Revealing and Concealing: An Inquiry into Heidegger’s Technological Thinking

Abstract

This paper critically engages with the arguments presented by Martin Heidegger in his seminal essay The Question Concerning Technology (1977). His arguments centre around the essence of technology and the ontological dangers that it posits. He challenges the dominant view of technology as instrumental and anthropological. For Heidegger, technology is not merely a tool or a product of human endeavour but rather a distinct mode of revealing and concealing (Aletheia). He proposes the notion of Gestell, or “enframing,” to reveal how modern technology sees the world, nature, and even human beings as standing reserve, reducing them to resources for exploitation. This “enframing” not only reveals but also simultaneously conceals other modes of being and thinking by creating threats to existential and ontological realities. However, Heidegger also discusses Gelassenheit, a contemplative liberation that encourages a free relation with technology by opposing complete submission to calculative thinking. The paper also responds to the claims of essentialism and determinism made by thinkers such as Feenberg, Dreyfus, and Thomson against Heidegger. By revisiting ancient Greek concepts of techne, he differentiates between pre-modern and modern technology. While analyzing the implications of this differentiation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the article examines how Heidegger’s critique of technology remains relevant in the digital age. The paper concludes that Heidegger advocated for a more reflective and poetic interaction with technology—one that goes beyond mere instrumental rationality.