Heidegger, the East and Technology

Abstract

In his later work, Heidegger discussed the global hegemony of modern technology, which has become increasingly incisive in the definition of our habits, language and horizons of expectation. In addition to revisit the metaphysical paths that westernized the world and to question the essence of the current domination, Heidegger also turned to some niches of alterity capable of irrigating the soil of technical reification, e.g., for the dialogue with some oriental alterity. It was precisely in the difficulty of this dialogue that he saw a promise. Bottom line: if the East itself, geopolitically speaking, eventually became westernized, how, amid the empire of technology, with its speed and peculiar framework, the eastern alterity interrogated by Heidegger could possibly offer us genuine sap of transformation? Keywords: Heidegger, East Asia, technology, danger, language, history.