martin heidegger (1889-1976) -...

martin heidegger (1889-1976)1. biography2. the question concerning technology (1949)3. enframing4. enframing as the ‘supreme danger’5. an alternative -- revealing6. only a god can save us7. comparison with the classics (M/W/D)8. enframing vs revealing -- my examples

HEIDEGGER

1. BIOGRAPHY

• german: b 1889 -- d 1976• professor, university of freiburg• mountain hut -- todtnauberg, black forest• topic: being -- dasein -- (not knowledge)• sein und zeit (1929)• the question concerning technology (1966)

HEIDEGGER

2) the question concerning technology (1949)

• not about any specific technology -- about a way of being in theworld associated with technology -- but . . .

‘Agriculture is now a motorized food industry, the same thing in itsessence as the production of corpses in the gas chambers and theextermination camps, the same thing as blockades and the reduction ofcountries to famine, the same thing as the manufacture of hydrogenbombs.’ [1949, wikipedia]

• inhumanity as the destiny of technology?

HEIDEGGER

3) ENFRAMING

• as particular mode of being -- a stance towards nature -- theworld as ‘standing reserve’ for human projects

• example: the hydroelectric power station on the rhine

• modern science as integral to enframing -- domination and thelaws of nature

HEIDEGGER

5) ENFRAMING AS THE ‘SUPREME DANGER’ TO HUMANITY

why?

• as inauthentic being

• treating people as standing reserve

-- as labour force in the factory

-- mass production of death -- as reductio ad absurdam of enframing?

-- foucault and disciplinary society

HEIDEGGER

5) AN ALTERNATIVE TO ENFRAMING -- REVEALING

• heidegger’s analysis only has force if one can imagine a differentstance in the world from enframing

• a discontinuity -- ancient greece and the pre-socratics• my word for the alternative: ‘revealing’ [actually, for heidegger,

enframing is a strangled form of revealing]• symmetric getting along with nature -- openness to what the world will

offer us• an example -- the craftsman & the silver chalice -- going along with

the metal -- revealing its potential• contrast: the power station on the rhine -- a violent remaking• enframing as not a necessary stance in the world -- revealing as

another stance

HEIDEGGER

6) ‘ONLY A GOD CAN SAVE US’ (1966)

how can we escape from the mode of enframing?

• not philosophy -- not even heidegger

• return to ancient greece? -- the mountain hut

• art & poetry?

HEIDEGGER7) COMPARISONS WITH CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

MARX• heidegger not a marxist, but . . .• marx: we realise our nature in productive work, but we become

alienated from our being within the social relations of capitalism• heidegger: revealing as authentic; enframing as inauthentic -- but

this contrast not special to capitalism

WEBER• bureaucracy (weber) as a special case of enframing (heidegger)

DURKHEIM• heidegger’s focus was on relations between people and things -- an

IMPURE sociology/philosophy -- cf durkheim and PURE sociology

HEIDEGGER

8) ENFRAMING VS REVEALING -- MY EXAMPLES --(see ‘new ontologies’ in the readings)

i) PAINTING

piet mondrian -- dominating paint & canvas -- hispaintings as icons of enframing

willem de kooning -- looking for emergent effects;what the world had to offer him -- his paintings asicons of revealing

MONDRIAN

DE KOONING

HEIDEGGER

8) ENFRAMING VS REVEALING -- MY EXAMPLES

ii) CIVIL ENGINEERING

• ‘command & control’ -- US army corps of engineers -- dictating theshape and form of the mississippi -- enframing

• adaptive environmental management -- an experimental stance --finding out what rivers ‘want to do’ -- revealing

• new orleans, the mississippi and hurricane katrina -- another senseof enframing as a ‘supreme danger’ -- disaster as failed enframing

HEIDEGGER

8) ENFRAMING VS REVEALING -- MY EXAMPLES

iii) PSYCHIATRY

• conventional psychiatry -- shock therapies & lobotomy -> psycho-active drugs (egprozac) -- as imposing a norm (cf foucault on discipline) -- enframing

• the ‘anti-psychiatry movement’ (1960s) -- as symmetric -- kingsley hall ascommune -- learning from the mad -- revealing

--------the layering of regimes of power and knowledge -- enframing as hegemonic -- the

importance of being able to imagine revealing as possible--------further reading -- on enframing and disaster:

Scott, J. (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the HumanCondition Have Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).

NEXT WEEK:--

ULRICH BECK AND THE IDEA OF ‘RISK SOCIETY’

READ:

• the chapter in the readings

• the rest of beck’s book

• zygmunt bauman, liquid fear (cambridge: polity press,2006)