[OPEN ACCESS] Hongyu Li, Yilin Hu, “Heidegger on Freedom and Technology: Rethinking the Technology/technologies Debate” (Studia Phaenomenologica, Volume 25/ 2025)

Abstract: The longstanding and often unproductive debates among North American philosophers of technology—particularly over the distinction between Technology and technologies—call for a renewed examination of Heidegger’s ideas. This paper argues that, despite their differences, both camps share a concern central to The Question Concerning Technology: the pursuit of a free relationship between human existence and technology. We show that Heidegger paradoxically holds that while modern technology reduces beings to mere resources, authentic freedom can emerge from within this very condition. Drawing on an existential rather than purely ontological reading of Heidegger, and engaging with figures such as Don Ihde, Peter-Paul Verbeek, and Andrew Feenberg, we reinterpret the notion of freedom in terms of horizonality and historicity. This approach, we suggest, offers a way to overcome the Technology/technologies divide and to revitalize contemporary philosophy of technology by bridging transcendental and empirical perspectives.

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