However, recognizing our modern mental state can be liberating: “When we once open ourselves expressly to the essence of technology [that is, recognise our enframing], we find ourselves unexpectedly taken into a freeing claim.” At this juncture of recognition, man is free either to be “nothing but the orderer of the standing-reserve” pretending to the role of “lord of the earth”, or he is free as the Greeks were, to let “what presences come forth into appearance” – to “enter into a more original revealing and hence to experience the call of a more primal truth.” In this latter role, man plays the role of true steward of technology and “keeps watch over the unconcealment” – over technology’s revelation of the world as orderable – controlling our own thinking and will, and in the process discovering our “highest dignity” and “saving power”: “It is precisely in enframing, which threatens to sweep man away into ordering as the supposed single way of revealing, and so thrusts man into the danger of the surrender of his free essence – it is precisely in this extreme danger that the innermost indestructible belongingness of man within granting may come to light, provided that we, for our part, begin to pay heed to the essence of technology.”, Faulkner was also asked by a student in 1958 if he wanted to win readers’ sympathy for Old Ben. The wooden bridge set to the Rhein is aesthetically different and is not like a hydro-plant. (Heidegger, Basic 321) The hydroelectric plant is set into the current ofthe Rhine...In the context ofthe interlocking ... Heidegger means when he tells us that "technology is a way ofrevealing" and how this demands an exploration ofthe history ofrevealing or truth. So why do we feel oppressed by technology? Heidegger seems even to acknowledge this, or at least to acknowledge that his technique can form the basis of an objection. Is it valid to go all the way back to Greek philosophy and to apply its concepts to modern technology? We learn that the hunting party has disbanded, its annual pilgrimage ceased. To a certain extent, Heidegger argues, technology transforms humanity itself into standing-reserve. One of the differences, we might assume, is that modern technology is based on modern physics. In the context of the interlocking processes pertaining to the orderly disposition of electrical energy, even the Rhine itself appears as something at our command. The Greeks thought about cause differently – they used the word aition, ‘debt’, for cause, believing that a result was ‘indebted’ to another thing. They’re mine!”, “Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it,” Heidegger famously says at the start of ‘The Question Concerning Technology’. Bob James holds a Masters in Philosophy from Georgetown University. "In opposition to this definition of the essential domain of technology. the natural world reveals itself to human beings on its own terms. Heidegger contrasts "the Rhine" viewed as a source of hydroelectric power and "the Rhine" as it appears in the work of the German poet Friedrich Höderlin, in which the river appears as the source of philosophical inspiration and cultural (and, for some readers, nationalistic) pride. Heidegger’s developing line of reasoning takes in such diverse things as today’s practical understanding of technology, the ... by all this, most notably the image of a ‘hydroelectric plant … [on] the Rhine’ (MH, 321). But not all causes are created equal, says Heidegger: apart from the silversmith himself, the other three causes “owe thanks to the pondering of the silversmith.” That is, the smith’s handiwork ‘releases’ the other causes to ‘bring forth’ the chalice, like a flower bursting into bloom. The electricity produced by the hydroelectric plant set upon the Rhine River is being stored for future use in the community. Heidegger was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. Even the power plant with its turbines and gener- ... primitive means compared with the hydroelectric plant in the Rhine River. So whereas the Greeks revered things, we order or compartmentalize them. Heidegger wrote … Law, Politics ... Take for example the contrast between how the modern technology of the hydropower plant and the old technology of a wooden bridge reveal the presence of a river. The silver chalice "arrives" when the silversmith's work brings it "out of concealment." Humanity doesn't directly control the formation of coal deposits or the accumulation of nitrogen in the soil; we can only control the way we orient ourselves, our thinking and our actions, in relation to such resources. An important source of alternative energy is hydropower: converting the flow of rivers and ocean waves and tides into electricity through dams and turbines. Thus, in regards to Heidegger's example of the Rhine and the hydroelectric power plant, "what the river is now, namely, a water power supplier, derives from out of the essence of the power station" (16). It sets the Rhine to supplying its hydraulic pressure, which then sets the turbines turning. © Philosophy Now 2020. Hydroelectricity is electricity produced from hydropower. The forester, for example, is at the mercy of the paper industry, which in turn is at the mercy of the print industry, which in turn transforms the reading public into a source of its own profits. But this much remains correct: modern technology too is a means to an end. The hydroelectric plant set in the rhine, sets the river to producing energy, reveals the river only as energy generated. Published the following year in a brief collection of essays and lectures, ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ would soon become one of the philosopher’s best-read and most-talked about shorter pieces. Enframing that distorts how we view the natural world in fact allows the river to be sure, river! In 150 countries, with his wife Ann, and to apply its concepts to modern technology too is means. As the learning algorithm improves was one of your four complimentary articles for this month European... 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