Heidegger's Typewriter (original) (raw)

This paper challenges the critiques of Martin Heidegger's philosophy of technology, particularly in relation to writing technologies as presented in Don Ihde's 2010 book, "Heidegger's Technologies: Postphenomenological Perspectives". It argues against the view that Heidegger's emphasis on handwriting over typewriting is a sign of bias, and seeks to provide a different perspective on the matter. The paper also explores the complex conception of technology in Heidegger's philosophy, which is more elastic and universal in character and thus more usefully universal in application than one more concrete. The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of an awareness of the effects of writing technologies on human interaction with the world, and the need to avoid the forgetting of being that can result from technological advancement.

In the last few decades, so-called ‘new’ media has enabled a proliferation of writing platforms from e-books, blogging to online self-publishing. In response to the established ‘norm’ of digital writing, numerous writers have returned to basic, ‘anachronistic’ writing tools such as the typewriter, while others have never even relinquished these tools. Nietzsche famously claimed that our writing instruments are changing the way we think, and there is the somewhat Romantic belief that more archaic writing methods are linked to greater creativity and intellect, as opposed to newer technologies which are said to undermine critical thinking. Writers including Don DeLillo, Will Self, and Cormac McCarthy are among those that still use manual typewriters to create their work, with Self espousing the benefits of the enforced discipline of typewriters. In the contemporary digital climate, this is not only considered strange and anachronistic, but also pretentious. Widespread reactions to the continued use of typewriters illustrates the extent to which contemporary culture abides by quite a rigid form of technological determinism; newer technologies are deemed superior, while old technologies are dismissed as trivial and obsolete. In light of the continued use of typewriters in the digital age, this paper explores the highly-maintained value in ‘old’ methods of writing, discussing the supposed link between the machine and an author’s creative and intellectual output. In so doing, this paper investigates claims relating to the strength of literature in accordance with particular writing technologies, highlighting recent commentary on the virtues of ‘slower’ technologies in the digital age.

In his “Deromanticizing Heidegger,” American philosopher Don Ihde attempts to denounce some arbitrary stances in Martin Heidegger’s thought in order to propose a philosophy of technology purged of what he deems the philosopher’s romantic, and implicitly Nazi, preferences. Ihde begins in stating: “A century after his birth, two very contrary statements can be made concerning Martin Heidegger: First, in a significant sense, he is surely one of the most important founders of the philosophy of technology […] Second, we all also know that he joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party and remained with it through the war […] My question is this: Is there something at the very heart of Heidegger's thought that makes both of these contraries possible?” Te aim of this present work attempts to answer Ihde’s question following a close reading of Heidegger’s public speech “Memorial Address” (Gelassenheit). If we assess the rest of Heidegger’s works in light of this speech, then it is possible to reach a systematic understanding of the relationships that exist between art, technology and truth in Heidegger’s thought. In turn, this analysis specifically allows us to appreciate what aspects of Heidegger’s philosophy lead him to his so-called romanticism and the consequent error of subscribing to Nazism. Finally, this essay also explains how, in the words uttered ten years after the end of the war, Heidegger himself managed to offer an alternative to fascism so as to confront the threats of modern technology.

The publication of Heidegger's 'Black Notebooks' has aroused a storm of controversy that has often obscured any more sober assessment of the volumes. This essay provides a brief overview of the Notebooks and their significance, with special regard to the development in Heidegger's thinking for which they provide important new evidence.

Through Professor Arun Iyer’s parallel reading of Plato’s Theatetus, Heidegger’s 1931/32 lectures On the Essence of Truth, and the early modern political wrings of Raja Rammohan Roy, Heidegger’s 'novel way of relating to the historical past' can be described according to a logical movement through three layers of the significance of the un-happened : 1) that which did not happen; 2) that which still yet happens through the enduring presence of the un-happened ; and 3) that through which this enduring happening of the un-happened presents itself.