions against fixing attention on
isolated sentences and topics. Unfortunately, the reception of this essay has not always
heeded this caveat. Many readings have fixed their attention on individual elements and
stages within this text and have often lost sight of their later re-contextualizations within
the wider movement of Heideggers questioning. As I have argued, the initial character-
ization of technology as enframing is one such aspect which should not be isolated from
this essays wider movement of questioning for it is only within the wider question of
the essence of truth that Heidegger first defined what he understood as the essence of
technology. While indeed ambiguous and mysterious, what Heidegger understood as the
essence of technology was also much less essentialistic than what traditional framings of
this topic have often revealed.

European College of Liberal Arts, Berlin

32 Idealistic Studies

Notes
1. M. Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, in Martin Heidegger Basic Writ-
ings, ed. David Krell (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 328.
2. References to the different versions of this work will be given parenthetically in the text
along with page numbers. The designation (BW) will refer to the most currently available version
of William Lovitts translation as corrected and edited by David Krell in Basic Writings, revised
and expanded edition (London: Routledge, 1993). Reference to the German will be signaled by
(FT) and refer to: Die Frage nach der Technik, in Vortrge und Aufstze (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta,
2004).
3. Heideggers essay presents what is probably the single most influentialthough by no
means most popularposition in the field. Editors Introduction, in Philosophy of Technology:
The Technological Condition, ed. R. Scharff and V. Dusek (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), p. x. More-
over, as Albert Borgmann correctly points out: [Heideggers] influence on American philosophy of
technology, among the most vigorous schools in the world, has been significant. In a collection of
essays on American Philosophy of Technology, Heidegger is easily the most frequently mentioned
figure. A. Borgmann, Technology, in A Companion to Heidegger, ed. H. Dreyfus and M. Wrathall
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), p. 431.
4. For examples, see A. Feenberg, Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption
of History (London: Routledge, 2005); and his From Essentialism to Constructivism: Philosophy
of Technology at the Crossroads, in Technology and the Good Life, ed. E. Higgs, D. Strong, and
A. Light (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000); and P.-P. Verbeek, What Things Do: Philo-
sophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design, trans. R. Crease (University Park: Penn
State University Press, 2005).
5. I. Thomson, Heidegger on Ontotheology: Technology and the Politics of Education (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 69.
6. Still in widespread usage, this text is in many ways an unfortunate translation in that it is
inconsistent and introduces many unnecessary neologisms. While it is beyond the scope of this es-
say to comment on the translation itself, readers should be aware that, in his preface, Lovitt twice
misquotes Heidegger and gives the date of the lecture as 1955 instead of the actual 1953. Lovitt
also misquotes the date of the related text Wissenschaft und Besinnung as 1954 when it was
actually 1953. Sadly, these incorrect dates continue to be quoted in English language Heidegger
scholarship: [I]n his celebrated 1955 essay The Question Concerning Technology (Thomson,
Heidegger On Ontotheology, p. 52); Heideggers thinking until 1955, when he wrote The Ques-
tion Concerning Technology (H. Dreyfus and C. Spinosa, Heidegger and Borgmann on How to
Affirm Technology, in Scharff and Dusek, Philosophy of Technology, p. 324); The Question
Concerning Technology, the 1949 essay (revised in 1955) (J. Young, Heideggers Later Philosophy
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002], p. 37). Trish Glazebrook describes the lecture as
being read in 1955 (Heideggers Philosophy of Science [New York: Fordham University Press,
2000], p. 241. One of the effects of this careless strand in scholarship has been to distort the actual
proximity of Heideggers 1953 lecture to the December 1949 lecture cycle. Instead of six years
separating them, it was actually less than four.
7. Verbeek, What Things Do, p. 65.
8. Cf. H. Dreyfus, Heidegger on Gaining a Free Relation to Technology, in Heidegger Reex-
amined, vol. 3, Art, Poetry, and Technology, ed. H. Dreyfus and M. Wrathall (London: Routledge,
2002); and R. Rojcewicz, The Gods and Technology (Albany: State University of New York Press,
2006).
 Concerning Technology 33

9. Verbeek, What Things Do, p. 55.

10. T. Rockmore, Heidegger on Technology and Democracy, in Technology and the Politics
of Knowledge, ed. A. Feenberg and A. Hannay (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), p.
137.
11. B. Davis, Heidegger and the Will (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2007), p.
176.
12. Thomson, Heidegger on Ontotheology. p. 53.
13. M. Heidegger, The Age of the World Picture, in Off the Beaten Track trans. and ed. J.
Young and K. Haynes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 57.
14. Thomson, Heidegger on Ontotheology. p. 69. In this work, Thomson rightly calls for a
reconsideration of Andrew Feenbergs critique of Heideggers technological essentialism. While
instructive, the value of this exchange with Feenberg is however quite limited in that Feenberg and
Thomson both accept the same premise that Heidegger ultimately equates the essence of technol-
ogy with metaphysical being. Thomsons attempt to rescue Heidegger by asking the question,
Does Heideggers one-dimensionalism force him to reject technology in toto? and then pointing
to the sole example of Heideggers 1951 discussion of the highway bridge, stating, Nevertheless,
is not this single, carefully thought-out exception sufficient to prove that Heidegger does not reject
technology wholecloth? (Thomson, Heidegger on Ontotheology, p. 70) should be seen as merely
a calculating attempt to save Heidegger from the dangers created by Thomsons own misreading.
15. One of the few commentators to stress this fact is Miguel de Beistegui. Although he does
not develop the implications it has for Heideggers technology essay, de Beistegui expresses this
well when he states: Technologyor, as Heidegger began by designating it in the late 1930s,
machinationis said to designate the Unwesen des Seyns, the non-essence of being. ... Un-wesen
is also Un-wesen. Yes, machination is the non-essence or the counter-essence of being. But it is
also its non-essence or its counter-essence. The New Heidegger (London: Continuum, 2005), pp.
118119.
16. This relation has been obscured in all versions of the English translation in that the incor-
rect impression is given that the unchecked intensification of the technological will bring about
the essential truth of technology: Yet we can be astounded. Before what? Before this other pos-
sibility: that the frenziedness of technology may entrench itself everywhere to such an extent that
someday, throughout everything technological, the essence of technology may unfold essentially
in the propriative event of truth (BW: 340). Comparison with the German shows that the transla-
tor has simply inserted the expression to such an extent that, when the German has merely bis
eines Tages (FT: 39), which simply means until one day, and contains no sense of causality or
correlation.
17. M. Heidegger, On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row,
1972), p. 53.
18. M. Heidegger, On the Essence of Truth, in Krell, Martin Heidegger Basic Writings, p.
134.
19. Heidegger, On Time and Being. p. 36.
20. M. Heidegger, Einblick in das was ist, in Gesamtausgabe Bd. 79, Bremer und Freiburger
Vortrge (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1994), p. 45. All translations from this text are my own.
21. Ibid., p. 62.
22. Ibid. Die Gefahr ist das Ge-Stell nicht als Technik, sondern als das Seyn. Das Wesende
34 Idealistic Studies

der Gefahr ist das Seyn selbst insofern es der Wahrheit seines Wesens mit der Vergessenheit dieses
Wesens nachstellt.
23. Ibid., p. 52. Indem das Ge-Stell west, entsetzt sich das Sein selber der Wahrheit seines
Wesens, ohne doch jemals in diesem Ent-setzen und Sichabsetzen vom Wesen des Seyns sich tren-
nen zu knnen.
24. Ibid., p. 53. Insofern das Sein als das Ge-Stell sich selbst mit der Vergessenheit seines
Wesens nachstellt, ist das Seyn als Seyn die Gefahr seines eigen Wesens. ... Das Seyn ist in sich
aus sich fr sich die Gefahr schlechthin.
25. A. Feenberg, Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption of History (New
York: Routledge, 2005), p. 22.