Questions
Concerning Music Technology
3. Heidegger's view
It may appear surprising to read the name of Martin Heidegger in a discussion
on music technology. But I think that the many interesting things Heidegger
wrote concerning technology can help us facing the questions concerning
music technology(1).
The most popular reading holds that the philosopher wholeheartedly opposed
modern technology. In entire books, humanists, followers of Heidegger, have
explained (and harped upon) his (their) adversion towards modern technology,
denouncing and fighting the evils of the calculative thinking (Heidegger's
term) brought about by modern science. Other authors, being critical of
his philosophy as a whole, have not addressed the particular issue. This
is the case, for example, with Adorno [1966/1973] and other representants
of critical theory. They didn't have to focus on the subject of technology
in order to lay stress on the overall lack of social scope in Heidegger's
thought (Heidegger is never mentioned in Adorno's and Horkheimer's seminal
Dialectic of Enlightment [1972], itself a book of the highest interest
for theories of technology).
A positive reading of Heidegger on technology is Hubert Dreyfus' [1995],
whose critique of the symbolic and rationalistic assumptions behind artificial
intelligence is disseminated with references to the German philosopher [Dreyfus,
1979/1992]. Another important reading - that which first convinced me that
I should look more into the heideggerian view of technology some years ago
- is Adriano Fabris' [Fabris, 1988], especially committed to a precise and
clear account of the connection between (Heidegger's) "vanishing of
philosophy" and the emergence of cybernetics. My own understanding
of Heidegger's writings on the subject (the posthumous The Question Concerning
Technology [1977] and Zur Frage nach der Bestimmung der Sache des
denkens [1984 not available in English, to my knowledge]) is much indebted
to these authors. I shall refer to other authors, too, and notably to the
work of computer scientists [Winograd & Flores, 1986]).
All these extra-musical references notwithstanding, my observations in the
following do not pretend to focus on philosophical and theoretical arguments
except those which, in my mind, can help me examining the relation betwen
music and technoIogy, and particularly between composing and computing.
¤· Flores, 1986]). All these extra-musical references notwithstanding,
my observations in the following do not pretend to focus on philosophical
and theoretical arguments except those which, in my mind, can help me examining
the relation betwen music and technoIogy, and particularly between composing
and computing.
(1) Within the boundaries of music
theory, the most significant reference to Heidegger, to my knowedge, was
made by Luigi Rognoni as early as 1956 [Rognoni, 1978]; this author proposed
the notion that electronic music, as a cultural phenomenon, is about a deeper
understanding of the tÈchne of music in general, and explicilty referred
to Heidegger's view of technology.
