Heidegger’s Conception of Technology: Destiny and Threat for Human Existence

Abstract

This paper claims that the "question concerning technology" became, along the development of Heidegger's philosophy, the most important issue in ontological analysis, and also became an ethical approach of the relationship between Being and the human being. The two fundamental periods of Heidegger's question concerning technology are analyzed. Heidegger distinguished between technology as object (utensils, devices and technical systems) and the essence of the technology, which cannot be mistaken with anything technical. These two forms of technology are analyzed in order to understand the "technological imperative" which compels human existence to dominate the entire natural world.