Heidegger Citations
• The Question Concerning Technology [1949]

References for Theme: The Question Concerning Technology [1949]

• Heidegger, Martin
• The question concerning technology (1977)

  (p.10) But in what, then, does the playing in unison of the four ways of occasioning play? They let what is not yet present arrive into presencing. Accordingly,  they are unifiedly ruled over by a bringing  that brings what presences into appearance. Plato tells us what this bringing is  in  a  sentence from the Symposium (20sb): he gar toi ek tau me onton eis to on ionti hotoioun aitia pasa  esti poiesis. -"Every occasion for whatever passes over and goes forward into presencing from that which is  not presencing is poiesis, is bringing-forth [Her-vor-bringen] ."9-It  is of utmost importance that  we  think...

• The question concerning technology (1977)

  (p.14) What is modern technology? It too is a  revealing. Only when we allow our attention to rest on  this fundamental characteristic does that which is new in modern technology show itself to us. And  yet  the revealing that holds  sway throughout modern technology does not unfold into a bringing-forth in the sense of poiesis. The revealing that rules in modern technology is a  chal­lenging [Herausfordern], 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...

• The question concerning technology (1977)

  (p.17) Yet an airliner that stands on the runway is surely an  object. Certainly. We can represent the machine so. But then it conceals itself as  to  what and how it is.  Revealed, it  stands on the taxi strip only as  standing-reserve, inasmuch as it  is  ordered to  en­sure  the possibility of transportation. For  this it must be in its whole structure and in everyone of its constituent parts, on call for duty, i.e., ready for takeoff. (Here it  would be appropriate to  discuss  Hegel's definition of  the  machine as  an autonomous tool. When applied to the tools of the craftsman,...

• The question concerning technology (1977)

  (p.18) Wherever man opens his eyes and ears, unlocks his heart, and gives himself over to meditating and striving, shaping and working, entreating and thanking, he finds himself everywhere already brought into the unconcealed. 

• The question concerning technology (1977)

  (p.27) when we consider the essence of technology we experience enframing as a destining of revealing. In this way we are already sojourning within the free space of destining, that in no way confines us to a stultified compulsion to push on blindly with technology. . . . [M]an, precisely as the one so threatened, exalts himself and postures as lord of the earth. In this way the illusion comes to prevail that everything man encounters exists only in so far as it is his construct. This illusion gives rise in turn to one final delusion: it seems as though man everywhere and always encounters only himself. ....

• The question concerning technology (1977)

  (p.5) The current conception of technology, according to which it is a  means and a  human activity, can therefore be called the in­strumental and anthropological definition of technology. Who would ever deny that it is correct? It is in  obvious con­formity with what we are envisioning when we talk about tech­nology. The instrumental definition of  technology is  indeed so uncannily correct that it  even holds for modern technology, of which,  all other respects, we maintain with some justification that it  is,  in contrast to  the older handwork technology, some­thing completely different and  therefore new.

• The question concerning technology (1977)