Source · Seed idea · last reconsidered September 8, 2026
The Question Concerning Technology
The 1954 essay arguing that the essence of technology is nothing technological, but a way of revealing that sets everything up as a resource on call.
Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Translated by William Lovitt. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. (Essay first published in German, 1954.)
Book · Harper & Row · 1977
Interpretation
Dense and much-misquoted. The two terms this site uses from it — Gestell (enframing) and Bestand (standing-reserve) — are rendered here in Lovitt's English, and any short paraphrase of them loses something.
Provenance
is the origin of
- Technology is a mode of revealingClaim
Stated in the 1954 essay.
- The danger is not any particular machineClaim
Stated in the same essay.
related to
- Martin HeideggerPerson
Heidegger wrote the essay.