Heidegger on Technology as a "Mode of Human Existence"

Most of the modern world thinks of technology as a tool, or merely as a means to make life better, more comfortable, or more efficient. This perspective is common to modernists or anyone who believes in a mind/body dualism. For these modernists, even the body is like a technology, or an instrument that the mind chooses to use at it's own discretion.

Heidegger thought differently. He did not see a split between the mind and body and therefore, his conceptions on technology were different as well.

For him, technology wasn't just a means to an end, but rather, a mode of human existence.

As other non-dualists have suggested, technology or media can be seen as "extensions of man" (McLuhan). Just as people who have lost a limb can feel phantom vibrations even though its gone, so do moderns when they are left without their cell phones.

Niel Postman once said that "with every new gadget, you destroy a previous way of life." That is how Heidegger sees technology. It creates a new way of life or a new mode of human existence.

We can see this with social media and all the different devices we use to access it. It has created a new way of living and operating in the modern world. If you don't get with the times, you can easily become disconnected, because social media for some is the only way they connect.

Hegel and Marx on Social Websites

Hegel and Marx Intro

Hegel is sometimes called the beginning of postmodernism.  Marx was also a postmodern philosopher.  A really, quick, messy way to talk about modernism vs. postmodernism would be to say that the moderns believed in a fixed reality or laws of perfection, while the postmoderns believed in unfixed reality with changing laws of perfection. 

Modernism =



(Standard of perfection to measure worm against!)

Postmodernism =


(This worm is free for interpretation!)

What they Might Say About Social Websites (according to me):

 
Hegel: "There is no ideal social website with which to measure ! With each newly designed social website, there is always a thesis and an antithesis.  A thesis is the main point, and the antithesis is the anti-point! The makers should be aware of both so they can form a new synthesis or another draft out of these two contradicting points.  These drafts will continue on further and further, each time becoming something new, changing toward a new synthesis.  The idea of perfection is always changing."


Marx:  "Workers in any area should never be doing alienated, meaningless work like they might in a factory line. If the users are workers, they should always understand the bigger vision of the site and then with that inspiration be motivated to dive in and contribute and interact!"

CORRECT: Explain what alienation: if not alienated, then yourself and your values are enhanced in the thing you make. The primary form of alienation here is between the object and the human.  If not alienated, you feel connected. 
Separate what they originally said from what they would say about social websites. 

Overview: Marx and Hegel

 

Marx was Post-Hegelian, who was Post-Kantian, who was Post-Humian, who was Post- ...you get the picture.

Each of them built off the ideas of their predecessors and to an extent, through this process, verified one of Hegel's main points - the historical dialectic  -which gave birth to one of Marx's main points - historical materialism.

The historical dialectic is when an idea is presented and then refuted. Out of the refutation, and  conflict between the thesis and the anti-thesis, comes a beautiful synthesis - a merging of both ideas better than either on their own. History progressed like this up until Hegel, so he thought, who had achieved the end of rationality, unable to be refuted, negated, or anti-thesized. (Is that even a word?)

Marx on the other hand did not agree. HE ANTI-THESIZED THE UN-ANTITHESIZABLE!!! (Now I know that that ones not a word). He thought this dialectic wasn't between ideas, but between the material means one possessed or did not possess. The battle between the have's and have not's. Bourgeois vs. Proletariat. 

But, how do these two theories play out in social media?

One way is you could say that social media is a platform for these two different types of dialectics to engage.

1. For Hegel, ideas are shared, refuted, and synthesized through all forms of posting, commenting, liking, sharing, etc. You could say that social media is accelerates the process of history by making it easy for everyone to be involved in the collective conversation. A good social website, according to Hegel, would engage in this process.
2. For Marx, one way to look at it could be that some businesses use social media to advertize and those with more money can sponsor adds and become even more successful than those without money for advertizing, which would be a critique of Marx. But, a pro that Marx could see is that even those without money can still create pages and accounts for free, thus equalizing the playing field. A good social website would have both a free and a paid version.

These are two points from Marx and Hegel about what a good social website would do.

• Provide a place for people to engage in the collective and historical dialectic.
• Offer both a free and a paid version thus helping to level the playing field between have's and have not's.

 Comment below if you can think of any other ways.

Greg

Hegel & Marx

Hegel

Hegel is often thought of as the first of the post-modern philosophers. His ideas contrasted with those of his predecessors in that he argued that the world was not fixed but moving! He believed that the entire world moved together as a group in the following manner:

Thesis -> Antithesis Emerges -> Synthesis

This process repeats itself and demonstrates the importance of conflict or opposition in order to progress. Hegel also thought highly of the way that Jesus maintained His composure amidst intense trial and believed that many people emulate this in the lives they live.

Hegel would say today that there should always be something playing a role of antithesis and pushing back on the status quo or popular ideas. This could be visible on a website through forums where users debate certain ideas. There could also be a page on the website that opens it up for users to critique and criticize. This would allow the website to get better or at least for the creators to be more informed.

Marx

Marx agreed with most of Hegel's ideas and added on applications to labor. He believed that labor should not be alienating, instead it should foster individual development and encourage individuals to flourish. Everything that is done should be pushing toward meaningful work.

Even when workers are specialized, they should still know about other tasks and understand the role they place in the creation of something.

Marx would argue that users of a website should be informed as to all aspects of the website, not just they pages they frequent. They should also be able to contribute and, if they are specialized, be trained in areas not crucial for their tasks in order to better understand the role they play as part of the whole.

Hume, Kant, and Social Media

Hume and Kant were two Enlightenment philosophers that were extremely influential in shaping the debate between empiricism and rationalism, which is, frankly, one of the biggest debates in philosophy. Hume was a Scottish philosopher who lived three hundred years after Descartes, and he argued that that reason was subject to desire. Reason wasn't the master. Hume is famous for his skepticism, as he stated, like Locke, that we can only have knowledge based on experience. Instead of thinking knowledge is what you can't doubt, Hume said knowledge is what you experience. But since, for example, we never experience more than one event following another, we never experience one event actually causing another, and so we can't have any knowledge of causation.  And he said that when we think of ourselves, we only conceive of  a bundle of sensations, nothing more. We never experience ourselves per se. So we really can't assume know anything about ourselves. 

Kant read Hume and responded to almost all of his critiques. He credited Hume with waking him from his “dogmatic slumber” and attempted to resolve the opposing forces of rationalism and empiricism. And many think he was successful. In his revolutionary Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argued that our experiences are structured by features of our minds. That is, we can't experience the world without providing rational concepts to shape our perceptions.  

With respect to the topic of aesthetics: Hume published his most famous work on the subject, “On the Standard of Taste,” in 1757. And in it he wrote thus: “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty."
Beauty cannot be objective because if it were, then a world without perceivers could be beautiful or ugly, or that beauty can be detected through scientific instruments, like weight and speed and the like. And what keeps the perception of beauty from being entirely subjective is good and bad taste. And that’s where the word “tasteless” originates – from this idea that something subjective can be attached to a standard of a certain type of person, one with taste. Those with good taste should be praised and looked up to, and their opinions about what they like and dislike should count more than those without taste. Hume stated that “strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this valuable character; and the joint verdict of such, wherever they are to be found, is the true standard of taste and beauty” (“Of the Standard of Taste” 1757, 144). Beauty is in the eye of the healthy, experienced beholder, the one with good taste. If the healthy, experienced beholder likes a work of art, then it is by definition beautiful.

In a similar fashion to Hume, Kant stated that beauty depends on the eye of the beholder. It depends on enjoying the object. But he differed from Hume in that he believed it is the judging of an object that provides the experience of pleasure, not the object itself. Kant distinguishes between two main types of judgments, reflective and determinative ones.  In technical terms, a determinative judgment is one where we subsume given particulars under universals that are already known. (For example, since you have in your mind the concept of a table, you are able to place a thing with a wooden top and four legs into that concept when you see it, and thus mark it as a table.) Reflective judgments, on the other hand, occur when we have a given particular and attempt to infer a universal from it. These are harder to make. They require that a category be created to classify an object. Much of philosophy, as it turns out, is just creating categories or concepts for things. Now, a judgment of the beautiful, for Kant, is a judgment that invites the viewer into a reflective state of mind.

For the viewer, the joy in interpreting a work of art is what makes it beautiful. This is the key. Kant states that art should cause viewers to come up with their own interpretation or way of thinking about it. The struggle to describe a work of art is what we enjoy about it. This is a step above Hume's definition of beauty, as the critic must not just be a person of taste, but must enjoy interpreting the work of art for it to be considered beautiful. This is the aesthetic experience. Kant called it “the free play of the imagination.”

Turning now to social media: Hume would say that content on a social media site should be evaluated and analyzed by intelligent critics with good taste. Their consensus on a particular site should constitute what the operator of that site should change in order to create a work of beauty. Perhaps the idea of beauty in a website is questionable to some. Certainly, it takes less work to design a blog than to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. However, the basic concept is the same: beauty is in the eye of the healthy, experienced beholder, and if this beholder likes something, then it is a work of art, and therefore, beautiful. Art is not beautiful because of what it is, but because of what people think of it. 

To take this a step further, we will consider what Kant might say about social media. A website should inspire its viewer. Perhaps it might even make them uncomfortable as they confront judgments of "the beautiful and sublime," as they grapple with their current paradigms and feel the need to understand what they are viewing. If this is artfully and tastefully done, a website will leave a lasting impression on its visitors and thus, hopefully, create success for itself.