Technological World‐Pictures: Cosmic Things and Cosmograms

Martin Heidegger’s notion ofthingsas gatherings that disclose a world conveys the “thickness” of everyday objects. This essay extends his discussion ofthings—part of a sustained criticism of modern technology—to technological objects as well. As a corrective to his totalizing, even totalitarian, gen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Isis 2007-03, Vol.98 (1), p.84-99
Main Author: Tresch, John
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astronomical objects
Concept of being
Cosmology
Criticism
Cultural anthropology
Cultural history
Heidegger, Martin
History of technology
Holism
Human Technology Relationship
Humanity
Innovation
Machinery
Material culture
Modernity
Philosophical object
Philosophy
Positivism
Science and technology
Technology
Universe
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:Martin Heidegger’s notion ofthingsas gatherings that disclose a world conveys the “thickness” of everyday objects. This essay extends his discussion ofthings—part of a sustained criticism of modern technology—to technological objects as well. As a corrective to his totalizing, even totalitarian, generalizations about “enframing” and “the age of the world‐picture,” and to a more widespread tendency among critics of modernity to present technology in only the most dystopian, uniform, and claustrophobic terms, this essay explores two species of technical object: cosmic things and cosmograms. The first suggests how an ordinary object may contain an entire cosmos, the second how a cosmos may be treated as just another thing. These notions are proposed as a basis for comparison and connection between “the industrial world” and other modes of ordering the universe.
ISSN:0021-1753
1545-6994
DOI:10.1086/512833