VLVL2 (15): A Frame around 'Em ...

[umberto rossi]

In data 18 May 2004, verso le 20:31, monroe at mpm.edu si trovò a 
scrivere su Re: VLVL2 (15): A Frame around 'Em ...:

> "Enframing means the gathering together of that setting-upon that sets
> man upon man, i.e., challenges him to bring forth, to reveal the real, in
> the mode of ordering, as standing reserve. Enframing means that way of
> revealing that holds sway in the essence of modern technology and that it
> is itself nothing technological...."

This is I guess an English translation of Heidegger's "Die Frage nach 
der Technik", which has a rather original way to deal with that 
terrible word, Gestell... in Italian translations there are different 
equivalents, and the problem is that practically Gestell is a sort of 
poetic (hence philosophical, from Heidegger's point of view) 
creation, since the term seems to have a number of meanings in 
German, but had never been used the way Heidegger used it in his 
essay. Which is absolutely Heideggerian, after all. I wonder whether 
some German listmember could add something about the matter. 

I have studied Heidegger's essay (doubtlessly one of the milestones 
of Western philosophy), but in my opinion Gestell is more a matter of 
disposition than framing or "enframing". It hints at a dissolution of 
beings in a world (our modern or better postmodern world) where 
everything is reduced to quantity and measurement; thus we have a 
dissolution by disposition, by order. But getting into that might 
open a huge file...

This essay oddly anticipates the digital revolution, by the way. Or 
better, I reckon that Heidegger could already see in his time that 
Western Civilization was going digital, let's say. But I wonder 
whether Heidegger questioning of "technology" (btw the German term 
Technik, like the Italian equivalent Tecnica, does not coincide with 
Technology--with or without a capital T) applies to this passage of 
Vineland, while it seems to me to pertain to the famous reflecion on 
Technology which can be found in GR and was cleverly analysed by Luc 
Herman in his--I guess--well-known essay.

On the other hand, one might well argue that TV is part of 
Technology, one of the many creatures, so to say, of Technik, so we 
aren't that far. 

umberto rossi
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