Technology and Being: A Discussion of Their Metaphysical Significance
- 1 Independent, Forest Hills, USA
Abstract
This paper discusses the relationship between various metaphysical ideas associated with technology and the concept of being, notably in reference to the becoming of being, which is a description for change. And change influences technology in many ways when expressed through the mode and manifestation of its being. As a mode of being, technology is the means or manner by which we do anything. Consequently, mode is an effect of action as well as a cause for other actions yet to occur. As a manifestation of being, technology becomes the predominant way in which humanity presents itself to the world. Since we have aligned our being with technology, and have even on many occasions sublimated ourselves to it, it may be argued that our relationship with technology is simply a revelation of our desire to be.
- Arthur, W. B. (2009). The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves. New York: Free Press.
- Benz, E. (1966). Evolution and Christian Hope: Man’s Concept of the Future from the Early Fathers to Teilhard de Chardin. H. G. Frank (Trans.). Garden City: Doubleday.
- Dessauer, F. (1933). Philosophie der Technik. Das Problem der Realisierung (3rd ed.). Bonn: Friedrich Cohen Verlag.
- Ellul, J. (1963). Technological Order. In C. F. Stover (Ed.), The Technological Order: Proceedings of the Encyclopaedia Britannica Conference (pp. 10-37). Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
- Harman, G. (2002). Tool-Being: Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects. Chicago: Open Court.
- Heidegger, M. (1977). The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. W. Lovitt (Trans.). New York: Harper & Row.
- Jaspers, K. (1969). Philosophy. E. B. Ashton (Trans.), (3 Vols). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Ogburn, W. F. (1964). On Culture and Social Change: Selected Papers. O. D. Duncan (Ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Pelletier, F. J. (1990). Parmenides, Plato, and the Semantics of Not-Being. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Pollard, S. (1981). Peaceful Conquest: The Industrialization of Europe, 1760-1970. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Rivers, T. J. (2013). Technology as a Mode and Manifestation of Being: An Assessment of Its Applications. Advances in Historical Studies, 2, 140-149. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ahs.2013.23018
- Searle, J. R. (2001). Rationality in Action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Simondon, G. (1958). Du mode d’existence des objets techniques. Paris: Aubier.
- Smart, J. J. C. (1963). Philosophy and Scientific Realism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
- Stearns, P. N. (1993). The Industrial Revolution in World History. Boulder: Westview Press.