Ways of being
The nature of being and structures of objects. Ontology seeks the classification and explanation of things. A branch of metaphysics.
# Heidegger
Concept of dasein, which literally means ‘Being-there’. Through the use of this expression, Heidegger calls to attention the fact that a human cannot exist or be taken into account without existing in context of a world with other things – “to be human is to be fixed, embedded, and immersed in the physical, literal, tangible day to day world”
# Near-ness
- Heidegger observes that because of technology, “all distances in time and space are shrinking” and “yet the hasty setting aside of all distances brings no nearness; for nearness does not consist in a small amount of distance.”
# Essence
- The essence of technology is not something we make; it is a mode of being, or of revealing. … To consider technology essentially is to see it as an event to which we belong: the structuring, ordering, and “requisitioning” of everything around us, and of ourselves.
# Technology
Technology as it relates to ontology.
- technology is not just neutral: artifacts have politics
- artifacts shape and create ways of being
- “design is ontological”
- civic design + urban planning are also importantly ontological
- designing spaces of dwelling + being
The train changed the way we exist – it expands the vista of existence. We are betting on new means of technology for new ways of being, ones attuned to interdependence, mutuality, etc. Emphasizing the ontology of interdependence over the ontology of separation.
“how do we reconcile technology with conviviality + care for the web of life?”
See also: prefigurative politics