TOO FAR, YET NOT FAR ENOUGH: A HEIDEGGERIAN RESPONSE TO HÉCTOR JOSÉ HUYKE’S TECHNOLOGIES AND THE DEVALUATION OF WHAT IS NEAR.

Syed Mustafa Ali, Computing Department, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.

INTRODUCTION

Professor Huyke has presented a paper that is both interesting and convincingly argued. Yet while I am somewhat sympathetic to his critical approach to an ethics of technologies as prostheses, I find the claims upon which it rests to be problematic in certain respects. Due to constraints of time, I will confine myself to briefly analysing two claims that I take to be central to his proposal: (1) that technologies have intrinsic ends; and (2) that technologies as prostheses effect the devaluation of the near. My approach to examining both claims will be phenomeno-logical in a broadly Heideggerian sense and will reference both the current paper and an earlier work by the author (Huyke 2001a) which explores similar themes. With respect to the first claim, I will argue that Huyke goes too far in proposing to extend agency to technologies, and that the basis for such an anthropomorphizing move is traceable to an analysis of artefact intentionality that fails to engage ontological and epistemological considerations. With respect to the second claim, and principally by recourse to both the earlier and the later Heidegger’s reflections on the phenomenon of existential distance, I will argue that Huyke does not go far enough in conceiving nearness anthropocentrically in terms of a cultural notion of autochtony (or ‘rootedness’). In examining each claim, I will briefly comment on the possible implications that such a phenomenological analysis has for an ethics of technologies as prostheses.

"TECHNOLOGIES HAVE INTRINSIC ENDS"

According to Huyke (2001a), "technology is never simply a means but is always also simultaneously an end." In this connection, it is crucial to appreciate that he is "not affirming what is trivially true: that technologies embody ends which human beings consciously or unconsciously place in them"; rather, he means to assert that "technologies also have their own ends and that the effects of these ends are not secondary. They are primary. They do not originate in anybody’s consciousness or in the unconscious, but in the technologies themselves as entities with cultural significance." (p.54) On his view, "technologies have a certain type of intentionality, certain aims which are intrinsic, which make themselves felt" (p.55), such aims – at least in the case of "contemporary transportation and communication technologies" - being associated with "an inherent tendency to devalue what is near." (Huyke 2001b, p.7) It is crucial to appreciate that it is the fact that technologies "are not regularly designed for such purposes [emphasis added]" that leads Huyke to view such ends as inherent or intrinsic to technologies. This, in turn, allows him to reinterpret technologies as "agents in history, not mere tools [emphasis added]" (p.7) and thereby argue that "an ethics of technologies is both possible and desirable." (pp.1-2) According to Huyke (2001a), "if we see technologies not as mere instruments but as prostheses with their own ends then maybe we can give them the cultural and critical importance they merit." (p.56)

The above argument is problematic for (at least) two reasons.

First, while it might be conceded that certain technological ends do not originate in human consciousness (or the unconscious), it does not thereby follow that such ends must be intrinsic. Huyke appears to have arrived at such an, in my opinion, erroneous conclusion by tacitly appealing to the distinction between that which arises through another (techne, design or extrinsic intentionality) and that which arises through self (physis, nature or intrinsic intentionality). However, it is important to appreciate the context in which this distinction is applicable – linear systems. According to Langton (1989),

On this basis, I would argue that there is a need to consider the possibility of a third source of intentionality beyond design (or extrinsic intentionality) and nature (or intrinsic intentionality), viz. emergence or non-linear systemic intentionality. In this connection, it is interesting to note that Ihde (1982) appears to have anticipated such a notion in asserting that "there is a latent trajectory to technologies such that technological directions occur which incline, though not determine, human curiosity and desire [emphasis added]." (p.23). In a dynamical systems context, the functionality of a non-linear system (or whole) is held to be ontologically reducible to the functionality of its components (or parts) and the interactions (or dynamic relations) between them. This type of reduction can be reinterpreted in terms of the notion of functional (or operational) supervenience, appropriately recast in non-linear terms. On this basis, and by analogy, I would argue that the emergent intentionality of technological complexes is ontologically reducible to the extrinsic intentionality of component technologies within the complex and the interactions between them. Again, by analogy, this type of reduction can be reinterpreted in terms of the notion of intentional supervenience appropriately recast. Ihde provides support for such a move in maintaining that "in our engagements with technologies, trajectories emerge, trajectories which refer back to our own imaginations and desires, but which by extending the amplificatory (and reductive) structure of technology, can actually result in qualitative changes with respect to human destiny [emphasis added]." (p.26) Hence, rather than referring to intrinsic or inherent technological ends, we should refer to emergent-derivative ends that supervene on inhering ends, that is, extrinsic ends that have been embedded and now reside within the component technologies (or ‘parts’) in a technological complex (or ‘whole’). With regard to the question concerning the ontology of the relations in a technological complex, both Heidegger (1967) and Searle (1995) are in agreement – although for somewhat different reasons – that such relations are socially-constituted thereby implying yet again the grounding of emergent technological intentionality in extrinsic intentionality.

Second, I would argue that in identifying the intentionality (or ends) of technologies as intrinsic, Huyke himself ironically effects a devaluation of the near – the near in this case being the human source of extrinsic intentionality on which emergent technological intentionality supervenes. The ethical significance of this anthropomorphizing move lies in the way that it acts to block phenomenological inquiry into the nature of artefact intentionality, inquiry that is essential if responsibility for technological outcomes is to be correctly traced and apportioned. On Huyke’s (2001a) view, once technologies become part of our culture, "they become part of us and so [do] their ends, as well as all the responsibilities this implies." (p.56) In this connection, it is interesting to note that, according to Berdichevsky and Neunschwander (1999), designers of technologies whose behavioural outcomes are unintended, not reasonably predictable and unethical should not be held responsible for such outcomes. On their view, lack of prediction and control (that is, actualisation of intentionality) of outcomes constitute necessary and sufficient conditions for discharging responsibility from humans; such deficiencies do not, however, entail the necessity of granting intrinsic agency, and thereby responsibility, to technological artifacts. What all this amounts to is that a distinction must be made between simple (or extrinsic) and complex (or systemic) technological intentionality and that this distinction has implications for determining whether or not responsibility can be reasonably apportioned to humans. Rather than ‘rushing headlong’ into embracing a new concept of agency on the basis of human failure to predict and control certain technologies, might it not be more prudent to heed Weizenbaum’s (1984) prescient advice and reconsider whether we should be in the business of bringing forth technologies that we do not - cannot - understand or control?

"TECHNOLOGIES AS PROSTHESES EFFECT THE DEVALUATION OF WHAT IS NEAR"

According to Huyke (2001a), "many recent technologies tend to bring closer that which is distant at the expense of what is near." (p.57) On his view, "as what is difficult to obtain becomes repeatedly and easily accessible, other possibilities are left out"; furthermore, "ends that are near tend to be devalued with increasing facility." (Huyke 2001b, p.2) Crucially, Huyke (2001a) holds that "to bring something that is distant closer implies distancing what is close." (p.62); hence, "access is not cumulative .. if you access this, you don’t access that." (Huyke 2001b, p.3)

From a phenomenological perspective, it must be appreciated that Huyke’s conception of the bi-directional distancing effects associated with prosthetic technologies bears more than a passing resemblance to Heidegger’s ‘horizonal’ conception of primordial truth as simultaneous unconcealment (aletheia) and concealment. Nonetheless, in my opinion, it is problematic for (at least) two reasons, both of which have to do with the fact that Huyke’s analysis of nearness is overly anthropocentric.

First, Huyke does not appears to have considered the fact that technologies as prostheses also effect the devaluation of the far. According to Ihde (1982), the essence of prosthesis lies in simultaneous amplification and reduction. While this thesis might appear to anticipate that advanced by Huyke, it in fact stands in inverse relation to the latter with respect to focus: For Huyke, amplification-reduction happens proximally, whereas for Ihde, it happens distally. For example, Ihde maintains that "to see the moon through a telescope is, while it occurs, to lose it as a part of the heavens, to enclose it within a bounded frame. It is to reduce both its sense of distance and its relations to the surrounding stars and earth." (pp.24-25) While it might be argued that Ihde’s example is interesting but irrelevant since the context of Huyke’s argument is social rather than physical, I would maintain that the general point is both sound and important if anthropocentrism and the excesses it can engender are to be kept in check.

Second, Huyke (2001a) maintains that "the new nearness [prosthetic technologies] favour does not have the same structure [as] what was near originally and is now forgotten or turned away" (p.57), and that "ranges of nearness" are devalued through the prosthetic functioning of technology (Huyke 2001b, p.3). On his view, nearness is to be understood in terms of autochtony, that is, rootedness. From a phenomenological perspective, this point is significant since Heidegger (1966) identifies the ‘danger’ associated with modern technology (as enframing) with the loss of autochtony in man and his works. However, in this connection, it is crucial to appreciate the radical difference between their conceptions of autochtony: For Huyke, autochtony is a cultural phenomenon; for Heidegger, by contrast, autochtony is an existential phenomenon, that is, a phenomenon concerning Being (that is, intelligibility and its way of manifesting). In Heidegger’s (1975) later thinking, autochtony or rootedness refers to the fact that humans are human because they dwell on the earth. However, on this ontology, earth is but one among a fourfold that includes sky, mortals and divinities and, significantly, none of these has ontological priority over any of the others; they all come into play together in the unitary ‘appropriating event’ that is world-ing. Clearly, such a conception of autochtony is at odds with more traditional anthropocentric (or ‘humanistic’) conceptions such as that due to Huyke, and has a number of implications for an ethics of technologies as prostheses. For example, Huyke (2001b) proposes an ethics that aims to "reinsert nearness into our value judgements on technologies." (p.8) However, from a Heideggerian perspective, prioritising valuation at the expense of adequately engaging the question concerning nearness and its various meanings undermines, somewhat ironically, the value of this very project. On Heidegger’s view, such an approach to technology remains caught up in what he refers to as the metaphysics of the will-to-power with its emphasis on human control. In order to escape the grip of this metaphysics, which assumes its ultimate form in enframing, Heidegger proposes a twofold strategy: (1) the cultivation of releasement (gelassenheit), which does not mean mere passivity or detachment but rather non-attached engagement, that is, a ‘free association’ to technology; and (2) the bringing-forth of a plurality of worlds, technological and otherwise. On this basis, it becomes possible to understand what Heidegger (1977) meant in stating "but where danger is, grows the saving power also" (p.28), since the devaluation of the near is simultaneously its valuation in the sense that in withdrawal, things attain value by becoming ‘difficult to obtain’.

REFERENCES