AT THE POINT OF COMPLETION - HEIDEGGER,MA RTIN PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY

In the final part of his Prague lecture, W. Berger analyses two differ ent interpretations of Heidegger's philosophy of technique. He terms H eidegger's concept as a ''strategy of recollection'' (Strategie des Er innerns), recalling the interrogation (on being) in the point of forge tting, which technique presents. The means of remembering is language as a question of surpassing (fragende Uberwindung der Sprache), as the author terms Heidegger's retracting of original meanings through etym ology. The author considers that Heidegger's thought is empowering, as a conception of the loss of authenticity, against which must be set t he almost religious stress on being (eine fast religiose Betonung des Seins) as a concept of ''challenges which bring the end of metaphysics in consciousness'' (''eine Aufforderung, das Ende der Metaphysik zur Kenntnis zu nehmen'') (G. Vattimo) and sees being that is outside meta physics as problematic. For Berger, Heidegger's strategy produces a ph ilosophy which develops its own language and thus becomes hermetic (ei ne Philosophie, die ihre eigene Sprache entwickelt und dadurch hermeti sche wird). The author sees a parallel concept of technique elaborated by G. Gunther, who understood technique not as an ultimate forgetfuln ess in being but as the realisation of a dual value of logic. Gunther' s strategy is one of the renewal of metaphysics through transclassical logic, which allows it to absorb the theme of reflection (Gunthers St rategie ist die Strategie einer Erneuerung der Metaphysik durch die Mi ttel einer transklassischen Logik, die erlaubt, das Thema der Reflexio n in sie einzufuhren). G. Vattimo ultimately sees the material realisa tion of the changing nature of value in technological civilisation, wh ere no higher values remain. Heidegger did not consider technique to b e just the final stage of metaphysics, but also of events. The program me he linked with this is one of a model for the freeing of a current which has until now brought us to metaphysics. The event is Heidegger' s stepping stone, a leap ''which rebounds off the foundation of being and so plunges into the abyss'' in which man and being gain their esse nce (... der sich vom Grund des Seienden absetzt und so in den Abgrund springt).