Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Heidegger’s thinking on the “Same” of science and technology

  • Published:
Continental Philosophy Review Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this article, we trace and elucidate Heidegger’s radical re-thinking on the relation between science and technology from about 1940 until 1976. A range of passages from the Gesamtausgabe seem to articulate a reversal of the primacy of science and technology in claiming that “Science is applied technology.” After delving into Heidegger’s reflection on the being of science and technology and their “coordination,” we show that such a claim is essentially grounded in Heidegger’s idea that “Science and technology are the Same [das Selbe].” In addition, we argue that, although different ontic epochs can be distinguished in the evolvement of science and/or technology, for Heidegger there is only one unique ontological Epoch of modernity that encompasses various ontic epochs. Therefore, the change from an “epoch of objectivity” to an “epoch of orderability [Bestellbarkeit]” cannot be considered to be an ontological shift. Furthermore, it is not right to ascribe to Heidegger the view that the development of quantum physics signals the beginning of a new ontological Epoch.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Heidegger (1977, p. 747/3). Page numbers of English translations if available follow the page numbers of the original.

  2. Ibid., p. 748/4.

  3. Ibid., p. 748/4. Forman (2007, p. 9) cites exactly the same passage from Heidegger’s 1976 letter, and takes it to be “perhaps his last public act” to try to convey his neglected message concerning the primacy of technology over science. Later in this article we provide a different reading of Heidegger’s message. For the moment, suffice it to say that Forman completely ignores Heidegger’s relating this issue to “the question of Being” in his letter. The connection with the question of Being is precisely the demarcation line between Heidegger’s concern in apparently speaking of the subsumption of science under technology in an emphatic manner and the postmodernists’ straightforward elevation of technolgy in relation to science. We are grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for informing us of Forman’s particularly lengthy article. Consulting this contribution, nevertheless, makes us see more clearly where Heidegger’s philosophy parts from most supposedly postmodernist theorists who are still following a unilinear modernist route of reasoning, which thus often leads to one-faceted pronouncements.

  4. Heidegger (1998, p. 20/138). Unless otherwise noted, the emphases in the citations are all original.

  5. Ihde (2010, p. 110).

  6. Heidegger (2001, p. 124/94).

  7. Heidegger (1968, p. 16/14).

  8. Heidegger (1966, p. 526f/46).

  9. Heidegger (1983a, p. 145/97).

  10. Ibid., p. 139/93.

  11. Ibid., p. 146/98.

  12. Heidegger (2009).

  13. Most contemporary philosophers of technology, such as Feenberg, Ihde, and Latour, subscribe to the thesis that science and technology cannot be separated anymore and should be studied via detailed case studies. They criticize Heidegger because he is considered to be an essentialist, determinist, and pessimist. Ihde’s Heidegger’s Technologies: Postphenomenological Perspectives is a systematic discussion of important differences between Heidegger’s approach and his own “pragmato-phenomenological account” (which “leaves in shamble the metaphysical Heideggerian tale”) (Ihde 2010, p. 113).

  14. Ihde (2010, pp. 2–5). Latour paints Heidegger as a thorougly pessimistic technological determinist. For a relevant discussion see Kochan (2010). According to Feenberg (1999, pp. vii, 15–17, 29), Heidegger is an essentialist on three counts: a-historical, substantivist, and one-dimensional. For a relevant discussion of such claims see Thomson (2000).

  15. See for example two pages of insightful notes on the steam engine (Heidegger 2009, pp. 367–8), including “the politics of artifact.” Examples regarding more recent technologies are given in Sects. 4 and 5.

  16. Heidegger (2010, p. 10/15).

  17. According to Ihde (2010, p. 93), Heidegger’s interest in science and technology can be found only in a few brief periods, that is: the period of Being and Time, the mid 1930s, the mid 1950s, and, after “a gap,” his last statement of 1976. This statement is unconvincing in view of Heidegger’s own writings, as the citations in this section show.

  18. In Heidegger (2000b, p. 349), one finds a summary of this lecture, the last sentence of which reads, „modern science [is] a way of technology.” The same lecture is sometimes referred to as „Die Begründung des neuzeitlichen Weltbildes durch die Metaphysik” of 9 June 1938 (Ibid., p. 802). It resulted in the published text of „Die Zeit des Weltbildes” (Heidegger 2002).

  19. The German original of this remark is: „Die neuzeitliche Wissenschaft als ‚Technik’ – Dieser Schritt im Vortrag 1938 noch nicht vollzogen, obzwar alles bereit” (Heidegger 2009, p. 126).

  20. The editors of the Gesamtausgabe do not give a date for this bundle of notes, except for indicating that it is from the period 1936-46 (Heidegger 1993c). The years giving for various texts at Heidegger (2009, p. 126f) suggest 1940 as the best guess.

  21. Heidegger (2009, p. 126): „Was die neuzeitliche Wissenschaft ist: >Technik<. Was >Technik< ist –Vollendung der Metaphysik.“ For a discussion of the relation of technology and metaphysics see §1 in Ma and van Brakel (2014).

  22. „die Einfügung der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft in das Wesen der neuzeitlichen Technik, das später als sie erscheint, aber früher im Wesen waltet“ (2009, p. 127); „reine Naturwissenschaft [ist] ein Wesensvollzug der Technik“ (125). „Die Einheit der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft als >Technik< “(128).

  23. Heidegger (2002, p. 211/159).

  24. Heidegger (2010, p. 179/116).

  25. „Die moderne Technik ist nicht angewandte Naturwissenschaft, vielmehr ist die neuzeitliche Wissenschaft Anwendung des Wesens der Technik“ (Heidegger 2012, p. 43/40).

  26. Heidegger (1968, p. 140/135).

  27. Ibid., p. 16/14.

  28. Marginal note to Heidegger (1993d), only in Heidegger (2000a, p. 62). „Das, was die moderne Wissenschaft in ihrem innersten Wesen bewegt, das, wodurch sich der gezeigte unscheinbare Sachverhalt ereignet, können wir heute nur erst ganz unzureichend und überdies leicht mißdeutbar kennzeichnen, wenn wir dafür den Namen »Technik« nennen.“

  29. Heidegger (1998, p. 18/137).

  30. Heidegger (1972, p. 72/58). Cf. Heidegger (2002, p. 85/64): “From an inner compulsion, the researcher presses forward into the sphere occupied by the figure of, in the essential sense, the technologist.”

  31. „das Eigene der neuzeitlichen Technologie und der in ihm schon gründenden Wissenschaften: die Gestellnis“(Heidegger 2007, p. 349). On Gestellnis (in relation to das Ge-stell) see Ma and van Brakel (2014).

  32. Forman (2007, p. 9).

  33. Forman (2007, p. 6).

  34. Heidegger (1993c, p. 46/35).

  35. „Die Natur wird daraufhin herausgefordert, d. h. gestellt, sich in einer berechenbaren Gegenständlichkeit zu zeigen… Dieses Her-Stellen, d. h. das Eigentümliche der Technik, vollzieht sich auf eine einzigartige Weise innerhalb der Geschichte des europäischen Abendlandes durch die Entfaltung der neuzeitlichen mathematischen Naturwissenschaft. Deren Grundzug ist das Technische, das zuerst durch die moderne Physik in seiner neuen und eigentlichen Gestalt zum Vorschein kommt“ (Heidegger 2006, p. 156).

  36. „Die neuzeitliche Physik ist der in seiner Herkunft noch unbekannte Vorbote des Ge-stells“ (Heidegger 1993a, p. 23/303).

  37. Heidegger (2010, p. 8/5).

  38. Ibid., p. 6/3.

  39. To this could be added Heidegger’s early awareness of the “knowledge economy”: what counts is not anymore which country has the richest natural resources (minerals etc.), but the country which is most successful in technological innovation (Heidegger 1991, p. 9).

  40. Heidegger (1999, p. 155/107). In the revised list of propositions on science in his notes of 1940 he is more explicit (proposition 22, Heidegger 2009, p. 124f): “Modern science is research because it has its essential foundation (Wesensgrund) in technology.”

  41. Heidegger (2010, p. 8f/4).

  42. Ibid., p. 8/5.

  43. Ibid., p. 11/6.

  44. Ibid., p. 11/6.

  45. Ibid. p. 11/7.

  46. Kockelmans has given a still useful and insightful overview of Heidegger’s view of science, drawing on Heidegger (1966, 1968, 1993a, 1993b, 1993d, 2002). See in particular his (1985), Chapter 5 “Toward an Ontology of the Modern Natural Sciences.” Of course at that time Kockelmans did not have access to sources which have become available from the many volumes of the Gesamtausgabe published up to now.

  47. For Heidegger’s broad notion of “the mathematical,” see Heidegger (1993b, p. 69–77/249–255; 2002, p. 78/58), Kockelmans (1985, pp. 142f, 150–1), and Dea (2009). Ta mathemata means for the Greeks that which man knows in advance in observing entities and dealing with things. Carson (2010) characterizes it as a view of mathematization as prescription that things make their appearance as objects predictable, calculable, and governable in a technological sense.

  48. Heidegger (1993b, p. 106/280).

  49. In “Wesen der Sprache” Heidegger ascribes to Nietzsche the insight that “method” is more essential than “result.” Scientific method is not a mere instrument, “it has pressed science into its own service.” This can be contrasted with “thinking,” where there is “neither method nor theme” (Heidegger 1971, p. 178/74).

  50. Kockelmans (1985, p. 150).

  51. Galileo poses conditions in advance to which nature must answer in one way or another. With Newton, nature becomes the closed totality of the motions of the spatio-temporally related point-masses. See for discussion Kockelmans (1985) and Dea (2009).

  52. Heidegger may also be said to be prescient of the current “research” phase of modern science, with such features as: research in groups, disappearing of the distinction between Geisteswissenschaften and Naturwissenschaften, institutionalization, intertwinement with industry, becoming an enterprise. See Heidegger (2002) and Kockelmans (1985, pp. 152–162).

  53. See Heidegger (1993b). Already in a text of 1912 („Das Realitätsproblem in der modernen Philosophie”), Heidegger speaks of “the unavoidable epoch-making facts of [modern] natural science” (Heidegger 1978, p. 4).

  54. Heidegger (2001, p. 134/103).

  55. Ibid., p. 139/107. And this is further interpreted in Ge-stell terms (ibid. p. 135/105): “The point is control and domination of the processes of nature.” This is followed by a citation from the last part of Descartes’s Discourse on Method: “We render ourselves the master and possessors of nature” (ibid. p. 136/105). [Descartes, Philosophical Writings, vol. 1, p. 119: “Nous rendre comme maîtres et possesseurs de la nature.”].

  56. Heidegger (2010, p. 12/7).

  57. Ibid. p. 12/7.

  58. Ibid., p. 13/8f. Heidegger is well aware that, as expressed by the Scholar in the conversation (Ibid., p. 14/9): “I just can’t rid myself of the suspicion that you are interpreting the Greek word technē in terms of your own dogmatically asserted definition of the essence of modern ‘technology’.”

  59. Ibid. p. 15/10.

  60. Heidegger (1993a, p. 303–4/21–2; 2012, p. 43/40).

  61. Kockelmans (1985, p. 177) interprets these passages by saying “although science is first ‘in execution,’ technicity was first in a perhaps still unconscious intention.”

  62. Given the typical Heideggerian view that “That which is primally early shows itself only ultimately to men” (Heidegger 1993a, p. 23/327).

  63. That revealing concerns nature, above all, as the chief storehouse of the standing energy reserve. “For physics, nature is the standing reserve [Bestand] of energy and matter” (Heidegger 2012, p. 42/40).

  64. „Der Mensch selbst ist gestellt, ist daraufhin angesprochen, dem genannten Anspruch zu entsprechen” (Heidegger 1998, p. 20/138). Cf. Heidegger (1993a, p. 21/302): “It remains true, nonetheless, that man in the technological age is, in a particularly striking way, challenged forth into revealing.”

  65. Ihde (2010, p. 5).

  66. Heidegger (1968, p. 57/54).

  67. Heidegger (1999, p.156/108; cf. 1966, p. 524/45).

  68. Heidegger (2003, p. 358/55).

  69. Cf. Heidegger (1929, p. 257/197): “Sometimes it seems as if modern humanity is rushing headlong toward this goal of producing itself technologically.”

  70. Ihde (2010, p. 111).

  71. Heidegger (1966, p. 525/44).

  72. Heidegger (2001, p. 177/135).

  73. Heidegger referred to “[Friedrich] Wagner, Die Wissenschaften und die gefährdete Welt. [Eine Wissenschaftssoziologie der Atomphysik, München, 1964] pp. 225 ff., 462 ff.”

  74. This is exacerbated by the fact that in German, the word “Epoche,” being a noun, is always capitalized.

  75. For Heidegger, philosophy, history, metaphysics, and Being have Epochs/epochs.

  76. Perhaps with one exception when he speaks of “that epoch that we call modernity” (Heidegger 1998, p. 15/135), also cited in section 7.

  77. The Neuzeit is translated in Dutch as “nieuwe, moderne tijd”, literally “new, modern times.”

  78. Heidegger (2002, p. 75f/57f).

  79. “The fact that the world becomes picture at all is what distinguishes the essence of the modern age [der Neuzeit]” (Ibid., p. 94/71).

  80. The citations are from Heidegger (2006, pp. 11, 121, 155).

  81. The word Epoche is less common in German than the word “epoch” is in English, because it has more (near) synonyms such as Zeitalter.

  82. Heidegger (1993a, p. 23/303).

  83. „Das automatische Zeitalter nach dem III. Weltkrieg” (Heidegger 2009, p. 368); “Die zweite industrielle Revolution. Die Eingabe des Entscheidens in die Maschine“ (Ibid., p. 376). In 1962 he mentions cybernetics as exemplifying the “second industrial revolution” (Heidegger 1998, p. 10/134).

  84. Heidegger (1993b, p. 89/257).

  85. Heidegger has provided detailed accounts of the work of Galileo and Newton (Heidegger 1993b, pp. 77–95/255–271). Dea (2009, p. 54) thus puts these accounts into the terms of Being and Time: “Before Newton, the fore-understanding the scientist brought to his understanding of nature included an interest in individual entities and, hence, a hermeneutical openness to Being; after Newton, the scientists’ hermeneutical horizon is restricted by the fore-understanding that individual entities are the indifferent manifestations of universal laws.”

  86. Heidegger (2003, p. 367/61).

  87. Heidegger (2001, p. 388/74, em. ad.).

  88. Heidegger asks, without implying that “another beginning” is occurring: “What understanding of beings and what concept of truth is it that underlies the transformation of science into research?” (Heidegger 2002, p. 86/65).

  89. According to Ihde (2010, p. 109), it is by the mid-1950 s that Heidegger came to recognize that “quantum physics totally resituates the early modern subject-object distinction.” This statement is not correct, as we will see.

  90. Kockelmans (1985, p. 169).

  91. Heidegger citing Heisenberg in Heidegger (1993d, p. 54/172).

  92. Ibid., p. 54/172.

  93. Ibid., p. 55/173.

  94. Cf. his Das Naturbild der heutigen Physik (Heisenberg 1955).

  95. Some time before the meeting, Heidegger had distributed a draft of the text that was later to be published with the title „Wissenschaft und Besinnung” (Heidegger 1993d).

  96. Heidegger (2009, pp. 175–181). In Heidegger’s 1927 paper to which Heidegger explicitly refers, Heisenberg uses the word “Unbestimmtheit” (indeterminacy) throughtout. Only in an endnote the word “Unsicherheit” (uncertainty) occurs, which is now the received terminology in English.

  97. It is debatable whether Bohr held the view Heidegger ascribes to him.

  98. The phrase “new epistemology” was used as a section title in Eddington’s influential The Nature of the Physical World (Eddington 1928, pp. 225–229). Using this phrase Heidegger addresses a much-discussed issue since Eddington, Dewey, and many others started this discussion.

  99. Heidegger (2009, p. 179).

  100. Heidegger (2001, p. 246f/310). From the letter a month earlier (dated September 30), it is apparent that Heidegger had been working on the preparation of his lecture and public discussion with Heisenberg for a considerable period of time.

  101. Heidegger (1993a, p. 231/327–8). Cf. Heidegger (2012, p. 43/41): “To be sure, atomic physics is experimentally and calculably of a different sort than classical physics. Thought in terms of its essence, however, it nevertheless remains the same as physics.” Heidegger (1993b, p. 54/172): “atomic physics admits only of the guaranteeing of an objective coherence that has a statistical character.”

  102. “Through Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation the human being is finally and explicitly included in the artificiality of the instruments and has become part of it [Bestandstück – literally “part of the stock(s)”]. Seeing it this way, among all the objects he can only meet himself–but what is ‘himself’ in this case: the instrumentation!” (Heidegger 2000a, p. 57). And he cites Goethe commenting on the way the new physics in Goethe’s time reduces knowledge of nature to what artificial instruments indicate [zeigen].

  103. Heidegger (2001, p. 177/134f).

  104. Comments on Heisenberg etc. were occasioned after the participants of the seminar had objected to Heidegger using classical physics as a “general” characterization of science.

  105. Heidegger seems to acknowledge that quantum physics has changed the notion of causality “once again”: “It seems as though causality is shrinking into a reporting, ‘a reporting challenged forth’ of standing-reserves that must be guaranteed either simultaneously or in sequence” (Heidegger 1993a, p. 24/304).

  106. Heidegger (2001, p. 177/135).

  107. Including an empirically equivalent alternative to “standard” quantum mechanics, viz. Bohm mechanics, which presupposes a deterministic world and, by present standards, leads to the same predictions as “standard” quantum mechanics.

  108. It may be noted, as Heidegger knew, that already with respect to classical physics there is no completely exact prediction. This is because in order to make a prediction one needs to know the initial (or current) state of the system under consideration, but this state has to be measured and measurement can never be completely precise.

  109. Riis (2011).

  110. Heidegger seems to be pointing to a similar direction when he writes: “It is very difficult to grasp historically the emergence of what is machinationally ownmost to beings, because basically it has been effective in operation since the first beginning of Western thinking” (Heidegger 1999, p. 132/92).

  111. “The rule of das Gestell has challenged humans as long as they have existed” (Riis 2011, p. 116).

  112. Heidegger (1998, p. 18/137).

  113. Of course, what is different is that “energy” is more central to technology than “silver.”

  114. “It’s a contraption made by shaping a piece of wood. The back end is heavy and the front end light and it raises the water as though it were pouring it out, so fast that it seems to boil right over!”.

  115. Watson (1968, p. 134).

  116. Heidegger (2010, p. 11/6).

  117. „Manche scheinen heute mit der Not zu ringen, für das Walten der modernen Technik und der mit ihr identischen Wissenschaft eine Vorstellung von der Geschichte zu finden, in die sich der durch jenes Walten bestimmte Weltzustand einordnen“(Heidegger (1983b, p. 151)).

  118. Heidegger (1998, p. 16/136).

  119. Heidegger (2012, p. 43/40).

  120. Heidegger (1998, p. 16/136).

  121. Ibid., p. 15/135 (all citations in this and the next paragraph).

  122. Ibid. p. 18/137.

  123. It has been said that the burden of science and technology lies not in their calculative style but rather in their insistent and aggressive spirit (Alderman 1978, p. 43). However, we agree with Rojcewicsz (2006, p. 114) that “science attack[ing] nature with experiments is not what is impositional, but the prime imposition is the representation of nature.”

  124. Heidegger (2002, p. 108/82).

  125. See Ma (2008, pp. 196–202).

  126. Heidegger (1969, p. 92/29).

  127. Heidegger (1975, p. 251/95).

  128. Some scholars may take the discourse of the “Same” to be a throw-back to modernist views. However, this is not the case. We have to pay attention to the fact that Heidegger not only sees through the dark (as revealing concealment) origin of technology, but also touches the right place where modern science and technology are united.

  129. The 1976 letter was not an isolated occurrence. In a letter to Roger Meunier of 1969, Heidegger (2003, p. 416/88) lamented that “a sufficiently grounded insight into the relation of the two [that is, the interlocking of modern technology and modern science] has not yet been gained.”

  130. Heidegger (1968, p. 140/135). We are citing the English translation of Was heißt Denken?. Heidegger himself wrote: „man heute.”

  131. Heidegger (1999, p. 4/3).

  132. Heidegger (2003, p. 390/75).

  133. Heidegger (2010, p. 179/116).

References

  • Continental Philosophy Review uses Springer’s own citation style. This means that Heidegger’s works are referenced using the year of publication of the English translation if available, or the latest original language edition. We have added the year in which Heidegger wrote the cited text in square brackets after the German title of the work, which is placed before the English translation from which we cite.

  • Alderman, Harold. 1978. Heidegger’s critique of science and technology. In Heidegger and Modern Philosophy, ed. M. Murray. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carson, Cathryn. 2010. Science as instrumental reason: Heidegger, Habermas, Heisenberg. Continental Philosophy Review 42: 483–509.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dea, Shannon. 2009. Heidegger and Galileo’s slippery slope. Dialogue 48: 59–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eddingtion, Arthur. 1928. The nature of the physical world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feenberg, Andrew. 1999. Questioning technology. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Forman, Paul. 2007. The primacy of science in modernity, of technology in postmodernity, and of ideology in the history of technology. History and Technology 23: 1–152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1929. Was ist Metaphysik? [1929]. Inaugural lecture. Reprinted in Gesamtausgabe 9: Wegmarken (1976), 103–122. What Is Metaphysics? In Pathmarks, (trans: William McNeill). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 82–97.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1977. Neuzeitliche Naturwissenschaft und moderne Technik [1976]. In Gesamtausgabe 16: Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges 1910–1976, 747–748. Modern natural science and technology. Research in Phenomenology 7: 1–4.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1978. Gesamtausgabe 1: Frühe Schriften. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1998. Überlieferte Sprache und Technische Sprache [1962], St. Gallen: Erker. Traditional language and technological language. (trans: Wanda Torres Gregory). Journal of Philosophical Research 23: 129–145.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, Martin. 2000a. Gesamtausgabe 7: Vorträge und Aufsätze. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, Martin. 2000b. Gesamtausgabe 16: Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges 1910–1976. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, Martin. 2007. Gesamtausgabe 81: Gedachtes. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, Martin. 2009. Gesamtausgabe 76: Leitgedanken zur Entstehung der Metaphysik, der Neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft und der modernen Technik. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1966. Gelassenheit [1955]. In Gesamtausgabe 16: Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges 1910–1976, 517–529. Memorial address. In Discourse on Thinking, (trans: John M. Anderson and E. Hans Freund), 43–57. New York: Harper & Row.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1968. Gesamtausgabe 8: Was heisst Denken? [1951/52]. What Is Called Thinking?, (trans: Fred D. Wieck and John Glenn Gray). New York: Harper & Row.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1969. Identität und Differenz [1955–57]. Identity and Difference. Bilingual edition, (trans: Joan Stambaugh). New York: Harper & Row.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1971. Das Wesen der Sprache [1957/58]. In Unterwegs zur Sprache, 157–216. Stuttgart: Günther Neske. The nature of language. In On the Way to Language, (trans: Peter D. Hertz). 57–110. San Francisco: Harper and Row.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1972. Das Ende der Philosophie und die Aufgabe des Denkens [1964]. In Gesamtausgabe 14: Zur Sache des Denkens, 67–90. The end of philosophy and the task of thinking. In On Time and Being, (trans: John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson), 55–73. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1975. Moira (Parmenides, Fragment VIII, 34–41) [1952]. In Gesamtausgabe 7: Vorträge und Aufsätze, 235–262. Moira (Parmenides, VIII, 34–41). In Early Greek Thinking, trans. David F. Farrell and Frank A. Capuzzi, 79–101. New York: Harper & Row.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1983a. Hebel—der Hausfreund [1955]. In Gesamtausgabe 13: Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens, 133–150. Translation in Contemporary German Philosophy, Vol. 3, 89–101. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1983b. Aufzeichnungen aus der Werkstatt [1959]. In Gesamtausgabe 13: Aus der Erfahrung des Denken, 151–154.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1991. Die Bedrohung der Wissenschaft [1937/38]. In Zur philosophischen Aktualität Heideggers, Hrsg. Dieter Papenfuss & Otto Pöggeler. Band 1. Philosophie und Politik, 5–27. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1993a. Die Frage nach der Technik [1953]. In Gesamtausgabe 7: Vorträge und Aufsätze, 5–36. The question concerning technology (trans: William Lovitt). In Basic Writings, ed. David F. Krell, 311–341. London: Routledge.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1993b. Gesamtausgabe 41: Die Frage nach dem Ding [1935/36], 66–108 translated as “Modern science, metaphysics, and mathematics,” in Basic Writings, ed. David F. Krell, 247–282. London: Routledge.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1993c. Überwindung der Metaphysik [1936–46]. In Gesamtausgabe 7: Vorträge und Aufsätze, 67–98. Overcoming metaphysics. In The Heidegger Controversy, ed. Richard Wolin, 67–90. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1993d. Wissenschaft und Besinnung [1953]. In Gesamtausgabe 7: Vorträge und Aufsätze, 37–66. Science and reflection. In The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, (trans: William Lovitt). 155–182. New York: Harper & Row.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1999. Gesamtausgabe 65: Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) [1936–1938]. Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), (trans: Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 2001. Gesamtausgabe 89: Zollikoner Seminare, Protokolle—Gespräche—Briefe. Herausgegeben von Medard Boss. Zollikon Seminars. Protocolls-Conversations-Letters (trans: Franz Mayr and Richard Askay). Evanston: Northwestern University.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 2002. Die Zeit des Weltbildes [1938]. In Gesamtausgabe 5: Holzwege, 75–114. Off the Beaten Track. Edited and translated by Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes, 57–85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 2003. Gesamtausgabe 15: Seminare in Le Thor. Four Seminars. Le Thor 1966, 1968, 1969, Zähringen 1973 (trans: Andrew Mitchell and François Raffoul). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 2006. Brief an Takehiko Kojima [1963]. In Gesamtausgabe 11: Identität und Differenz, 155–161. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 2010. Gesamtausgabe 77: Feldweg Gespräche [1944/45]. Country Path Conversations. (trans: Brett W. Davis). Indiana University Press.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 2012. Einblick in das was ist. Bremer Vorträge [1949]. In Gesamtausgabe 79 (2005): Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge, 3–78. Bremen and Freiburg Lectures. Insight into that which is and basic principles of thinking. (trans: Andrew J Mitchell). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

  • Heisenberg, Werner. 1927. Über der anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik. Zeitschrift für Physik 43: 172–198.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heisenberg, Werner. 1955. Das Naturbild der heutigen Physik. Hamburg: Rowohlt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ihde, Don. 2010. Heidegger’s technologies. Postphenomenological perspectives. New York: Fordham University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kochan, Jeff. 2010. Latour’s Heidegger. Social Studies of Science 40: 579–598.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kockelmans, Joseph J. 1985. Heidegger and science. Washington, DC: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology & University Press of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ma, Lin. 2008. Heidegger on east–west dialogue: Anticipating the event. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ma, Lin and Jaap van Brakel. 2014. Out of the Ge-stell? The role of the east in Heidegger’s das andere Denken. Philosophy East & West 64 (forthcoming).

  • Riis, Søren. 2011. Towards the origin of modern technology: reconfiguring Martin Heidegger’s thinking. Continental Philosophy Review 44: 103–117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rojcewicz, Richard. 2006. The gods and technology. A reading of Heidegger. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomson, Ian. 2000. What’s wrong with being a technological essentialist? A response to Feenberg. Inquiry 43: 429–444.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Watson, Burton. 1968. The complete works of Chuang Tzu. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China

    Lin Ma

  2. Higher Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven, Louvain, Belgium

    Jaap van Brakel

Authors
  1. Lin Ma
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jaap van Brakel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lin Ma.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ma, L., van Brakel, J. Heidegger’s thinking on the “Same” of science and technology. Cont Philos Rev 47, 19–43 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-014-9287-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-014-9287-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation