Heidegger's Confrontation with Modernity: Technology, Politics, and Art

Zimmerman, Michael E

Heidegger's Confrontation with Modernity: Technology, Politics, and Art

by Zimmerman, Michael E (1990)

Abstract

The relation between Martin Heidegger's understanding of technology and his affiliation with and conception of National Socialism is the leading idea of this fascinating and revealing book. Zimmerman shows that the key to the relation between Heidegger's philosophy and his politics was his concern with the nature of working and production.

Key Passage

Early Heidegger argued that uprooted modern humanity no longer "dwelt" authentically upon the earth. Later, in his lectures on Holderlin, he said that dwelling occurs only when entities are "gathered" (versammelt) into a world in which the integrity of things is preserved. Such a world would be intrinsically "local," bound up with place in a way wholly foreign to the planetary reach of modern technology. According to Dreyfus, Being and Time—despite later Heidegger's dislike of planetary technology—anticipated "total mobilization" by conceiving of the local workshop-world as a region within the all-encompassing region: the referential totality.' (p.151)