Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 37, No.

4, 2005

A Field Guide to Heidegger: Understanding The Question Concerning Technology

David A O 4 2005 Waddington 37Field UK September riginal Philosophy Education Society of Australasia 0013-1857 Philosophy and Educational2005 of Ltd. EPAT I.Guide to Heidegger Theory Oxford, Article Blackwell Publishing,

D I. W
Stanford University

Abstract This essay serves as a guide for scholars, especially those in education, who want to gain a better understanding of Heideggers essay, The Question Concerning Technology. The paper has three sections: an interpretive summary, a critical commentary, and some remarks on Heidegger scholarship in education. Since Heideggers writing style is rather opaque, the interpretive summary serves as a map with which to navigate the essay.The critical commentary offers a careful analysis of some of the central concepts in the essay. These concepts, which include bringing-forth, challenging-forth, and gestell, are intriguing but problematic. The problems and possibilities of these ideas are analyzed, and an overall assessment of Heideggers ideas on technology is offered. In the nal section, the work of several scholars in education is examined. Some of this work is excellent, but there is also a signicant amount of confused and confusing scholarship. Keywords: Heidegger, technology, environment, craft, education

It is a clear statement of the power of Heideggers thought that even among a group of people from a very different tradition [computer science] it has evoked stirringsinklings of a new way of going about the business of technology. Terry Winograd (Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University), Heidegger and the Design of Computer Systems, p. 108

Introduction Reading Heidegger is a lot like trying to navigate a ship through a dense fog. His language is sprinkled with German neologisms, and his lines of thought tend not to be laid out in a straightforward manner. However, despite these difculties, philosophers of education have recently exhibited a heightened level of interest in Heideggers thought. They seem especially interested in a short piece by Heidegger entitled The Question Concerning Technology; in Michael Peters (2002) new
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568 David I. Waddington collection, Heidegger, Education, and Modernity, eight of the eleven included essays refer to The Question Concerning Technology. Academics working in technology education have also expressed an interest in this particular essay. Heidegger pioneered a new way of thinking about technology; The Question Concerning Technology contains exciting ideas that may have important implications in both technology education and environmental education. However, just as one must set the table before sitting down to a meal, so too must one understand Heidegger before trying to draw educational implications from his thought. Thus, the primary role of this essay is to act as a eld guideto summarize, criticize and interpret The Question Concerning Technology. Some may think that is unnecessary to perform such a low-level task. Yet, there are several reasons why a eld guide is important: 1. Providing access. Many academics and educators would be interested in Heideggers ideas, but lack the patience and time to decode Heideggers Byzantine formulations. The rst and second sections of my paper (the interpretive summary and the critical commentary) will address this need for access. 2. Facilitating critical understanding. Although Heideggers ideas on technology have received plenty of accolades, they have (as yet) received very little criticism within the education literature. It is important to appreciate both the strengths and the weaknesses of Heideggers thought, and the second section of my paper (the critical commentary) will assist in this. 3. Clearing up confusion. Although some philosophers of education have written excellent articles about Heideggers philosophy of technology, other authors have made signicant errors in their interpretations of Heidegger. The nal section of the paper will be dedicated to the task of pointing out these errors. Part 1 An Interpretive Summary of The Question Concerning Technology Most essays on technology focus primarily on practical issues surrounding the use of particular technologies. Heideggers essay, however, does notinstead, it focuses on the ways of thinking that lie behind technology. Heidegger (1977, p. 3) thinks that by coming to understand these ways of thinking, humans can enter into a free relationship with technology. After dismissing the conventional account of technology, which supposedly states that technology is simply a means to an end, Heidegger commences a discussion on ancient craftsmanship. He suggests that the ancient craftsmanship involves the four Aristotelian causes: material, formal, nal, and efcient. Intuitively, one might think that the efcient cause of a given craft-item (the craftsman) was the most signicant of the four. However, although the craftsman has an important role in that she unites the four causes by considering each of them carefully, each of the four causes is equally co-responsible for the particular craft-item that is produced. Heidegger comments, The four ways of being responsible bring something into appearance. They let it come forth into presencing (1977, p. 9). Appropriately enough, Heidegger names this process bringing-forth. Notably, bringing-forth is not merely a descriptive genus
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A Field Guide to Heidegger 569 under which the four causes are subsumedrather, it is a unied process, a single leading-forth to which [each of the causes] is indebted (Lovitt, 1972, p. 46). Heidegger writes that bringing-forth comes to pass only insofar as something concealed comes into unconcealment (1977, p. 11). Thus, instead of the craft-item being created by the craftsman, as one would think, it was revealed or unconcealed. In The Thing, Heidegger comments on the making of a jug, The jug is not a vessel because it was made; rather, the jug had to be made because it is this holding vessel. The making lets the jug come into its own. But that which in the jugs nature is its own is never brought about by its making. (1971, p. 168) Clearly, revealing/unconcealing in the mode of bringing-forth contains strong hints of Platonism. Bringing-forth is the mode of revealing that corresponds to ancient craft. Modern technology, however, has its own particular mode of revealing, which Heidegger calls challenging-forth. Thinking in the mode of challenging-forth is very different from thinking in the mode of bringing-forth: when challenging-forth, one sets upon the elements of a situation both in the sense of ordering (i.e. setting a system upon) and in a more rapacious sense (i.e. the wolves set upon the traveler and devoured him). In bringing-forth, human beings were one important element among others in the productive process; in challenging-forth, humans control the productive process. Efciency is an additional important element of thinking in the mode of challenging forth; the earth, for example, is set upon to yield the maximum amount of ore with the minimum amount of effort. Essentially, challenging-forth changes the way we see the worldas Michael Zimmerman pointedly remarks, To be capable of transforming a forest into packaging for cheeseburgers, man must see the forest not as a display of the miracle of life, but as raw material, pure and simple (1977, p. 79). Production in the mode of challenging-forth reveals objects that have the status of standing-reserve. Objects that have been made standing-reserve have been reduced to disposability in two different senses of the word: (1) They are disposable in the technical sense; they are easily ordered and arranged. Trees that once stood chaotically in the forest are now logs that can be easily counted, weighed, piled, and shipped. (2) They are also disposable in the conventional sense; like diapers and cheap razors, they are endlessly replaceable/ interchangeable and have little value. For the most part, challenging things forth into standing-reserve is not a laudable activity, and thus it makes sense to wonder what drives human beings to think in this way. Heideggers answer to this motivational question is unconventional instead of suggesting that the origins of this motivation are indigenous to human beings, he postulates the existence of a phenomenon that sets upon man to order the real as standing-reserve (1977, p. 19). Heidegger calls this mysterious phenomenon enframing (Ge-stell in German). The word Ge-stell gathers together several meanings of the -stellen family of German verbs: in Ge-stell, humans are ordered (bestellen), commanded (bestellen), and entrapped (nachstellen) (Harries 1994, p. 229). Heidegger thinks that our default state is that of being trapped by Ge-stell; this is what he means when he writes, As the one who is challenged forth in this
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570 David I. Waddington way, man stands within the essential realm of [Ge-stell]. He can never take up a relationship to it only subsequently (1977, p. 24; Sallis, 1971, p. 162). According to Heidegger (1977, p. 25), there are different ordainings of destining for human beings. Although the default destining is that of Ge-stell, it is possible to choose an alternate road. Heidegger thinks that human beings have been granted the special role of Shepherds of Beingwe have been granted the power to reveal the world in certain ways (Ballard, 1971, p. 60). Trapped in Ge-stell, we tend to reveal things in the mode of challenging-forth, but we can also choose to reveal things in the mode of bringing-forth. Heidegger comments, Placed between these possibilities, man is endangered from out of destining (1977, p. 26). However, by carefully considering the ways of thinking that lie behind technology, we can grasp the saving power. We can realize that we, the Shepherds of Being, have a choice: we can bring-forth rather than challenge-forth. Thus, once we understand the thinking behind technology, we become free to choose our fate we are already sojourning in the open space of destining (Heidegger, 1977, p. 26). Part 2 Critical Commentary on The Question Concerning Technology 2.0 Introduction The following critical commentary will be organized in four sections; the rst three sections will analyze, in turn, the puzzles and weaknesses surrounding three pivotal ideas in Heideggers essay: bringing-forth, challenging-forth-to-standing-reserve, and Ge-stell. The nal section of the analysis will synthesize the results of the rst three analyses to create an overall evaluation of Heideggers account. 2.1 Bringing-forth If one were to draw conclusions about Plato and Aristotle solely from Heideggers remarks in The Question Concerning Technology, one would think that craftsmanship was a central issue for both of these ancient thinkers. Furthermore, from the warm light in which Heidegger bathes the craftsman, one might also come to believe that Plato and Aristotle have a certain reverence for craftsmen and the process of craftsmanship. Plato and Aristotles attitudes toward craftsmanship, however, can (at best) be described as ambivalent. In the Politics, Aristotle remarks, no man can practice excellence who is living the life of a mechanic or laborer (1995, 1278a20). Craftsmen and craftsmanship receive a more favorable treatment in Plato, but Plato still makes the following unfriendly remark: If an offspring of [the guardians] should be found to have a mixture of iron or bronze, they must not pity him in any way, but give him the rank appropriate to his nature and drive him out to join the craftsmen and farmers. (1997, 415bc) Indeed, lyrical prose having to do with craftsmanship is scarce in Plato and Aristotle, but abundant in Heidegger.
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A Field Guide to Heidegger 571 Heidegger also claims that his account of the four causes is true to the spirit of Greek thought. Heideggers notion of the co-responsibility of the four causes has some support in Aristotle, who comments: the [causes other than the efcient cause] are causes in the sense of the end or the good of the rest (1995, 195a23) Heideggers insistence on the non-primacy of the efcient cause, however, nds less support: in Topics, Aristotle remarks, Again, the primary source of the change or rest [is] generally what makes of what is made (1995, 194b30) Aristotles remarks on causation do not entirely rule out Heideggers somewhat romantic interpretation, but neither do they provide much supporting evidence. Heideggers strongest evidence in favor of bringing-forth consists of a quote from Symposium [what follows is Heideggers translation]: Every occasion for whatever passes over and goes forward into presencing from that which is not presencing is poiesis, is bringing-forth (1977, p. 10). Nehamas and Woodruff, in their translation of the Symposium, offer a different rendition of the same passage: After all, everything that is responsible for creating something out of nothing is a kind of poetry, and so all the creations of every craft and profession are themselves a kind of poetry, and everyone who practices a craft is a poet. (1997, 205b) Although this translation is signicantly different from Heideggers, its content (craftsmen as poets creating something out of nothing) and tone (romantic) offers some historical support for the notion of bringing-forth. Yet, this is not enough to authenticate the supposed historical status of bringing-forth. Although there is some evidence linking bringing-forth to Greek thinking, a far more likely conclusion is that the idea of bringing-forth had its primary origin in the mind of Martin Heidegger. A more serious problem with the notion of bringing-forth concerns the idea of revealing/unconcealment. Recall Heideggers comment in The Thing: The jug is not a vessel because it was made; rather, the jug had to be made because it is this holding vessel. The making lets the jug come into its own. But that which in the jugs nature is its own is never brought about by its making. (1971, p. 168) Clearly, there is some sort of Platonic pre-existence at work herethe jug, apparently, pre-exists as concealed and is revealed through the co-responsible action of the four causes. Perhaps one can see what Heidegger means here by recalling the ubiquitous stories of wood carvers who somehow know, in advance, what shape a particular piece of wood wants to be. However, no amount of idiosyncratic accounts on the part of folk artists can reduce the implausibility of the idea of preexistence. The jug is a created object, and while it can be created through the loving and careful process of bringing-forth, the jugs created status cannot be eclipsed. To sum up, the notion of bringing-forth is probably largely Heideggers arbitrary creation, and the idea of revealing pre-existent objects is highly implausible. Does this mean that these ideas should be thrown out? This essential question, which has important implications for Heideggers philosophy, will be addressed in a later section.
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572 David I. Waddington 2.2 Challenging-forth and Standing-reserve Heidegger comments, It is said that modern technology is something incomparably different from all earlier technologies (1977, p. 14) Heidegger attributes this incomparable difference to the ability of human beings to think in the mode of challenging forthan ability which, he maintains, only emerged recently. Apparently, older technologies cannot involve or facilitate this sort of thinking: The revealing that rules in modern technology is a challenging, which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy that can be extracted and stored as such. But does this not hold true for the old windmill as well? No. Its sails do indeed turn in the wind; they are left entirely to the winds blowing. But the windmill does not unlock energy from the air currents in order to store it. (Heidegger 1977, p. 14) However, if I were an ambitious and avaricious miller living in the middle ages, I might want to maximize our production in my mill. To this end, I would make sure that my windmill had enormous sails in order to maximize wind-catching efciency. By processing the grain, I would unlock its food energy in the form of our and hold it in reserve in my granary. I could then maximize prot by selling the our during the wintertime when the peasants were starving. The intuitive plausibility of the hypothetical miller suggests that Heidegger is wrong to think that challengingforth is a phenomenon unique to modern times. However, despite the fact that thinking in the mode of challenging-forth is not limited solely to the reign of modern technology, there is certainly a link between modern technology and challenging-forth. The forester of old with his horses and chains could not even conceive of machines like the Caterpillar tree harvester, which can liquidate a forest at the highest level of productivity and efciency using extremely high levels of horsepower (Caterpillar 2003). Since modern technology enables challenging-forth to achieve extraordinary results, thinking in the mode of challenging-forth is more dangerous and alluring now than at any other time in history. Tree harvesters are a particularly unpleasant example of modern technology. Yet, critics of Heidegger are quick to point out that modern technology has improved our standard of living. Hydroelectric dams, for example, have allowed power to be brought to the homes of many people around the world, thus improving their lives immensely. Although there are some environmental problems associated with hydroelectric dams, it is a relatively clean form of energy generation. Heidegger, however, is outraged by the building of a hydroelectric dam on the Rhine: In the context of the interlocking processes pertaining to the orderly disposition of electrical energy, even the Rhine itself appears as something at our command. The hydroelectric plant is not built into the Rhine River, as was the old wooden bridge that joined bank with bank for hundreds of years. Rather the river is dammed up into the power plant. What the river is now, namely, a water power supplier, derives from out of the essence of the power station. In order that we may even remotely
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A Field Guide to Heidegger 573 consider the monstrousness that reigns here, let us ponder for a moment the contrast that speaks out of the two titles, The Rhine as dammed up into the power works, and The Rhine as uttered out of the art work, in Hlderlins hymn by that name. (1977, p. 16) Even the most rabid capitalists may become uneasy when forced to watch a tree harvester in the process of liquidating a forest; intuitively, one can see that there is a certain monstrousness about this kind of wholesale destruction. Yet, although the same kind of destruction is not taking place in the context of the dam on the Rhine, Heidegger still asks us to consider the monstrousness that reigns here. (1977, p. 16) In order to solve this puzzle in Heideggers thinking, let us clarify the terms of the problem with some assumptions: assume that the dam has improved the standard of living for many Germans and that no signicant environmental damage has resulted from its construction and operation. If these assumptions are made, how can Heidegger still deem the dam monstrous? In his polemic against the dam, Heidegger comments, What the river is now, namely a water power supplier, derives from out of the essence of the power station (1977, p. 16). Heidegger does not hate the dam because it physically damages the river; instead, he hates it because it reduces the river. Subsumed under both the idea and the material fact of the hydroelectric dam, the river no longer stands on its own. Implicitly, Heidegger is using the following syllogism: Premise: The building of the Rhine dam has compromised the standing-on-its-own of the Rhine River. Premise: All actions in which we compromise the standing-on-its-own of something are monstrous actions. Conclusion: The building of the Rhine dam is a monstrous action. It is still unclear, however, what it means for something to stand on its own. Aristotle may enlighten us in this regard with his description of what it is for a human being not to stand on their own: Hence we see what is the nature and ofce of a slave; he who is not his own but anothers man, is by nature a slave (1995, 1254a13) The person whose nature is subsumed under that of another has been reducedreduced to slavery. No standing or dignity remain for the slave; he or she has been reduced to an it. The slave, regarded as slave, is a mere piece of property that is disposable in both the technical and conventional senses of disposability described in the summary. Laboring under the material and conceptual mastery of the dam, the river has also been reduced to slavery. It no longer stands on its own; it is merely a piece of property to be manipulated by the various gigantic states and corporations of the world. The Rhine and the Columbia, the Nile and the Yangtzethey were once the greatest and most holy of rivers, but are now merely the most useful of our slave-objects. Most of the countries of the world have signed agreements that grant that human beings possess a certain inviolable dignity; humans cannot be reduced to slavery and they must be treated with a measure of respect. Human beings, however, are
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574 David I. Waddington not the only entities in the world that seem to possess dignity. For example, a Sequoia in the forest stands on its own, and, as such, it seems to have some kind of dignity. Once that tree has been cut down and reduced to a technically and conventionally disposable log, whatever dignity it may once have had is lost. Suppose it is true that all human beings possess a kind of inviolable dignity. Animals differ from human beings only in the fact that they are not rational. Does their lack of reason make animals unworthy of dignity? Surely not: when humans lose their minds to Alzheimers disease, we all agree that their dignity remains inviolable. We would not even consider consigning a witless Alzheimers patient to a cage in a research laboratory. One can expand the scope of this argument from animals to other living and non-living entities. In each case one can ask, Does their lack of property Z make entity X less worthy of dignity than entity Y? Admittedly, as one traces the course of this argument through the hierarchy of beingfrom animals all the way down to manufactured objectsdignity becomes increasingly attenuated. Yet, I would argue that dignity persists all the way down the hierarchy of being; even the plastic soft-drink bottle possesses an extremely small amount of dignity. Heidegger would probably concur with this view; he was fascinated by the work of Cezanne, who thought that even inanimate objects had dignity: People think that a sugar bowl has no physiognomy, no soul. But that also changes from day to day. One has to know how to take them, atter them, these gentlemen. These glasses, these plates, they speak to each other, they are always exchanging condences. ( Jamme, 1994, p. 140) In his essay, The Thing, Heidegger expresses views that are similar to those of Cezanne. (1971, p. 182) At one point, while discussing the reduction of objects to standing-reserve, Heidegger remarks, Whatever stands by in the sense of standing-reserve no longer stands over against us as object (1977, p. 17). The notion of the dignity and standing of objects can help us understand Heideggers cryptic remark. Objects like the river lose their dignity by being subsumed under the material and conceptual command of objects like the dam, which, for their part, are under the complete control of human subjects. Therefore, in a sense, whatever is reduced to standingreserve is no longer an object because it has been completely subsumed under the material and conceptual reign of the subject. A kind of objectlessness resultsthe only signicance these objects have is that they are the property of the subject. In light of this view, another of Heideggers puzzling remarks begins to make sense: Meanwhile man exalts himself to the posture of lord of the earth. In this way the impression comes to prevail that everything man encounters exists only insofar as it is his construct. This illusion gives rise in turn to one nal delusion: It seems as though man everywhere and always encounters only himself [italics mine]. (1977, p. 27) Heidegger feels that we should not underestimate the importance of the dignity of objects; once the objectlessness of standing-reserve prevails, the next target for
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A Field Guide to Heidegger 575 reduction to material/conceptual slavery is other subjectshuman beings. Already, says Heidegger (1977, p. 18), we can discern the beginnings of this trend in the talk of human resources. As Michael Zimmerman ominously remarks, While humanity cannot yet manufacture itself in factories, it is moving in that direction (1990, p. 201). 2.3 Ge-stell The phenomenon of Ge-stell is problematic for three reasons: 1. The non-human origin of the phenomenon of Ge-stell seems to entail serious difculties. 2. It is a signicant challenge to understand what Heidegger means by Ge-stell. 3. One is puzzled as to why Heidegger introduces this phenomenon at all; it is not clear how postulating the phenomenon of Ge-stell adds to the ideas that have already been adumbrated in the essay. In coming to a proper understanding of the phenomenon of Ge-stell, all of these problems must be addressed. In order to deal with the rst two problems, one must understand the relationship between Ge-stell and Heideggers notion of Being. Instead of accepting a conventional conception of Being as sort of inert underlying substance, Heidegger thinks of Being as energeia (Pggeler, 1996, p. 208). Edward Ballard comments on this conception: We do not come to thinking; rather it comes to us (1971, p. 61). Thus, in a sense, Being has a mind of its ownin different epochs, Being reveals itself to man in different ways. In The Word of Nietzsche, Heidegger remarks, In every phase of metaphysics there has been visible at any particular time a portion of a way that the destining of Being prepares as a path for itself (1977, p. 54) Essentially, Ge-stell is the dominant way in which Being is revealing itself to human beings right now. An example may bring to light some of the difculties surrounding this conception: once, on a Grade 5 class trip, a classmate of mine who could not swim fell into the pool. After he was shed out, he explained that the Devil had pulled him into the pool. Naturally, most of the class did not nd this to be an adequate explanation. The point of the story is as follows: if the Devil no longer sufces to explain bad events to schoolchildren, how can the more mature readers of Heidegger (1977, p. 24) possibly accept that Ge-stell happens neither exclusively in man, nor decisively through man, but rather because of the inscrutable and mysterious powers of Being? Heidegger cannot be decisively extricated from this difculty. However, puzzlement on the part of readers over Heideggers strange position can be palliated through an explanation of the nature of Ge-stell. In order to understand Ge-stell, we must turn to a similar phenomenon that Heidegger outlines in Being and Time: the they. Heidegger comments: In utilizing public transportation, in the use of information services such as the newspaper, every other is like the next In this inconspicuousness
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576 David I. Waddington and unascertainability, the they unfolds its true dictatorship. We enjoy ourselves and have fun the way they enjoy themselves. We read, see, and judge literature the way they see and judge. (1996, p. 119) In non-Heideggerian parlance, the they is the consciousness (Heidegger thinks it is a false consciousness) of society. Simply by virtue of being in society, human beings are always already lost in the they; we always already see things through their eyes. Ge-stell is, essentially, an element (perhaps even the dominant element) of the contemporary they. The dominant consciousness of society always already ensnares us into thinking in the mode of challenging-forth; it is as if we have had special challenging-forth contact lenses permanently implanted in our eyes since birth. Heidegger remarks, It is not the case that a Da-sein, untouched and unseduced by this way of interpreting, was ever confronted by the free land of a world merely to look at what it encounters (1996, p. 159). No one is to blame for the they; it is simply an inevitable element of the structure of human existence. By understanding this inevitability and this blamelessness, we can see why it might be said that the they and Ge-stell are both, in a sense, of nonhuman origin. Neither the they nor Ge-stell are a plot by the government or the ruling classes; the they and Ge-stell are simply part of the way Things are going the way Being is going. The third problem that was posed at the beginning of this sectionthe question of how Ge-stell adds to the ideas that have already been introduced in Heideggers essaymust be answered very speculatively. When Heidegger postulates a nonhuman origin for Ge-stell, he extricates human beings from blame. The logging contractor cannot be blamed for using the Caterpillar tree harvester to destroy the forest. Thus, rather than responding to the logging contractor with hatred and blame, those people who had extricated themselves from the destining of Ge-stell would realize that the only fruitful path is to educate the logging contractor. Perhaps, for example, one could gently pry the challenging-forth contact lenses away from the contractors eyes through a peaceful debate about the relative merits of bringing-forth and challenging-forth. At this point, the three problems I posed concerning Ge-stell have all been briey addressed. This treatment, however, has not extricated the concept of Ge-stell from its difcultiesif anything, I have uncovered a cornucopia of potential new problems. Due to its many inadequacies, the question must be raised whether the notion of Ge-stell should be thrown out. As in the case of bringing-forth, this crucial question will have to be deferred for the time being. 2.4 The Overall Impact of The Question Concerning Technology Most current articles on the value of technology are preoccupied with pieces of technology. These articles are valuable; it is important both to observe how particular technologies function in the world and to point out possible new directions for these technologies. However, a signicant dimension of technology goes unnoticed
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A Field Guide to Heidegger 577 by most commentators: the way of thinking that lies behind the creation and use of technology. If more commentators on technology were able to wade through The Question Concerning Technology, as well as some of Heideggers other writings, they might discover some exciting new pathways for their thinking. Heideggers account also has noteworthy implications for environmental ethics. If all living things and inanimate objects have a measure of dignity, the various entities that make up the world must be accorded more respect. If human beings are gradually destroying the world (both in the conventional sense and in the Heideggerian sense of reduction to standing-reserve) through their entrapment in challenging-forth, systematic efforts must be made to free individuals from their ideological prison. Redesigning certain aspects of the education system might serve to further this goal. The great breakthrough of The Question Concerning Technology is that it shifts the focus away from specic technologies and toward the modes of thinking that lie behind these technologies. However, within this breakthrough lies a danger: it is possible to focus on the thinking behind the technology to such an extent that meaningful distinctions in the world are obscured. In a remark that was originally a part of The Question Concerning Technology, but was later excised (Harries, 1994, p. 233), this danger manifests itself: Agriculture is now a motorized food industryin essence the same as the manufacture of corpses in the gas chambers and extermination campus, the same as the blockading and starvation of nations, the same as the manufacture of hydrogen bombs. (Ferry & Renaut, 1990, p. 71) (Schirmacher, 1983, p. 25) In this remark, Heidegger is trying to point out that challenging-forth into standingreserve is at work in both modern agriculture and the concentration camps. Clearly, however, to say that modern agriculture and the death camps are in essence the same obviates meaningful empirical distinctions and trivializes the signicance of the extermination camps. Rorty notes, Heidegger needed to see everything in our century other than its technologism as mere transitory appearance (1994, p. 36). Another signicant failing of Heideggers philosophy of technology is that the benets of technology are not acknowledged. The hydroelectric dam across the Rhine does improve peoples lives, and, as Rorty (1977, p. 302) points out, the spread of modern technology across the planet has prevented many people from dying of starvation. Yet, despite the fact that Heidegger never acknowledges the benets of technology, he does not urge giving it up: We can say yes to the unavoidable use of technological objects, and we can at the same time say no, insofar as we do not permit them to claim us exclusively and thus to warp, confuse, and nally lay waste to our essence. (1966, p. 54) This smacks of having ones cake and eating it too. Under Heideggers conception, we conveniently say yes to the modern technologies that make our lives so comfortable, while somehow apparently saying no to them as well.
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578 David I. Waddington The greatest difculties with The Question Concerning Technology, however, are technical rather than ideological. Imagine, for example, what a careful, but not particularly sympathetic, analyst might say about each of Heideggers three key notions: Bringing-forththis is an arbitrary, nostalgic notion that involves an impossibility (revealing from pre-existence) and has no grounding in historical fact. Challenging-forth to standing-reservethis is another arbitrary construction, which demonizes technology wholesale and indulges in groundless speculation by asserting that objects (even inanimate objects!) have some kind of mysterious dignity. Ge-stellthis is the most preposterous idea of the three. In addition to being nearly incomprehensible, it entails the ridiculous notion that inscrutable historical determinations of Being are somehow responsible for human actions. Furthermore, if one accepts the speculative connection between the they and Ge-stell, it appears that human beings are trapped in a mindset of destructiona mindset that, paradoxically, absolves the perpetrators of any responsibility for the destruction! In addition to the internal problems of the three notions, none of the three key ideas is established through any systematic form of argument. For the most part, Heidegger simply makes ex-cathedra pronouncements about these three ideas; he might as well be saying, Behold bringing-forth, and Let there be the phenomenon of Ge-stell. Clearly, we must face the recurrent question of whether Heideggers ideas should be discarded. Most people would lean strongly in the direction of discarding the ideas; our common-sense practice in situations like these is to discard ideas that do not adequately correspond to the world. Heideggers theory of technology contains so many implausible notions that it is very difcult to defend it on a correspondence basis. Philosophers of a more post-modern bent might be inclined to defend Heidegger using the criterion of coherence. Since even the most insane religious fanatics can postulate a coherent system, this criterion is highly suspect. However, even if one makes the questionable decision to accept the criterion of coherence, Heideggers theory is not necessarily saved. Although I have interpreted The Question Concerning Technology in such a way as to present Heideggers theory as coherent, Heideggers wandering formulations make other, less coherent, interpretations possible. The best criterion with which to defend Heidegger is neither correspondence nor coherence, but usefulness. If people decided to think in the mode of bringing-forth, and decided not to think in the mode of challenging-forth, much more beauty and happiness might be brought into the world. If more people chose to think that living things and inanimate objects had a certain dignity, the destruction of the earth might begin to draw to a close. And, if people thought that the phenomenon of Ge-stell was a possibility, they might be motivated to examine their own view of the world with a critical eye. Rorty writes of Heidegger, I see the toolbox we have inherited from [Heidegger] as containing a very varied assortment, constructed for various different purposesan assortment in which only some items are still useful. (Rorty, 1994, p. 35)
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A Field Guide to Heidegger 579 The Question Concerning Technology is a toolbox containing three key tools: bringing-forth, challenging-forth to standing-reserve, and Ge-stell. All of these tools are useful: indeed, used properly, they might serve to repair the damaged relationship between human beings and the world. In Republic, Plato writes, if it is appropriate for anyone to use falsehoods for the good of the city it is the rulers (1997, 398b) Some might allege that the preceding defense of Heidegger, on the grounds of usefulness, contains harbingers of indoctrinationhints of the Platonic philosophical elite who tell the noble, educational lie to the masses. Perhaps, however, it is time for philosophers to stop apologizing for advocating the noble lie; a great many lies are already told to the people by elites, and most of these lies are ignoble. Part 3 Heidegger Scholarship in Education When one reads a piece of secondary literature, one hopes to nd clear writing and accurate scholarship. Unfortunately, some of the articles on Heidegger by scholars in education fall short in one or both of these areas. By pointing out the shortcomings of these articles, I hope to offer a justication for the preceding summary and critique. I also aim to provide a helpful guide for those interested in further research in this area. Richard Waltons, Heidegger in the Hands-on Science and Technology Center, is an example of an article with signicant defects. Consider, for example, the following excerpt: This means that, in Heideggers terms, technology is more than the artifacts and activities that form the ontic. It can be spoken of in terms of the mode of truth that is the framework of possibilities which forms the essential nature of technology which is to be revealed and which gives technology its ontological sense. Supercially, this ontology of technology seems to bear some similarity with the platonic notion of the ideal form yet, as Guignon (1993, p. 4) pointed out, a signicant distinction can be drawn between Heideggers substance ontology and the traditional notion of the metaphysics of presence. (Walton, 2000, p. 54) In these three sentences, we see the words / phrases ontic ontological (to give Walton credit, he denes ontic and ontological earlier on), mode of truth, platonic notion of the ideal form, substance ontology, and metaphysics of presence, and Walton is only on the second paragraph of his discussion of Heidegger! Waltons article was published in the Journal of Technology Education, which, presumably, has an audience composed mostly of academics working in technology education. One suspects that these academics might be puzzled by discussions of substance ontology and the metaphysics of presence. Waltons analyses are often somewhat confusedfor example, consider Waltons account of an exhibit at a science center: The exhibits found within such centers represent a special case or category of technological artifact which is designed and built with the
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580 David I. Waddington specic aim of encouraging reection upon its own essence. Of course, in most cases this is only true to a limited extent. An exhibit which demonstrates chaotic motion reveals only a limited set of ideas relating to the nature of the world and in so doing it shows only one way in which technology can be used to frame this idea. But it does show that the idea can be framed. Heidegger uses the term gestell to describe this act of framing, or what he called enframing. (2000, p. 54) I dont think that Ge-stell, which is a sort of meta-phenomenon beyond human control, appropriately describes what is happening when a person constructs an exhibit about chaotic motion. Challenging-forth might be an appropriate description, but it is not clear that challenging-forth is necessarily at work during the construction of an exhibit like this. This sort of confusion is representative of most of Waltons essay, which fails to give an adequate account of Heidegger. Heidegger scholarship is signicantly better within the philosophy of education community. However, some analyses of Heidegger by members of the philosophy of education community contain occasional aws. For example, consider the following paragraphan excerpt from James Marshalls essay, Electronic Writing and the Wrapping of Language: To have a free relationship with technology we cannot come to it with any presuppositionsfor example, that it is neutral. This involves an initial response to technology, before any decision is made as to what it is and, then, how we are to respond to it. For to respond to it we must have grasped certain things about ourselves, about human being, so that we can open ourselves to the essences of both human being and of technology. This must be simultaneous and mutual opening up or recognition, and not a temporal response, for human being and technology are in mutual interrelationship. This is difcult to understand, given traditional philosophical, logicist, positivist and Anglo-Saxon understandings of language and logic and a traditional overt antipathy to metaphysics. (Marshall, 2000, p. 144) There are two signicant problems with this paragraph. First, in a Heideggerian context, it doesnt make sense to talk about approaching technology without presuppositions or before any decision is made as to what it is. The problem is not one of how to make the decision about technology; Heidegger would say that the decision has always already been made. We are already stuck in a particular understanding of technology; the challenge is to become aware of that understanding and to extricate ourselves from it somehow. Second, it is not clear to me how a mutual opening up is possible. Although it is possible to understand Ge-stell as having some kind of agency, I fail to see how the essence of technology can really open itself up. Further to this point, Marshall says that this mutual opening up is not a temporal response. What would it mean for a response to be non-temporal? I do not consider myself a positivist or a person with an overt antipathy to metaphysics in fact, I am deeply sympathetic to much of Heideggers account. Yet, I still nd it difcult to understand what Marshall is saying in this particular paragraph.
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A Field Guide to Heidegger 581 Ilan Gur-Zeevs article Martin Heidegger, Transcendence, and the Possibility of Counter-Education also raises some questions. For example, in a discussion about how things are leveled down to standing-reserve, Gur-Zeev makes the following remark: Within this process, modern science and technology transform man himself into a standing-reserve. Enframing and unconcealment as roads to realizing human freedom are blocked in a manner that does not enable the human to acknowledge and challenge it. (Gur-Zeev, 2002, p. 74) There are several problems with this remark. First, Gur-Zeev introduces the word enframing without any comment. Thus, any readers of Gur-Zeev, who have not already read Heidegger, will be confused by this use of the word. Gur-Zeev compounds this problem by misunderstanding enframing: obviously, enframing (Ge-stell) is not a road to human freedom. Furthermore, since challenging-forth also involves a kind of unconcealment, unconcealment is also not necessarily a road to realizing human freedom. Some of Gur-Zeevs other remarks suffer from similar difculties: In modern Ge-stell, in the humans being framed in modernity as advanced by modern science and technology, human situateness ensures the oblivion of the mission of the human, of life as something more than mere life. But for Heidegger, framing has deeper roots and is not to be reduced to a specic historical situation. It springs from the very fact of situateness of human life, of always living enframed. (Gur-Zeev, 2002, p. 75) Again, Gur-Zeev fails to explain either Ge-stell, framing, or enframing to the reader. And what exactly does it mean that framing has deeper roots and is not to be reduced to a specic historical situation? Gur-Zeev might be making an important point about Being here, but he does not explain this to the reader. Furthermore, it is difcult to understand what Gur-Zeev means when he says that enframing springs from the very fact of situateness of human life. In sum, although Gur-Zeev appears to be quite knowledgeable about Heidegger, he does not always explain Heidegger very well. Indeed, articles like Gur-Zeevs highlight the need for a clear, concise analysis of Heideggers philosophy of technology. There is no denying, however, that there are many excellent essays written on Heidegger by philosophers of education. Paul Standish, Bert Lambeir, and Michael Bonnett have all written insightful articles that I recommend highly. In particular, Bonnetts article, Education in a Destitute Time, is a masterpiece. However, despite the competence of these authors, there is something missing from all of their articles: rigorous, systematic criticism of Heidegger. To give credit where it is due, Standish, in Only Connect, devotes a paragraph to criticizing Heideggers nostalgia (1999, p. 424). In a similar spirit, Bonnett makes the following remark: Clearly, Heidegger here presents us with a critique of the traditional Western metaphysical conception of thinking of a most radical kind, and this itself stands in need of further exploration and critical evaluation. (Bonnett, 1983, p. 26)
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582 David I. Waddington Unfortunately, Bonnett, Lambeir, and Standish have not presented us with further exploration and critical evaluation of this kind. They are in no way blameworthy for this; they simply chose to focus on examining the educational implications of Heideggers philosophy rather than examining its faults. I have chosen the opposite path: I have not commented very much about the educational implications of Heideggers philosophy, choosing instead to focus on solving puzzles in his philosophy and pointing out its shortcomings. However, as Bonnetts comment points out, this is a task that needs to be done. Hopefully, this eld guide will also serve as a tool with which scholars in education, who may have been scared off by Heideggers difcult prose, can now pry open the treasure box of interesting ideas that is The Question Concerning Technology. Indeed, in the introduction, I suggested that this eld guide would set the table for further scholarship on Heidegger within the philosophy of education. Now that I have set the table, readers of this eld guide should make ready the meal by conducting further investigations of the educational implications of Heideggers philosophy of technology.

References
Aristotle (1995) The Complete Works of Aristotle, J. Barnes (ed.) (Princeton, Princeton University Press). Ballard, E. (1971) Heideggers View and Evaluation of Nature and Natural Science, in: J. Sallis (ed.), Heidegger and the Path of Thinking (Pittsburgh, Duquesne University Press), pp. 37 64. Bonnett, M. (1983), Education in a Destitute Time, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 17:1, pp. 21 33. Caterpillar Equipment (28 April 2003), Harvesters, http://cmms.cat.com/cmms/servlet/cat.dcs. cmms.servlet.GetModelSummary?classid=406&langid=en&rgnid=NACD&view =html& prdname=580&prdid=580&familyid=463&subfamilyid=331&dsfFlag=0&subfamilyheader= Harvesters Ferry, L. & Renaut, A. (1990), Heidegger and Modernity, F. Philip (trans.) (Chicago, University of Chicago Press). Guignon, C. B. (1993) Introduction, in: C. B. Guignon (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), pp. 142. Gur-Zeev, I. (2002) Heidegger, Transcendence, and the Possibility of Counter-Education, in: M. Peters (ed.), Heidegger, Education, and Modernity (Lanham, Rowman and Littleeld), pp. 65 80. Harries, K. (1994) Philosophy, Politics, Technology, in: K. Harries & C. Jamme (eds), Martin Heidegger: Politics, Art, and Technology (New York, Holmes and Meier), pp. 225245. Heidegger, M. (1996) Being and Time, trans. J. Stambaugh (Albany, SUNY Press). Heidegger, M. (1966) Discourse on Thinking, J. M. Anderson and E. H. Freund (trans.) (New York, Harper and Row). Heidegger, M. (1977) The Question Concerning Technology, in: The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, W. Lovitt (trans.) (New York, Harper and Row), pp. 3 35. Heidegger, M. (1971) The Thing, in: Poetry, Language, Thought, A. Hofstadter (trans.) (New York, Harper and Row), pp. 165 182. Heidegger, M. (1977) The Word of Nietzsche, in: The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, W. Lovitt (trans.) (New York, Harper and Row), pp. 53112.
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Jamme, C. (1994) The Loss of Things: Cezanne, Rilke, Heidegger, in: K. Harries & C. Jamme (eds), Martin Heidegger: Politics, Art, and Technology (New York, Holmes and Meier), pp. 139 153. Lambeir, B. (2002) Comfortably Numb in the Digital Era: Mans being as standing-reserve or dwelling silently, in: M. Peters (ed.), Heidegger, Education, and Modernity (Lanham, Rowman and Littleeld), pp. 103 122. Lovitt, W. (1972) A Gesprach with Heidegger on Technology, Man and World, 6:1, pp. 4462. Marshall, J. (2000), Electronic Writing and the Wrapping of Language, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 34:1, pp. 135 150. Plato (1997) Complete Works, J. Cooper (ed.) (Indianapolis, Hackett). Pggeler, O. (1996) Does the Saving Power also grow? Heideggers last paths, in: C. McCann (ed.), Critical Heidegger (London, Routledge), pp. 206226. Rorty, R. (1994) Another Possible World, in: K. Harries & C. Jamme (eds) Martin Heidegger: Politics, Art, and Technology (New York: Holmes and Meier), pp. 3440. Rorty, R. (1977), Overcoming the Tradition: Heidegger and Dewey, Review of Metaphysics, 30:2, pp. 280 305. Sallis, J. (1971) Toward the Movement of Reversal: Science, technology, and the language of homecoming, in: J. Sallis (ed.), Heidegger and the Path of Thinking (Pittsburgh, Duquesne University Press), pp. 138 168. Schirmacher, W. (1983) Technik und Gelassenheit (Freiburg, Alber). Standish, P. (1999), Only Connect: Computer literacy from Heidegger to cyberfeminism, Educational Theory, 49:4, pp. 417 435. Walton, R. (2000), Heidegger in the Hands-On Science and Technology Center: Philosophical reections on learning in informal settings, Journal of Technology Education, 12:1, pp. 49 60. Winograd, T. (1995) Heidegger and the Design of Computer Systems, in: A. Feenberg & A. Hanney (eds), Technology and the Politics of Knowledge (Bloomington, Indiana University Press), pp. 108 127. Zimmerman, M. (1977) Beyond Humanism: Heideggers understanding of technology, Listening, 12:3, pp. 74 83. Zimmerman, M. (1990), Heideggers Confrontation with Modernity: Technology, politics, and art (Bloomington, Indiana University Press).

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