Dear list:
Below is a more revised thesis abstract according to several comments by
colleagues, as well as a thorough reading by my thesis chair. Any
additional comments please direct to my home address. I think part of the
problem was trying to cast Heidegger's grappling with "religion" (whatever
this narrows down to be from the course of further research.) I would say
entitling the 'Contribution's "neopagan" was quite barbaric on my part, and
"onto-mytho-religious" too enigmatic. Though in the course of making my
language more precise things lengthened abit. Nonetheless, and relevant to
the list obviously, is the section mentioned on EJ. That chapter (included
in the Nietzsche chapter) I can post in several weeks if anyone would
contain the interest. Many Juengerian thanks in advance.
LJN/WCU
ABSTRACT
PHENOMENOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO TECHNOLOGICAL SCIENCE
AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO NIHILISM AND RELIGION
by Leon J. Niemoczynski
Chairperson: Joan Woolfrey, Ph.D.
This thesis examines the perspective held by modernists and many
postmodernists today, that through an historical movement of nihilism
culminating in our present age, technological science is partially
responsible for the loss of value and meaning in our shared lives. I argue
in agreement with Heidegger that an understanding of a godless God, or
thinking about God(s) that are pre-ontic, non-objectifying, necessarily
pre-Christian, and otherwise understood outside of the history metaphysics
(and thus also before the historical movement of nihilism and the framework
offered by technological and scientific thinking) offers a way to combat
nihilism and devaluation based on the notion of thinking about the
possibility of religion. I argue this is a plausible philosophical position
to take in response to devaluation because thinking philosophically about
the possibility of religion means we are given the opportunity to critically
re-construct guidelines about values and meanings as if they were
constructed before nihilism came to its consummation in our present age.
In order to support my argument, I will examine the thought of four
philosophers who think about nihilism, technology, and value. Friedrich
Nietzsche, Ernst Jünger, Hans Freyer, and Martin Heidegger each represent in
their philosophy significant interrelated positions that attempt to overcome
nihilism. I will argue in agreement with Heidegger that re-presenting the
possibility of religion is the most successful solution to nihilism because
it encourages a sentiment amenable towards value and is thus the best
alternative where the other three positions fail.
My thesis has four interrelated parts. First I argue why Nietzsches
metaphysics is a good way to measure technological science as a type of
technological will-to-power. However his position over nihilism ultimately
fails because the Übermensch, Nietzsches Superhuman being designed to
overcome the anxieties of the modern age brought about by nihilism, actually
contributes in practice to the domineering essence of historical nihilism
and the destruction of value where it is intended to be transvalued and
overcome.
Ernst Jünger, who represents another major position about nihilism,
attempted to expand on Nietzsches Superhuman being with his prototype of
the Worker, a cybernetic drone-like figure designed to merge with the
technological will-to-power and reshape the forces of historical nihilism.
So I will also connect Jüngers thought to Nietzsches as a second major
modernized position and demonstrate why it is important to understand that
Heidegger understood Nietzsche through the lens of Jünger and saw them both
as ultimately representing untenable responses to nihilism.
Secondly, I argue that Hans Freyer, who was influenced by both Nietzsche and
Jünger, was correct in seeing technology as an ontological system (which
grants technology its historical character), but incorrect in arguing as a
neo-Hegelian that the system itself was constructed from a greater
understanding and unfolding of self-conscious technological spirit. I will
discuss how Freyer attributed a spiritual dimension to technology in his
attempt to rescue value and the attribution of meaning from nihilism, but
failed when he asserted the uselessness of the individual against the
greater objective process of Spirit coming to fruition through logical and
then more spiritual creation of tools and their exercise.
Finally I will argue that Heideggers philosophy about the godless-God and
his discussion of the passing by of the last god provides a way to
critically re-construct guidelines about values as if they were constructed
before nihilism came to its consummation in our present age. Turning to key
texts including What is Metaphysics? (1929), An Introduction to
Metaphysics (1935), and the Nietzsche lectures Volume IV: Nihilism (1940),
I will explain that nihilism relates closely with the Nothing (an a priori
ontological category) because both operate in a metaphysical history of the
technological will-to-power. I will explain Heideggers critique of the
culmination of the history of metaphysics as nihilism and how nihilism poses
a threat to our sacred or more thoughtful understandings of existence.
Analyzing Heideggers Contributions to Philosophy (1936/38), I argue in
agreement with Heidegger that a response to the abandonment of Being
(nihilism) is tenable by way of making possible again the thinking of the
possibility of Gods, Being, and sacred ways of life. The thinking of another
beginning outside of the history of Western metaphysics creates the
opportunity to think again a possibility of religion, a place to critically
re-construct values mindful of their importance and their potential
destruction, thus garnering a piety and reverence for birthplaces of
religious reflection. It is for those reasons I argue Heideggers thought
to be the best alternative among the four philosophers I discuss in this
thesis and that Heideggers alternative allows us to re-construct guidelines
about values and meanings more primordially conceived before the onset of
nihilism.
Leon J. Niemoczynski
Department of Philosophy, Graduate Studies
West Chester University of Pennsylvania
Phi Sigma Tau Honors Graduate Student/Graduate Assistant (RM 116)
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