Politics and the Problem of Technology: An Essay on Heidegger and the Tradition of Political Philosophy

Abstract

I examine Heidegger's postmodern interpretation of technology, with an eye to exposing its weaknesses. I do this by showing that his view entails an understanding of the tradition of political philosophy that cannot do justice to that tradition's own understanding of the character of technology. I consider first Plato and Aristotle and then Hobbes and Locke in order to suggest that Heidegger's view that modern politics are stamped by technological metaphysics can be challenged on two related grounds: (1) it assumes incorrectly that the tradition is dominated by dogmatic metaphysics; (2) it prevents us from seeing how some in the tradition both understood and doubted the possibility of a technological stamp. I then suggest an alternative view of technology that might account better for the character of technology and political life.

Being and Technology: Heidegger on the Overcoming of Metaphysics

“…Enframing is more organic than this, in so far as it emanates from being 'itself,' and shapes the manner in which being is revealed. As such, enframing is not stamped on being, 26 Enframing is also intimately connected to and re-enforces the scientific outlook that values and reveals objects in a quantifiable, objective, measurable manner. This allows the standing reserve of each to be more easily determined and manipulated to ensure the completion of the operation towards which each human is directed and, according to the metaphysical tradition, has chosen.…”

Caesarism and the American Presidency

“…2This scarcity includes scarcity of knowledge and virtue, as well as of material goods. See Weinberger (1992). 3We borrow the term "administrative state" from Milkis.…”

Heidegger on Freedom: Political not Metaphysical

“…7. Jerry Weinberger (1992), like many others who are polemically engaged with Heidegger, mistakenly assumes that the technological stamping of the age is equivalent to a pessimistic technological determinism. Heidegger, however, turns the tables on those who make such charges.…”