“Hope will die at last”: an interview with Wolfgang Schirmacher
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59391/inscriptions.v1i1.19Keywords:
phenomenology, technology, Heidegger, ethics, cloningAbstract
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.”
References
Daodejing (Tao-te Ching). The Sacred Books of China. Trans. James Legge. New York: 1891.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Warheit und Methode (Truth and Method). Tubingen: 1960.
Heidegger, Martin and Eugen Fink. The Heraclitus Seminar. Trans. Charles H. Seibert. Frankfurt am Main/Evanston, Ill.: 1970/1997.
Marcuse, Herbert. "Hegel's Ontologie und die Grundlegung einer Theorie der Geschichtlichkeit" (Hegel's Ontology and the Theory of Historicity). PhD diss.: 1932.
Schirmacher, Wolfgang. "Ereignis Technik: Heidegger und die Frage nach der Technik" (The Event of Technology: Heidegger and the Question Concerning Technology). PhD diss.: 1980.
Schirmacher, Wolfgang. Technik und Gelassenheit (Technology and Releasement). Freiburg: 1983.
Schirmacher, Wolfgang. Ereignis Technik (The Event of Technology). Vienna: 1990.
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