The Historical Process of Metaphysics

Heidegger identified four different historical periods that mark the evolution, or de-evolution, of metaphysical thought:

The Greek, with its emphasis on the physis or self-arising nature;  The Medieval, centred in God’s creation;The Modern, where beings became objects that could be understood and controlled through scientific analysis and calculations;The Technological, which is an extension of the modern era, in which that which is understood (by science) is made constantly available for flexible reconfiguration, allowing things to be maximally exploitable.[i]

At the moment we are on the brink of a new era, born out of a necessity in which the concept of the maximally exploitable is proving to be undesirable, if not dangerously erroneous. The peril of the Technological Age, is that it is generated by the very fact that we have reached the limits of that maximum in terms of our ability to exploit the non-renewable resources available to us (we include here the exploitation of humans as machines of production). At the same time that we spin away from this existential threat, quantum theories of waveforms and spooky science combined with cosmological calculations and theories of a fine-tuned Universe, twist the line of evolution around and push us toward the metaphysics of the self-arising Universe again. But it is not a backward shift, rather it is as if we have turned the full 360º of the circle and we are starting a new cycle from the original point of departure.

Our progress into the fifth period of metaphysics (E) is a combination of the The Greek and The Modern and it demands a radical revaluation of technologies (and economies) that will be able to exploit without depletion by learning how to effectively manipulate that which is renewable. Via a development of faith in the ecological future of humanity, a faith in Humanity, with a capital H, will also be engendered, putting that Humanity at the centre of the new era of metaphysics, and so E) will be the metaphysical era of Humanity-in-the-world, with Humanity, rather than the individual, becoming the relational centre but a fulcrum with a self-conscious dependency on that which it is the centre of.

In this way, technology will become an instrument, not of exploitation, but of partnership with the world. The New Era technology will be created with a metaphysical view of our background. A metaphysics derived from calculation and analysis – a science of the essence of everything.

The Zeitgeist is changing.

[i] These references come from Mark A. Wrathall, HEIDEGGER AND UNCONCEALMENT: Truth, Language and History, CUP, pp. 181-182.