Marx And Heidegger: Comparison Of Scientific And Technical Ideas

Both Marx and Heidegger thought much about science and technology, and their viewpoints were very creative. Since Marx lived in the era when sci-tech civilization has bourgeoned and Heidegger lived in the era when modern technological revolution just has been starting expanding and the essence of sci-tech civilization has been exposed to all dimensional. This comparative study was about the two key stages at which sci-tech civilization has developed. It would help us understand the essence and the aftermaths of sci-tech civilization thoroughly, grasp human's lifeline in the technological times, and find the possibility to retrieve the human race from the technology swamp.The dissertation is composed of five parts. The "introduction" briefly explains theoretical and practical significance of this comparative study. In the first chapter— "reflections on the essence of science and technology", the author first contrasts the age, thinking background and research approach in sci-tech study between Marx and Heidegger, and then continue to contrast their thoughts about the essence of technology and science. In the second chapter — "the integrating process of science and technology" , the syncretizing of science and technology is involved in the comparative study. Marx has clarified the practising process that natural science and the machine industry had been syncretized, while Heidegger has analysed the theoretical conditions on which science and technology had been syncretized, with the help of the two we would see how the western sci-tech civilization began and developed in modern age clearly. In the third chapter—"the aftermaths of science and technology", after the author studies what sci-tech has imposed on the human race, nature and their relations, he summarizes several major social aftermaths of science and technology: Persons and matters exist commensurably, the technological competition is fierce and moral decays, and the world history and globalization begins. It is coincident that both Marx and Heidegger found these aftermaths, according to which Mankind would be between the beetle and the block in the era of technology.The fourth chapter is "retrieve the human race that has been plunged into the technology swamp deeply". Though both Marx and Heidegger were conscious of the jeopardies that sci-tech civilization had imposed on mankind and nature, and fully estimated its fatalness, they both argued against the ideas of thorough denial to it in an unknown water and requested people to acknowledge the two sides—positiveness andnegativeness—of the sci-tech civilization. Marx believed that the civilization itself has positive effect on the advancement of mankind, it was in the capitalist society that it became oppressive power and it was only in the communist society that the revolutionary influence of sci-tech civilization would be brought into effect in an all-round way, the relations between mankind and nature would be fire-new, and people would develop freely and in an all-round way. Heidegger knew the dangerous aftermaths, he tried to find the possibility to ward them off in the essence of the modern technology. Therefore, he advocated keeping track of the technological evolvement to evoke meditations on the essence of technology, accordingly leading them to the truth of being, and finding the possibility to retrieve the human race. Consequently, he was opposed to rejecting technology blindly and advocated saying both "yes" and "no" to the technology world, as he had said— "leaving the matters alone" .