Technologies of Being in Martin Heidegger: Nearness, Metaphor and the Question of Education Anna Kouppanou Institute of Education, University of London Doctor of Philosophy 1 Abstract Technology permeates education’s discourses and practices, and further dialogue between philosophy of education and philosophy of technology is urgently needed. This thesis attempts to do this by engaging critically with the thought of Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler in order to show that both education and technology are processes of human formation (Bildung). Heidegger’s philosophy of technology underlines the way technology conditions human action and thus allows for an investigation of the constitution of the human being. At the same time, Heidegger’s philosophy maintains certain essentialist elements that make it unresponsive to the digital technologies that increasingly form our milieu. In matters of technology the nature of nearness is always at issue, and digital technology accelerates the changes that occur in this respect. For this reason, and notwithstanding Heidegger’s achievements, it is necessary to challenge his account in certain respects. Through a deconstruction of Heidegger’s theory, I attempt to show that thinking and technology intertwine in his critique of metaphysics. In fact, thinking and technology function according to presuppositions about image (Bild), imagination (Einbildungskraft) and education (Bildung), and both inextricably involve metaphorisation in various ways. In this thesis, I analyse the notion of metaphor either as passive or active transfer of the self. The role of image, as I have already noted, is very important for this process, and it is for this reason that Heidegger’s distinction between ‘representative’ image and ‘originary’ image becomes very important for this investigation. For Heidegger, the possibility of originary image opens up the path towards a non- technologically mediated truth (alētheia) that offers true nearness to things, whereas representative image condemns thinking to uncritical repetition and existence to a state in which everything is equally far and equally near. This discussion and the specific chain of notions (Bild, Einbildung, Bildung) offers a new way into the investigation of those current digital image-technologies that purport to afford us nearness to things and people. It examines their effects on thinking and imagination, and education’s role in relation to these developments. 2 Declaration I hereby declare that, except where explicit attribution is made, the work presented in this thesis is entirely my own. Word count (exclusive of appendices and bibliography): 95,837 words Name: Anna Kouppanou Signature: ……………………………………. 3 Acknowledgments For the last six years, I have been conversing with the memories of people I have never met, and these conversations found their way into my thesis. If, however, this thesis has any merits it is because of several other people generous enough to share their own memories allowing me to synthesise my time with theirs and turn it into the inscribed ecology that this thesis has become. I would especially like to thank my supervisor, Paul Standish, who allowed my thought to be responsive to the variety of paths opening in front of me without my losing sight of the kind of journey I was attempting to pursue. To my colleagues and friends in London, I owe tremendous thanks. Especially to Stavroulla Prodromou for making it easy for me to be both a PhD student and a teacher and showing incredible understanding to the challenges posed by the writing process. Antis Loizides was a keen reader of the thesis, as it followed several twists and turns forming its own path, offering insightful comments and encouraging words. My sister, Eleni Kouppanou, herself an educator, has never declined an invitation to discuss my concerns and test my ideas against her critical disposition. Our conversations defined my childhood and formed my way of thinking into a dialogical process. I am sure, my parents, Constantinos and Maria, and my brother, Adamos Kouppanos, have always been puzzled by my obsession to ask questions but never tired of answering them and offering their support and love throughout my life. My friends Souli Stylianou, Christina Gavrielidou and Demetra Charalambous were always by my side, even when miles apart, making sure that I wouldn't lose sight of what is important in life. Above all, I want to thank my husband, Lukas Perikleous, who is always there for me, being my there, making it all right for me to experience the uncanny in life precisely because by his side the uncanniness of the world is a friendly invitation. 4 Table of Contents Introduction 7 Chapter 1 Philosophy of Technology in Education 18 1. Introduction 19 2.1. Instrumentalism and the neglect of things 21 2.1.1. The effects of instrumentalism on education 24 2.2. The challenge of Essentialism 27 2.2.1. The discourse of Enframing in education 31 3. Technology and Thinking: The role of Image 36 4. Conclusion 44 Chapter 2 Technology, Thinking and Imagination 47 1. Introduction 48 2. Phenomenology in Heidegger 51 3. Phantasia, Imagination, Einbildung 55 3.1. Heidegger’s Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant 60 3.2. Authenticity as Differential Movement 65 3.2.1. Augenblick: The moment of Vision 69 3.2.2. The implications of the differential nature of perception 72 4. Conclusion 75 Hinge 80 Chapter 3 Closeness in Early Heidegger 95 1. Introduction 97 2. Being-in-the-world and Language 99 3. The Ready-to-hand 103 4. Dasein’s Spatiality 111 5. Conclusion 119 Chapter 4 Nearness as a Political Scheme 124 1. Introduction 124 2. Technology in middle Heidegger 129 2.1. A Phenomenological Interruption 133 2.2. Nearness as Spirit 136 2.3. Rootedness and Technology 140 3. A Re-turn to the Polis 142 4. Conclusion 148 Chapter 5 Nearness in Later Heidegger 153 1. Introduction 156 2. Returning to the House of Being 159 2.1. Metaphor as Exteriorisation 165 2.2. Language, Ereignis, Metaphor 173 3. Nearness, Technology, Distancelessness 178 4. Conclusion 184 5 Chapter 6 Metaphor, Nearness, Education 186 1. Introduction 189 2. Cyberspace, Embodiment and Metaphor 192 3. Technologies of Nearness 205 3.1. The Digital Bridge: Facebook, Nearness and Metaphor 212 3.2. Technology as Bildung 221 4. Educational Technology and the Metaphor of Potential 224 4.1. Difference in the Digital Sphere 232 5. Conclusion 239 References 249 6 Technologies of Being in Martin Heidegger: Nearness, Metaphor and the Question of Education In Dasein there lies an essential tendency towards closeness... Heidegger, 1927 (T)his frantic abolition of all distances brings no nearness; for nearness does not consist in shortness of distance. Heidegger, 1950 Introduction We are currently experiencing an obsessive desire for connectedness based on a certain understanding of networking −especially digital networking. This is itself conceptualised as the bringing-close of dispersed nodes that await connectedness and thus actualisation. This specific interpretation of connectedness emphasises the process of bringing-close, whilst downplaying the way the nodes are themselves constituted by this process. The transformations effected are often understood as the inevitable or even natural outcome of a general and universal process of nearing, which is initiated by technology, and amplified especially now, by digital technologies. These technologies seem to offer the reassurance that we are indeed connected to what feels comfortable and familiar even in cases that the exact opposite is desired; that is, the escape of familiarity and the encounter of the new, the thought-provoking or even the adventurous. These implications, the risk and the possible cost of the dominance of the digital networking paradigm as the only model of connectedness, deserve further investigation. Connectedness may appear as something comfortable, but it also appears to threaten what is most precious in the experience of bringing-near. In this thesis, I rely on Martin Heidegger’s (1889-1976) work in order to discuss the complicated nature of this phenomenon. This is because Heidegger was among 7 the first to pay heed to connectedness –translated as closeness or nearness1− and its relation to technology, thinking, time, space and politics. This is evident throughout his career. In his lecture The Thing (1971e), however, Heidegger’s awareness of our current globalised world is especially accentuated. There, he argues that: ‘All distances in time and space are shrinking’, since we are now able to reach ‘overnight, by plane, places which formerly took weeks and months of travel’ (p. 165). Heidegger detects a new kind of experience effected by the possibility to know about things and events whilst taking place. For Heidegger this new way of being-in-the-world, that is, the ‘abolition of every possibility of remoteness’ was instantiated by television which he thought would ‘pervade and dominate the whole machinery of communication’ (ibid.). Even though it was the computer or cybernetics that ended up doing this, Heidegger acknowledged the fact that we currently experience this paradox; the extension of our space-time tends to level down the experience of connectedness. Heidegger puts this in the following terms …the frantic abolition of all distances brings no nearness; for nearness does not consist in shortness of distance. What is least remote from us in point of distance, by virtue of its picture on film or its sound on the radio, can remain far from us. What is incalculably far from us in point of distance can be near to us. Short distance is not in itself nearness. Nor is great distance remoteness. …Everything gets lumped together into uniform distancelessness. How? Is not this merging of everything into the distanceless more unearthly than everything bursting apart? (1971e, p. 165). Heidegger’s discussion raises a great many points here. The development of means of transportation but more importantly of new media, that offer instant connectivity and real-time interaction with whatever takes place in the world, have changed our very own place in the world.