Heidegger's Theory On Technology

Heidegger's theory on technology as the conjoint point of his theory and reality occupies an important place in his theory system.This paper aims to introduce Heidegger's theory on technology comparatively completely and profoundly.The paper divides into five parts.The first part mainly details Heidegger's idea on technology that technology is a way of unshielding. It is common for people to believe that technology which is produced by people and is used by people is a tool and means.But it seems to Heidegger that this instrumental and anthropological stipulation is right but is not ture.We can not establish a free relationship with something until we know what it really is,so we should seek something true though something right.By the reduction to the phenomenon of technology,Heidegger think that technology which we usually regard as our tool and means is actually a way of deshielding which can make those sheltered things visible,and the field of technology is in effect the field of truth.Although modern automatic technology is quite different from ancient technology,modern technology is still a style of deshielding.Only we take modern technology as a style of deshielding,modern technology's new characters will lie before us.Modern technology restricts beings which have rich existent content in some aspects that are useful to humans, when it constantly creat market demands,it is also guided by market demands.If market demands for a kind of being,modern technology will make attacks on it without hesitation and grab this kind of being as much as possible.its use of beings is forced and reckless.those things that are represented by modern technology are called bestands by Heidegger.A bestand is bestellened to be present because it can provide guarantees for other activities in which some beings will be bestellened relating it, so a bestand has lost its independence as a thing.The second part mainly describes the essence of modern technology——Ge-stell.There is no doubt that modern technology has become the main way of deshielding,but why do people today represent beings in the way of modern technology?The answer is that people today position themselves in the field of clarification,it is the field of clarification that indicates the way of technical deshielding.This field of clarification is the essence of technology,Heidegger calls this field of clarification by the name of Ge-stell.Ge-stell holds humans and all kinds of technical factors and order people to disclose reality as bestands.People who position themselves in the Ge-stell seem to engage in technical activities independently,but in fact people just response the call of Ge-stell passively.Gestell is not only the essence of modern technology but also is the essence of modern science.Technology itself has cognitive functions,and modern technology and modern science exchange and support each other and modern technology has a parallel relation with modern science.As a field of clarification,Ge-stell is not only a truth of Being but also a historical Being .When it directs humans today to the way of technical unshielding,it also sheltered.there are two ways of shielding,for one thing Ge-stell shelters itself,for anther it rejects other substitutional ways of deshielding that may be better.The third part of this paper centers on Heidegger's ideas about crisis in technological times.Technology which is a exclusive and domineering way of deshielding not only creat global warming,water pollution,e-waste and other environmental problems so that our earth is less and less appropriate to live in,and it poses a grave threat to human nature and natural language.In the era of technology, people who are inspired by those achievements of technology grasp means ration and calculating thinking,and they duck out of the meditation on the truth of Being so that they isolated from truth of Being.With the strong support of technology, technical language exceeds his field and makes attacks on natural language continuously.Since natural language represent the real reality,so technical language makes attacks on not only natural language but also human nature.The content of the forth part is self-salvation of humans in technological times.It seems to Heidegger that human is a life who can contemplate Being,so men of the technical age could accomplish self-salvation.That humans immerse themselves in those activities of technical unshielding just means that humans belong to historical Being.Through contemplation,we could experience the more primal true of Being in artistic works.Provided we are calm to technical objects and open to the mistery of being,we will inhabite the earth peacefully.The fifth part mainly discusses the meaning of Heidegger's theory on technology.The development of subjective mephysics was lead to the mode of subject and object thinking and anthropocentrism.It seems to Heidegger that humans are never the center of other things .Humans are essentially keepers of Being.Only recalling contemplation on Being can humans come to terms with technology.