Revealing and the Punctum: Man’s Call to Action

In "The Question Concerning Technology," aside from the main argument Heidegger is making on the essence of technology and our relation to it, I noticed several times that he mentions that humans are called upon by the revealing he introduces. For example, he says “the unconcealment of the unconcealed has already come to pass whenever it calls man forth into the modes of revealing allotted to him” (19). Also, “man in the technological age is, in a particularly striking way, called forth into revealing” (21). In addition to these statements, throughout the piece Heidegger implies that man is not actively seeking out the act of revealing, but instead responding to its call. Therefore we are kind of hailed but it and prompted to do this act.

Also, Heidegger examines the essence of technology and humanity’s role of being with it. He argues that it is our understanding of technology prevents us from understanding more fully our relationship with technology. We are informed by our "instrumental conception" of what technology is and concerned with mastery of it. Therefore, in order to  grasp a fuller understanding of humanity’s relation to technology, we need to consider this. He also mentions that enframing endangers man in his relationship to himself and to everything that is. He says “In truth, however, precisely nowhere does man today any longer encounter himself, i.e., his essence” (27). Therefore man can never encounter only himself. By examining ourselves in relation to technology, we can get a better sense of our relationship to everything.

            Heidegger’s illustration of this response to a call reminds me of a part of Gregory Ulmer’s book Electronic Monuments. Within it, Ulmer explains to the reader something he calls a “punctum.” The punctum is closely related to Lacan’s gaze. Both the gaze and the punctum encourage the viewer to look back at him or herself into interrogating what is seen (103). This punctum challenges a viewer to make sense of what is seen because they feel as if they are under scrutiny (102). The punctum can be related to a sting, or something that is bothersome. It can be irritating or troubling, yet ultimately memorable (118). It is often triggered by abject issues in society that the viewer feels compelled to address and call attention to. One does not seek out the punctum, but it instead calls out to them, hailing and interpellating them. However, once received, Ulmer encourages the viewer to use this punctum to construct a MEmorial in order to better understand one’s role in this issue and relation/contribution to it.

            This relates to Heidegger for me because while he argues that we will better understand the essence of technology if we consider our role to it, Ulmer says we will better understand the ignored or abject issues in society if we consider our roles in them. Even further, we can get a better idea of our essence. Additionally, Heidegger describes revealing as something we are called out to do, not something we actively seek out to do. This is similar to how Ulmer describes the punctum. We do not seek out the punctum, but it calls out to us, urging us to act. Both the revealing and the punctum call us to act and help us better understand our place in the world in relation to other things. 

Fourfold Technology

As I read this week's essays, Heidegger's writing style made the concept of the fourfold a bit confusing to me (e.g., "the thing things world"). The final essay by Jennifer Bay and Thomas Rickert, however, related Heidegger's fourfold to New Media. The authors use the fourfold (earth, sky, divinities, and mortals) to understand Heidegger's idea of dwelling as a way of "staying with things" (216). This concept is important because Heidegger is concerned with the complexity of our relationship to technological things. The end of such as relationship, dwelling, cannot exist through mere mastery (217).

The author's description of Heidegger's "dwelling" is then applied to both iLife and Facebook. Both of these examples, while perhaps not what Heidegger originally had in mind, show how our relationship with technology constitutes our modern existence and blurs the lines between "real" and "virtual" life. Our "responsive attunement" to these things brings about the fourfold and, by extension, our home (220).

This essay made me consider the role certain technological things play in my own life. Over Christmas break I am flying to MN to visit my parents for an extended weekend and will be traveling with a number of devices (Kindle, smartphone, laptop) to make my layovers easier (or, perhaps, more "home"-like). My dwelling within the place created by these things is its own reality where networks of relations are affected by the interaction and creation of technology.

In occupying this place, my relationship with these things reflect various components of the fourfold. I look to my things for finding information about flight times, traffic, news (earth); relaxing with music, movies, books (sky); prioritizing e-mails, itineraries, projects (divinities); and connecting through social networks, text messages, calls (mortals). The technological devices that I take with me "brings [me] into communication and relation, affords tremendous creative opportunities, spurs new forms of community, connects other technologies, manifests values and concern for the future, and places [me] in ways that secure a home" (227). Thus, although I will be occupying a no-man's land within Chicago Midway airport for three hours, I am able to negotiate new forms of being within the dwelling place of technology.

By extending our sense of dwelling to things, we form a complex relationship with the things that "open up and disclose" our world (237). This opportunity has vast and unexplored possibilities for networking, growth, and creation. However, this deepened relationship with things possesses potential dangers, as any relationship does. Hence, we must continue to rethink the ways we interact with and through new media as it continues to shape our modern existence.

If Heidigger had a Facebook...

In Heidigger's The Thing, he says on page 163,

"Yet the frantic abolition of all distances brings no nearness; for nearness does not consist in shortness of distance. What is the least remote from us in point of distance, by virtue of its picture on film or its sound on the radio, can remain far from us. What is incalculably far from us in point of distance can be near to us. Short distance is not in itself nearness. Nor is great distance remoteness." 

I was transported back to earlier this semester as I was writing my Socratic Dialogue on Facebook as a false cure for loneliness. Heidigger pretty much sums up what I wish I could have been eloquent enough to express in my paper. He goes on to discuss the thingness of things and what constitutes this thingness. However, I was thinking of the above quote in reference to relationships and friendships.

The distance between you and a friend does not necessarily mean you are far removed from each other. You can keep in contact, perhaps using Facebook or other technology, and remain "un-remote" to each other. For "nearness [to a person] does not consist in shortness of distance." Nearness is more about your actual relationship to the person and a relationship can persist despite distance. However, I would not argue that Facebook, or any other form of communication over a distance, is ideal for remaining "near" to your friends. I was just intrigued by the idea that even though you might be far from something, it is not necessarily inaccessible, or remote, to you. And contrarily, something that is shown to you in a picture or in a video is not necessarily accessible to you; it can remain remote.

The thingness of the thing

In his article, "The Thing", Heidegger discusses how science conceals the "thingness of the thing" and essentially "annihilates" the thing, so that "they have never yet at all been able to appear to [be] thinking as things" (168). Science only manages to provide a representation of a thing, failing to reach the "reality of the thing" (168). Heidegger makes the point that if things are viewed not in terms of science, but instead, as tools embedded in nature and as fundamental parts of our lifestyles, then it can be shown how nature participates in the human process of making things.

He applies the example of the ceramic jug as a thing constituted not by its form or function, but by the void inside it and the gift that it offers in serving as a container. The void shapes the jug, just as the jug shapes the void. "The vessel's thingness [lies] in the void that holds," Heidegger claims (167). When one creates a jug and uses it, man and the divine forces of nature are being united. At this point,  the jug's "thingness" is revealed through the interaction of what  he calls the "fourfold", or four dimensions - "earth and sky, divinities and mortals" - that make up the contextual network of meaning in the world. Heidegger's fourfold brings together the thing and the world, so that its Being - its meaningful presence in the world - is apparent.

I've been trying to think of an example of what Heidegger would not consider a "thing". Instead, my mind keeps returning to the location-based social networking website, Foursquare, as a way to extend Bay and Rickert's discussion of how new technologies are "recompos[ing] our way of being in the world" (210) .

Users with a GPS device on their smartphone "check-in" when they enter specific venues or locations. This in turn can create a message on one's Twitter account, informing followers where you are. Each time a person "checks-in" he/she is awarded points, and can also become the "mayor" of the venue if that person has the most number of "check-ins" over the previous 60 days.

Users can also create venues, but from Heidegger's perspective, this form of technology limits "dwelling in the world" because people are less "mindful of the fourfold elements" (219). For instance, if an individual goes to a location simply to "check-in" on one's mobile device for the purpose of gaining points, he/she is attuning less to the folding-together of "thing" and world. It's not simply that the social app. distracts the user from experiencing a sense of place, but rather from experiencing the "interconnected" network of meaning of "thing" and world (222). 

Object Lesson VII: The Fourfold One

Heidegger’s fourfold, to me, encapsulates a concept towards which much of the rhetorical scholarship I’ve read this semester seems to be headings: the breaking down of distinctions and divisions; the acceptance of a holistic worldview. Jennifer Bay and Thomas Rickert also assert that “Seeing the world as a deep and interconnected stitchwork of things that lays claims on us…stands to recompose our way of being in the world,” going on to suggest that such a way of seeing will reshape humans’ relationship with the “things” they live with in an age of mass-technology. Despite the fourfold’s quadruplicity it is still referred to as a “one,” recognizing, as humans always have, the differences between “things” while simultaneously accepting their inextricability. This calls to mind Jenny Edbauer’s notion of an ecology of rhetoric; she formulates a notion of the rhetorical situation as “a mixture of processes and encounters,” which decentralizes human subjects by recognizing the interplay between they and the objects (or, more appropriately, “quasi-objects” ala Latour) which Heidegger designates as “things.” Edbauer goes on to prescribe a model for discussing this interplay; one such model, perhaps, is the Gaia hypothesis.

I first encountered the Gaia hypothesis in the book of the recently dearly-departed biologist Lynn Margulis (former wife of Carl Sagan), titled Dazzle Gradually. In one chapter she describes the Earth as an organism onto itself, one simultaneously sustained by and sustaining all the organisms and non-organic processes which constitute the world as we know it. The water and weather cycle is Earth’s circulatory system, ensuring that the water required by life is delivered where it is needed; the atmosphere is a skin, one which protects from numerous external hazards while ensuring the homeostasis of our internal environment; living creatures function just like the microscopic organisms and organelles which perform various tasks in the human body, each having a certain effect upon the ecosystem as a whole. Life evolved in response to the conditions on Earth, but Earth has also evolved in response to life.

James Lovelock used the model of Daisyworld to explain the Gaia hypothesis. The following videos give a good overview of the hypothesis—a description of Daisyworld can be found starting at about 5:00 on the second video and continuing into the third.

Essentially, this idea argues that Earth is the way it is because we are the way we are-- when the hypothetical planet achieves conditions conducive to growing daisies they begin to spread. Because the black daisies reflect energy from the Sun the planet itself begins to warm until the white daisies are able to thrive, causing the entire planet to be overtaken by white daisies-- then the temperature drops again until conditions are ideal for black daisies to begin thriving, and thus the organisms influence the planet and vice-versa.


This hypothesis may not seem directly related to rhetoric, but the whole idea of a holistic notion of mutual influence between all things ultimately comes down to elementary physics-- things governed by forces bounce around together in spheres, causing chains of reactions that can only be understood if all elements in the equation are accounted for. This is how I understand Heidegger's fourfold.

Fourfolds and Captain Planet

Heidegger argues that in order for an object to have "thinginess," it must exist with the fourfold. The fourfold creates a dwelling rather than a place, in which an thing creates meaning and relationship.

I have to admit that I don't understand the fourfold. As Bay and Rickert address, why earth, sky, human, and gods? How do these four create a meaning? Why not reduce the fourfold to a twofold? Is not human encompassed by earth and gods by sky? While I may not understand why Heidegger choose the four traits that he did, I believe I understand what he's trying to get at.

The fourfold reminded me of the four elements: earth, fire, wind, and water. It is believed that these elements make up all material objects. But the problem with this comparison is that while the four elements may make an object, they don't make that object have thinginess.

Take a nicknack. It's made out of clay (earth), molded using water, set out to dry (air), and fired. For one person, this nicknack may have sentimental value but to another it may be nothing more than a paper weight. When an object exists in the fourfold, meaning is created. This is what Heidegger is getting at with the fourfold.

I have to thank Abby for bringing up the Captain Planet reference. The teens use the four elements to summon captain planet, but the fifth "element" they use is heart. And that's what separates the four elements from the fourfold. Earth, fire, wind, and water simply create an object. The fourfold creates heart which give an object thinginess.

12.6.11 Object Lesson

Never did I think that I'd make a connection between Heidegger's fourfold discussed in "The Thing" and a lesson from my time in Catholic grade school, but here it goes. With the exception of the number involved, I found that the fourfold seems very similar to the idea of the Holy Trinity. Often explained as a mystery, the Trinity is the idea that God is made up of three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Despite being three persons, God is not three different gods but one God. Try wrapping your mind around that in 2nd grade! A description of the Trinity from a Catholic perspective is at this link: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm. If, however, you'd prefer something more secular Wikipedia's description of the Trinity is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity. Three Gods in one seemed to mirror Heidegger's idea of how earth, sky, mortals, and divinities create a single fourfold. Each is "In the gift of the outpouring earth and sky, divinities and mortals dwell together all at once. These four, at one because of what they themselves are, belong together. Preceding everything that is present, they are enfolded into a single fourfold" (171).

Earth, sky, divinities, and mortals are all individual entities; however, Heidegger continually notes that the gathering of the four components is necessary to constitute a thing. In "New Media and the Fourfold" Bay and Rickert use Heidegger's example of a bridge to demonstrates this. "It is a thing 'as the gathering of the fourfold,' which is to say, 'the bridge gathers to itself in its own way earth and sky, divinities and mortals'" (218). Take one of the fourfold's components away and you won't have a thing. In the same way, if you take away a third of the Trinity, you lose the conception of the Trinity that is promoted by Christian faiths. "The thing stays--gathers and unites--the fourfold. The thing things world. Each thing stays the fourfold into a happening of the simple onehood of the world" (178).

To further compare Heidegger's fourfold to the Trinity, I want to look at one specific part of "The Thing." Heidegger notes:

Earth and sky, divinities and mortals--being at one with one another of their own accord--belong together by way of the simpleness of the united fourfold. Each of the four mirrors in its own way the presence of the others. Each therewith reflects itself in its own way into its own, within the simpleness of the four. This mirroring does not portray a likeness. The mirroring, lightening each of the four, appropriates their own presencing into simple belonging to one another. Mirroring int his appropriate-lightening way, each of the four plays to each of the others. The appropriative mirroring sets each of the four free into its own, but it binds these free ones into the simplicity of their essential being toward one another (177).

If God the Father has the attribute of x, God the Spirit mirrors God the Father in demonstrating this same component. They're one in the same God and thus mirror the attributes of the other. The presence of God the Son is reliant upon the presence of the other two thirds of the Trinity. This creates the belonging among the Father, Son, and Spirit. In the same way, each part of the fourfold mirrors the other parts. They belong together much as the Father, Son, and Spirit do in Christian faith.

Then again, the Trinity is considered to be a mystery of the Christian religion. Faith is one of the necessary aspects of grasping three beings in one. So for me I guess this also begs the question, can this idea of faith be carried over to Heidegger's fourfold? How would Heidegger respond to this comparison?