ABSTRACT
“Technology, Ontotheology, Education” briefly presents two of the main lines of thought developed in Heidegger on Ontotheology: Technology and the Politics of Education (Cambridge University Press, 2005). The first major hermeneutic thesis is that Heidegger’s “later” (circa post-1937) critique of technological nihilism follows directly from his much less well-known understanding of Western metaphysics as “ontotheology.” This means that Heidegger’s critique of nihilistic technologization—his critique, that is, of the ongoing and seemingly endless world-historical spread of “the technological understanding of being”—cannot really be understood if this critique of growing technological “nihilism” or meaninglessness is treated in isolation from the understanding of Western metaphysics as “ontotheology” that both explains and motivates it philosophically. Second, recognizing how exactly Heidegger’s critique of nihilistic technologization follows from his deeper critique of ontotheology puts us in a position to understand his philosophical views on education. Indeed, as this chapter shows, understanding how ontotheology drives nihilistic technologization lets us grasp both the critical target and the positive goal of Heidegger’s later thinking about education.
