r/heidegger

Can a historian truly understand the past? Wilhelm Dilthey believed this was the central question of historical inquiry. Against the positivists of his age, he argued that history cannot be studied like nature because human actions are shaped by meanings, values, and lived experiences, not merely by causes.

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For Dilthey, the historian's task is not simply to explain the past but to understand it. Through interpretation and empathy, historians attempt to reconstruct how people experienced their world. But can we ever fully understand those who lived centuries before us?

Often, we fail to recognize the extent to which our language shapes our thinking. For example, what happens when we habitually call people human resources?

Heidegger writes in The Question Concerning Technology:

“...he [man] comes to the brink of a precipitous fall; that is, he comes to the point where he himself will have to be taken as standing-reserve.”

Those who work in HR habitually refer to people as “resources.” Yet the moment someone views us as a resource, we immediately cringe. We instinctively sense that we are being degraded.

Heidegger argues that in our age, being reduced to mere standing-reserve is almost inescapable. Whether we recognize it or not, this reduction is embedded in the very language we use. But where does this language – and the thinking behind it – come from?

In his exploration of technology, Heidegger concludes that modern technology is no longer a tool, even though it is presented as one.

“The essence of technology is by no means anything technological.”

Modern technology is a Gestell – Enframing – a conceptual framework that we cast upon reality. Technology is a way of thinking. It reveals how we see everything. Heidegger illustrates this with the example of the Rhine.

Before the twentieth century, numerous watermills stood along the river, each built into the natural flow. In the twentieth century, however, a power plant was constructed at that very site, and the river was locked into it. Now the river is built into the power plant.

This illustrates what has happened to technology. In the past, technology was built into nature. Today, nature is built into technology. In fact, almost everything is built into technology. The question is: Who serves whom?

Gradually, we have shifted from using tools to being used by them. According to Heidegger, one consequence of such a shift is that we tend to view everything as standing-reserve. Humanity stands “on the brink of a precipitous fall” because we are unconsciously turning ourselves into fuel for the Machine.

No one likes being reduced to standing-reserve, yet we continue to use the very language that produces such reductionist thinking.

As a translator, I see more and more agencies replacing personal communication with automated systems. In the past, project managers contacted me directly to offer work. Now I simply receive a notification that a job has appeared on an online platform, and I have to claim it immediately because hundreds of other translators are competing for the same assignment.

I understand why agencies do this. They have built a vast Machine, and everything – including people – must serve it. Yet there are still companies, usually smaller ones, that prefer talking to people. Those are the companies I prefer to work with.

They may sacrifice some profit, but they refuse to treat people as standing-reserve, and they refuse to become it themselves.

Modern technology enframes us to think of everything as a resource. It gives us a language that reduces both nature and humans to fuel for the Machine. We use this language almost unconsciously, yet we still recoil when a boss treats us as an expendable resource.

What is the alternative? Refuse to build our lives into technology! We must have a full and rich life without it. Only then can we build technology into the mainstream of our lives. When we use it less, we can use it some. When we use it all the time, it uses us.

When we build our life and work into technology, it invariably reduces us to standing-reserve. When we build technology into OUR life and work, we reduce it back to a tool. Ultimately, there is only one state of mind that is powerful enough to turn technology back into a tool.

Heidegger concludes,

“Essential reflection upon technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in a realm that is, on the one hand, akin to the essence of technology and, on the other, fundamentally different from it. Such a realm is art.”

Coucou les amies , j'ai besoin de votre aide pour comprendre Heidegger dans son œuvre l'être et le temps..

Enfaîte j'ai des problèmes à comprendre la définition de l'être, c quelque chose qui ne fait pas partie de l'ètant, on peut pas le définir mais on la possède depuis toujours ..

Et du coup le fait qu'on se rend compte qu'on est des être de mort comme Heidegger le dit , ça va soucier une sensation d'angoisse afin de nous pousser à plus oublier l'être, et du coup de permettre au Dasein ( l'être là / grosse moddo l'humain ) à plus vivre passivement ( en faisant des acts inauthentique = des acts faites pour plaire à la société ) mais du coup de se poser la question de comment exister = comment vraiment vivre pour soi .Et du coup l'être est quelque chose qui va nous illuminer et nous permettre de se questionner et qui va donner naissance entre à l'existence?

On est d'accord que Heidegger et Sartre sont d'accord sur le concept de la facticitè?

Alors ma deuxième question, si on est née sans essence , comme une page blanche avec conscience ( d'après la pensée de Sartre ) est ce que la nature humaine ( comme par exemple le fait que l'homme est un bête sociable ) est faute d'après Sartre et Heidegger

Ps : je sais que Heidegger a une idée de l'existentialisme assez différente que celle de Sartre mais je voulais juste comprendre sa pensée ainsi que les limites de la pensée de l'existentialisme ( car même si on est une page blanche et libre dès notre naissance , des facteurs externes peuvent déterminer la degré de notre liberté ainsi que la probabilité d'une variation des choix aléatoires car même si on essayer de nier ça , l'homme est aussi un produit de son environnement ( il va être partiellement influencé dès sa naissance , ça signifie pas qu'il sera pas capable de prendre sa liberté, mais le fait qu'il est le produit de son environnement va rendre ça un peu difficile ( on peut prédire un peu ses choix )

( dsl s'il y'a des fautes d'orthographe,je pensais à ça depuis 3h de mat mdrr)