The courses I teach are mainly undergraduate general-education courses, and among graduate courses, this reading course is basically the only one I still have now.
This is the second run of this course that I’ve taught. I don’t seem to have written a summary after the first run either, probably because there was no exam component then, so there was nothing to comment on. As for the course content, it was just reading, so there wasn’t much to summarize anyway. But in this run I added an exam component, so it became necessary to write a set of comments.
This course itself is taught in a fairly lazy way: I don’t need to prepare lessons, I don’t use PPT, and I simply take the book and read it aloud line by line, paragraph by paragraph, explaining things after every one or two paragraphs. Then students can ask questions at any time, or concentrate their questions and discussion in the final short session. There are three class periods each week: in the first two, I read and explain the text; in the last one, I do not read the text, and we have free discussion.
The texts we read are all by Heidegger. This time I used the volume edited and translated by Sun Zhouxing, The Destiny of Being: Selected Writings on Heidegger’s Philosophy of Technology, but in fact the articles we read were still the same ones from the previous run, from Discourse and Essays, including “The Question Concerning Technology” (read over 6 weeks), “Science and Reflection” (3 weeks), “Building Dwelling Thinking” (2 and a half weeks), and “The Age of the World Picture” (1 and a half weeks, not finished).
I myself of course have read all these texts many times over, which is why I can get away with not preparing. Of course, a so-called “classic” must be one that never grows tiresome no matter how many times one reads it, so each time I reread it I also gain something new.
Professor Wu’s Classic Texts in Philosophy of Technology has just been reissued in a new edition and reprinted, and for future courses I’m considering using that book (including next semester’s undergraduate course, “Introduction to Philosophy of Technology”), but in any case Heidegger will still be the main focus. On the one hand, this is because Heidegger, as a philosopher of technology, is of decisive importance, with unsurpassed depth of thought and influence; on the other hand, because Heidegger’s texts are the best suited to my explaining them paragraph by paragraph. For when students read them on their own, they often find them difficult, whereas my explanations can make the text seem utterly transparent—I wouldn’t dare say that I explain them with complete precision, but I can confidently say that I explain them in a very plain and smooth way.
Unlike ordinary close-reading courses, I also do not refer to other secondary interpretive texts. There is a mountain of scholarly writing on Heidegger, and of course I have read quite a bit of it myself, but I do not bring these studies into my explanations, because they would disrupt the fluency of my exposition.
In his early work Heidegger emphasized “formal indication,” and in his later work he spoke of “paths” and “signposts”; both are concerned with how to understand the meaning of philosophical texts. We should treat Heidegger’s texts as “guidance,” rather than as objects of analysis. The real objects to analyze are our age, our lives, and ourselves. And the significance of philosophical texts lies in the inspiration and encouragement they provide for how we confront ourselves directly. The proper way to face a signpost is to follow, or go against, the direction it points (even if you do not agree with the philosopher’s inclination, if through the philosopher you discern the path, then the reading has still been highly effective), rather than standing beneath the signpost, lingering and wandering, or even rubbing a copy of the signpost back home to admire it every day, still less enclosing the signpost and setting up your own little stronghold there in order to monopolize the right to interpret it… These latter practices sound crazy, but they are in fact exactly what many “Heidegger experts” are doing.
So my commentary is like that of a tour guide. Although the signposts Heidegger set up have already indicated a path full of vitality and thrilling suspense, there are still some obstacles for those just peeking in for the first time. First, the forest path is, after all, winding and leads to hidden depths; one often has to face dark and shadowed places directly, and even with signposts in place, visitors inevitably may feel daunted or lose their way, so the guide’s encouragement and leading hand are helpful. Second, on the first walk one inevitably stumbles along; a guide who has gone back and forth many times will always be smoother. Third, there is after all a cultural and temporal gap between the visitors and Heidegger, and it is the guide’s job to translate and explain in the visitors’ familiar mother tongue, which makes things more intimate. Fourth, the reason one follows Heidegger’s road is not for any fixed destination; each visitor may have his or her own insights, and naturally each visitor will also have unique questions and concerns. In the atmosphere of free discussion, the guide can answer questions and untangle doubts in a way tailored to different visitors’ individual needs.
I hope that my visitors can harvest insights that belong to them alone during the journey. Rather than merely pursuing the vanity of “I was here,” or chasing ready-made, formulaic souvenirs.
My own feeling is that this round of the course was somewhat better than the previous one. First, I fixed the third class period as free discussion, increasing students’ opportunities and initiative in speaking. Second, I set a final exam, which may have made students take the reading more seriously. If there were only a final paper, one could also probably muddle through by not attending class during the term.
The paper requirements this time were also somewhat stricter. Before, it was “paper or essay or reading notes,” with no restriction on genre; this time, however, the requirement was: “The paper may be on any topic of your own choosing, but it must be related to the texts read; appropriate quotations from the relevant texts are required; other forms are unrestricted.” A few students may not have noticed the instructions and still wrote essays or reading notes. What I was asking for, however, was a paper with a free topic, not a free genre or a paper without a theme. Of course, it may also be that I did not emphasize this clearly enough in class, so if someone merely wrote reading notes but still showed some awareness of a problem, I did not deduct much. But if it was neither a paper nor written with any seriousness, if it was scattered and perfunctory and had no highlights at all, then it could only receive a low score.
The final exam could actually have been half-open-book, meaning that only books and notes could be consulted. But by the final stage we had entered online teaching mode again, so in the end it became fully open-book: students answered the questions online in their dormitories and could use the internet. The exam questions are as follows:
Final Exam Questions for the 2022 Course “Selected Readings from Original Texts in Philosophy of Technology”
Choose any 3 of the following questions to answer. Among them, choose 1 as the main essay question and the other 2 as short-answer questions. The main essay question is worth 50 points, and each short-answer question is worth 25 points.
- In The Question Concerning Technology, Heidegger begins with the everyday definition of “technology,” asking from “a means to an end” back to causality (the concept of cause), and then back further to the relevant concepts of ancient Greece. Please imitate Heidegger’s style by giving an everyday definition of “science,” and from there trace back to certain ancient Greek concepts, elucidating the essence of science and the difference between ancient and modern science.
- Heidegger sorts out the similarities and differences between ancient technology and modern technology (both are forms of revealing, but modern technology is a challenging revealing). The modern technology Heidegger discusses includes engines, dams, airplanes, and so on. If Heidegger had lived from the late 20th century into the early 21st century and seen the flourishing of information technology, how would he understand the essence of information technology? Is information technology still “Gestell”? If not, what is its essence? If it is still Gestell, is there any difference between the Gestell of the information age and the Gestell of the last century?
- “Why is it that in the latest stage of atomic physics even the object has disappeared?” (Science and Reflection, 168) How does Heidegger expound the similarities and differences between atomic physics and classical physics? You may supplement this with the history of science.
- Explain in your own words this passage from Heidegger (The Question Concerning Technology, 144): “Thus when man in research and observation pursues nature as a domain of his representing, he is already challenged by a way of revealing that orders him to reveal nature as an object of research until even the object disappears into the objectlessness of standing-reserve.” (Please explain in particular “object of research,” “standing-reserve,” and “objectlessness.”)
- What does Heidegger mean by the “single fold of the fourfold” in Building Dwelling Thinking? You may explain it in connection with concrete architectural cases.
Commentary on the Exam Questions
I gave scores averaging around 90 points. Around 85 points meant that the answer hit the main points and was competent and orderly; around 90 points generally meant relatively comprehensive or with some highlight; around 95 points meant both comprehensive and outstanding. Below 80 generally meant the student had not read the question carefully and the answer was fairly ordinary as well.
In fact, the main essay questions and short-answer questions are judged by almost the same standards. For the main essay question, it is generally better to write a bit more and develop the argument more fully, but in fact if one can give a comprehensive argument in relatively few words, that too can earn a high score. Most students’ essay question was the one they scored highest or relatively high on (they must have had confidence, after all, to choose it), though there were also a few students whose essay question was actually their weakest, because they rambled on and on and yet still failed to grasp the point.
1. In The Question Concerning Technology, Heidegger begins with the everyday definition of “technology,” asking from “a means to an end” back to causality (the concept of cause), and then back further to the relevant concepts of ancient Greece. Please imitate Heidegger’s style by giving an everyday definition of “science,” and from there trace back to certain ancient Greek concepts, elucidating the essence of science and the difference between ancient and modern science.
Of the 20 students, 11 did this question, and 7 of those chose it as the main essay question, making it the most frequently selected essay question by a wide margin.
But this question was actually not easy. First, it was an “imitation” question, requiring students to imitate Heidegger’s “style.” Aside from a few who could really “get into character,” most imitated it only average well, or simply did not imitate it at all and treated it as a normal explanatory question.
Second, although the question mentions The Question Concerning Technology, it actually links to Science and Reflection. Heidegger already discusses the everyday definition of science in Science and Reflection—as theory concerning reality—and also performs the act of tracing back. So to answer this question well, it is best to refer to Science and Reflection.
Finally, is it enough simply to answer by referring to Heidegger’s existing formulations in Science and Reflection? Not at all. I actually said in class: “theory concerning reality” is an everyday definition in Heidegger’s context, but for us it is not very everyday. A truly “everyday definition” should be something everyday for us as well—for example, one student started from colloquial uses like “That’s not scientific,” which was quite interesting.
Of course, whether one simply copies Heidegger’s definition or chooses a new one on one’s own, the key is still to imitate the style and to make the argument flow smoothly. Grading for this question was relatively generous, basically around 90, with none below 80.
If I were answering it myself, I would probably start from the Baidu Baike entry: “Science (the practical method for understanding the cosmos).” Then the four words “understanding,” “cosmos,” “practical,” and “method” are all quite magical, all having undergone enormous ancient-modern ruptures. Given limited time, I would focus on analyzing the two words “cosmos” and “practical.” The former, from a closed world to an infinite universe; the latter, from an inner life process distinguished from production (Aristotle’s concept of practice) to an objective, repeatable experiment.
2. Heidegger sorts out the similarities and differences between ancient technology and modern technology (both are forms of revealing, but modern technology is a challenging revealing). The modern technology Heidegger discusses includes engines, dams, airplanes, and so on. If Heidegger had lived from the late 20th century into the early 21st century and seen the flourishing of information technology, how would he understand the essence of information technology? Is information technology still “Gestell”? If not, what is its essence? If it is still Gestell, is there any difference between the Gestell of the information age and the Gestell of the last century?
14 of the 20 students did this question, and 7 chose it as the main essay question, tying for the most.
This question is an “extension question,” discussing a problem Heidegger never himself discussed. It can be answered either by “imitation” or through a critical dialogue.
Among those who chose this question, almost all students thought that the essence of information technology was still “Gestell,” and generally thought it was a stronger or more concealed kind of Gestell. This is of course a reasonable view: the “information cocoon” is a kind of extreme “pre-positioning,” and the “system” that traps delivery riders is also a tightly sealed giant machine.
But personally I actually wanted to see some fresh formulations—that is, that information technology is no longer Gestell, or that it is a new version of Gestell, but not merely some kind of compatibility upgrade or linear intensification. Unfortunately, no student answered in that way. Let me talk about my own thoughts.
First, as we know, Heidegger is not simply pessimistic and despairing; rather, where there is danger there is also opportunity, and the harsher the crisis, the more it can hint at the possibility of salvation.
In the information age, the figurative terms Heidegger reaches for almost offhandedly may change. For example, beings are likewise “resources” or “materials,” but they have shifted from “stock” (that is, retained stuff) to “data,” and Gestell, from an all-encompassing great iron rack, has become a “network.” “Data/network” can be said to be a digitalized upgrade of “stock/Gestell”: they are more precisely prearranged and all-embracing. But is Gestell not also some sort of upgraded version of “bringing-forth”? Beyond continuity, such an “upgrade” may well also contain certain qualitative changes. From the imagery of the metaphor, the ways in which the “network” and the “Gestell” fix things are not the same. The space of the “Gestell” is Cartesian, absolutist. Each thing occupies a preset slot, and the position of that slot relative to the whole machine is also fixed. Ore → fuel → power → product → shelf: one link follows another, and the relations of “reserve” and “prearrangement” among things can neither be reversed nor skipped. But the space of the “network” is topological, relativist. Each thing occupies its corresponding node, but what confines it is not the whole net, but the mesh adjacent to it. Whatever the position of a thing, it can be preliminarily labeled as data; compared with stock, data is more neutral, and all data can be put together for computation. On the one hand this of course intensifies the flattening of individuality; on the other hand, once one can break free of the given constraints, then “crossing over” may instead become more flexible. So we see that many people have difficulty breaking out in Cartesian space (the so-called real world), bound to fixed strata and posts, but they find it easier to reconstruct their identities in topological space (the so-called virtual world, cyberspace). The first time each person goes online, it is as if they undergo a rebirth—they have to redefine their name and appearance, and find on their own the circles they want to join. Of course, if one lacks reflection and simply goes with the flow, then the result is still the same—or rather, worse. People in the network will still accept “prearrangement” and enter “information cocoons.” But if we consider the case in which people struggle consciously, perhaps the network offers us more opportunities for self-knowledge and self-planning. In the title I wrote “if Heidegger lived at the turn from the twentieth century to the twenty-first,” and this time description is somewhat odd. Why didn’t I simply say he lived today? I actually had an implicit point in mind: the information environment around the year 2000 was in fact more full of vitality. By the 2010s, with the rise of so-called Web 2.0 and the popularization of mobile internet, the terrifying face of information technology began to reveal itself in earnest. In the Web 1.0 era, the risks and opportunities of the internet were relatively balanced, and it was more possible to see the possibility of escaping “Gestell.” That is why, when I now champion Web 3.0, I am also saying that, in a certain sense, the ideal of Web 3.0 is nothing other than the restoration of Web 1.0. 3. “Why is it that at the latest stage of atomic physics even the object has disappeared” (“Science and Reflection,” 168)? How does Heidegger explain the similarities and differences between atomic physics and classical physics? You may supplement this with the history of science. Of the 20 students, only 5 chose this question, and among them 1 chose it as an essay question (the answer was average, and the student rather overdid it). It was the least chosen question. This question is actually a question of copying from the book. In fact, it is not hard to get to the point; I marked the relevant page numbers in the question, so one just has to find the surrounding context. Of course, if one wants to answer well, one needs to digest Heidegger’s original wording in one’s own more fluent language. Where the “difference” lies is stated very clearly in the sentence before the quotation: classical physics and atomic physics seem completely different in terms of the “objectivity of material nature.” So what does “objectivity” mean? The previous paragraph also makes this very clear: classical physics presents “nature as the motion nexus of material bodies,” and the object is represented as particle mechanics, whereas today’s physics represents the object as nucleus and field. Furthermore, today’s physics—which unifies atomic physics and macroscopic physics—“aims at being able to write down a single equation” (Heidegger quoting Heisenberg). Where the “same” lies is also stated very clearly in the sentence before the quotation: “What remains unchanged is that nature from the outset must be set in place as the standing-reserve secured by the tracking of science as theory.” Of course, this sentence still needs to be translated, and for that one has to look at the previous page. Heidegger says: “[Modern science’s] mode of pursuit, that is, its mode of action of tracking and securing… Max Planck is often quoted as saying: ‘What is real is what can be measured’… The key lies in the measurability posited in the objectivity of nature…” In short, although in atomic physics nature is regarded as something different, the “pre-established measurability” remains consistent throughout. Of course, one still needs to explain “at the latest stage even the object has disappeared”; this is what the second half of the quotation says: the opposition between “subject” and “object” is replaced by a “mere subject-object relation.” This “relation” is not a real, living, dynamically occurring relation, but a pre-established mathematical element. The “relation” is considered as a mere mathematical parameter, and the object is no longer the object encountered face to face by the subject; or rather, this mutually objective “relation” is neutralized and mathematized. In this way, the so-called “object” also disappears, dissolving into the parameters of mathematical equations. I felt that simply looking for the answer in the immediate context was a bit too easy, so I added an extra note, “you may supplement this with the history of science,” meaning that one could say a bit more—for instance, that Heidegger is invoking the Copenhagen interpretation. The Copenhagen interpretation is, in a sense, “non-interpretation”: it explains the seemingly paradoxical aspects of quantum phenomena as the gulf between mathematical language and everyday language. Because we always use everyday language to understand the quantum world in a figurative way (as particles, waves, and so on), a sense of paradox arises (both particle and wave, and so forth). But if our aim is to write down mathematical formulas, then those formulas are precise and definite, with no ambiguity or contradiction. Or, for example, one could mention the dispute between Einstein and Bohr: one major reason Einstein could not accept quantum mechanics was that he still adhered to a kind of classical thinking, still believing in the existence of independent “objects.” He thought that the electron as an object must have a definite state; it was just that people had not yet been able to measure it fully. But if one completely steps outside object-thinking, lets the object disappear, and realizes that quantum physics seeks the definiteness of formulas rather than the definiteness of objects, then perhaps it all makes sense. A few students answered this question quite well (of course, the historical-scientific content they added was still not quite what I had in mind), but several students could not even grasp the ready-made surrounding context in the book, and their scores were very poor. 4. Explain in your own words this passage from Heidegger (“The Question Concerning Technology,” 144): “Thus, when man in research and observation sets upon nature as a realm of his representing, he is already claimed by a mode of revealing that challenges him to approach nature as an object of research until even the object disappears into the objectlessness of standing-reserve.” (Pay special attention to “object of research,” “standing-reserve,” and “objectlessness”) Of the 20 students, 17 chose this question, making it the most selected, though only 3 chose it as a key essay question. This question is a translation question: one has to restate Heidegger’s text in one’s own (more natural and fluent) language and explain it. At the end I added a parenthetical note saying to pay special attention to these three words, because I was afraid people would miss the second half of the sentence. In fact, if one can connect this to Question 3, one will find that the second half is talking about the same thing as Question 3, so these two questions can be answered together (though in practice it seems no students linked them up). What surprised me was that after I added this parenthetical note, quite a few students ended up explaining only these three words, and the answer sheet became three sections: “1. object of research; 2. standing-reserve; 3. objectlessness.” Then, abandoning the actual wording “explain this passage from Heidegger in your own words,” they turned it into “explain these three words in Heidegger’s language,” which made me both laugh and cry. In addition, some people did not explain these three words clearly either, and paid no attention to the word “research” in “object of research.” These kinds of reading-comprehension problems are actually fatal, but because this sort of mistake was very common, as long as the answer was still reasonably fluent, I did not give a very low score anyway (if the intent of the question was unclear and the answer was also halting, then I did give a low score). As I said above, this question is actually linked to Question 3, or rather linked to “Science and Reflection.” “Research and observation,” “representing,” “a realm,” “object of research,” and “objectlessness” are all more directly explained by “Science and Reflection.” Of course, reading this passage on its own from “The Question Concerning Technology” is sufficient. Looking at the surrounding context in “The Question Concerning Technology,” the point of this passage is actually to emphasize human passivity. It is not that human beings are challenging nature, but rather that the very act of tracking nature is itself the result of being challenged and compelled. Modern science seems as if human beings are actively “interrogating” nature, but in essence human beings are first and foremost the ones being driven, forced into a particular mode of revealing in which they can do no other than track nature in this way. 5. What does Heidegger mean by the “simple oneness of the fourfold” in “Building Dwelling Thinking”? You may explain it with specific architectural examples. Of the 20 students, 14 chose this question, with 2 selecting it as a key essay question. This question is actually not easy in terms of conceptual explanation. “The fourfold” is easy enough: sky, earth, divinities, mortals, of which divinities and mortals are worth a bit more explanation. As for “simple oneness,” that is somewhat debatable, but broadly speaking saying “wholeness” or “gathering into a thing” is about right. A thing—especially a building—is the gathering of the whole of the fourfold, safeguarding the whole of the fourfold. The key to this question is still to give an example. It is fine to use Heidegger’s own example of the “bridge,” though it is of course better to give one’s own example. Some students used certain ancient Chinese buildings, and some used examples such as nucleic-acid testing kiosks; both were quite good. Of course, there is also Heidegger’s critique of modern architecture hidden here: is modern architecture still a gathering of the whole fourfold? Heidegger does not say this especially bluntly, but in light of “The Question Concerning Technology” and the general line of thought there, we can roughly understand that the “whole fourfold” still exists. Even the cold buildings of the concrete forest are still a gathering of the fourfold. The difference lies in “safeguarding”: just as technology has moved from safeguarding to challenging, modern architecture is no longer “safeguarding,” or rather, it has entered an extreme, specialized mode of “safeguarding,” namely “occupying.” Modern architecture brutally occupies space, occupies sites, accommodates inhabitants, and possesses divinity by expelling it.Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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