“Overcoming the Destining

Of Technological Being”

Presented by: Craig A. Condella

Fall 2001 Symposium:

“Humanity’s Place in the Cosmos”

November 6, 2001

Introduction – The Cosmos’s Place in Humanity

What is humanity’s place in the cosmos? At the dawning of the twenty-first century, this question has no doubt come to mean something vastly different than it had at the turn of the last century. With science’s ever-expanding notion of the size of the universe comes not only a sense of wonder, but a feeling of insignificance as well. If space is indeed as large as we have now come to believe, how important is man in the grand scheme of things? Is it not likely that intelligent life exists somewhere else in the universe and, if so, may it not actually be much more intelligent than we? Such questions, of course, are relatively new in the history of man and owe much, if not all, to the advent of modern science. By continually redefining the scope of the universe, modern science forces us to rethink the question of humanity’s place in the cosmos. We have certainly come a long way from Ptolemy.

Let us not forget, however, that there were no less than two Copernican revolutions (at least if Kant has any say in the matter). The irony of humanity’s current situation emerges when one realizes that modern science’s boundless portrait of the universe was originally enabled by the reduction to a single, Archimedean point – a point otherwise known as the human subject. Descartes’ discovery of the cogito followed by his systematic rebuilding of the empirical world offered an altogether newfangled universe. Nature would no longer be conceived within an Aristotelian framework, but would instead exist primarily as a subject of mathematics. Now while this transformation of nature did much to further the scientific revolution and thus alter our conception of the universe, perhaps just as interesting is the change which took place in regard to the human subject. With Descartes and subsequently Kant, man as the knowing subject becomes, in an important sense, the center of the universe. It is the subject who thereafter determines the truth. It is the subject who establishes certainty. It is the subject who grounds modern science. It is the subject towards which all is aimed. As a result, nature is transformed from something that persists primarily on its own, over if not against man, to something that is first and foremost for man, thus subject to all his wants, wishes, whims, and desires. With modernity, then, the question of humanity’s place in the cosmos more appropriately emerges as the question of the cosmos’s place in humanity.

In the last half of the twentieth century, the detrimental effects of the scientific revolution and its resultant industrial and technological revolutions began to be definitively felt with respect to the environment. Encouragingly enough, we have taken steps in trying to preserve the world in which we live over the past few decades, but most of us would agree that we still have a long way to go. In lieu of discussing particular environmental concerns and possible solutions, I would presently like to take a step back for a moment with an eye towards attaining a better understanding of the mentality that has pitted man against nature rather than simply in it. In doing so, I will first examine the situation in which we currently find ourselves by way of Martin Heidegger’s 1953 lecture entitled “The Question Concerning Technology.” Herein we shall find that technology, as Heidegger sees it, has become the fundamental way of our dealing with the world. That said, I will take seriously Heidegger’s claim that a certain destining is at work at the heart of modern technology and thereby delve back into the beginning of the modern era in an attempt to locate early indications of this destining. In doing so, I believe that we will find a conception of nature which is markedly and importantly different from the Aristotelian view which had previously dominated for centuries. I will thus conclude that something can be gained from Aristotle’s view of the cosmos which inherently respects nature and thereby opens the way to an environmental philosophy not based primarily within the human subject.

The Age of Technological Being

There is little doubt that we become increasingly immersed within a technological culture with each passing day. From computers to cell phones, microwaves to palm pilots, fax machines to DVD players, technology pervades nearly every part of our lives. We use it at work. We use it to communicate. We use it to travel. We even use it for entertainment. Nearly everything we do involves some sort of technology. In fact, most of us would be entirely lost without it. Modern technology has made our lives easier, more efficient, more comfortable and generally more enjoyable. It may seem surprising, then, that Heidegger identifies modern technology as the principal danger of our time. If, however, we consider all that modern technology has made possible, we quickly realize that along with all the conveniences come just as many dangers, with instruments of war and mass destruction being the most notable, though certainly not the only, examples. Interestingly enough, however, Heidegger does not principally identify the danger of modern technology with what it does, or at least can, produce.[1] Rather, he sees the danger of modern technology at work in its very essence – a thesis certainly worthy of consideration.

Heidegger asserts that the essence of technology is nothing technological. In making this somewhat paradoxical claim, Heidegger rejects what he calls the instrumental or anthropological definition of technology, which reduces technology as a whole to a particular instantiation of it. In other words, to define technology instrumentally is to identify it as a means towards an end.[2] Now while individual technological devices are rightfully defined as means (for what are technological things, after all, if not instruments or tools?), Heidegger warns that we should in no way confuse the essence of technology as a whole with the essence of any single technological thing. In fact, it is precisely to the extent that we misconstrue technology as something technological that we give rise to the illusion that we ourselves can control it, a notion whose misguidedness is matched only by its implicit danger.

What, then, is the essence of technology? In searching for an answer to this all-important question, Heidegger (as he so often does) looks back to the ancient Greeks to locate techne as a form of poiesis, i.e. a bringing-forth. It is a way of bringing something forth from concealment to unconcealment. Technology, simply put, is a mode of revealing which brings something into presence.[3] As a form of revealing or unconcealment, technology evinces itself fundamentally as a happening of truth – an occurrence referred to by the Greeks as aletheia.[4] In sum, the essence of technology is a bringing-forth from concealment to unconcealment and, consequently, an occasioning of truth. Curiously enough, nothing overtly dangerous emerges from the essence of technology as identified by Heidegger, but then again why should it? After all, nothing about the ancient Greek notion of techne, which included the fine arts no less than the works of the craftsman, strikes us as straightaway threatening. For Heidegger, then, the Greek notion of techne allows us to grasp technology’s essence, but not the danger which we presently encounter. To find the latter, we must determine what it is exactly that makes the technology of modernity so unique.

According to Heidegger, “The revealing that rules in modern technology is a challenging, which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy which can be extracted and stored as such.”[5] Herein we encounter the essence of modern technology as a challenging-forth, along with its rendering of nature as standing-reserve. With modern technology, the bringing-forth of techne is fundamentally transformed into a challenging-forth. What modern technology challenges can be see as twofold. First, and perhaps more obvious, is its challenging of nature. Modern technology essentially transforms nature into an energy source which it manipulates and uses at its own discretion. Nature, at the hands of modern technology, is reduced to Bestand (standing-reserve).[6] Beyond even this challenging, however, are the demands placed upon man who, put simply, is challenged-forth into the challenging of nature. Heidegger calls this challenging-forth of man to order nature as standing-reserve Ge-stell (enframing) and thus locates the essence of modern technology outside of human control.

Modern technology, as a revealing that orders, is thus no mere human doing. Therefore we must take the challenging that sets upon man to order the actual as standing-reserve in accordance with the way it shows itself. That challenging gathers man into ordering. This gathering concentrates man upon ordering the actual as standing-reserve.[7]

In the end, modern technology as Ge-stell creates a situation in which man orders nature and thus posits himself as “lord of the earth” when, in all reality, he himself is being ordered in just the same way.[8] Within such a situation, man becomes blind to all other modes of revealing outside of the technological. He sees nature as existing fundamentally for him while being driven by a power greater than himself, a power which not only distorts nature but obfuscates man’s understanding of his own self. With modern technology, man is hoodwinked into believing that he fulfills his true essence to the very extent that he dominates his surroundings. Whereas man prides himself on using technology to his own advantage, it is modern technology which, in all reality, uses man. Not until we see modern technology as something outside of our control can we even begin to overcome the danger harbored within its very essence.

The Destining of Technological Being

Despite the fact that modern technology, as Heidegger sees it, does not manifest itself until the second half of the eighteenth century, he contends that the technological form of thinking began more than a hundred years earlier with the modern scientific revolution.[9] There is, then, a certain inevitability with regard to technological being. Once modern science set it into motion, it could not seemingly be stopped. Such a notion illustrates that, for Heidegger, modern technology is not only a challenging-forth. It is a destining as well. As a destining, modern technology sends man on to an experience of being which seemingly leaves room for nothing other than challenging-forth. Once Ge-stell takes hold, man no longer sees nature as distinctly other. Rather, he conceives of nature as being for himself, thereby having no other recourse than to order it as Bestand. How, then, are we to recover other forms of revealing seeing as we are already deeply immersed within an age of technological being? In the hope of offering a possible solution, I would like to hearken back to the beginnings of modernity, to a time when the destining had not yet taken hold. In doing so, I believe we can locate a certain setting-forth of the destining of Ge-stell and thus recover a human element at work in technological being which in no way exists today. If the problem of modernity is technology’s monopoly on revealing, any possible solution must somehow get outside of a technological mindset. With a view towards doing precisely this, I turn now to the onset of modernity.

Though Galileo, Descartes, and Newton certainly did much more in instantiating the science of modernity, it was Francis Bacon who perhaps best envisioned what a new science could accomplish. For Bacon, all knowledge should be oriented towards practice. All thinking should be aimed towards a doing. As he states in The New Organon, “Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.”[10] Nature, simply put, must be understood if it is to be controlled. We must come to know the causes at work in nature if we are to produce the effects that we desire. That said, it may be fair to ask whether or not we do, in fact, want to master nature. For Bacon, the answer to such a question is obvious. Man’s highest endeavor, as conceived by Bacon, is “to establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race over the universe.”[11] Humanity’s place in the cosmos, as Bacon would have it, is to have dominion over all. He no longer wants man to be at nature’s mercy. Instead, he wants nature to be at man’s mercy, a reversal which rests essentially upon the founding of a new science, a science which learns only to command.

Bacon dreams of the sciences creating a “kingdom of man” which will not be unlike the “kingdom of heaven.”[12] In The New Atlantis, he even gives us a picture of what such a society might look like. Now while Baconian science never really took hold, the same cannot be said of the “kingdom of man” which he envisioned. In time, man would indeed take his allegedly rightful place as the master of the universe, a position from which he could challenge nature forth in the way he so desired. To this extent, Bacon can clearly be identified as one who set forth the destining of technological being. “Our main object,” says Bacon, “is to make nature serve the business and conveniences of man.”[13] What Bacon lacked in scientific ingenuity, he certainly compensated for with his vision of what science could someday allow man to be.

Bacon’s dream of a kingdom of man needed a reconceptualization of both man and nature. To these ends enter Descartes, who not only put the human subject at the center of the universe but who also transformed nature primarily into a subject amenable to modern science. In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes pushes doubt to the extreme, thereby establishing the one undeniable truth upon which all other knowledge will be built, the thinking self.[14] With the cogito, Descartes finds his Archimedean point, the point from which he can move the world. Man, as the thinking subject, is now firmly implanted at the center of all things. Everything established as true after the cogito is true for him. Everything passes through the human subject. How easy it thus becomes to think of nature as being for man since everything, in a significant sense, is established secondarily. In his Meditations, Descartes provides the vehicle by which Bacon’s dream can become a reality.

Along with Descartes’ rethinking of the human subject comes a new concept of nature. The world initially brought into doubt by Descartes in his Meditations is not the same world that he eventually brings back. The world of Meditation One is the world of Aristotle. Conversely, the world of Meditation Six is the world of modern science. It is, in other words, the subject of mathematics. For Descartes, the future of science lay in mathematics (a belief which history, of course, would prove insightful). He envisions mathesis universalis as a “general science which explains all the points that can be raised concerning order and measure irrespective of the subject matter.” Insofar as it “covers everything,” we would be right in thinking of all the other sciences as “branches of mathematics.”[15] Descartes, therefore, sees math as pervading all scientific inquiry. Now what allows him to do this is his conception of nature as fundamentally mathematizable. Corporeal nature, as it resurfaces in the Meditations, is first and foremost the subject-matter of pure mathematics.[16] It is precisely this depiction of nature which allows science, in the form of modern physics, to lay hold of it as something quantifiable and therefore something which can be better understood. Descartes’ redefinition of nature paves the way for the scientific revolution of modernity.

With Descartes, then, we are offered a new vision of nature which readily lends itself to the essentially mathematical science of modernity. Descartes thusly provides the science for which Bacon so desperately sought. That said, though Descartes’ scientific method did indeed differ from Bacon’s, both men seemed to share the same dream. Not unlike Bacon, Descartes felt that the knowledge attained through science would have a good deal of practical import. Once again, we seek to know nature in order to command it. In his Discourse on the Method, Descartes talks about using scientific knowledge for the betterment of mankind. For Descartes, this is a move away from speculative philosophy to a philosophy that is by all accounts more practical.

Through this [more practical] philosophy we could know the power and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens and all the other bodies in our environment, as distinctly as we know the various crafts of our artisans; and we could use this knowledge – as the artisans use theirs – for all the purposes for which it is appropriate, and thus make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.[17]

By now, the notion of human beings as “the lords and masters of nature” should ring hauntingly in our ears. Such a positing is precisely the danger which Heidegger warns us of. Modern technology, as Ge-stell, challenges us forth to order nature as standing-reserve. As a result, we ourselves are challenged-forth, and yet are deceived into thinking of ourselves as the lords of the earth. Such thinking, as we now see, was present at the very outset of modernity. Both Bacon and Descartes sought a science which would give man dominion over nature. That modern technology manifests itself in the same type of thinking should come as no surprise. Though modern technology may indeed be a destining over which we now have no control, it is a destining originally set into motion by the exalted founders of modernity. What became for Heidegger the worst of all nightmares was, at one time, the greatest of all dreams.

The Circumventing of Technological Being

In locating the setting forth of modern technology in the cock-crows of modernity, I believe that we may begin to recover what has been lost in regard to our understanding of nature. As mentioned above, what the world lost with the onset of modern science was the Aristotelian conception of the universe. Now to suggest that we return to Aristotelian science would not only be ridiculous, but altogether irresponsible. That said, I do believe that something valuable can be gained from Aristotle’s notion of nature, something which may help us break out of an understanding of nature as standing-reserve.

Aristotelian science is based largely on the four causes: the material (“that out of which as thing comes to be and which persists”), the efficient (“the primary source of the change or rest”), the formal (“the definition of the essence”), and the final (“that for the sake of which a thing is done”).[18] Though much time could be devoted to a discussion of these causes, what I want presently to focus on is Bacon’s reception of them. As Bacon sees it, formal and final causation must be eliminated altogether from physics, whose focus should be exclusively on material and efficient causation. In regard to form, Bacon says that “Matter rather than forms should be the object of our attention, its configuration and changes of configuration, and simple action, and law of action or motion; for forms are figments of the human mind, unless you will call those laws of action forms.”[19] Formal causes, then, are basically the products of man’s imagination. They are illusory, imaginary, in no way real. Likewise stand final causes, which “have relation clearly to the nature of man rather than to the nature of the universe.“[20] For science to move forward, Bacon feels that it must abandon its search for formal and final causes and search instead for material and efficient causes, which as received are “slight and superficial,” “contribut[ing] little, if anything, to true and active science.”[21] Nature, as conceived by Bacon, is nothing other than individual bodies performing individual acts. Any reference to form or telos does nothing but confuse scientific inquiry and, therefore, must straightaway be done away with. Bacon, truth be told, has lost all patience with Aristotelian science.

If Bacon can be said to have anticipated anything in regard to modern science, it would indeed be its elimination of formal and final causation.[22] Modern physics, after all, deals with force vectors and matter (small though it may be). In Aristotelian language, the science of modernity concerns itself with efficient and material causation. The formal and final have become altogether non-existent. As a result, Aristotle’s concept of nature has been lost, but with what effect? Certainly, science has achieved a higher degree of certainty. Furthermore, it has had the practical import which the early moderns had so optimistically dreamt of. And yet, has not something important been at the same time lost? In my opinion, it certainly has. As Aristotle had it, nature was a cause unto itself.[23] Natural things acted according to their form.[24] They move toward their proper end.[25] Nature, in short, was essentially teleological. With modernity, science’s depiction of nature fundamentally changes. Nature is no longer an end in itself. Rather, it is a series of efficient causes which act upon matter. Such a conception, as I see it, facilitates the challenging-forth of nature which modern technology forces upon man. A nature robbed of its teleological status – that is to say a nature devoid of formal and final causation – is a nature which can be molded towards any end which we, the masters of the earth, now see fit. Modern science, in other words, allows us to become the prime movers in a world now determined entirely by the causa efficiens. Whereas nature was its own end in Aristotelian science, its end has now come to coincide with our own.

In coming to understand the Aristotelian universe, it is my belief that we may be able to at least partly recover a notion of nature as intrinsically teleological. Modern science’s obliteration of formal and final causation has done much in enabling the destining of technological being. Without the notion of nature as standing on its own, man’s ordering of nature as standing-reserve becomes that much easier. If, then, we can somehow restore nature to its former place, if we can once again conceive of it as an end in itself, we may be able to see nature not primarily as something for us, but rather for itself. Then, and only then, can we break out of the challenging-forth which now not only sets upon nature, but which sets upon ourselves as well. Only by freeing nature can we truly free ourselves.

Conclusion – Towards a New Environmental Philosophy

Contemporary ethical discussions in regard to the environment often take on the form of future generation arguments. We should preserve the environment, they say, for the benefit of those who come after us. Now while such arguments may be admirable, they do not, I believe, adequately break away from the mentality which has caused all the problems in the first place. Saying that we should take measures in preserving the environment for the good of those who come after us runs the risk of still treating nature as standing-reserve. We hold off challenging-forth now so that we may challenge-forth later. As long as such a mentality holds sway, we can in no way overcome the destining of technological being.

That environmental issues have surfaced over the last few decades should come as no surprise, especially given the plan laid out by the early moderns. By eradicating any notion of teleology in regard to nature, we have robbed it of its very identity, with the result that it has now begun to assert itself back upon us. If we are to deal responsibly with nature, we must break out of our technological way of thinking and allow nature to stand, not for us, but for itself. Until then, the question of humanity’s place in the cosmos will remain primarily a question about the cosmos’s place in humanity.

Works Cited

Aristotle. Physics. The Complete Works of Aristotle. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Trans. R.P.

Hardie and R.K. Gaye. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1995.

Aristotle. On the Heavens. The Complete Works of Aristotle. Ed. Jonathan Barnes.

Trans. J.L. Stocks. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1995.

Bacon, Francis. New Atlantis and The Great Instauration. Ed. Jerry Weinberger.

Wheeling, Ill: Harlan Davidson, 1989.

Bacon, Francis. The New Organon. Ed. Fulton H. Anderson. New York: Macmillan,

1960.

Descartes, Rene. Discourse on the Method. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes.

Trans. Robert Stoothoff. New York: Cambridge UP, 1997.

Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. The Philosophical Writings of

Descartes. Trans. John Cottingham. New York: Cambridge UP, 1997.

Descartes, Rene. Rules for the Direction of the Mind. The Philosophical Writings of

Descartes. Trans. Dugald Murdoch. New York: Cambridge UP, 1997.

Heidegger, Martin. “The Question Concerning Technology.” Basic Writings. Ed. David

Krell. Trans. William Lovitt. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1993.

[1] “The threat to man does not come in the first instance from the potentially lethal machines and apparatus of technology. The actual threat has already afflicted man in his essence.” Heidegger, Martin. “The Question Concerning Technology.” 333.

[3] “Technology is therefore no mere means. Technology is a way of revealing.” Heidegger. 318.

[6] Heidegger. 322. As an example of Bestand, Heidegger references the Rhine River. Once set upon by the hydroelectric plant, the Rhine no longer stands primarily as a river. Instead, it principally becomes a power supply, i.e. a source of energy that can be stored and distributed at will.

[9] Among other statements, Heidegger claims that “Modern physics is the herald of enframing, a herald whose provenance is still unknown.” Heidegger. 327. The basic idea is that modern technology’s essence was present before modern technological devices began themselves to emerge. Modern technology, for Heidgger, holds sway over modern science. It is the former, in a sense, which drives the latter.

[13] Bacon. NO. 180. As a result, Bacon sees no harm in bending nature to our own will. In regard to experimentation, he says that we should study nature “under constraint and vexed; that is to say, when by art and the hand of man she is forced out of her natural state, and squeezed and moulded.” The Great Instauration. 28.

[14] Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. AT 25.

[15] Descartes, Rene. Rules for the Direction of the Mind. AT 378.

[16] In recovering the world as it were in Meditation Six, Descartes first comes to know that physical things “are capable of existing, in so far as they are the subject-matter of pure mathematics, since I perceive them clearly and distinctly.” Descartes. Med. AT 71.

[17] Descartes, Rene. Discourse on the Method. AT 62.

[22] Descartes likewise expresses a desire to eliminate final causation from scientific study. When considering the incomprehensible nature of God in Meditation Four, Descartes essentially says that to claim knowledge of final causation is to claim knowledge of God’s intentions. Thus, says Descartes, “I consider the customary search for final causes to be totally useless in physics; there is considerable rashness in thinking myself capable of investigating the <impenetrable> purposes of God.” Med. AT 55.

[23] Aristotle. Physics. (192b 21-23), (199b 32), (200b 12).

[25] Aristotle. De Caelo. (276b 29-31), (277a 21-27), (277b 14-23).