Questions concerning Ge-Stell: Heideggerian confrontations with technology

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) gained a reputation as one of the most significant and perhaps infamous continental philosophers of the twentieth century. This article addresses the following question: how did Heidegger’s confrontations with ge-stell articulate an approach for contemporary human beings to resist technological domination? Ge-Stell refers to Heidegger’s term for the essence of technology. The essence of technology represents the presupposition that technology provides a means for human beings to dominate nature and to establish a system for ordering the world according to perspectives driven by technology. First, ge-stell is noted as Heidegger’s term that described the essence of technology. Ge-Stell functioned as a paradigm in which human beings accepted technology as the source for answers to all questions and for solutions to all problems about existence. Second, Heidegger’s embrace of Nazism is interpreted as his first attempt to confront ge-stell and to enact a metaphysical revolution in Germany. Third, thinking poetically is positioned as Heidegger’s most successful way for human beings to resist technological domination. Heidegger’s call to thinking represents a bottom-up approach to enact social change that empowers each person to resist ge-stell on an individual basis.