April 16, 2005
I'm working my way through Chapters 15 & 16 of Heidegger's Nihilism. In these chapters Heidegger is developing his interpretation of Descartes cogito. In Chapter 17 I came across this passage:
"What Nietzsche already knew metaphysically now becomes clear: that in its absolute form the modern "machine economy", the machine based reckoning of all activity and planning, demands a kind of man who surpasses man as he has been hitherto. It is not enough that one posesses tanks, rplanes, and communications apparatus; nor is it enogh that one has at one's disposal men who can service such things; it is not even sufficient that man only master technology as if it werre neutal, beyond benefit and harm, creation and destruction, to be used by any body at all for any ends at all."
More is needed:
"What is needed is a form of mankind that that is from top to bottom equal to the unique fundamental eseence of modern technology and its metaphysical truth; that is to say, that lets itself be entirely dominated by the essence of technology precisely in order to steer and deploy individual technological proceses and possibilities."
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