1

The Question Concerning Technology

Introduction

Before attempting to understand Martin Heideggers critique of

technology it is important to understand how he approaches the question.

His approach is not simply a matter of identifying a kind of technology,

outlining its primarily functions, and then qualifying its existence in terms of

its preconceived teleological value. It is also not a matter of qualifying

technology as such; his approach does not imply that technology has a value

apart from its use and that the human user, Dasein, qualifies some object in

terms of its essential characteristics understood as a detached, ideal

spectator making qualifying judgments about some entity in the world. The

question concerning technology is, for Heidegger, questioning concerning

technology,1 which implies that Heideggers approach is best understood to

contain a number of essential properties: first, it can be understood to be on-

going, as though the question and the questioning of technology are not

detached from historical use, which also naturally implies that conclusions

concerning technology are not detached from historical use. Second,

questioning is a questioning of and a questioning by, which means that a

question, or the act of questioning, presupposes both a questioner and the

object in question. Both become the onus of study for Heidegger. Third,

questioning technology is for Heidegger a way, or to be more specific,

1
Heidegger, M. The Questioning Concerning Technology. P. 1.
 2

builds a way2 to address the topic; but the goal of this building a way is

questioning technology with a free relationship 3 to it. A free relationship

does not imply an abstract and historically-isolated subject, but implies that

as a deeply historical subject, Dasein is called to confront the questioning of

technology as a user of technology, but that the questioning of technology is

not reducible to a historical user, and that the best analysis of technology

analyzses technology from the position of a contextual user reflecting back

on the usage of technology and then extrapolating universal truths about the

entity.

In what follows I will attempt to lay bare the main tenets of Heideggers

questioning of technology with the intention on analyzing it against the

backdrop of Herbert Marcuses critique of it. In his seminal workMarcuse

What is Technology?

At the outset, questioning concerning technology presupposes making

the distinction between a piece of technology, analyzed in terms of its

particular components, and perhaps analyzed in terms of its functional

organization, and technology as such, or the essence of technology. This

distinction takes us back to the distinction between universals and

particulars mentioned by Plato in The Republic. In Book V of The Republic,

Plato makes the following claim concerning this multiplicity of aspects:

2
Ibid. P. 1.
3
Ibid. P. 1.
 3

The lovers of sounds and sights, I said, delight in beautiful tones

and colors and shapes and in everything that art fashions out of

these, but their thought is incapable of apprehending and taking

delight in the nature of the beautiful itself.4

What Plato is alluding to here is that there is a distinct fascination between

delight in particular entities that occur in the world and their universal

properties. Giving a lecture or a talk about some particular piece of

technology, say, for example, the latest in cell phone technology, is not

equivalent to discussing the essential properties of technology as such, and

while the latest report on the newest features of a given cell phone might be

fascinating,5 there is more to say about technology that is not reducible to its

particular iterations. Heidegger expresses the same dissatisfaction with

particular accounts of technology when he states: Technology is not

equivalent to the essence of technology.6 Therefore, in order understand

how Heidegger asks the question of technology, one must accept that this

account of technology will flip on its head modern accounts of technology

that begin with particular iterations and merely allude to universal

4
Plato. The Republic. 476b
5
We may disagree with Plato here that loving sounds and sights (i.e.
particular properties) precludes one from loving universality. Perhaps
tracking distinct iterations of particular properties fascinates, or perhaps
tracking developments of particular properties over time fascinates, or even
perhaps tracking how certain particular properties translate into economic
success in a marketplace fascinates; this does not preclude making the
further distinction between universals and particulars and then favoring an
analysis of one at one point and an analysis of another at another point. The
distinction between universals and particulars Plato makes, however, does
appear to be justifiably made.
6
Heidegger, M. The Questioning Concerning Technology. P. 1.
 4

components; instead, our focus will be on these universal components and

we will supplements these with particular accounts to provide context.

To inquire about the essence of a thing is to inquire about the what-

ness of that thing, or how a thing manifests as a universal in a particular

form. To question concerning the essence of technology is not to question

concerning a particular iteration of technology, but rather what all instances

of technology have in common. Answering questions concerning essence,

then, means detailing the ontological properties of a substance, rather than

the ontical, properties of a substance. Ontical properties can vary with

distinct iterations, but ontolological properties constitute the essence or the

what-ness of the thing in question. Essentially, as Heidegger points out

which he claims to be common knowledge technology is two things: a)

technology is a means to an end, and b) technology is a human activity. 7 Yet

7
We may well disagree with Heidegger on this point as there are numerous
examples in the physical world of non-human animals that fashion tools for
the sake of some end. Given the essentialist definition of technology cited
prior, it seems clear that these tools also qualify as technology and that they
are non-human activities. Consider, for example, the case of bottlenose
dolphins that wear marine sponges to protect their rostrums while probing
for food on the ocean floor (Krutzen et. al. 2005), Gorillas who have been
spotted in the wild using sticks to feel the bottom of a riverbed in order to
determine depth while crossing (Breuer et. al. 2005), and both bonobos and
chimpanzees using sponges made from leaves and moss to suck up water
and use it for grooming. In each of these cases it appears that non-human
animals have fashioned tools that are used for-the-sake-of some end or
another and are fashioned, as an instrumentum, with some end in mind.
In his 1980 book, Animal Tool Behavior: The Use and Manufacture of
Tools by Animals, Benjamin Beck created a definition of animal tool use that
generally stood the test of time. His definition is as follows: Thus tool use is
the external employment of an unattached environmental object to alter
more efficiently the form, position, or condition of another object, another
organism, or the user itself when the user holds or carries the tool during or
just prior to use and is responsible for the proper effective orientation of the
 5

as a means to and end, and as a human activity, technology is a manner of

manipulating some tool for the sake of some end, with the goal of mastering

said tool in the service of some potentiality-for-being. The will-to-mastery of

equipment encountered as a tool for-the-sake-of some potentiality-for-being

begins in a primordial revealing; this revealing is a revealing of the what-ness

of an entity encountered in a region, alongside Dasein, complete with the

existential-ontological predicates of Worldhood that this revealing entails.

Revealing is distinct from correctness in that correctness entails an

adequation between word and object, whereas revealing is more primordial

and entails the existential-ontological predicates of Worldhood. Heidegger

claims: The correct always fixes upon something pertinent in whatever is

under consideration. However, in order to be correct, this fixing by no

means needs to8 uncover the thing in question in its essence. Only at the

point where such an uncovering happens does the true come to pass. 9

tool. (10) Although this definition has held since Animal Tool Behavior was
published in 1980, various alternative definitions have come to the fore after
critiques of Becks structure were made apparent. Consider, for example,
Amants & Hortons definition: Tool use is the exertion of control over a
freely manipulable external object (the tool) with the goal of (1) altering the
physical properties of another object, substance, surface, or medium (the
target, which may be the tool user or another organism) via a dynamic
mechanical interaction, or (2) mediating the flow of information between the
tool user and the environment or other organisms in the environment. The
relevant point that can be made here is that regardless of how one defines
technology understood as an entity used as a means to an end it is seems
clear that non-human animals employ technology to complete tasks.
8
Italics added.
9
Heidegger, M. The Question Concerning Technology. P. 2. Allow us for a
moment to take note that there is some discrepancy between Heideggers
language here as it relates to the concept of correctness and the concept of
revealing. His claim regarding the distinction between revealing and
correctness begins with their ontological difference and then proceeds to
 6

Given this formulation, we may articulate (3) different modes of inquiry

at stake in Heideggers writing on technology. First, one may inquire about

the ontical properties of a given piece of technology or about technology as

such. Such an inquiry would have as its subject the description of features

attached to the subject in question as a predicate, again, disclosed as

essence-hood in predication. Ontical depiction of entities formulates truth in

terms of correctness, which means that a propositional claim about some

entity in the world is assessed in terms of the accordance relation it

maintains with facts about the world itself given as ontical properties. We

see here an equivalence between word and object such that a word as a

symbolic (re)presentation maintains an adequation relation between the

signifier and the ontical property without necessarily containing within it the

essence of technology or the Worldhood of the World that the true as

appearing requires. Second, one may inquire about the essence of

technology which details the ontological properties of technology that are, to

varying degrees, ahistorical and universal. Such an inquiry would not

necessitate an analysis of technology in terms of its ontical properties

detail how this difference is to be understood. Yet we see here the implicit
belief that the true entails the existential-ontological a priori of Worldhood,
and all of the structural necessities this implies, but correctness ignores this
holistic character of truth and instead narrows in on epistemologically
relevant features of a scene (i.e. ontical properties or practically relevant
ontological properties). Heideggers language in The Question Concerning
Technology differs, however, from his language in Being and Time, On the
Essence of Truth, and other writings where he conceives of unconcealment
as the foundation of correctness. Correctness is understood elsewhere as a
development of the concept that is revealed in unconcealment. Cite
examples.
 7

because the ontical would be relegated to a particular iteration of a universal

form. The universal itself, expressed as an ontological property of a

substance, is now the focus of the inquiry. This does not imply that the

ontical is ignored as the universal is always represented in particular form

and indeed begins in an ontical depiction of entities but rather that the

ontical is a distinct modal category. Third, one may inquire about the nature

of the true, which analyzes technology from the basis of this primordial

revealing. Truth claims become propositions that contain within them the

primordial revealing of the essence of technology and of the ontological-

existential a priori aspects of Being-in-the-World. Heideggers focus in his

essay The Question Concerning Technology will be primarily directed

towards an inquiry into essence of technology and inquiry into the nature of

the true.

Beginning with the essence of technology and the definition cited

prior we are confronted with the problematic of analyzing technology in

terms of its for-the-sake-of-which character as a mode revealing. 10

Colloquially, we speak of technology as instrumental and as anthropological,

with the latter being analyzed in terms of its historical iterations and in terms

10
Heidegger claims: Technology itself is a contrivance, or, in Latin, an
instrumentum. The word technology has roots in the Greek word
teknologia, which translates as a systematic treatment and when
combined with tekhne, or art, craft implies that teknologia is a systematic
treatment of an art or a craft. The intimate relation between tekhne and
episteme translated as knowledge is all too apparent in the Greek
literature. It represents the common distinction, yet close relation, between
knowledge and practice. Tekhne and episteme are traditionally spoken of
together, episteme as knowledge of (theory), and tekhne as knowledge of
how to (practice).
 8

of the human-centered needs that gave rise to socio-historical forms. Once

conceived and situated as an anthropological tool satisfying some human-

centered need, technology is then addressed as purely instrumental, with

conceptions of revealing being relegated solely to the for-the-sake-of-which

character beginning in the ontical. Problematically, however, this ignores

essential modes of revealing that are present in every instance of disclosure

as a for-the-sake-of-which attribute of technological devices. This brings us

back to the question: what is instrumentality? What does it mean for an

entity encountered within the world to be revealed as an instrument for-the-

sake-of some human-centered end? Is for-the-sake-of-which revealing

relegated solely to anthropological and socio-historical conceptions that

begin in, and are sustained as, ontical depictions?

To answer this question we must, as Heidegger does, return to Aristotle

and the four causes cited in the Posterior Analytics, Physics, and

Metaphysics. According to Aristotle, to know a thing means to know its

cause. He claims: We suppose ourselves to possess unqualified scientific

knowledge of a thing, as opposed to knowing it in the accidental way in

which the sophist knows, when we think that we know the cause on which

the fact depends, as the cause of the fact and of no other, and, further, that

the fact could not be other than it is.11 So the proper scientific answer to

the question of what a thing is is also to answer the question how the thing

came to be. Likewise, answering the question why a thing is, or came to be,

11
Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, 71b 9-10.
 9

is to answer the question by what causal sequence of events that thing came

to be, which implies temporality as in, there was time in which the thing did

not exist, T1, and another time in which the thing does exist, T2 and it

implies rule-bound reasoning regarding states of affairs in the world.

Likewise, in Metaphysics, Aristotle makes the claim: Clearly then Wisdom is

knowledge about certain principles and causes.12

Understanding the cause of a substance, however, is never as simple

as positing the stuff out of which a substance is made; Aristotle famously

goes on to detail how the concept of a cause takes on four different senses.

The first sense of cause is in fact the material cause; it is the material out of

which a given substance was constructed that is causally responsible for its

existence. It is not possible for us to have bronze sculptures unless we have

the material bronze. Likewise, we cannot have ceramic cups without

ceramic, wood tables without wood, or wheat bread without wheat.13 The

second sense in which the concept of cause can be understood is as a final

cause, which implies the cause of the construction of some entity is the end

or the function for which that entity is constructed. The final cause can be

understood as that for the sake of which a thing has been made or the good

of the other causes if there is an agent involved in its construction as the

source of the change. In other words, the purpose a thing made and the

12
Aristotle, Metaphysics, 982a.
13
Aristotle claims: both the art of sculpture and the bronze are causes of the
statue not in respect of anything else but qua statue; not, however, in the
same way, but one the matter and the other as source of movement.
M1013b 6-8.
 10

function a thing is designed to carry out is in part causally responsible for its

existence. As Aristotle claims: it is that for the sake of which other things

are [that] tends to be the best and the end of the other things.14 The third

sense in which the concept of cause can be understood is as an efficient

cause. The efficient cause is best understood as the source of the change or

the resting from change that a cause requires in order to become such and

such an entity. Often this change comes from an agent such as an artist, a

physician, or a consultant. Yet it is not, as Aristotle points out, reducible to

the agent of change; it is also the world of sculpting, the world of medicine,

and the world of consulting that causes this change as well. Again it is both

the art of sculpture and the bronze that act as cause in the construction of

the sculpture.15 The final sense in which Aristotle claims that we can

14
Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1013b 25-27.
15
There are close similarities here between the idea of the so-called art of
sculpture and Heideggers concept of World found in Being and Time. Using
Heideggers terminology, the art of sculpture refers to the World of
sculpting and the Worldhood of the sculptor. The concept of Worldhood is
an ontological concept, and as Heidegger notes in Being and Time, it refers
to the structure of one of the constitutive items of Being-in-the-World. (92)
Worldhood is not matter of characterizing entities found within-the-world,
but instead, it is an ontological characteristic of Dasein. Dasein dwells within
the world, but also has World, as an ontological a priori. Yet this idea of
World can be elaborated on even further by analyzing the the various ways
in which the word World can be understood. (93) Heidegger claims that
World refers to 1) an ontical concept, which details the totality of entities
within-the-world that can be made present-at-hand. 2) World, again, refers
to the ontological property of having world, and functions to denote the
realm of possible objects of a World that a particular Dasein inhabits. For
example, if a particular Dasein inhabits the World of sculpting, then World in
this instance refers to the totality of possible objects related to the sculptor
and the art of sculpting. These might include sketches, pens, clay, bronze,
etc. But in distinction to the concept of World understood as ontical, World in
this sense refers to the multiplicity, which indicates a monadic structure of
Being, including both the actual and the conceivable related to the art of
 11

understand the concept of cause is as essence or form. The essence or form

of a cause is the pattern, conceived prior to construction, of the entity being

created such that the end result of the process of fabrication is a particular

iteration of an essential idea. Aristotle conceives of this essence as a

definition that cannot be further reduced to another definition. To

recapitulate, Aristotles account of the four senses of cause contain the

following:

1) The Material Cause the matter from which a thing is made.

2) The Final Cause the end for which a thing is made.

3) The Efficient Cause the source that causes the change.

4) The Formal Cause the form out of which a thing is made.

What is equally relevant for Heideggers discussion of the revealing of

the for-the-sake-of-which in the true is Aristotles idea of what it means to be

a beginning, conceived in the Metaphysics in terms of senses. Aristotle

begins book V of Metaphysics with an account of the senses of beginning

sculpting. It is this World that Dasein inhabits, and it is from this World that
Dasein creates a sculpture. 3) World refers to the factical wherein a
Dasein lives. World in this sense refers not to the totality of entities which
can be made present-at-hand, but instead refers to those particular entities
which a given Dasein can manipulate in the projection of its potentiality-for-
being in a given region. World in this sense places special emphasis on the
inhood (inheit) of a particular Dasein as it is thrown into a given facticity.
Finally, 4) World designates the ontologico-existential concept and
predicate of worldhood understood as an existential-ontologico a priori. So
to speak of the art of sculpting as the efficient cause in the construction of
a given entity encountered within-the-world is to speak of the senses of
World detailed here. And on a separate note: it seems relevant to point out
that it is to this concpt of World that Hannah Arendt is speaking about when
she claims in The Human Condition that we are not of this World.
Intellectuals are not, in a sense, of Worlds, but analyze and dissect prior
Worlds and formulate/articulate the Worlds of the future.
 12

and in so doing establishes the structural basis of the idea of cause and the

various senses of cause that ensue. In it, he establishes five different

accounts of beginning that I will attempt to elaborate on with the intention of

explaining Heideggers concept of the revealing of the for-the-sake-of-which

in the true in more detail. Let us for now, however, suspend the thought as

to whether we are going to conceive of the idea of a beginning or the idea of

a cause as a purely higher order thought about states of affairs in the world

or whether were going to conceive of the idea of beginning as

equiprimordial with the revealing of the for-the-sake-of-which in the true, a

topic addressed later in this chapter.

The first sense of beginning that Aristotle addresses in Metaphysics is

beginning as the part of a thing from which one would start first, as in the

case of a road.16 The second sense of beginning that Aristotle addresses is

as that from which a thing is best originated. He uses the idea of learning as

an example; as in, learning is best originated from experience, for example,

or learning is best originated with fundamental principles. The third sense of

beginning is beginning as that from which a thing first comes into being as

an immanent part in its design; he uses the example of the construction of a

house beginning with laying the foundation or the beginning of a novel with

the brainstorming of content. The fourth sense of beginning is that from

which something comes into being, but not as an immanent part as in the

case of child who comes from a mother and father (immanently) but also

16
Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1012b 35.
 13

from a situation in which abusive language was used in this childs

upbringing (non-immanently). This sense of beginning may be understood

as contingently correlated with the immanent in the design of a thing. The

fifth sense of beginning is the agent conceived of in terms of will as the

cause of the movement of a thing. Lastly, the sixth sense of beginning that

Aristotle notes is beginning as that from which a thing can first be known;

the example he uses is hypotheses as the beginning of demonstrations.

Important to note is that Aristotle insists on the distinction between

immanent and outside the thing. He states: It is common, then, to all

beginnings to be the first point from which a thing either is or comes to be or

is known; but of these some are immanent in the thing and others are

outside.17 To recapitulate, Aristotles account of the six senses of

beginning contain the following:

1) Beginning as the part of a thing from which one would start.

2) Beginning as that from which the thing is best originated.

3) That from which a thing first comes into being (immanently).

4) That from which a thing first comes into being (non-immanently).

5) The agent, or will, as beginning.

6) That from which a thing can first be known.

Returning to Heideggers thesis on technology, he does note that the idea of

cause is typically conceived in terms of bringing something about and that

it is understood as a manner of analyzing facts about the world. Causality is

17
Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1013a 18.
 14

relevant to Heideggers thesis on technology because, again, he defines

technology as a) a means to an end, and b) a human activity, which employs

means to produce these ends. Technology, then, is an instrument in the

service of a human-centered end, and instrumentality, governed by the laws

of causality, is the mode of being by which technology operates.18 Both the

idea of causality and the idea of beginning are relevant in the theoretical

conception of technology but at stake in Heideggers account of technology

is whether causality and beginning are equiprimordial in the revealing of the

true, understood as an ontologico-existential a priori of revealing of the for-

the-sake-of-which in the true.

How then are we to understand the ontologico-existential a priori of

revealing of the for-the-sake-of-which in the true? By what mode of

presencing does the instrument take and how do the four senses of causality

play a part in this presencing? This concept of presencing or to be more

specific, this experience of presencing is analyzed in some detail in the

pages of Being and Time. Heidegger calls the presencing encountered

ready-to-hand, within-the-world, as pre-ontological equipment. He goes

back to the idea of method and claims that the preliminary theme in the

existential analytic of Dasein begins with that which shows itself within the

environment. The Being of that which shows itself within the environment

can be laid bare phenomenologically if it is treated first in its everydayness,

which is how entities Dasein encounters within-the-world in its dealings

18
Heidegger states: What technology is, when represented as a means,
discloses itself when we trace instrumentality back to fourfold causality. (3)
 15

with the world first appear. These kinds of dealings with equipment

encountered within-the-world, which begin with that which appear in the

environment, do not begin with pure perception. Or to be more specific,

these beings do not initially appear present-at-hand, or in the theoretical

attitude. In everydayness, such entities are encountered within-the-world

are encountered as what gets used, manipulated in the service of some end,

and what get produced. Such a relation to being is not an ontology, which

means that knowing in this sense is not an ontological knowing of that kind

that posits assertions as truth-values that maintain an adequatio with that

which can be made present-at-hand. What is laid bare in the

phenomenological interpretation of entities encountered within-the-world in

their everydayness is a determination of the structure of the Being which

such an entity maintains pre-ontologically. This being becomes accessible

when Dasein puts itself in a position of concernful dealing with the entities

encountered within-the-world. These beings of concernful dealing Heidegger

calls equipment.

He does not relegate his understanding of equipment to the colloquial

manner in which the term is used today. Equipment in the technical sense

in which he employs it is not meant to refer to the totality of equipment that

can be made present-at-hand within-the-world, but instead, equipment

belongs to the totality of equipment that can be made present-at-hand

within-the-world. Meaning, equipment is essentially something that causes

equipment the kind that can be made present-at-hand and put in the
 16

service of some end to appear as something in-order-to and for-the-sake-of-

which some potentiality-for-being. The totality of equipment which can be

made present-at-hand is constituted by various ways of the in-order-to and

the for-the-sake-of-which, which as will be shown shortly, uses raw materials

that begin in Greek legin, or logos, and through a process of fashioning

becomes equipment in the technical sense of the term. The signification

made present in the Being of this equipment is not reducible to its origins in

the Greek legin, or logos because it by necessity refers to that potentiality-

for-being for which it was fashioned, a potentiality-for-being that itself refers

to other entities encountered within-the-world. Consider, for example, a

keyboard: a keyboard is an entitiy encountered within-the-world, and it is an

entity that maintains a given set ontical properties that any given Dasein

might encounter within-the-world. It is also equipment in the sense that it

appears as an in-order-to and a for-the-sake-of-which. Yet as equipment

that appears as an in-order-to and a for-the-sake-of-which it refers in its

appearing to another piece of equipment in the totality of equipment,

namely the monitor that receives input from the keyboard as to which key

were struck by the individual Dasein employing it for-the-sake-of recording

some string of symbols. The in-order-to structure, which is a further

determination of the structure of the Being entities within-the-world

encountered pre-ontologically possess, maintains in this manner a referential

structure of signification that relates something to something else, and this

referential structure is made present in the pre-ontological mode of

 17

revealing. So when Heidegger speaks of the presence of technology that

appears for-the-sake-of some end or another, he is referring to the final

cause, fashioned by the efficient cause, which appears, pre-ontologically, as

something for-the-sake-of something else, namely the thing for which it was

designed.

Take any given object; Heidegger uses a silver chalice, let us use a

ceramic cup. The material cause from which the cup was produced is of

course the ceramic from which it was built. Without this ceramic there would

be no ceramic cup. He claims that the ceramic is in a relevant sense

responsible or co-responsible19 for the cup as the material cause of the

cup. Likewise, the final cause for which the ceramic cup was made is as a

place from which to drink, the efficient cause from which the cup was made

is the world of pottery and the potter himself, and the formal cause is the

concept of cup and the design of the cup that preceded its construction.

Each of these are causes and each, as Heidegger notes, are co-responsible

for its construction; yet, they are co-responsible in the sense that the causes

belong at once to each other. While distinct, the causes are still considered

as a unity in their multiplicity such that each are co-responsible for the

ceramic cup, but are so never in isolation from the other causes in

consideration. The end result of this line of thinking is that the four causes

are co-responsible for the construction of entities, are conceived as both

distinct and monadic, and are present as knowable in the final product, the

19
Heidegger, M. The Question Concerning Technology. P. 3.
 18

ceramic cup. Heidegger goes so far as to analyze this being responsible in

terms of logos20 when he expands on the efficient cause in the potter. Not

only is the potter responsible for the construction of the ceramic cup as an

agent with a will capable of causing movement and as a being inhabiting the

world of pottery, there are certain existential conditions that act as a prioris

in the bringing forward into appearance of the ceramic cup; the potter must

carefully consider each of the remaining three causes again, grounded in

the Greek legin and then must act in order to gather together21 these

remaining three causes. The final product, as knowable, presupposes not

only that the ceramic cup was brought forward into appearance by the

artisan as a cause, but it was done so by employing the remaining three

causes as a gathering together and as a manipulating of the material as

a result of legin, or logos, with some for-the-sake-of-which in mind as a final

cause in the creation. We thus find, within the final product as

instrumentum, signification as a for-the-sake-of-which revealing of some

potentiality-for-being immanent in the technology that began with the Greek

legin and then transformed into an instrumentum through the artist as the

efficient cause.

The presencing of this technology presupposes this for-the-sake-of-

which as a lying before22 and a lying ready of an instrumentum in the

production of some potentiality-for-being. In Being and Time Heidegger The

20
He claims: To consider carefully [iiberlegen] is in Greek legin, logos.
Legein is rooted in apophainesthni, to bring forward into appearance (4)
21
Heidegger, M. The Question Concerning Technology. P. 4.
22
Ibid. P. 4.
 19

four causes, or the four ways of being responsible as co-responsible again,

analyzed distinctly, but made present monadically bring forward into

appearance this tool that presences itself as an instrumentum in the service

of some for-the-sake-of-which and as fashioned by the four causes co-

responsible for its existence. Heidegger here references Plato, who claims

that any instance of bringing forward into appearance is a poiesis.23 Yet, how

is this bringing forward into appearance a poiesis and why ought it be

conceived as a poiesis?24

On Poiesis

Poiesis is not a term that begins in Heideggers writing. It is a term

that he borrows and builds on that began with the Ancient Greeks, notably

Plato and Aristotle, among others. To understand Heideggers usage of the

term Poiesis and the different ways in which he builds on this notion let us

turn to the Ancient texts in which it is most commonly used in order to get a

better idea of the heritage and etymology of the terms that Heidegger is

employing. The term poiesis is given some of its best treatment in Platos

Symposium. The goal of Platos writing in Symposium is to demythologize

the god Eros by giving it a philosophical treatment from a variety of sources.

Mirroring Heideggers usage in The Question Concerning Technology, Plato

23
Plato states: Every occasion for whatever passes over and goes forward
into presencing from that which is not presencing is poiesis, is bringing-
forth.
24
Make sure to include bits about Heidegger from The Origin of the
Work of Art, Introduction to Metaphysics.
 20

employs the term as a means of understating how an existent comes into

being; he states, via Diotimas speech:

For Instance, poetry. Youll agree that there is more than one

kind of poetry in the true sense of the word that is to say,

calling something into existence that was not there before, so

that every kind of artistic creation is poetry. (205b-c)

Two points immediately stand out to the modern reader: a) poiesis is only

indirectly related to the modern concept of poetry, which is to say that

through poiesis a poem may come into being, but poiesis as a determinable

concept is distinct, and b) poiesis is used by Diotima here as a nomen

actionis,25 or a noun expressing the action of the verb which it derives from.

It is best to understand Diotimas usage of the term as being functionally

equivalent to the term creation, as though, by ones creation or poiesis

something new comes into being through some process of fashioning. So it

is not the creation of a poem that sets the condition of the possibility of

poiesis, but rather the bringing into being of some being as a process of

creation.26

25
Special thanks to Silvio Marino in his article titled, Begetting in the
Beautiful. The Aesthetics of poiesis in Platos Symposium for articulating
this nicely.
26
Let us take note that Marinos initial diagnosis of poiesis as the process by
which something is produced seems to be accurate. His characterization of
poiesis as every cause determining a passage from not being into being is
poiesis is correct if we conclude that Plato is correct in his general
assumption that an intelligent hand created the world. Given this
assumption, his claim in 205b-c that every kind of artistic creation is poetry
would imply that every passage from not being into being is poiesis because
every cause determining a passage from not being into being is generated
by an artist (i.e. God). The concept of poiesis and creation which implies a
 21

Another operant feature of Diotomas speech in Symposium concerning

poiesis is her intimate treatment of the concept of poiesis and Eros together.

Platos Symposium is generally regarded as the preeminent ancient text

concerning the topic of Eros, or love, and we encounter Diotomas treatment

of poiesis within the context of her philosophical treatment of Eros more

generally. Preceding the passage in which Diotima introduces the term, she

is hard at work detailing the features of Eros; she cites: love of the lovely, 27

love of wisdom,28 love as part but not wholly need-based,29 and love as

common to all mankind,30 among others, but she acknowledges that what

she is doing is merely detailing the various aspects of love, and that in the

same way that love has these various aspects, poiesis, or the act of creation,

has a multitude of aspects and modalities as well. Diotima states:

You see, what weve been doing is to give the name of Love to

what is only one single aspect of it; we make just the same

mistake, you know, with a lot of other names. (205b-c)

creator go hand in hand, which subsequently implies that poiesis

presupposes an agent of change grounded in autonomous action governed
by legin. It is also possible to read Plato without making the assumption that
an intelligent hand created world but it would relegate his understanding of
poiesis to acts of creation that presuppose a human (or non-human animal)
agent, grounded in legin, that carried out the process of poiesis. The logical
conclusion would be dropping the claim that every cause determining a
passage from not being into being is poiesis in favor of the claim that poiesis
is the process of bringing into being as a result of the work of this human or
non-human animal and that these creations qualify as poiesis.
27
204b
28
204b
29
203e
30
205a
 22

She then goes on to introduce the idea of poiesis, and in so doing, she points

to that fact that in the same way as we do not call all acts of creation poetry

and that we instead give different names to the different arts of creation

Love is that renowned and all-beguiling power, includes every kind of

longing for happiness and for the good.31

At this juncture, readers of Platos Symposium may decide to stop their

contemplation of poiesis as an analogy to Eros with the understanding that

Diotimas intended meaning is merely to point to the feature that poiesis and

Eros have in common: namely, that each has various aspects and that the

various aspects are given different names while still being considered

fundamentally either poiesis or Eros. Or we may draw a more interesting

meaning a meaning that Plato likely intends namely that a union of the

concepts of poiesis and Eros gives a more robust understanding of both

ideas.32 Consider Diotimas characterization of Love:

Love never longs for either the half or the whole or anything

except the good. For men will even have their hands and feet

cut off if they are convinced that those members are bad for

themfor what we love is the good and nothing but the good.

(S:205e)

31
205d-e. Emphasis added.
32
Marino acknowledges this idea when he states: Plato can link two
concepts, placing them together in the same plane, those of the beautiful
(kalon) and the good (agathon). Indeed, for Platonic philosophy, the union of
these two concepts allows us to broaden the perspective about poiesis.
Since the planes of kalon and agathon are assimilated, we can focus our
attention both on the mechanisms implied in poiesis and on the way through
which something is created. (2)
 23

Diotima conceives of the love of the Good as categorical, as in, it is

categorically the case that men love what they are convinced is good, and

that further that men long for the good to be their own forever.33 So what is

the action that this Love of the Good engenders? As Diotima states, To love

is to bring forth upon the beautiful, both in body and in soul. (S: 206b-c)

This passage alludes to the idea of poiesis indirectly by characterizing loving

as a bringing forth into being, which itself is characterized as a nomen

actionis, or a noun expressing the action of the verb which it derives from.

Yet, in the case of poiesis, the noun poiesis implies the action of bringing

forth into being as a creative practice, whereas Love which is categorically

a longing for the beautiful (kalon) and the Good (agathon) also contains the

33
This concept of being their own is also of distinct interest insofar as the
question of what it means to be their own is in question. Diotimas tone
does not suggest that she is making chauvinistic statements about the
status of women as property, for example, because the love of the Good is
general, as in, anything that is considered to be Good is something that one
longs to be their own. Perhaps we can draw an analogy to Heideggers
treatment of technology here where he makes the following claim: Modern
technology is a means to an end. That is why the instrumental conception of
technology conditions every attempt to bring man into the right relation to
technology. Everything depends on our manipulating technology in the
proper manner as a means. (2) But as a means to what? As an
instrumentum, which orders about what Heidegger calls the standing-
reserve [Bestand], technology arranges that which men considered to be
Good, or at the very least arrange that which men considered Good to have
arranged. Thus, the idea of being their own that Diotima proposes seems
to suggest a kind of power over, or power to manipulate, that which is
considered Good. Technology, as an instrumentum capable of arranging the
standing-reserve [Bestand], is a means of gaining power over that which
men consider to be the Good, and in so doing, make it their own with the
aspiration that they can make it their own forever. See E. Montuschis article
Order of Man, Order of Nature: Francis Bacons Idea of a Dominion Over
Nature for a fuller articulation of how the Western Philosophical tradition has
conceived of technology and knowledge more generally as a power over
nature.
 24

same nomen actionis structure, but the referent itself is seemingly

ambiguous. What is the Lover bringing into being in body and in soul? And

further, what does it mean to bring into being in body and soul? Most

importantly, what is the verb expressed in the concept Love as a nomen

actionis? Diotima answers this question in the following way:

So you see, Socrates, that Love is not exactly a longing for the

beautiful, as you suggested[it is] A longing not for the beautiful

itself, but for the conception and generation that the beautiful

effects.

These concepts of conception and generation are concepts that Diotima

derives as parallels to the conception and generation of parenting a child

when nature urges man to procreate. Thus to bring into being in body and

soul means to propagate an aspect of ones own self in an Other, and in so

doing, propagate an immortal something in the midst of mans mortality.

(S: 206c) Love, while not being exclusively reducible to the procreation that

produces a child, and subsequently the propagation of ones own body and

soul that ensues, is still, according to Diotima, a conception and a generation

with the intent to propagate that the beautiful effects. And once again, what

we Love is the Good, or that which man considers to be good. So therefore,

to Love is to conceive of some Good and to bring it forth into existence

(poiesis) so that it may propagate with the intent making it ones own own

forever. And what is this fascination with propagation? As Diotima says,

 25

Because this is the one deathless and eternal element in our mortality. 34

We thus see the connection between poiesis and Love: poiesis is a calling

something into existence that was not there before. Love is a conception

and a generation that the beautiful effects with the intent to propagate the

Good, which implies poiesis as a nomen actionis.35

Plato picks up this notion of generation again in the Timaeus where he

discusses the creation of the world and his concept of God. Let it be noted

before continuing that Plato spends quite a bit of his efforts lambasting the

poets in the early pages of the Timaeus; he calls them a tribe of imitators36

and that their art is imitating the life that they were brought up by. Further

he mocks them as he claims that that which is beyond the range of a mans

education he finds it hard to carry out in action, and still harder adequately

to represent in language.37 We thus find here a criticism of the poietes as

the executor of poiesis in a manner that we did not find in Symposium. Yet

this concept of creation and generation is an active principle in his

conception of God and the structure of the physical world, which again

implies the distinction between poiesis and our modern understanding of the

concept of poetry. Poets may, for Plato, suffer from the deficiency of bringing

their education into action (acting according to their learning) and

34
206e
35
Marino states: Eros is not eros of the beautiful (to kalon) but eros of
engendering and begetting in the beautifulPlato is saying that every act
man can do gives rise to begetting, in other words poiesis is not something
different from begetting.
36
19d-e
37
19d-e
 26

representing their thoughts in language, but the poietes as the executor of

poiesis, understood as synonymous with creation or calling something into

existence that was not there before, may not suffer from these same

deficiencies that Plato cites according to Plato.

Before giving due attention to Platos treatment of creation and

generation in the Timaeus, allow us to take heed of a significantly

debilitating feature of Platos writing that is at one turn archaic and at

another turn enlightened, namely his perpetual tendency to impute agency

to the rational structure of the world. As well see in what follows Plato

continuously uses phrases like the work of a creator,38 why the creator

made this world,39 and he brought order40 as explanatory features of the

physical world.41 There is a sense in which this archaic tendency to impute

agency to the formation of the physical world is debilitating;42 namely, some

of account of how this creation by a creator is possible is equally as relevant

as an account of the physical world itself and if a sufficient explanatory

account of how a supernatural creator created this world is absent, why posit

38
28a-b
39
29d-e
40
30a
41
Timaeus states: And we, too, who are going to discourse of the nature of
the universe, how created or how existing without creation, if we be not
altogether out of our wits, must invoke the aid of gods and goddesses and
pray that our words may be above all acceptable to them and in
consequence to ourselves. (27c)
42
Not all scholars agree that Plato thought that there was an intelligent hand
that created the world. Perhaps a better reading of this idea (an idea picked
up by later Judeo-Christian thinkers) is that Plato was utilizing the concept of
God to get the rulers nearby to identify with his teachings and enact them.
Presumably it was effective given that figures like Alexander later openly
called himself God before his subjects.
 27

it as a condition of the possibility of the Real? Plato certainly does not

provide a sufficient explanation for this creation in the pages of the

Timaeus.43 So why posit a creator, called God and given the status of a

subject distinct from its object, the world, in the first place? One cannot help

at this point to sympathize with Heidegger when he calls us late born ones

as a response to the realization that much of what modern thinkers and

scientists are doing is divorced from the originary and primordial fascination

with the world itself that propelled the early Greek thinkers and through the

realization that modern man is straddled with the burden of the signification

in the presencing of the true that Heidegger calls enframing as an essential

property of technology. This will be a topic addressed in what follows, but it

is relevant in a discussion of Plato because one must take heed of the

context in which Plato was writing before dispensing with his thought or any

other written in an epoch different than the one in which the reader is

analyzing his text from.44 Plato wrote in a time before Copernicus, Darwin,

Kant, and his student Aristotle, many of who present valuable critiques of his

ideas; yet these critiques do not render his ideas meaningless. Rather, they

render his ideas subject to criticism, which implies a development of the

concept rather than an outright negation.

Plato begins his discussion of creation and generation with the

following question: what is that which always is and has no becoming, and

43
Platos argument for God from Achilles.
44
On a relevant note, this is further an attestation to the intellectual value of
understanding Heideggers concept of Worldhood.
 28

what is that which is always becoming and never is? He answers by positing

intelligible apprehension as that which is always in the same state and the

objects of sensation to be in a process of perpetual becoming and perishing.

We find here Platos infamous attempt to render the physical world into a

duality of the physical and the intelligible, with the physical being that which

can be experienced as a sensation, and the intelligible as that which can be

understood through a rational ordering of experience. If the poietes of

poiesis is to create, it is a creation of the physical world, which by necessity

must heed the constraints of the natural laws of the physical world. One law

of the physical world that Plato cites as necessary in the poiesis of the

poietes is the law of cause and effect: he states, Now everything that

becomes or is created must of necessity be created by some cause, for

without a cause nothing can be created.45 To narrow in on Platos point, the

law of cause and effect is not an object of experience; rather it is an

intelligible ordering of sensations, which themselves are objects of

experience. That everything comes to be or perishes as a result of cause

and effect is factually true and is always factually true.46 Yet it is also true

that sensations are in a perpetual state of becoming even if they are the

product of the cause and effect operations of the physical world. 47 Given this

duality of the intelligible and the sensible, and Platos treatment of the

intelligible as always being and without becoming, and the sensible as in a

45
28a
46
Cite the possibility of different levels of reducibility being subject to
different laws (i.e. indeterminacy)
47
Find a way to incorporate Eva Branns paper on how this occurs.
 29

perpetual state of becoming, it is clear why he defers to the intelligible in

poiesis. He states:

The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the

unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after

an unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and

perfect, but when he looks to the created only and uses a

created pattern, it is not fair or perfect. (28a-b)48

It is important to note here how the intelligible operates in the poeises of the

poietes without first qualifying either the creation or the dual structure of the

world that Plato articulates. First, poiesis is a calling into existence of that

which was not there before; but what is it that the poietes is calling into

existence and how is this calling into existence taking place? This is to ask

the question: which pattern of the world did the poietes have in view in the

creative process? Plato gives what appears to the reader to be a qualitative

assessment of how the artificer relates to the eternal in poieses when he

claims: If the world be indeed fair and the artificer good, it is manifest that

he must have looked to that which is eternal49 If the creator looks to the

eternal, and through poieses the creation is governed by a likeness with the

apprehension of the eternal, we find in the creation a likeness to the

intelligible apprehension of the world, which is itself is the eternal. As Plato

states: It is all important that the beginning of everything be according to

48
Plato and engineering. Cite here.
49
29a
 30

nature.50 And in this regard technology, as an instrumentum created by a

human for some end, is no different, and in fact is indeed fair and the

artificer good if it does.

Yet what does Plato mean when he uses the phrase the world be

indeed fair and when later speaking of the world itself he claims that God

desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was

attainableout of disorder he brought order, considering that this was in

every way better than the other.51 Before proceeding, allow us to remember

several points already articulated: first, Plato continuously imputes agency to

natural mechanisms, and in so doing, incidentally introduces an explanatory

simplification for why the world operates in the manner that it does (i.e. it

was created this way by an intelligent creator called God understood as a

divine subject existing independently of the object, or the world itself).

Given the World in which Plato is writing, in combination with the surprise he

must have felt at discovering that many of the mechanisms of the world

were in fact ordered by a set of uniform laws made intelligible to the

understanding, it is not entirely surprising that he imputed to its creation an

intelligent hand, without supplementing this postulate with anything more

substantial than a trite argument for the existence of a divine creator that we

find in his Achilles argument and a more general assumption about how such

an ordered world came into being. This being said, it is not entirely apparent

that we ought to accept his argument and general assumption that such an

50
29b
51
30a
 31

intelligent hand existed in the creation of the world. Yet this does not compel

us to abandon all of the insights one can derive from Plato either, namely

that it is the case that the sensible world is in a continuous state of flux and

the intelligible world is eternal, and that likening the creation of the sensible

to the eternal is the surest way to produce the finest end result.52 So allow

us to continue with this understanding in mind.

Returning to the theme of generation, Plato picks up the ideas he so

lucidly articulates in the Symposium when he makes the following claim:

Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of

generation. He was good, and the good can never have any

jealousy of anything [emphasis added]. And being free from

jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as

they could be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation

and of the worldGod desired that all things should be good and

nothing bad53

To decipher Platos meaning here, allow us to look at the etymology of the

word he employs to describe good; he claims that the creator is good in

the sense that He is free from jealousy. Jealousy is defined as the state or

feeling of being jealous; from the Old French gelosie from gelos. Gelos

comes from the medieval Latin zelosus, which means having or showing

zeal. Zeal is defined as great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or

52
In other words, dont build a building before an architect and an engineer
draw up plans.
53
29e-30a
 32

an objective [emphasis added], which ultimately comes from the Greek word

zelos. Zelos is the word that Plato uses to describe the creator being from

when he describes him as good. 54 The point that Plato is making is that the

world of generation, or to be more specific, the world as it is governed by

natural laws like cause and effect and other such basic laws of physics, does

not pursue a cause or an objective; the world simply is, and is constructed by

laws that operate without any deference to arbitrary characteristics like race,

sex, intelligence, strength, etc. While these properties may have a bearing

on the machinations of the sensible, insofar as one set of properties in any

given epoch may predominate, and another set of properties in another

epoch may supersede these characteristics and gain evolutionary

supremacy, the natural laws of the physical world will forever be entirely

neutral. And as neutral, the world is good in that it is free from jealousy, or

deference to an arbitrary objective, because it is constrained by the

necessary.

We confront a unique problematic for both Heidegger and Plato at this

juncture. If it is true that for something to be good it can never have

jealousy of anything understood as being free from the tendency to

zealously pursue a cause and technology is a means to an end, which is

produced through poiesis, grounded in legin, and as an entity presences in

part as a for-the-sake-of-which, then it appears that technology is by

definition not good because it appears to have as an essential component

54
From the Apple Dictionary.
 33

the tendency to zealously pursue a cause, namely, the cause for which it was

conceived and then brought into being. Allow us to call this problematic the

Paradox of the Goodness of Technology (PGT). The paradox can be stated

more formally as the following:

P1: X is Good if and only if it does not zealously pursue a cause apart from

itself.

P2: Y is technology if and only if it is a means to an end.

P3: Being a means to an end is the same as zealously pursuing a cause

(B=C).

P4: Y zealously pursues a cause.

Therefore, Y is not Good.

The absurdity of this conclusion is already apparent for a number of reasons.

First, this argument seems absurd because it succumbs to the fallacy of the

slippery slope. While it may be true that some forms of technology, which

are still essentially defined as a means to some end, are not good because of

the end they produce, it does not mean that no forms of technology are good

because they are a means to an end. There are numerous examples that

would provide support to this idea. Consider, for example, the case of the

light switch that, when switched on, drops a load of bricks on the persons

head that flipped on the switch. Every time the switch is turned off the

system reloads, and then, viola, when the switched is switch back on bricks

do indeed fall from the ceiling. Surely such a form of technology is

conceivable and within the realm of the possible, but it is not necessarily
 34

considered good, unless it is so as a means of booby-trapping a house or

planning an assault. If this example is insufficient, consider a similar such

conceivable example such as the grass-corset: the corset that when applied

to grass decreases the waste size of the blades. It doesnt seem clear that

such forms of technology ought to be considered good but not because they

are a means to an end, but rather because the ends themselves are either

useless or not something we consider good.

Secondly, this argument seems to be absurd because it seems obvious

that forms of technology produce what we would consider to be good, or

have a value, because they are instruments in the service of some human-

centered end. Consider such basic examples as a washing machine or a

table. As an instrument, a washing machine produces the good that the user

can clean his or her clothes with less effort expended than it wouldve

otherwise taken if the washing machine were not in existence. Wearing

clean clothes is a good and expending a smaller share of our energy stores in

getting them cleaned is a further good. Similarly with a table: a table

produces the good that it allows us to eat food or store belongings off of the

ground. There are two relevant points here: first, such tools were conceived

by the executor of the process of poiesis to produce that good, and second, it

is a fact that the end-result is often considered good. So the prior argument

seems mistaken on the grounds that most forms of technology are conceived

to produce some good, and as a fact about the world, are often subjectively

found capable of producing that good.

 35

Lastly, to distinguish Platos view it is important to know what he

considers to be Good and why. As he states in Timaeus 29e-30a, the good

can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he

desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. So while it

seems correct to criticize Platos view of the Good by claiming that some

ends of technology are good and others are not, and as such one ought

qualify pieces of technology on a case by case basis according to some

paradigm of goodness (pleasure, rightness, accordance with current

customs, economic viability, etc.), this would in fact be a misreading of

Platos position. He is instead claiming that goodness has no directional

focus apart from itself, and he imputes agency to the laws of nature as a

perfect example of what goodness looks like. While well concede, once

again, that Platos writing is overshadowed by the tendency to impute

agency to natural processes whether as a real assumption about the nature

of reality or as a means of assuaging those readers at the time inclined

towards this assumption without further reflection one can still read into his

writings a concept of goodness that mirrors natural processes. Newtons

third law of physics states that for every action there is an equal and

opposite reaction, and as effect is a likeness to cause, so goodness is in

relation to itself.

Yet given these points, there still appears to be a paradox if we

consider Platos definition of goodness as never having jealousy of anything

understood as never zealously pursuing an objective to be correct.

 36

Technology is a means to an end, which is produced through poiesis,

grounded in legin, and as an entity presences in part as the for-the-sake-of-

which end for which it was conceived and produced. Inherent within its

conception is the end, or the Telos, for which it is designed, and as an entity

appears to exist as a mechanism whose essential purpose is the production

of that end. Semantic discussions aside, there seems to be a real sense in

which such an entity zealously pursues a cause, namely, the cause for which

it was conceived and then brought into being, and as such, cannot qualify as

essentially good in Platos sense of the word. For the time allow us to put

this discussion on hold with the intent of returning to it later in the chapter

when we discuss Heideggers concept of enframing, but let us do so after

internalizing the Paradox of the Goodness of Technology (PGT).

This brings us to the question of what it is that the poietes of poiesis is

bringing into existence and how he is going about doing so. According to

Plato, If the world be indeed fair and the artificer good, it is manifest that he

must have looked to that which is eternalto the created pattern. 55 We

have already noted that Platos concept of poiesis as it relates to the eternal

is a call to those who create to utilize the intellectual assets of the Worlds of

engineering, architecture, mathematics, etc. in their acts of creation. As

mentioned prior, when Aristotle is discussing the material cause, he points

out that both the art of sculpture and the bronze are co-responsible for the

formation of the statue. The so-called art of sculpture refers to the World

55
Timaeus 29a
 37

of sculpting or that comprehensive set of real or possible objects whose

referential structure refers back to the act of constructing a sculpture.

Similarly with engineering, architecture, and mathematics, each World

contains a comprehensive set of real or possible objects who referential

structure refers to Telos responsible for its origin. 56 Engineering, for example,

is the practice by which principles of the physical world are combined and

then transformed into entities created in the real world. The World of

engineering, which can be further subdivided into the Worlds of

Environmental Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering,

Structural Engineering, etc., create and apply a distinct set of universal

principles in order to invent, design, or improve structures, machines, and

processes. It is precisely this practice that Plato is referring to when he

speaks of looking to the so-called eternal elements and then constructing

the sensible as a reflection of their image. Engineering principles are eternal

and engineering plans will be around long after the sensible construction that

results withers with time. Again, we are left with the Platonic insight that the

sensible world is in a state of flux and the intelligible world is eternal.

Creating the world of the sensible as a reflection of these eternal laws

is a matter of fashioning the sensible in the likeness of the intelligible. That

which is created is, by necessity, that which can be made present. The

making present of the creation the poiesis entails the act of putting the

intelligible in the sensible by arranging the sensible in such a way that it

56
With the possible exception of mathematics.
 38

reflects the intelligible. Plato states: For which reason, when he was

framing the universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he

might be the creator of a work which was by nature fairest and best.57 Plato

is here referring to the idea of creating the sensible as a likeness to the

eternal laws of physics, engineering, architecture, etc. by first rendering the

world intelligible, deciding on a Telos, and then creating (poiesis) that which

began as a concept in the creator. As Heidegger states, poiesis begins in

legin, and through a process of fashioning, the creator as efficient cause

brings forward into appearance the object for which some human will find

use as an instrumentum. Yet returning to Heideggers thesis on presencing,

we find that technology in part appears as the for-the-sake-of-which end for

which it was conceived and produced; he uses the term equipment to

describe the ontologico-existential property that equipment encountered

within-the-world possesses. Similarly in Platos Timaeus we find the claim

that, Whereas he made the soul in origin and excellence prior to and older

than the body, to be the ruler and mistress, or whom the body was to be the

subject,58 a striking similarity to the Heidegger concept of the temporal

ecstatic unity into which Dasein acts as a thrown thrower. The conclusion is

that while Dasein is thrown into a facticity and compelled to comport itself

towards its potentiality-for-being by manipulating equipment for-the-sake-of

some end or another, much legein, or logos, inhabits the entities Dasein

encounters within the environment prior to Dasein seizing upon them and

57
Timaeus 30b
58
Timaeus 34c
 39

actualizing their use value. This logos not only belongs to the equipment

encountered within an environment but appears as the for-the-sake-of-which

that presences. Likewise, the worldhoods of the World that Dasein inhabit,

as the realm of possible objects and possible signification relative to some

Telos, exist prior Dasein inhabiting them as well.

That legein belongs to entities encountered within the world prior to

Dasein inhabiting a region and actualizing the Telos of the final cause co-

responsible for their construction, and that this legein is revealed as a for-

the-sake-of-which in equipment, implies that a given Dasein conceived of

the construction of the equipment and then created the tool to satisfy this

end. That the construction of the tool implies the legein of a given Dasein

implies the ontological a priori of being-in-the-world, and all of the

ontologico-existential predicates this contains, such as region, closeness,

temporality, and potentiality-for-being. While legein may not be considered

singular as in, multiple contributions to the conceptual orientation of a tool

might implemented in a final design the execution of the construction of a

tool presupposes a singular design, and as such, actualizes the World

relevant to the Telos of the equipment being created according to a singular

likeness to the legein from which it originates. But given that legein

originates in a Dasein co-responsible for the construction of t

On Logos
 40

Heidegger posits that one of the four causes the efficient cause,

which refers to the agent responsible for the change over time presupposes

a kind of gather[ing] together of materials and a carefully consider[ing]

of the end for which an instrument was designed prior to the construction of

the tool. He also claims that To consider carefully [iiberlegen] is in Greek

legin, logos. Legein is rooted in apophainesthni, to bring forward into

appearance. To gain a clearer understanding of Heideggers meaning here,

allow us to unpack the history and etymology of the term logos () in

order to discover the heritage that he is taking up and employing in his

understanding of technology.

According to Liddell & Scott59 the term carries with it a wide

variety of meanings, connotations, historical usages, and referents. Because

Heidegger is drawing on the ancient Greek legin, or logos, I will do the same

with the intention of staying true to the heritage he is employing, and I will

begin this analysis with Liddell & Scotts Lexicon as it seems the most

comprehensive account of the terms usage. According to Liddell & Scott,

the term can be understood to mean the following in varying contexts:

I. (Lat.) Vox, Oratio, that which is said or verbally spoken. Logos is

understood here as a word or set of words. But it is understood as

the outward expression of language and speaking itself, as in, a

word or a set of words that make up a language, used to

communicate meaning from a speaker to a hearer. Plato employs

59
An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon
 41

to refer to logos in word or in pretense, understood to be in

opposition to deed or reality. is used as a word, a saying, or a

statement, as in the kind of words used by an Oracle (Thucydides)

in a saying, a maxim, or a proverb. Similarly, the sophists use

to refer to an assertion or a promise, which as well show

later, situates the foundation of logos in a kind of action expressed

in language.60 Herodotus uses as a resolution, which

implies the objective use of language to express an ending to a

conflict and the beginning of a new state of affairs. Likewise,

Herodotus uses as a condition, expressed

linguistically, of the possibility of some future state of affair. Logos

() is used elsewhere by Aeschylus as a command. Apart from

its usage as a word used in the language of communication by a

singular subject, it is also understood to refer to speech, discourse,

and conversation which implies a beyond the expression. , as

a beyond the expression, is used by Thucydides in as

something being worth mention, which points to a situation or a

context that might require speech. Elsewhere by Thucydides as

and Xenophon as as the right or speech or

the power to speech, which alludes to the cultural practices operant

60
The sophists understood logos to be a form of persuasion that didnt
necessarily operate by referring to the Real, but instead, carried the function
of persuading the hearer to some action by using logos () or language
as a ground from which to agree. We will return to the sophist usage of logos
as persuasion later in this chapter.
 42

at the time governing rites of speech and silence in a community.

Similarly the Latin fama, or , is used as a reference to

communal talk about one, or as repute. Both and by

Herodotus and Thucydides as a saying, a tale, or a story about some

state of affairs in the world; in this usage is understood not as

purely fantasy but also not as a regular history. Instead, as a tale, it

is understood to refer to the story of history as it is told in story

rather than in simple facts about dates and figures. is used

elsewhere as prose-writing by Xenophon, speech and oration, as

, or the subject matter of a sentence by Herodotus, and finally

as that which is stated in a proposition, position, or principle by

Plato, used as , or definition.

II. is also understood to refer to the Latin ratio, thought, reason,

or by Democritus as , , or agreeable to reason. It is in

this sense that is understood as an internal state of affairs.

Herodotus uses the term as an opinion, or similarly, as an

expectation. The sophists use it as a reason, a ground, or a plea,

again, as a means of employing speech rhetorically to convince and

thereby cause movement through agreement. is also

understood as an account, a consideration, esteem, or regard by

Aeschylus as , , , , and Herodotus as

, , , . Herodotus uses ,

, as giving an account of a thing. Finally, can be

 43

understood as , , , or due relation, proportion, and

analogy.

The distinction that Liddell and Scott make after analyzing the various uses

of the term from ancient sources is that is used variously and at

various times to refer an internal phenomenon and an to external

phenomenon. As an internal phenomenon, the term refers to thought,

reason, rationality, and calculation, whereas as an external phenomenon the

term refers to word, sentence, talk speech, explanation, language, discourse,

statement, argument, and rational account. To speak of an object or a state

of affair in the world using language grounded in logos means to make a

phenomenon intelligible, or to render rational a given phenomenon

encountered within the world. Interestingly, however, we find another use of

the term in a passage from Heraclitus where he states: Listening not to me

but to the Logos, it is wise to acknowledge that all things are one. Similar to

this statement, we find in Platos Republic the statement: What difference is

it to you whether it seems so to me or not, when you havent tested out the

argument (ton logon).61 Lastly, Plato states in Phaedo: If you give little

thought to Socrates and much more to the truth, you must agree with me

(syn-homo-logesate).62 The implication of these three passages is that

besides simply an internal and an external usage of , we can read into

the ancients a third use of the term, one that speaks of as a rational

structure existing external to the mind. So in conclusion, we find that the

61
Republic 349c
62
Phaedo 91c
 44

ancients have used the term in three distinct essential ways, with a variety

of senses attached to each one: as an internal phenomena, as an external

phenomena (in the form of speech or language), and as an external

phenomena (in reference to the rational structure of the world itself).