Im-position: Heidegger’s Analysis of the Essence of Modern Technology

The aim of Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology” is to set the stage for a free relationship to technology. That relationship allows us to experience its limits, Heidegger submits, precisely by opening us up to its essence. The essay turns then on distinguishing technology from its essence. In an effort to shed light on this pivotal distinction, this chapter examines several significant parallels between “The Question concerning Technology” and an earlier lecture, “On the Essence of Truth.” The analysis of the essences in each case consists of three steps, namely, identifying (1) the ordinary understanding of the theme in question (truth as correctness, technology as a human instrument), (2) the comportments towards things (being amidst them, producing them) that underwrite the ordinary understanding, and (3) what grounds those comportments respectively (being free for what manifests itself, the emergence of the unhidden from the hidden). The chapter concludes by demonstrating this same structure in Heidegger’s analysis of the essence of modern technology, as he identifies both its ground—an im-position (Ge-stell)—and a “saving element” within it. The aim of Martin Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology" is to set the stage for free relationship to technology. That relationship allows experiencing its limits, Heidegger submits, precisely by opening to its essence. This chapter focuses on distinguishing technology from its essence. In an effort to shed light on this pivotal distinction, it examines several significant parallels between "The Question Concerning Technology" and an earlier lecture, "On the Essence of Truth." The analysis of the essences in each case consists of three steps, namely, identifying the ordinary understanding of the theme in question, the comportments towards things that underwrite the ordinary understanding, and what grounds those comportments respectively. The chapter concludes by demonstrating this same structure in Heidegger's analysis of the essence of modern technology, as he identifies both its ground—an im-position —and a "saving element" within it. Im-position is the essence of modern technology—the ground of its essence in other senses—precisely as something that endures.