Institute for Hermeneutic Phenomenology Summer 2011 Syllabus

Andrew J. Mitchell Emory University andrew.j.mitchell@emory.edu

The Thing and Technology: An Introduction to Late Heidegger

This course will consist of a close reading of Heidegger's four part lecture cycle, Insight Into That Which Is: The Bremen Lectures. These lectures present the most detailed and sustained analysis of contemporary technology to be found anywhere in Heideggers work, addressing the philosophical (ontological) consequences of a world given over to the predominance of technology. Heidegger finds technology to be more than a matter of labor-saving devices but an approach to the world that is driven by the will and seeks to convert that world into so many commodities immediately at its disposal. Under the reign of technology, Heidegger argues, everything comes to exist as ready for order, deliverable, and replaceable. Heideggers most poignant considerations of commodity culture are contained in these pages. Alongside this analysis, however, Heidegger also ventures a thinking of the thing as a unique mode of existence that would escape the replaceability endemic to the era of technology. Things exist as relational entities that occupy particular places within the world and whose specificity and uniqueness resists commodification. Insight Into That Which Is concludes with the attempt to think these two orders, the technological and the thingly, together. In so doing it powerfully formulates a basic tension that will motivate Heideggers thinking for the rest of his career, first brought to fruition in these pages with a clarity and poignancy that is striking even to readers already familiar with Heideggers thinking. The Bremen lectures are of unparalleled importance for understanding the later Heidegger and there is no better introduction to his later thought than these lectures. They are his first emergence back into public life after the Second World War (delivered at the private Club zu Bremen while under a teaching ban imposed by the French authorities) and mark a new era in his thought. They give the lie to popular misconceptions that Heidegger would be antitechnology and would only criticize technology without offering any alternatives of his own. In these pages, Heidegger offers his fullest attempt to think a world apart from the strictures of technology and give a positive account of an alternate manner of existence in his thinking of the thing. The profundity of the lectures lies in the fact that Heidegger will not simply juxtapose these as opposites, but understands each as always tied to the other. There is no sheerly singular thing, there is no complete technological devastation, there is always only fragile and endangered things charging us with the responsibility of their maintenance.

COURSE TEXTS

Heidegger, Martin. Insight Into That Which Is: Bremen Lectures. Trans. Andrew J. Mitchell. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Forthcoming.
DAILY SCHEDULE

Day 1 Monday, June 20 Text: Heidegger, Martin. Insight Into That Which Is, Lecture 1: The Thing Overview: The 1949 Bremen lectures mark Heideggers first speaking engagement after World War Two. They took place while Heidegger was under a teaching ban issued by the French authorities that lasted until 1951 (at which time Heidegger returned to Freiburg for the lecture course What Is Called Thinking?). Here Heidegger debuts a new philosophical vocabulary and basic tension that will remain with him for the rest of his career. In this first lecture, Heidegger turns his attention to the simple things around us to understand the way that they exist. He calls it essencing or the thinging of the thing. The thing is not a term for any object whatsoever, but instead names a particular way of being in the world. Heideggers consideration of the fourfold (a term first used in this lecture) ensures that we think the thing not as an objective entity encapsulated in itself, but instead see things in terms of the relations they hold with the rest of the world. In this lecture, then, we can see how things, too, participate in the worlding of the world. This is no longer a privilege for Dasein alone, as in Being and Time, but a new consideration of the things of the world essencing in a singular and unique fashion. Reading Questions: The Reference: What is the role of the reference with which the lecture cycle begins? What are we being referred to and what is its import? Distance and Nearness: why does Heidegger emphasize distance so much in these reflections? What kind of distance is he talking about and what is its relation to nearness? Thing and Object: Heidegger distinguishes the thing as he understands it from the idea of an object (German: Gegenstand). How would you characterize this distinction? Are There Things? What does Heidegger mean by his claim (repeated in the notes to the lecture) that the thing has never had a chance to essence? What then are things?

Pouring: why does Heidegger distinguish between libation and oblation in considering the pouring capacity of the jug? Is outpouring something unique to vessels or do other things participate in this pouring? If so, in what ways? Fourfold: What is the connection between the fourfold and the thing? What does each element contribute to our understanding of the thing? Why do you think there are four elements and not a different number? Is it necessary that there be four, these four, or is it an arbitrary decision on Heideggers part, or something else entirely? Mirror-play: in what is perhaps the lectures most difficult thought, Heidegger presents a mirror-play as operative at the heart of the thing. What is the importance of this mirroring and what are its consequences for our thinking of the thing? Supplementary Readings: These texts all develop further Heideggers thinking of the thing and the fourfold. The published version of The Thing differs slightly from the lecture version of the Bremen lectures: Heidegger, A Letter to a Young Student. Heidegger, Building Dwelling Thinking. Heidegger, The Thing. Mitchell, The Fourfold.

Day 2 Tuesday, June 21 Text: Heidegger, Martin. Insight Into That Which Is, Lecture 2: Positionality Overview: The second lecture in the cycle moves from a thinking of the thing to address the question of technology. Technology will come to be seen as a threat to the existence of the thing. Where the thing exists singularly (uniquely), Heidegger understands technology to be a driving force seeking to render everything replaceable. The notion of standing reserve indicates just such a replaceable commodity. This tension between singularity and replaceability, the thinging of the thing and the fouring of the fourfold vs. the orderable replaceability of the technological standing reserve will remain determinative for the late thought of Heidegger. There is no relation in Heideggers later work more important than this between the thing and standing reserve. This lecture is the first occurrence of Heideggers thinking of technology in terms of standing reserve (Bestand) and positionality (Gestell). Some of the material in this lecture was later adopted into the essay The Question Concerning Technology (1953) but by no means all of it. Heideggers distinction

between being (Sein) and beyng (Seyn), for example, is elided in that later text (as it is in the published version of The Turn as well). As such, the lecture Positionality provides the richest and fullest account of Heideggers thinking of technology. As a side note, this connection between the thing and technology was largely lost when the early English translators of Heidegger decided to divide up his essays topically (in the volumes Poetry, Language, Thought and The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays), taking them out of their original contexts. Reading Questions: Concernful approach: Heidegger emphasizes the concernful approach of things. This term is the translation of the German angehen, which names something that goes to us or concerns us (addresses us, we might say). What does and what does not concernfully approach us? Standing Reserve (Bestand): the standing reserve is paradoxically in constant motion. Why does it circulate? How can it be said to be distanceless? What is the main distinction you see between the thing, the object, and the standing reserve? Placing (Stellen): In Heideggers analysis of technology, the German term stellen, to place, position, put, plays a critical role. How does it come into play, why is it so important, and what is its role for the Ancient Greeks? Imposition: Heidegger diagnoses technology as effecting a challenge upon the things of the world. Things are imposed upon and challenged forth to show themselves in particular ways. Throughout the text, Heidegger offers chains of imposed transformations. What is the culminating point for these transformations and why? Requisitioning (Bestellen): A central aspect of technology for Heidegger is requisitioning. This names the orderability (Bestellbarkeit) and ordering (bestellen) of all that is. How do you understand the action of requisitioning? How is it related to the notion of replaceability? Positionality (Gestell): Heidegger is clear that he does not want one of the central terms of his thinking of technology, positionality, to be understood in terms of a frame (as per earlier English translations). What is problematic in thinking it in terms of an enframing? How are we to think of positionality instead? Piece and part: Heideggers distinction between piece and part is one of the things from this lecture omitted in the technology essay of 1953. How would you characterize this distinction and do you see it operative elsewhere in Heideggers thinking?

The Humans Role: How are humans involved in the technological processes diagnosed by Heidegger (in requisitioning, for instance)? What do the examples of the forester and the radio listener show? Why does Heidegger insist that the human can never become a machine? Science, technology, and nature: what is the relationship between technology and nature? between science and technology? between science and nature? What bearing do these reflections on nature have for the understanding of our predicament today? Why is Heidegger insistent that he is not doing a philosophy of technology? Supplementary Readings: These texts reflect Heideggers earlier and later views on technology and science. Notice the shift away from concerns over objectification and representation in this selection from the Contributions to Philosophy (1936-38) and in The Age of the World Picture (1938) to those of replacement and ordering in the 1969 seminar. Heidegger, Propositions about Science. Heidegger, The Age of the World Picture. Heidegger, Seminar in Le Thor 1969.

Day 3 Wednesday, June 22 Text: Heidegger, Martin. Insight Into That Which Is, Lecture 3: The Danger Overview: With this essay we reach the heart of Heideggers Bremen lectures. The Danger was never published independently of the cycle (and thus its first publication even in German was only in 1994). Here Heidegger continues his interrogation of positionality (Gestell) which is understood as a gathering of all forms of placing (stellen). In Positionality one of these main forms was requisitioning (Bestellen) now in The Danger we encounter a further form, pursuit (Nachstellen). This pursuit is one of the most powerful thoughts in the lecture cycle as a whole. Being pursues itself with its own forgetting. The danger of technology is not something that befalls being from outside, instead, this danger is part of being itself. Being endangers itself with its own forgetting. This idea undercuts any attempt to think a simple opposition between the thing and technology. This lecture thinks the technological domination of society in the most graphic of terms via the horrors of the Holocaust. Excerpts from this lecture earned it an infamous notoriety. Reading these passages in context today does not lessen the shock of them, but allows us to better understand the claims being made, ideas still worthy of discussion.

Reading Questions: Unguarding of the Thing: Heidegger explicitly links the danger of technology to the idea of the thing as developed in the first Bremen lecture through his conception of positionality as an unguarding of the thing. What does Heidegger mean by this term and how does he understand the relation between thing and technology here? Truth and Forgetting: Heidegger follows the Greeks in thinking truth as , altheia, or unconcealment. What is the role of forgetting in Heideggers conception of truth? What is its relation to concealment? Why does Heidegger claim that truth does not guard its own essence? Refusal of World: What is the difference between a refusal of world and the complete absence of world? What does refusal have to do with Heideggers theme of distance in his thinking of thing? Why does Heidegger mention a trace of world? refusal and distance of world, trace, 49, 53 Pursuit (Nachstellen): The lecture The Danger introduces us to another key component of Heideggers thinking of positionality, pursuit. What is pursued, what does the pursuing, and what is the goal of this pursuit? Danger as Danger: What are the consequences of Heideggers claim that we do not perceive the danger as danger? What would it mean to do so? What are the signs that Heidegger feels we overlook? Is it possible to ever really perceive the danger as danger? Hundreds of Thousands Die: In this lecture Heidegger makes the controversial claim that the masses who died in the extermination camps did not die, but perished. What is at stake in this claim? Is Heidegger here simply relating an unflinching account of contemporary technological practices? Is Heidegger downplaying the plight of the victims of these mass exterminations? To Honor Technology? Why would Heidegger claim that his thinking is not antitechnological, but instead seeks to more highly honor technology than any other thinking before? Why does he object to the view that technology would be a means at the disposal of the human? Physis/Thesis: Heidegger continues his reflections on the notion of placing (stellen) and positing (setzen) by considering the Greek term thesis and its relation to physis. What do these reflections on the Ancient Greek senses of these terms reveal about our current situation today?

Supplementary Readings: It is worth noting what Heidegger omitted, added, and developed in his presentation of this Bremen material four years later in his famed lecture on technology. This text was subsequently published together with The Turn in the volume Die Technik und die Kehre of 1962. Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology.

Day 4 Thursday, June 23 Text: Heidegger, Martin. Insight Into That Which Is, Lecture 4: The Turn Overview: In this final lecture of the cycle, Heidegger directly addresses the relation between the two orders of the thing and technology. Here the problem lies in finding a way to release the thing into its thinging from within our technologically dominated world. Heidegger discusses the fate or destiny of being here, understanding being as something that is sent or dispensed to us. This sending of being is a clue for us in thinking the relationship between technology and thing. Heidegger distinguishes a conversion (Verwindung) of metaphysics from the thought of its simple overcoming (berwindung). He thinks this conversion as a kind of entrance into the guarding of the thing. This shift is the turn of the lectures title (it is quite distinct from the famed turn [Kehre] in Heideggers own course of thought). The lecture addresses this turn in terms of the suddenness of a lightning flash (Blitz) that provides us a look (Blick) into the relation between the human and being. This relationship is the insight (Einblick) of the lecture cycles title. Insight Into That Which Is concludes not with a final resolution, but with a series of questions and observations that ask whether this turn is still possible for us. Reading Questions: On History: The lecture opens with some reflections devoted to the interrelation of history (Geschichte), sending (Schickung), and destiny (Geschick). History is ontological for Heidegger with destiny naming what has been given (or sent) to us. What does this conception of history have to do with the thing/standing reserve relationship? Beyng and Causality: For all his talk of destiny, Heidegger is adamant that there is no causal force either operative upon or issuing from beyng. What is the force of this claim and what are Heideggers arguments in support of it?

Overcoming and Converting: In this lecture and elsewhere, Heidegger distinguishes between overcoming (berwindung) and converting (Verwindung) as ways of challenging the reign of metaphysical thought. What is the difference between these two? What is the function of conversion for Heidegger? Entrance (Einkehr): Why is Heidegger so concerned with the way we enter into the turn? Why does entrance play such an important role for him? What prevents us from simply and directly making an entrance and having done with it? Saving: What does saving mean for Heidegger? Who or what is to be saved? Who or what will perform the saving? What role does Hlderlin play in Heideggers thinking of this? The Lightning Flash: Heidegger proposes a correlation between insight (Einblick), vision (Blick), and the lightning flash (Blitz), even speaking of a flashing entry (Einblitz). What is Heidegger articulating through all of this and why is he doing so in terms of vision and lightning? Catching Sight and Being Sighted: Heidegger uses these terms to name a kind of reciprocal relation between the human and beyng. How reciprocal is this relationship? Is the human always responding to having been sighted? Why does Heidegger present this relation in explicitly visual terms? Insight: How do you understand the role of sight and vision in Heideggers thinking of an Insight Into That Which Is? If the history of metaphysics has been a systematic privileging of the visual, do you see Heidegger as guilty of the same ocularcentrism? Supplementary Readings: These readings all address the question of our relation to the technological. In the Memorial Address this is presented as a saying yes and no to technology. The essay Overcoming Metaphysics is an earlier reflection on the distinction between overcoming (berwindung) and converting (Verwindung), though the difference between the terms is not clearly marked in this translation. The published version of The Turn in Die Technik und die Kehre, the source of the earlier translation of this lecture, differs from our Bremen lecture in two sentences. Heidegger, Memorial Address. Heidegger, Overcoming Metaphysics. Heidegger, The Turning.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS

Heidegger, Martin. The Age of the World Picture. In Off the Beaten Track. Ed. and trans. Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 57-85. _____. Building Dwelling Thinking. In Poetry, Language, Thought. Ed. and trans. Albert Hofstadter. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. 143-59. _____. A Letter to a Young Student (epilogue to The Thing). In Poetry, Language, Thought, 181-84. _____. Memorial Address. In Discourse on Thinking. Trans. John M. Anderson and E. Hans Freund. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. 43-57. _____. Overcoming Metaphysics. In The End of Philosophy. Ed. and trans. Joan Stambaugh. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2003. 84-110. _____. Propositions about Science. In Contributions to Philosophy (from Enowning). Trans. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. 76, 100-110. _____. The Question Concerning Technology. In The Question Concerning Technology. 335. _____. Seminar in Le Thor 1969. In Four Seminars. Trans. Andrew Mitchell and Franois Raffoul. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. 35-63. _____. The Thing. In Poetry, Language, Thought. 161-80. _____. The Turning. In The Question Concerning Technology. 36-49. Mitchell, Andrew J. The Fourfold. In Martin Heidegger: Key Concepts. Ed. Bret W. Davis. Durham, UK: Acumen Publishing, 2010. 208-18.