Public Lecture, Thursday 13 February, SVHUM E0103, 15:15-16:30: ‘Letting Things Be: Heidegger, Technology, and Thinking Environmentally’
All welcome - alle er velkommen!
Abstract: In an influential essay written in the ruins of WWII, Martin Heidegger characterizes the reduction of the natural world to resources for production and consumption as the crisis of modernity. Heidegger claims this crisis is rooted in our technological worldview. He argues the consequences include a loss of the sacred, the violation of nature, and the destruction of our home. And Heidegger believes we need to break free from our self-serving and unquestioned use of technology to adequately address our climate emergency. In this lecture, I will briefly describe the philosophical foundations of our technological worldview and explain why our reduction of the natural world to resources has led to the destruction of our habitat. I will then indicate a way to break free from our self-serving use of technology and explore what a sustainable relation to the natural world might look like. Specifically, I will argue for an ‘ends-based’ approach to environmental ethics whereby we treat animals, plants, and geological forces as if they have ends of their own. Finally, I will consider the role of technological devices in a world where we have broken free from the grip of technology and thus have a healthier relation to our surroundings.
Aaron James Wendland completed his Doctorate in Philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford and he is currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Higher School of Economics. Aaron is the co-editor of Wittgenstein and Heidegger and Heidegger on Technology, and he is now editing The Cambridge Critical Guide to Being and Time. Aaron has written scholarly articles on Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Levinas, Derrida, Danto, and Kuhn, and he has published several pieces of popular philosophy in The New York Times, The New Statesman, and Public Seminar. Aaron serves as an art critic for The Moscow Times. He is also the Philosophy Editor at The New Statesman and a Founding Director at the Center for Philosophy and Visual Arts in London.