The Concept Of Heidegger And Habermas Technology Comparative Study

Heidegger and Habermas are outstanding humanities representatives of the viewpoint on technology. From the thinking on the destiny of mankind, both of them think about the technical status and function in the fate of mankind and of human life. Heidegger is quite worried about modern technology on the fate of mankind. He believes that modern technology is the "Gestell", which itself is a great project, but also obscures the truth of being. For this, Heidegger, questioning and even meditation different from the tools on anthropology to technology, even back to the source of Western civilization, and take another one road different from the traditional metaphysical thinking and prepare for the Kehre des Ereignisses. Different from Heidegger, Habermas has inherited the tradition of the Critical Theory of Frankfurt School. He insists on that modernity is an unfinished business. He also establishes cognitive interests theory, makes a criticism on Marcuse’s theory about technology. On the basis, he analyzes that how technology becomes "hidden ideology in late capitalist society. And technology as system penetrates the life-world and has the colonization of life world. Habermas thus proposes to use communicative rationality to suppress the expansion of instrumental rationality, to establish openness, equality of exchanges and negotiations in the public domain to restrict the colonization of the life of the world. Based on text interpretation, Chapters Ⅰ and Ⅱ describe their view of technology and make relationships with their philosophical theories.There is a comparison between two views of technology in Chapter Ⅲ. Both characters and individualities are induced. The essence of technology of their view of technology is humankind. Their view of technology are both concerning about the destiny and the liberation of humanity. However, due to differences of the theoretical starting points, their theories on human are different. One is Da-sein under Ereignis, and another one is individual with communicative rationality in the life-world. The differences of their view of technology cause the differences of attitudes and ways on solving technology problems.Finally, based on the advances of their viewpoints, this paper claims that technology is not just an instrumental means, but a human way of life. Technology should not only be thought as a means but also considered as coexistence way, Human must cultivate the non-technical relations with technology.