Heidegger mem address essay PDF

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analysis of Heidegger's "Memorial Address" and its impact on society ...

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Meditative Releasement of Technology Katherine Walker “We should arrive at a path that will lead to a new ground and foundation. In that ground, the creativity which produces lasting works could strike new roots.”1 - Heidegger, “Memorial Address”

A smoldering fear of the future: the technology becoming human or the human becoming technology? During the turn of the atomic age where technology had the potential to be powerfully influential over humans, Heidegger was concerned with different methods of thought. Specifically the divide of thought into types: meditative thinking and calculative thinking. He believed that one of these modes of thought would further descend humanity and its ontology into Nietzsche’s previous nihilistic view, while the other would save humanity from this potential danger and transcend the attributes of “human nature” into the future. In the “Memorial Address”, Heidegger believes that humanity can be saved from the danger of technological nihilism through a focus of meditative thinking within humanity, rather than the domination of calculative thinking that fuels technology and economic advancement, in order to create a effective separation between technology and ontology. Heidegger characterizes meditative thinking as “what we have in mind when we say that contemporary man is in flight from thinking”2. By this he means that meditative thinking is the natural advantage humans have over other species and is essentially what makes humans, humans. Through meditative thinking and pondering, humans have become elite thus able to implement technology into humanity and through this, be able to control its domination and humans’ reliance on its benefits. “It is close enough if we dwell on what lies close and meditate

Walker !2 on what is closest; upon what concerns us” wholly as a species3. Some believe that meditative thinking is useless within the technological transition of the atomic age “in dealing with current business” and “it profits nothing in carrying out practical affairs”4 of the industrialized world. In its essence, technological opinions of meditative thinking believe that it “finds itself floating unaware above reality” and is too abstract to be used regularly in the future world where it will soon cease by the advancement of technology of the atomic bomb. Heidegger agrees with these complaints in the way that meditative thinking is a strenuous human act that “at times it requires a greater effort. It demands more practice. It is need of even more delicate care than any other genuine craft”. But, these trivial attributes shouldn’t shy humanity away from it as that is nearly impossible. In Heidegger’s existential point of view, man is curious and inevitably a thinker: “a meditative being thus meditative thinking need by no means to be ‘high-flown’”. Heidegger believes that meditative thought is the areté of humanity as a whole. The preservation of this complexity will maintain the excellence of human innovation as well as the intersection of subject and object within reality. In this belief, Heidegger believes that meditative thinking will draw humans further away from the previous Nietzschean narrowing perception of the self that eventually leads to nihilism. Through maintaining the natural ways of human behavior by meditative thinking and its creative disclosure as seen in the purpose of “The Memorial Address”, Heidegger believes that art like the works of Kreutzer will prevent the use of calculative thinking, which in turn save human from the potential and impending nihilism. Calculative thinking, on the contrary, is described as “the mark of all thinking that plans and investigates” which Heidegger continues, mostly computing “ever more promising… economical possibilities” that concern the expansion of the atomic age and the new possibilities

Walker !3 of technology with the soon regular use of atomic energy. In addition, calculative thinking is always in fast-paced motion that “never stops [and] never collects itself”4 and through this, ignores the gifts given to humanity within reality to sustain its “-ism that isn’t”. By sustaining calculative thinking through technology, Heidegger is led to think that humans will continue to become more efficient in production and materialistic sustenance which do not nurture the concept of “being”, instead harboring the spreading of Eternal Return and Will to Power that will lead to nihilism. This nihilism weakens humans’ receptivity that reality gives through the concept of “thinking is thanking” where human thought is the response, the thanking, to the overfilling conceptualization that reality presents known as the “what is”. Calculative thinking leads to the concept that Heidegger fears the most, which is known as “thoughtlessness”. “If taming of atomic energy is successful…then a totally new era of technical development will begin”. “Thoughtlessness” is Heidegger’s definition of no natural human thought nor further philosophical dissection of reality. To Heidegger, “thoughtlessness” comes about by “man will be circled ever more tightly by the forces of technology. These forces… claim, enchain…and impose upon man under the form of some technical contrivance or other— these forces, since man has not made them, have moved long since beyond his will and have outgrown his capacity for decision”5. In the reliance of calculative thinking and the appeal of its technological products that make the experience of humanity numb, Heidegger fears that humans will “remain as far as possible from reflective insight on our age…because we forget to ponder”6. The urgency for reception is that in ceasing thought and becoming comfortable within technology, humanity will further ignore the disclosing of reality and the imposing of nihilism hindering the progression of human ontological exploration. Heidegger during the address wants

Walker !4 “to pit meditative thinking decisively against calculative thinking” in order to avert the “great danger” of “total thoughtlessness”, also seen as a complete transition to calculative thinking because meditative thinking will draw humanity away from the nihilism that technology will lead humans to rejuvenating the rooted nature of thought, which is a sign of humans “being”. “There might go hand in hand with greatest ingenuity in calculative thinking and inventing indifference toward meditative thinking, total thoughtlessness. Then man would have denied and thrown away his own special nature—that he is a meditative being…the issue is saving of man’s essential nature…the issue is keeping meditative thinking alive”7. The intrigue of human technology will remain as the future pushes the limits of thought and reality, but through meditative thinking, moderation will occur with the rush of new technology onto society. Heidegger believes that meditative thinking will save humanity from the nihilism that accompanies calculative thinking through “releasement towards things and openness to mystery”. Releasement is the main idea circulating this speech and is the most accurate translation of the title of Heidegger’s speech: Gelassenheit. Releasement to Heidegger is the cautious acceptance of technology onto the world. “I would call this comportment towards technology which expresses ‘yes’ and at the same time ‘no’ by an old word, releasement towards things”8. This in a sense, is the acceptance of unchanging and oncoming transitions that humanity and its progress will bring onto ontology and that through the awareness of its effects can be used by humans without terminating attributes that make humanity worth preserving. Its partner, openness to the mystery, is “the meaning pervading technology hides itself…which enables us to keep open to the meaning hidden in technology”. Reality embodies the concept of “the nothing noths” where it reveals the areas of humans’ and reality’s greatness through

Walker !5 inchoate glimmers of insight if humans desire to be receptive to it. This solution, Heidegger believes will “grant us a new possibility of dwelling in the world in a totally different way…a new ground and foundation upon which we can stand and endure in the world of technology without being imperiled by it”. This idea can be categorized by the term enframing, which is technology that works away from nihilism rather than towards it in order to use new technology to transcend Nietzsche’s doctrine of Eternal Recurrence to Heidegger’s idea of “letting be”. This collaboration “gives us a new vision of a new autochthony which someday even might fit to recapture the old and rapidly disappearing autochthony in a changed form”9 which will eliminate the idea of the “uncanny”. Heidegger’s idea of the “uncanny” is the feeling of not being in one’s home— comfortable within humanity. “Thoughtlessness” encompasses the “uncanny” in the deprivation of his view of human nature. However, this purposed solution to enjoying technology’s benefits while maintaining the separation of subject and object shows humans’ strong rootedness into reality through meditative thinking’s attributes of “persistent, courageous thinking”. When it comes to Heidegger's theory that unchecked calculative thinking is a possible threat to human beings as such, I agree with him. Now, decades later, calculative thinking has not escaped humanity and has instead become a method of success within society. In the recent years, there has been more technological devices released that blur the lines of human and technology. For example, the influence of social media on personal lives, marketing, education, and numerous other aspects of usual daily life has caused humans to spend a portion of their time feeding into and relying on a virtual realm within a technological device. These habits are the first sign of humans relying on technology to “be” and cannot function as “effectively” without

Walker !6 some sort of connection to technology. On top of this, education and career standards are of technology as its where business is flourishing and will flourish in the future, while dismissing products of meditative thinking like the importance of art and overall human expression—signs of humans experiencing human nature. This can be seen in humanity is feeding into the ease and appeal of technology and accepting the calculative thought that progresses it. The danger of this is that humans will integrate technology into themselves readily that they will lose the qualities that distinguish them human, “total thoughtlessness”. In addition, calculative thinking will cause a more nihilistic way of thought, as Heidegger predicts, because as technology becomes a rapidly progressing reality, humans will be able to find nothing of worth within the world as they won’t be open or motivated to the hints of greatness reality shows the willing. Heidegger’s claim within the “Memorial Address” that unchecked calculative thinking is a threat to humanity has become increasingly crucial within the present as most trends are leaning towards the rise of technology and humans providing its aid. “Man would have denied and thrown away his own special nature —that he is a meditative being…the issue is saving of man’s essential nature…the issue is keeping meditative thinking alive”10. In the “Memorial Address” by Heidegger he provides a warning sign for the state of humanity with the future of technology after a hometown artist dies, which ironically portrays the potential and dangerous death of “human nature”. Through the reincarnation of meditative thought within humans, society will be able to use technology without abandoning the power and necessity of “being”, but more importantly to avert “total thoughtlessness”, nihilism for the future of the world. This enframing will then show humans the fascinations and potential of reality within technology, within ourselves.

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Walker !8 Notes 1Martin

Heidegger, "Memorial Address." In Discourse on Thinking, translated by John M. Anderson and E. Hans Freund, (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 56-7. 2 Heidegger.

Discourse on Thinking, 45.

3Heidegger.

Discourse on Thinking, 47.

4Heidegger.

Discourse on Thinking, 46.

5Heidegger.

Discourse on Thinking, 51.

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Discourse on Thinking, 50.

7Heidegger.

Discourse on Thinking, 56.

8Heidegger.

Discourse on Thinking, 54.

9Heidegger.

Discourse on Thinking, 55.

10Heidegger.

Discourse on Thinking, 56....