Course Structure
Seminars begin weekend of 18th & 19th October
Across three intense weekend Block Seminars beginning mid October we will engage with several of Heidegger‘s most pivotal and insightful texts on the essence of technology.
In addition to the seminars you get lifetime access to 6 pre-recorded lectures that guide you through the readings. I We will focus on one main text per Block Seminar.
You also have the possibility to enrol just in the course contents as a reader or book additional private tutorials with Dr. Johannes A. Niederhauser
There will also be a Symposium, where you may present your own work. We will decide together as a group when to hold the Symposium.
Main Texts we will read and why
- "The Question Concerning Technology": Foundational for Heidegger's philosophy of technology, tracing the operations of 'Gestell'/enframing and how beings become 'standing reserve'.
- "Dialogue on Language with a Japanese": Introduces the danger of language, globalisation, the meeting and clash of different histories of being, and the colonisation of the planet by European civilisation and technology.
- "Science and Reflection": On the Relationship between the natural sciences, technology, and society including "culture".
- "The Turn": Here Heidegger addresses the possibility and necessity of a free relationship with technology. That is, how do we have to think, and what can we do in order to over-turn Gestell from within and not be enslaved by technology.
Overview of the Block Seminars
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Weekend Block Seminar: “The Question Concerning Technology”. On the essence of technology and its ramifications for our epoch. Students may also read “The Danger” in addition.
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Weekend Block Seminar: 1st Day: “A Dialogue on Language between a Japanese and an Inquirer”; on the essence of language and the Europeanisation of the Planet. 2nd Day: “Science and Reflection”. On the relationship between theory and reality in modernity.
- Weekend Block Seminar: “The Turning”. Supplemented by “Letter on Humanism”. On how we can establish a free relationship with technology.
Block Seminars Dates:
I) 18&19th of October
II) 25&26th of October
III) 1st & 2nd of November
Always 6-8pm CEST/ 12-2pm EST
Symposium with student presentations: date TBC
7 Seminars in total.
Course Curriculum
With the advent of LLMs and AI we are beginning to see the true face of technology. What Heidegger foresaw decades ago, the total technological enframing of the planet, is becoming increasingly our everyday reality. Our world is becoming ever more uniform and technicised. The essence of technology is Ge-Stell, the concentrated enframing of all beings — including nature, animals, and human beings — so that they stand ready for use at all times. Transhumanism promises that we might not only be able to extend our physical capacities but even live forever. Butto be trans-human means to be no longer human, and to become the plaything of technology, an extension of it.
Thus Heidegger foresees:
“An anarchy of catastrophes is upon us.”
And our question must be: How can there be a turning so that we can establish a free relationship with technology?
But Heidegger also foresaw something else and something entirely radical:
That technology may very well lead to an entirely
new experience of being!
In a conversation with Richard Wisser Heidegger pointed out: “I am not against technology. I do not think it demonic. Quite to the contrary. I see in technology, in its essence, that we are about to make a new experience with being.
This is what I call the Event.”
And in fact a major part of the new experience with being will be the encounter between Occident and Orient, between what was worlds apart but is now beginning to share in history.
Study Tiers Explained
Tier 1: Self-Study
This is ideal for self-study. You can enrol now and complete the course in your own time. You get life-time access to 6 video lectures plus audio files. Meaning you enrol once and can access the course materials for as long and as often as you wish.
Tier 2: Philosophical Fellowship
You get everything from tier 1 but you also get access to 7 live group seminars (over Zoom). There will be three block seminar weekends beginning the weekend of the 18&19th of October. That means we will meet on both Saturday and Sunday on three consecutive weekends, always from 6-8pm CEST/ 12-2pm EST. The date of seminar 7, our Symposium, will be determined by the group at a later stage. At the Symposium you may present your own work on Heidegger or a topic inspired by the course. If you agree, your talk will be uploaded to my YouTube channel. This is a great tier for you if you want to meet like-minded peers and make new friends with similar interests. Many of my students have become friends and have been reading philosophy together now for years.
Tier 3: Philosophical Dialogue
All from tiers 1&2 included plus 3 private sessions with me of 90 mins each. There are only an few available and they usually go quickly. This is ideal for you if you want to write something on Heidegger, or you have an artistic or creative project with Heidegger. People in this tier have been professors of mathematics, playwrights, academics, painters, independent creators of all sorts, people in tech etc. Our time together will be very helpful for your projects but as I said it requires additional work and commitment.
“The will to mastery becomes all the more urgent the more technology threatens to slip from human control.”
Martin Heidegger
“Where there is danger, there the saving power grows also.”
Friedrich Hölderlin
Your Teacher:
Dr. Johannes A. Niederhauser
Johannes is the founder and Spiritus Rector of the Halkyon Academy.
His book, “Heidegger on Death and Being”, which was published by Springer in 2021, explores the relationship between being and negativity, concealment, and withdrawal — the most radical experience of which we can make because we are mortal. Heidegger’s diagnosis of technology is one of the four pillars of Johannes’ book and explores how in technics a new relationship with being is in the offing.
He understands his Halkyon Academy as a thoughtful active way of engaging with technology in a way that opens us out to experience, where technology disappears into the background, rather than replacing technology with experience.
