“Hope will die at last”: an interview with Wolfgang Schirmacher

Abstract

To Wolfgang Schirmacher philosophy is about reading in the spirit of, so that we may follow the logic of the phenomenon that shows itself to us. It is in this spirit of phenomenology Schirmacher asks whether Martin Heidegger's diagnosis of our age – that we live under a Gestell, or fix, of technology – is sufficient. Should we not consider the supplementary notion of technology as an event (Ereignis) of becoming into our own existence? We have an inborn character that is unassailable and yet unknown to us until the day we perish, and from such an ethical perspective – and in distinction to deontological views – Schirmacher rejects science's promise never to clone humans. He regards such a declaration as “only valid until it’s possible.” Rather, he regards our future as one in which humans will be allowed to procreate for as long as it doesn't interfere unambiguously with the functioning of the machines, “and during that interim the poor humans living there will still have hope.”