The Essence of Technology

• The essence of technology can be captured in its definition.

• Two widely embraced definitions of technology:
1. Instrumental definition: Technology is a means to an end.
2. Anthropological definition: Technology is a human activity.
• Both definitions, i.e., instrumental and anthropological, are correct.
• Neither touches on the true essence of technology.
Technology as a Way of Revealing
• The true can only be pursued through the correct.
• Technology as a way of revealing-a mode of 'bringing forth.'
• Bringing forth can be understood through the Ancient Greek
philosophical concept, poiesis, which refers to the act of bringing
something out of concealment.
• The truth is understood through another Ancient Greek concept of
aletheia, which is translated as unclosedness, unconcealedness,
disclosure, or truth.
Technology as a Way of Revealing
• Technology is a form of poeisis-a way of revealing that unconceals
aletheia or the truth.
• Techne, the Greek root word of technology, is understood in different
contexts.
1. In philosophy, techne resembles the term episteme that refers to
the human ability to make and perform.
2. Techne also encompasses knowledge and understanding.
3. In art, it refers to tangible and intangible aspects of life.
4. The Greeks understood techne encompassing craft, acts of the
mind, and poetry.
Technology as Poiesis: Does Modern Technology Bring
Forth or Challenge Forth?
• The challenging forth of modern technology is seen everywhere:
1. in the rise and depletion of petroleum as a strategic resource;
2. the introduction and use of synthetic dyes,
3. artificial flavorings,
4. toxic materials into the consumer stream that bring about adverse
effects on human health;
5. the use of ripening agents in agriculture that poses threats to food
safety and health security.
Enframing as Modern Technology's Way of Revealing

• way of revealing of modern technology by considering it as a process

enframing.
• Humankind's desire to control everything, including nature, is
captured in this process.
• By putting things, in this case nature, in a frame, it becomes much
easier for humans to control it according to their desires.
Enframing as Modern Technology's Way of Revealing
• Enframing is akin to two ways of looking at the world: calculative
thinking and meditative thinking.
• In calculative thinking, humans desire to put an order to nature to
better understand and control it.
• In meditative thinking, humans allow nature to reveal itself to them
without the use of force or violence.
• calculative thinking tends to be more commonly utilized, primarily
because humans' desire to control due to their fear of irregularity.
Enframing as Modern Technology's Way of Revealing

• Enframing, then, is a way of ordering (or framing) nature to

better manipulate it.
• Enframing happens because of how humans desire for
security, even if it puts all of nature as a standing reserve
ready for exploitation.
• Modern technology challenges humans to enframe nature.
Enframing as Modern Technology's Way of Revealing
• Thus, humans become part of the standing reserve and an instrument
of technology, to be exploited in the ordering of nature.
• The role humans take as instruments of technology through
enframing is called destining.
• In destining, humans are challenged forth by enframing to reveal
what is real. However, this destining of humans to reveal nature
carries with it the danger of misconstruction or misinterpretation.
The Dangers of Technology
• The dangers of technology lie in how humans let themselves be
consumed by it.
• Although humans are looped into the cycle of bringing forth or
challenging forth, it is their responsibility to recognize how they
become instruments of technology.
The Dangers of Technology
• Recognizing its dangers of technology requires critical and reflective
thinking on its use. For example, social media has indeed connected
people in the most efficient and convenient way imaginable, but it
also inadvertently gave rise to issues such as invasion of
privacy, online disinhibition, and proliferation of fake news. The line
has to be drawn between what constitutes a beneficial use of social
media and a dangerous one. As exemplified, social media comes with
both benefit and drawbacks.
The Dangers of Technology
• However, the real threat of technology comes from its essence. not its
activities or products. The correct response to the danger of
technology is not simply dismissing technology altogether. Heidegger
(1977) explained that people are delivered over to technology in the
worst possible way when they regard it as something neutral. This
conception of technology, according to Heidegger, to which today
humans particularly like to pay homage, makes them utterly blind to
the essence of technology. Ultimately, the essence of technology is by
no means anything technological (Heidegger, 1977).
Art as the Saving Power
• Because the essence of technology is nothing technological, essential
reflection upon technology and decisive confrontation with it must
happen in a realm that is, on the one hand, akin to the essence of
technology and, on the other, fundamentally different from it. Such a
realm is art. But certainly only if reflection on art, for its part, does not
shut its eyes to the constellation of truth after which we are
questioning (1977, p. 19).
Questioning as the Piety of Thought
• Questioning is the piety of thought. It is only through questioning that
humans are able to reassess their position not only in the midst of
technology around them, but also, and most importantly, in the grand
scheme of things. Heidegger posited that it is through questioning
that humans bear witness to the crises that a complete preoccupation
with technology brings, preventing them from experiencing the
essence of technology.
• Thus, humans need to take a step back and reassess who they were,
who they are, and who they are becoming in the midst of technology
in this day and age.