Philosophy for an age of death

·期刊原文
Philosophy for an age of death: The critique of science and technology in Heidegger and Nishitani

By Steven Heine
Philosophy East & West, volume 40
no.2 (April 1990)
p.175-193
(c) by University of Hawaii Press

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p. 175

I. THE QUESTION OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

A. Convergence or Criticism?

Responding to what Tanabe Hajime has called the
current "age of death, "(1) Martin Heidegger and
Nishitani Keiji present an ontological critique of
the origins and deficiencies of science and
technology. They analyze and attempt to overcome the
apparent global hegemony and potentially catastrophic
destructiveness of the scientific era. Heidegger and
Nishitani charge that science and technology
represent a derivative or objectifying development of
primordial truth that partially expresses yet
inevitably conceals its source. Both thinkers insist
that modern science be transformed or appropriately
recovered by the disclosure of an ontology. that is
nonsubstantive and nonobjectifiable in revealing
holistic, contextual events consisting of
interrelated, functional components rather than
particularized, independent entities. The ontology
must also be nonconceptualizable and
nondifferentiable by encompassing the conventional
oppositions of man and nature, subject and object,
and life and death.
In an examination and evaluation of the
philosophical criticism of science and technology
offered by Heidegger and Nishitani, it is helpful to
situate their views in relation to the convergence or
parallelist thesis, which represents a radically
different approach to the dialogue between science
and philosophy or religious thought. The parallelist
standpoint argues that there is a profound and
fundamental convergence of seemingly disparate fields
of science and religion. Many of the conceptual
developments of twentieth-century science have
replaced the conventional mechanistic and
materialistic Newtonian-Cartesian model with a
dynamic and holistic understanding of reality. These
new approaches include the Bohr-Heisenberg quantum
physics principles of complementarity and
uncertainty; Bell's theorem of instantaneous change
in widely separated systems; Prigogine's theory of
dissipative structures; the Bohm-Pribham postulation
of a holographic macro/microcosm; Lovelock's Gaia
hypothesis; and the "butterfly effect" in the science
of Chaos. Furthermore, recent interpretations of
scientific methodology, such as the uncertainty
principle, Godel's theorem of incomplete systems,
Kuhn's analysis of paradigm shifts, and Polanyi's
emphasis on the personal role of the knower in
science, stress the essential function of
consciousness in scientific investigations.
The combined impact of these conceptual and
methodological developments, according to the
convergence view, is to overcome many of the
traditional barriers concerning subjectivity and
objectivity that have separated

p. 176

science and religion. Previously, science was seen as
striving for objective, universal, and predictable
knowledge independent of the subject, while the goal
of religion was considered subjective, personal, and
variable experience unbound by objectivity. The
convergence thesis, however, argues that science
necessarily contains a subjective component. That is
reflected in what John Wheeler calls "the
participatory universe"(2) or the notion that reality
is not something external, "out there,'' but an
underlying unity simultaneously involving observer
and observed, and mind and matter. Because of such a
breakthrough, the structure and function of
consciousness as much as of the material world can be
examined with reference to the principles of quantum
physics.(3)
The convergence theorists find significant
resonances and parallels between the holistic
paradigm of the participatory universe (and other
models) and the doctrines of traditional mysticism
and Eastern thought as well as contemporary process
theology and phenomenology. Renee Weber, for example,
argues that the paradigm shift in modern physics is
radical and paradoxical in that "the more nearly
physics approaches the twenty-first century, the
closer it seems to get to the cosmology of the remote
past. Thus, the scientific discoveries of our own
time are moving us toward ideas indistinguishable
from those held by the sages and seers of India and
Greece."(4) In a similar vein, Karl Pribham asserts
that the new approaches of science (holography in
particular):

... represent the first instance since the time of
Galileo that a scientific discovery, in and of
itself, has led to a closer relationship with man's
spiritual nature. In the past, science has been seen
as something entirely separate from the spiritual
nature of man, which has been taken care of by the
esoteric traditions--of religion, not science. Now,
with a paradigm shift in our understanding,
scientists are face-to-face with the same traditions
that have motivated the peoples of the East and have
influenced Western philosophy as well."(5)

In marked contrast to the convergence view stands
the ontological critique by Heidegger and Nishitani.
The problems generated by scientific investigation
and technological application cannot be separated for
either thinker from the issues of nihilism and
subjectivity in relation to temporality and
nothingness as keys to understanding the
inauthenticity of modern times. Yet the question of
how science has arisen so recently in the history of
civilization, but spread so rapidly and irresistibly
to engulf the entire world, seems to have a special
significance and hermeneutic priority for several
reasons. First, science is an overriding
philosophical issue in that it is considered not
merely one factor, but the central problematic of the
current era. Heidegger and Nishitani seem to agree
with the latter's Kyoto-school senior colleague,
Tanabe, who maintains that society now endures "an
age of death" due to some of the devastating effects
of technological advances.

p. 177

In an age of death, according to Tanabe, dying is
no longer just the unavoidable and imminent
possibility of the impossibility of the self, but
rather the constant and all-pervasive threat of
self-created destruction.(6) Thus, the very fabric
and structure of existence appears altered whereby
death is not an inherent part of the process and
growth of living beings, but an unregulated man-made
intervention which may deplete or destroy the forms
of life. As Jonathan Schell observes, "Seen as a
planetary event, the rising tide of human mastery
over nature has brought a categorical increase in the
power of death on earth."(7) In such a light,
Heidegger identifies technology as the essential and
decisive factor underlying all other dilemmas and
conflicts. It constitutes a profound and "supreme
danger." he says, in these "needy times" to which
"everywhere we remain unfree and chained...whether we
passionately affirm or deny it."(8) Nishitani
stresses that because science has "painted the true
portrait of the world as a desert uninhabitable by
living beings" by its affirming lifeless matter or
death. "the problem of religion [which affirms life]
and science is the most fundamental problem facing
contemporary man."(9)
Conversely, science for Heidegger and Nishitani is
a potentially self-surpassing issue. Both thinkers
suggest that the ideological encounter with science
as the extreme limit of manipulative and distorted
ontology may paradoxically lead, through a radical
reversal based on meditative thought, to the recovery
of a genuine and regenerating experiential philosophy
surpassing the deficiencies of metaphysics.
Technology challenges us to overcome it by
rediscovering the very primordial ground it veils. As
Heidegger suggests, it is precisely within the
danger of technology that the possibility of a
"saving grace" emerges out of a new disclosure of
Being. Nishitani argues that the conflict between the
approaches of life (religion) and death (science)
points to the need for the experience of the Zen
realization of absolute nothingness (or what Zen
tradition calls the "Great Death" of
self-abandonment) beyond these oppositions.

B. Philosophy for an `Age of Death'

Science for Heidegger and Nishitani is thus an
eminently concrete and actual concern, a factual as
well as factical or ontological matter that demands
the vigilant attentiveness of thought to confront its
paramount challenge. Like Tanabe, who cites the
threat of nuclear holocaust as the inspiration for
his "philosophy of death," Heidegger and Nishitani
seem to be responding to a variety of environmental
and social dilemmas caused by technology. Both
thinkers, however, insist that they do not attempt to
offer conventional spiritual, moral, or ecological
remedies for specific issues. Rather, they focus
almost exclusively on the question of uncovering the
ontological foundations of the seemingly limitless
destructive capacity of technology which is
manifested in innumerable particular problems.

p. 178

It is, therefore, only on the basis of genuine
factical disclosure that the factual problems can be
understood, analyzed, and resolved. Heidegger
emphasizes that "the essence of technology is by no
means anything technological. Thus we shall never
experience our relationship to the essence of
technology so long as we merely conceive and push
forward the technological, put up with it, or evade
it."(10) Nishitani makes almost the identical
assertion in regard to science: "The essence of
science is not `scientific.' The essence of science
is something to be brought into question in the same
realm where the essence of man becomes a question to
man himself."(11) Thus the question of science and
technology can only be resolved through a disclosure
of the nonsubstantive essence of reality.
Similarly, both thinkers maintain that although the
power and conflicts generated by technology have
surfaced only in recent times, they are not "modern"
in a chronological or linear, historical perspective.
The roots of science and technology are deeply
embedded within the origins of the Western
metaphysical and theological traditions. The very way
that Western thought has been founded and developed
on the basis of substantive and objectifying ontology
has inevitably and unavoidably led to the technolo
gical domination and exploitation of the world.
Overcoming technology thus requires what Heidegger
calls the "step back" to the long-concealed source of
modern conflicts. The currently perceived
consequences are resolved by working through the
presuppositions that lie hidden within the
ontological framework of the problem.
In many ways, the approaches of Heidegger and
Nishitani are overlapping. Both thinkers, for
example, identify Nietzsche's analysis of the various
shades of nihilism as the critical philosophical turn
which, in trying to point beyond the entanglements of
the Western tradition, reveals its problematic roots.
Their views are also somewhat complementary.
Heidegger's leading question is the meaning of Being
itself and its unfolding destiny. In that regard, he
makes an important hermeneutic distinction between
science and technology. Although Heidegger often uses
the terms interchangeably, he argues that technology
understood in the early Greek sense of techne is not
an actual consequence of science, as conventionally
assumed, but ontologically precedes and gives rise to
science as a particular mode of the revealing of
Being which simultaneously conceals this source.(12)
Nishitani's primary question is, "What is Religion?"
(the title of his major work), (13) which he attempts
to clarify by contrasting the teleological world
view of traditional religion with the mechanistic one
of science. Thus, Heidegger's method is predominantly
phenomenological in relation to ontology, by focusing
on the process of the revealing/concealing of Being.
Nishitani's concern is existential, in viewing
science as springing from a particular mode of human
intentionality implicit in the Christian view of
subjectivity.
Yet, the standpoints of Heidegger and Nishitani are
also in conflict. Nishi-

p. 179

tani claims to have achieved from the Zen perspective
a more thoroughgoing and comprehensive resolution of
the question of science and technology that
Heidegger, by his own admission, has left unclear and
unanswerable. Both thinkers maintain that the problem
must be solved from within its Western source.
Nishitani proposes to introduce Zen Buddhism not as
an outsider's perspective. but as the paradigmatic
and quintessential philosophical/religious view of
the ontological structure and existential fulfillmen
t of human existence. Because Heidegger and Nishitani
apparently influenced one another, this comparison is
an unusual example of East-West thought unbound by
some of the typical historical and intentional gaps
that often separate representative thinkers. Yet it
is because of their personal and ideological affinity
that the views of Heidegger and Nishitani should be
evaluated not in isolation, but in the context of an
encounter with the theorists of the convergence view,
whose claims seem to represent a significant
philosophical response and challenge.
Despite their discussions of science, Heidegger and
Nishitani do not deal directly with the conceptual
developments of modern physics, which, according to
the convergence theorists, do express the kind of
nonsubstantive and nonobjectifying holistic ontology
that Heidegger and Nishitani espouse. Aside from a
few pointed references by Heidegger to the writings
of Max Planck and Werner Heisenberg, neither thinker
confronts the paradigms of science beyond the
long-surpassed Newtonian mechanics. Should the con
vergence view prove accurate, the ontological
critique of science by Heidegger and Nishitani would
be undermined, if not altogether refuted. On the
other hand, their criticism of the arising and
effects of technology may constitute a vital
corrective to some of the apparently naive assertions
of the convergence theorists. This article will first
reconstruct and compare the approaches of Heidegger
and Nishitani to what Tanabe has called the "age of
death,'' and then evaluate their critique in light of
the convergence view with regard to the relation
between subjectivity and objectivity in science and
philosophy of religion. The concluding section will
offer some suggestions for developing an "ethics of
uncertainty" on the basis of this comparison.

II. THE CRITIQUE BY HEIDEGGER AND NISHITANI

A. Heidegger's Analysis of Technology and Being

The aim of Heidegger's analysis of the origin of
technology is to show how the scientific
objectification and manipulation of entities
in-the-world takes place on the primordially
nonsubstantive and nonconceptualizable domain of
Being. Originally, Heidegger argues in Being and
Time, the world is not an object to be met and used,
but the nonobjectifiable and nondifferentiated
transcendental condition for the interaction of man
and things. "Transcendence does not consist in
objectifying," he writes, "but is presupposed by
it."(14) The fundamentally unbifurcated state of
Being-in-the-world is initially

p. 180

breached, however. by the circumspective concern of
Dasein's involvement with equipment, which is based
on a specific kind of forgetting the self for the
sake of manipulating something. Therefore. the
decisive factor in the historical development of
physics is neither the observation of facts nor the
application of mathematical principles in determining
natural processes, but "the way in which Nature
herself is mathematically projected."(15) Although
Heidegger's approach in Being and Time is somewhat
neutral and descriptive, he at least raises the
implication that science tends to overshadow the
transcendence from which it arises, and thus veils
the true meaning of Being through a fixation with
beings that are present-at-hand.
In his later writings, including the essays
included in The Question Concerning Technology,
Heidegger's criticism of science becomes more direct
and forceful. Yet he now maintains that the "prior
project" of man's understanding of nature is not
based on human intentionality or willfulness, but
derives from a particular historical mode of the
revelatory interaction of Being and man resulting in
an untruth that conceals but remains a part of truth.
Thus, Heidegger rejects an instrumental view of
technology as a humanly created means to achieving a
certain end. The origin and essence of technology, he
argues. lies in certain deeply rooted tendencies of
the Western metaphysical tradition which have been
completed and fulfilled in modern times by a
representational thinking that causes what he terms
the network of Enframing (Gestell). Enframing sets up
and challenges nature to yield a kind of energy that
can be stored and transmitted separately from its
source.
Although technology has reached this culminative
form just recently, it is the outcome of the initial
fateful decision concerning the Greek view of techne
which determined the course of the onto-theological
tradition. In its initial usage, techne signified
knowledge, not as the accumulation of information
through observation, but the active accomplishment or
manifesting realization that brings forth the
illuminative power (physis) of an entity.(16) The
genuine meaning of techne is closer to art (fine art
and handicraft as well as philosophical reflection)
than science or technology because it neither
passively investigates nor deliberately disrupts
beings. but allows them to reside nonobjectively in
their true nonsubstantive attunement to Being.
At an early stage in Greek thought, according to
Heidegger's interpretation, the original meaning of
techne was transmuted to the sense of an opposition
to the world order (dike) that seeks to master and
eventually control and dominate it. This first turn
at the dawn of thinking inevitably led to the modern
development of Cartesian subjectivity and Nietzschean
nihilism characterized by representational thinking
that holds up (or re-presents) the world as an image
before oneself conceived as the subject in opposition
to the object. Representational thinking is two times
separated from genuine illumination. Its inevitable
consequence is Enframing, which sees nature only as a
reservoir of energy at man's disposal.

p. 181

Heidegger illustrates the difference between techne
and Enframing by contrasting the traditional windmill
or waterwheel and the modern hydroelectric plant.(17)
Although each seeks to harness the energy of nature
to serve human ends, the former remain dependent on
and illuminative of nature much as a work of art. The
wheel transfers the natural motion of the river. Each
wheel is designed in a way uniquely suited to the
particular site, allowing the ground and water to
remain part of an unsullied landscape The power
plant, illustrating Enframing, unlocks and stores up
physical energies transformed from the river that are
then deposited in another location unrelated to the
source. All such plants are built with a uniformity
that may be harmful to the natural supply, reflecting
a fixation with preserving the quantity of released
material rather than a concern for the quality of
human participation in nature. Thus, Heidegger
suggests that the devastating power of atomic
weaponry only brings to light what has already
happened since the onset of representational
thinking: the destruction of the essential nature of
thinghood.(18)
Since technology as Enframing is not the result of
man's will, one can neither simply wish it away nor
escape from it. The era of Enframing must be
painfully endured as a fateful domain that may
subside on its own, just as one gets over pain and
grief. Heidegger indicates that the only possible
relief from the danger is to leave oneself
open--through meditative thinking, or poetic releasem
ent (Gelassenheit) to the primordial call of
Being--to respond to a more fruitful and authentic
disclosure that will restore the original aesthetic
and nonsubstantive meaning of techne. Because any
indication of the form the revelation will take or of
the way to prepare for it lies within concealment,
man must be resigned to a spontaneous anticipating of
its advent in a resolute though subdued manner.

B. Nishitani's Analysis of Science and Religion

Nishitani seeks to discover the essential nature of
religion by establishing a philosophical encounter
between the teleological view of traditional religion
and the mechanistic view of science. This project is
undertaken in light of the ontologically
nonobjectifiable and epistemologically
nonconceptualizable "groundless ground" of the Zen
experience of absolute nothingness.(19) Nishitani
argues that of all thought systems in the world Zen
constitutes a self-surpassing or excelsior (kojo)
religio-philosophical standpoint which constantly
rises above partiality or particularity, including
its own rootedness in traditional Mahaayaana Buddhist
doctrine, to assume a universal and transcendental
perspective.(20) In the modern era, which demands an
exchange between religions to meet the challenge of
science, the ideological flexibility and independence
of Zen make it not just another religion, but the
paradigmatic experience of existential rebirth to
one's primordial nature or the Formless Self of
absolute nothingness that allows the dialogical
process to take place.

p. 182

The aim and purpose of religion, according to
Nishitani, has become questionable because of the
antireligious standpoint of science. which views
religion as obsolete and dysfunctional. Yet, the
early twentieth-century optimism concerning science,
which at first threatened to replace traditional
religion as an explanation of the origin and meaning
of the world, has since the advent of the nuclear age
proven false or misguided. Religion, which may have
initially responded by condemning or ignoring science
a nd then reluctantly accepted it as an alternative
point of view, has begun to face an even deeper
challenge: overcoming the inadequacies and potential
devastation that science and technology cause. Once
challenged, however, traditional religion cannot
reclaim its position of moral superiority without
undergoing a thoroughly penetrating and
transformative self-analysis of its own foundations
and relation to science.
The central problem confronting traditional
religion is due to the uncertainty and inconsistency
of Christianity pertaining to science. Nishitani
argues that Christianity is responsible for the
arising of science without being able to offer a
solution to the dangers science creates because it
does not understand its own ontological ground, and
cannot do so without an existential transformation to
absolute nothingness. The mechanistic world view of
science asserts the lifelessness of the cosmos and
thus a preoccupation with death, in contrast to the
religious affirmation of life, soul, and spirit. Yet
the foundations of science are based on a particular
view of self and reality which is paradoxically
rooted in the Christian ideology with which science
conficts. That is, science arose because of a
fundamental contradiction within Christianity that
advocates salvation through the total dependence of
man upon God and divine will, thereby suppressing
genuine self-realization. and yet--because of the
emphasis on such a reliance--does not allow for full
freedom from egocentricity. This leads to a sense of
restlessness and unfulfillment in the individual
subject, creating an underlying shortsightedness of
self-interest that continues to haunt both religion
and science as an overvaluation of objectivity, or a
manipulation and exploitation of the world seen as a
collection of objectifiable entities. This tendency
arises from, vet negates, the heart of Christian
faith.
Thus, science and religion are a reflection of
relative or partial nothingness, or can be seen as
fundamentally nihilistic in the Nietzschean sense.
Nishitani, however, criticizes both Nietzsche's
doctrine of the will to power and Sartre's atheistic
humanism as expressions of inauthentic subjectivity
which do not surpass relative nothingness. The
overcoming of the tension between subject and object
requires a breakthrough to a realization of the
essential nondifferentiation of self and other, man
and nature, consciousness and world that casts off
nihilistic willfulness, Nishitani attempts to apply
the Zen perspective of absolute nothingness to an
overcoming of the ideological limitations in the
scientific world view. He examines several noted Zen
koan or philosophical riddles concerning the mythical
eschatology of the great fire, which is symbol-

p. 183

ically analogous to the imminent possibility of the
cosmic conflagration that science and technology can
wreak.(21) In the first koan (originally from the
Keitei-dentoroku), a disciple asks the teacher, "When
the great fire flares up and the cosmos is destroyed,
I wonder, will 'it' perish or will 'it' not perish?"
The teacher replies, "It will perish." According to
Nishitani, this response suggests that the "it"
refers to the inner dimension of self-realization
rather than the external universe, thereby giving an
existential interpretation to the myth whereby the
scientific and/or apocalyptic possibility is
understood as the existential actuality of the
here-and-now encounter with nothingness.
In a similar koan, the teacher responds to the
question,''How is it at the time of the all-consuming
fire?" by saying, "An unspeakably awesome cold." The
paradoxical reply, Nishitani argues, indicates that
the standpoint of absolute nothingness may serve as a
basis for the unification of the two contradictory
elements of teleology and mechanism, objectivity and
personal investigation, so that they interpenetrate
each other as "a wooden man sings and a stone woman
dances." Although Nishitani does not offer a specific
illustration of a Zen-oriented technology, he
stresses that the reconciliation of science and
religion requires an existential transformation whose
necessary ethical corollary is the bodhisattva's
selfless compassion based on the interdependence of
self and other by virtue of absolute nothingness.

III. COMPARISON AND EVALUATION

A. Heidegger and Nishitani

Heidegger and Nishitani seem to concur in identifying
the reasons that science and technology are
inherently deficient, but diverge somewhat in their
proposals for overcoming the "age of death." The
central agreement concerning the roots of the
problematic is their analysis of the relation between
the scientific investigation and manipulation of
existence and the essence or primordial basis of
reality. According to both thinkers, the
nonsubstantive and nonobjectifiable nature of reality
was overlooked in the initial stages of the history
of Western philosophy and religion by the
onto-theological tendency to objectification. They
agree that Nietzschean nihilism and Sartrean atheism
are symptoms of, rather than a release from, the
entanglements of inauthentic thought.
Thus science, for all its apparent hegemony, stands
precariously as an untruth or derivative development
that at once rests on but has severed itself from the
truth or primordial standpoint. Science is cut off
from the essence and riddled with contradictions so
that it is incapable of either making assertions
about or questioning the foundations of its own
development. Because science not only fails to know
its own basis, but tends to make the false claim that
it alone does comprehend the structure of reality,
it causes man's separation from his essential nature.
In this light, Heidegger reinterprets Heisen-

p. 184

berg's lament that, in the current era, "for the
first time in the course of history modern man on
this earth now confronts himself alone...."(22)
According to Heidegger the real contradiction of the
contemporary human situation reflects a deeper
problem. While man, distanced from nature by his
objectification of it through technology, seems to
encounter only his own will and desires, "In truth,
however, precisely nowhere does man today any longer
encounter himself, i.e., his essence."(23)
In attempting to show that science is not an
enterprise independent of metaphysical and
theological commitments, both thinkers argue that
science must step beyond itself or be transformed by
a transcendent experience either through Heidegger's
acquiescent thinking or Nishitani's realization of
absolute nothingness. Man cannot expect and should
not seek to master science since that would not
constitute an authentic choice, but only a reaction
to an inauthentic decision that had been made long
ago in the very existence of science. At the same
time, since science is an untruth related to truth as
the concealment of the presence of Being in
Heidegger, or as the expression of relative
nothingness in Nishitani, man cannot simply hide or
run away from science. In order to transform or
surpass science, man must see through its basic claim
of providing objectivity as a distorted reflection of
objectification by disclosing the nonsubstantive
ground without creating another subtle form or
obstruction.
The central disagreement between Heidegger and
Nishitani concerns the process for initiating and
fulfilling this transformation. For Heidegger,
release from Enframing will only come through a new
disclosure of Being itself, whose occurrence cannot
be predicted. Nishitani, on the other hand, maintains
that overcoming science necessarily involves a
complete and radical existential metanoesis. From
Nishitani's perspective, Heideggerian acquiescent
thinking may appear an overly reluctant or partially
attained authentic subjective experience of absolute
nothingness in which "the center is everywhere," and
each individual is "making oneself into a nothingness
in the service of all things."(24)

B. Encounter with Convergence Theorists

In order to clarify the distinction between Heidegger
and Nishitani on the matter of personal realization,
as well as to interpret the general significance of
their critique of science, it is necessary to draw
them into a philosophical encounter with the
convergence theorists on the issue of subjectivity
and objectivity. The basic opposition seems clear.
Heidegger and Nishitani view science skeptically and
pessimistically as a process of inherent
objectification culminating in the destructiveness of
the "age of death" of modern technology. The
convergence view, however, sees science as breaking
through objectification to an involvement in the
participatory universe, which recaptures the essence
of wisdom embodied in many of the mystical and
philosophical traditions. Which of these approaches
represents a more accurate and

p. 185

meaningful assessment of modern science? Is the
convergence theory a naive affirmation of superficial
parallels, or does it ironically fulfill Heidegger's
prophecy of the redemptive turn of thought beyond the
entanglements of the current era? On the other hand,
do Heidegger and Nishitani overlook the holistic
paradigms in post-Einstein physics that surpass the
Newtonian mechanics on which their criticism is
largely focused? Or, do they expose an underlying
philosophical deficiency in the convergence view?
An important similarity between Hiedegger-Nishitani
and the convergence theorists concerns the role of
objectivity in science. According to both schools of
thought, the conventional understanding of science as
objective, or neutral and independent of
subjectivity, is a dubious and self-deceptive
misconception that no longer applies. Heidegger and
Nishitani attempt to demonstrate the onto-theological
commitments underlying science and technology, which
are never free of subjective assumptions and
projections. The participatory paradigm of modern
physics expresses a different interpretation of the
new understanding of objectivity. For example,
Heisenberg, whose principle of uncertainty was
perhaps the initial interpretation of the fundamental
connection of subject and object in scientific
investigation, sees science as overcoming
objectification: "Science no longer confronts nature
as an objective observer, but sees itself as an actor
in the interplay between man and nature....In other
words, method and object can no longer be separated.
The scientific world view has ceased to be a
scientific view in the true sense of the Word."(25)
Fritjof Capra further asserts, "This means that the
classical ideal of an objective description is no
longer valid."(26) Yet the two camps evaluate the
phenomenon of nonobjectivity from opposite
perspectives. The convergence theorists maintain that
science is establishing a holistic and nonsubstantive
paradigm. Heidegger and Nishitani stress that the
lack of objectivity reveals an underlying and
inevitable process of objectification of substantive
entities.
The key to understanding the divergent
interpretations of objectivity is the question of the
role of subjectivity. Both camps agree that science
is not strictly objective because it contains a
fundamental and indispensable subjective component.
Yet, as the disparity between Heidegger and Nishitani
on existential realization indicates, there are
various aspects and levels of subjectivity that must
be clearly distinguished in relation to objectivity.
What does subjectivity mean in the participatory
universe of the convergence view, and does it
correspond to what either Heidegger or Nishitani
suggest by the concept? In Physics as Metaphor, Roger
S. Jones presents the following analysis of the role
of subjectivity in his philosophical account of
modern physics, which seems representative of the
convergence theory:

By subjectivity, I am not referring to the effects on
scientific thought of the individual tastes,
preferences, and prejudices of scientists, which
change with time, are influenced by peer pressures,
and figure prominently in the formation of scientific
paradigms. Rather, I mean the basic role that mind
and the

p. 186

self play at some unfathomable level in the workings
of the universe. Subjectivity in science has both a
personal and impersonal aspect, and fundamentally I
mean it to refer to the dependence of the physical
world on consciousness. Mind and matter are not
separate and distinct, but form an organic whole in
my view. To distinguish a subjective from an
objective viewpoint is ultimately illusory.(27)

Jones's passage highlights two levels of
subjectivity in modern science: the personal and the
impersonal. The first, or personal subjectivity, is
the role of particular commitments that determine the
formation and shifting of scientific paradigms. Jones
neither dismisses nor denies the existence of this
level, but discounts its importance in looking for
what is considered a more significant and fundamental
dimension. Heidegger and Nishitani, however, would
stress that this personal aspect represents an in-
authentic subjectivity, which is the basis of the
decisions made individually and epochally that lead
to the destructiveness of technology. Jones's
tendency to overlook this level is telling because it
reflects an unwillingness to come to terms with the
basic deficiency in the development of science.
The second aspect of impersonal subjectivity is the
interdependence of the object, nature, or matter and
the subject, mind, or self--or the indispensable
involvement of the subject in the holistic
perceptional field. Heidegger and Nishitani would
probably concur on the importance of the
inseparability of subject and object, but insist that
science cannot understand the true meaning of this
level so long as it is falsely distinguished from the
level of inauthentic subjectivity. If the subject is
truly interconnected with the object in the most
essential and "unfathomable'' way, then subjectivity
necessarily involves a personal or collective
decision making that reflects particular preferences
and judgments. Jones's suggestion that there is an
impersonal, or impartial and value-free, level of
subjectivity tends to recreate the ontological
deficiency of the earlier scientific paradigm that he
and other convergence theorists are criticizing.
The main point from the Heidegger-Nishitani
perspective, in contrast to the convergence view, is
the existence of a third level of transpersonal or
self-authenticating subjectivity. This dimension of
existential fulfillment based on the complete
realization of nonsubstantive and nonobjectifying
ontology is not mentioned in Jones's passage, and,
with few exceptions (such as David Bohm's philosophy
of the implicate order),(28) it remains unconsidered
by the convergence theorists. Although Heidegger and
Nis hitani acknowledge the second level of
subjectivity, or interconnectedness, they consider it
secondary to and dependent on the first and third
levels of inauthenticity and authenticity,
respectively. For Heidegger-Nishitani, it is the
possibility of authenticity which exposes the
deficiency of inauthentic decisions, and allows for
the transformation required to resolve the "age of
death." Without an awareness of inauthenticity,
authenticity can never be achieved. Conversely,
unless

p. 187

there is an understanding of the need for and meaning
of illumination, deficiency will be left unanalyzed.
Nishitani appears clearer, or at least more emphatic,
than Heidegger on the question of authentic
subjective attainment. Whereas Heidegger counsels
awaiting a new disclosure of Being, Nishitani
stresses complete existential realization of absolute
nothingness.
Thus, the philosophical encounter with the
convergence view indicates that the focus of the
Heidegger-Nishitani criticism seems to shift from the
theory of science to the practice of using
technology, or from the question of ontological
paradigms to ethical behavior. That is, it appears
that Heidegger and Nishitani--although this is not
directly acknowledged by them--are more concerned
with uncovering the causes and effects of the
ill-fated decisions underlying the applications of
science than in debating the conceptual models of the
new physics, Many of the leading modern scientists
have also expressed concern for the problematics
created by technology. For example, Heisenberg's
discussion of the "consciousness of the danger of our
situation"(29) is a direct influence on Heidegger's
attitude toward science. Enistein, Bohr, and
Oppenheimer,(30) among others, are well known for
their warnings about the damaging impact and abuses
of nuclear and other technologies. Capra succinctly
highlights this danger: "[ The parallel between
physics and mysticism] shows that the results of
modern physics have opened up two very different
paths to scientists to pursue. They may lead us--to
put it in extreme terms--to the Buddha or to the
Bomb, and it is up to each scientist to decide which
path to take."(31)
On what basis can such a decision between the
Buddha and the Bomb be made? According to Heisenberg,
"Even if technology and science could be employed
merely as a means to an end, the outcome depends upon
whether the goals for whose attainment they are to be
used are good ones. But the decision upon goals
cannot be made within science and technology; it is
made, if we are not to go wholly astray, at a point
where our vision is directed upon the whole of man
and the whole of reality, not merely on a small s
egment of this."(32) Heisenberg's concession that the
fundamental decisions about the use of technology
must be made not from within science, but only
through a holistic or transpersonal subjective
vision--encompassing "the whole of man and the whole
of reality"--seems to verify the thrust of the
Heidegger-Nishitani criticism of scientific
authenticity.(33)
But the question can be raised: How convincing are
Heidegger and Nishitani on the purpose and function
of ethics in science? Both thinkers show that science
lacks the attainment of authenticity as well as an
awareness of its own inherent inauthenticity. Science
cannot understand or direct itself because it fails
to have a basis in existential fulfillment, and
therefore approaches issues from a particularizing
and objectifying rather than truly holistic
standpoint. Yet neither Heidegger nor Nishitani propo
se a concrete ethics to guide the actual decision
makers--scientists themselves--in the type of
personal trans-

p. 188

formation necessary to deal with specific ecological
and social issues both caused by and confronting
technology. Heidegger consistently refuses throughout
his career to develop an ethics.(34) But his
insistence on resolving the ontological question
before approaching ethical concerns may be a
self-contradictory avoidance of the underlying
meaning of subjectivity. Thus, his discussion of the
contrast of the windmill and the power plant risks
the charge of naive or unrealistic romanticism.
Although Nishitani is somewhat clearer on the
importance of authenticity in his evocation of the
compassionate bodhisattva model, he does not
translate this ideal into the formation of a
contemporary ethical code, or provide concrete
examples (unlike Heidegger) of how a Zen-oriented
technology would function. Furthermore, neither
thinker acknowledges the productive or liberating
consequences of science and technology. Without a
sensitivity to the actual benefits of science, their
criticism may appear one-sided and partial.

C. Conclusions: An "Ethics of Uncertainty"

The encounter above clarifies the significance of the
difference between Heidegger and Nishitani concerning
subjective realization. Nishitani's uncompromising
stress on existential transformation seems crucial to
the effectiveness of the overall critique of science.
The convergence view of the participatory universe
embracing the unity of observer and observed
challenges and tends to undermine the
Heidegger-Nishitani ontological criticism. It may
even appear that Heidegger and Nishitani overlook or
are unaware of the nonobjectifying paradigms of
modern science. On a deeper level, however, the more
persuasive criticism of science they offer is based
on the fundamental and all-pervasive role of personal
decision, or the choice between authentic and
inauthentic subjectivity. This, in turn, seems to
point to the priority of ethics over ontology,
although that area of philosophical inquiry is not
clearly developed by either thinker. While it may be
unfair to the projects of Heidegger and Nishitani to
expect an ethics in the conventional sense, it is
incumbent on them to provide a "trans-ethical"
perspective that at once goes beyond the factual
level to the nonsubstantive essence of reality and
returns to the concrete and specific historical world
of decision where the hegemony of technology holds
sway.
Since Heidegger and Nishitani do not offer an
ethics, it may be necessary to turn to science itself
for some ideas for developing an ethical theory in
accord with the nonobjectifying paradigm. The
fundamental principles of the "participatory
universe"--the quantum principles of uncertainty and
complementarity in the Bohr-Heisenberg Copenhagen
school--could he cited in this regard. Such an
approach would not violate the intentions of these
philosophical scientists, who stressed the
far-reaching implications and applications of their
notions extending beyond the realm of the atomic
laboratory. Bohr, who argued that "so-called `atomic
phenomenona'...differ in no way

p. 189

qua phenomena from any other phenomena, "(35)
reflected on applying complementarity to the areas of
biology, psychology, and epistemology, and
articulated his theory in logical, experiential, and
even natural terms in the hope of unveiling a grand
"unity of knowledge."(36) Both he and Heisenberg were
sensitive to the epistemological and linguistic
issues involved in perceiving and articulating the
structure of reality. Yet neither scientist delved
significantly into the area of ethics. Pressing their
views in that direction is a demanding task outside
the scope of this article. The following comment is a
preliminary suggestion in considering the kind of
ethical stance that might resolve the issues raised
by Heidegger and Nishitani.
The main argument of Heidegger-Nishitani is that
science represents a false objectification based on
inauthentic subjectivity without being aware of its
deficiencies. Thus the first step in overcoming this
drawback would be for science to acknowledge and
accept its flaws. This could be achieved by extending
the principle of uncertainty. In an ethical context,
uncertainty would not only represent the specific
sense of indeterminacy and inaccuracy calculating the
motion of subatomic particles. Rather, it implies a
general understanding of the fundamental shortcoming
or shortsightedness of science which cannot fully
determine the consequences (output, by-products, side
effects, and so forth) of the technological
inventions its theories engender. That is, science
does not lead to destructive effects because
scientists themselves are immorally intentioned, and
to say that science is amoral begs the question of
who bears responsibility for the effects of
technology. Even to speak of inauthenticity at the
root of science falls short of explaining the
possibility for positively and productively
transforming technology. An ethical reorientation of
the principle of uncertainty provides the ontological
ground for coming to grips with the meaning of
apparent scientific amorality or inauthenticity. It
indicates that the destructiveness of science lies in
its inability fully to foresee or determine the
outcome of its investigations in that the objects
observed are constantly affected and altered by the
procedure of observation. The participation of the
subjective observer in the universe necessarily
involves the unpredictability of their interaction.
Science should not expect to act upon the world and
nature freely and without consequence because the
supposedly objective order it handles through
technology has already been disturbed and perhaps
even violated by the manipulative grasp of its
investigations. Since science is uncertain about the
reactions its methods tend to cause, it must
recognize and acknowledge this inherent
limitation--that "uncertainty and confusion lie near
the very core"(37) -- to eliminate the arrogance and
avarice typical of the inauthenticity Heidegger and
Nishitani decry.
By accepting the conditions giving rise to its
deficiency, science can adopt an outlook that seeks
to overcome shortsightedness. The key to this effort
is the principle of complementarity. From the ethical
standpoint, complementarity is no longer only a
description of the interaction of the "parti-

p. 190

cle" and "wave" models of the atom, but a
comprehensive vantage point that surveys and
surpasses the maze of seeming contradictions which
comprise the participatory universe. Warren Weaver
has extended the Copenhagen view by maintaining: "The
idea of the valid use of two contradictory viewpoints
is by no means restricted to physics As Bohr
emphasized, there are numerous pairs of contradictory
concepts (love and hate, for example, practical and
ideal; intuitive and logical) that, when held jointly
and used appropriately, give us a more complete and
satisfying description than can be achieved
otherwise."(38) An ethical reorientation of
complementarity allows science to oversee and
synthesize all oppositions, such as pragmatism and
idealism, utility and beauty, teleology and
mechanism, prior to making a decision concerning
technological application. The relation between
uncertainty and complementarity in this light is
simultaneously to restrict and liberate scientific
methodology. Science is restricted, or is forced to
acknowledge its innate restrictions, in accepting the
uncertainty of the consequences of its endeavors. Yet
it is liberated by complementary thinking from the
partiality of representational horizons so that it
can set its sights on maximizing its actual
productivity while minimizing the potential for
destructiveness due to oversight, neglect,
unpredictability, or shortsightedness. The
uncertainty at the core of science is ironically a
source of strength in providing a built-in criterion
of checks and balances, point and counterpoint,
inspiring and yet criticizing the creative tension of
the investigative procedure. An ethics of uncertainty
would fulfill Heidegger's vision that "the saving is,
in the midst of the world of the graspable, already
there ungraspable."(39) It would also help complete
Nishitani's paradoxical idea of "hearing a wooden man
sing and seeing a stone woman dance."
Therefore, the importance of the
Heidegger-Nishitani existential/ethical -- rather
than purely ontological -- criticism can be explained
by the following hypothesis. Suppose the convergence
view is correct and that Heidegger and Nishitani are
unable to perceive its merit. Does this alone
dissolve or refute their critique? Not necessarily,
because the criticism is directed toward the
destructive tendencies of technology, and not merely
at the conceptual models of science. Has the capacity
for destructiveness lessened with the development of
the convergence view based on the participatory
model? Experience seems to indicate the opposite; the
more science has moved toward a holistic paradigm in
the twentieth century, the greater the possibility
for devastation caused by the "age of death,"(40)
largely because science has not self-reflectively or
self-critically heeded the ethical implications in
its own principles. This suggests that the deficiency
remaining in science points to a dimension beyond,
yet underlying, science--that is. the question of
authentic subjectivity or trans-ethical choice--which
science itself has uncovered. Heidegger and Nishitani
may be correct in their aim of exposing and
criticizing the

p. 191

deficiency and inauthenticity of science and
technology. But their method of focusing on ontology
seems to fall short of fulfilling the goal of
establishing a cogent philosophical and practical
corrective for the false objectification in these
endeavors. Therefore, the encounter between the
convergence theorists and Heidegger-Nishitani
highlights the need for an ethics derived from and
faithful to both the structure of the participatory
universe and the existential involvement of authentic
subjectivity. An ethics of uncertainty could support
Oppenheimer's admonition: "We [scientists], like all
men, are among those who bring a little light to the
vast unending darkness of man's life and world. For
us as for all men, change and eternity,
specialization and unity, instru- ment and final
purpose, community and individual man alone, com-
plementary each to the other, both require and define
our bonds and our freedom."(41)

NOTES

1. Hajime Tanabe, "Momenti Mori," Philosophical
Studies of Japan 1 (1959): 1-12.
2. John Archibald Wheeler, "Bohr, Einstein, and the
Strange Lesson of the Quantum," in Mind in Nature,
ed. Richard Q. Elvee (San Francisco: Harper and Row,
1982), p. 18.
3. For a quantum analysis of consciousness, see:
Kenneth R. Pelletier, Toward a Science of
Consciousness (New York: Delacourte Press, 1978); and
Ronald S. Valle, "Relativistic Quantum Psychology,"
in The Metaphors of Consciousness, ed. Ronald S.
Valle and Rolf von Eckartsberg (New York and London:
Plenum Press, 1981), pp. 419-436.
4. Renee Weber, "Reflections on David Bohm's
Holomovement," in The Metaphors of Consciousness, pp.
138-139.
5. Karl Pribham, "The Holographic Hypothesis of
Brain Function: The Meeting, of Minds," in Ancient
Wisdom and Modern Science, ed. Stanislav Graf, MD
(Albany: SUNY Press, 1984), p. 167.
6. In Philosophy as Metanoetics (trans. Valdo
Viglielmo and James W. Heisig (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1986)), Tanabe resolves the
historical dilemma in terms of radical other-power
religious experience of the absolute mediation of
metanoetics or repentance (zangedo).
7. Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth (New
York: Avon, 1982), p. 111.
8. Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning
Technology, trans. William Lovitt (New York: Harper
and Row, 1977) , p. 4. In the translator's
introduction (p. xxxii), Lovitt remarks: "Heidegger
sees every aspect of contemporary life, not only
machine technology and science but also art, religion
and culture... as exhibiting clear marks of the
ruling essence of technology that holds sway as the
dominion of man as self-conscious, representing
subject."
9. Keiji Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness,
trans. Jan Van Bragt (Berkeley: University of
California Press. 1982). p. 46.
10. Heidegger. The Question Concerning Technology,
p. 4.
11. Nishitani, "Science and Zen," in The Buddha
Eye: ? An Anthology of the Kyoto School, ed.
Frederick Franck (New York: Crossroad, 1982), p. 118.
12. Heidegger makes this distinction in the essay,
"The Question Concerning Technology." In other
essays, including "Science and Reflection." however,
he seems to use the terms science and technology
interchangeably.
13. The Japanese title of Religion and Nothingness
(see note 5) is Shuukyo to wa nanika (What is
Religion? ) . The translator changed the title
apparently to highlight the philosophy of absolute
nothingness in the thought of Nishitani consistent
with other exponents of the Kyoto-school of modern
Japanese philosophy.

p. 192

14. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John
Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and
Row, 1962), p. 415.
15. Ibid., pp. 413-414.
16. See Heidegger, An Introduction to Mctaphysics.
trans. Ralph Mannheim (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1959).
17. See Carl Mitcham. "What is the Philosophy of
Technology? " in International Philosophical
Quarterly 25, no. 1. 73-89.
18. Ibid..p.8l.
19. For a discussion of the influence of the
philosophy of Nishida Kitaro and the doctrine of
absolute nothingness on the development of
Nishitani's thought, see Zettai mu to kami--Nishida-
Tanabe tetsugaku no dento to Kiristokyo. ed. Jan Van
Bragt (Tokyo: Shunjuusha, 1981). See also my "Postwar
Issues in Japanese Buddhism," in Movements and Issues
in World Religions, ed. Charles W. Fu and Gerhard
Spiegler (Westport. Connecticut: Greenwood Press,
1989), vol. 2, pp. 245-276.
20. See especially Nishitani's piece, "Bukkyo ni
okeru `kojo' no tachiba," Zettai mu to kami, pp.
150-194.
21. Nishitani, "Science and Zen," pp. 135ff.
22. Werner Heisenberg, The Physicist's Conception
of Nature, trans. Arnold J. Pomerans (Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1958), p. 23.
23. Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology.
p. 27.
24. Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness. p. 285.
25. Heisenberg, The Question Concerning Technology,
p. 29.
26. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Phpsics (New York:
Harper and Row, 1975), p. 57.
27. Roger S. Jones, Physics as Metaphor
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983),
p. 10. For a fuller explanation and sociological
critique of the convergence or parallelist view, see
Sol Restive, The Social Relations of Physics,
Mysticism, and Mathematics (Dordrecht/Boston/
Lancaster: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1983).
28. For example, in his philosophical and
psychological interpretation of Bohm's thought, Renee
Weber stresses that "this question [of `holocosmic
ethics'] is the only one that matters to Bohm,
because the purification produced by
self-transformation reverberates throughout the
holocosmic field." See Weber, "Reflections." pp.
138-139.
29. Heisenberg, The Question Concerning Technology.
pp. 29ff.
30. For example, J. Robert Oppenheimer is said to
have remarked in 1947, after the nuclear attack on
Japan, "In some sort of crude sense which no
vulgarity, no humor, no over-statement can quite
extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this
is a knowledge which they cannot lose" (quoted in
John Major, The Oppenheimer Hearing (London: B. T.
Batsford Ltd., 1971), p. 107).
31. Capra. The Tao of Physics, "Preface to the
Second Edition." p. xvii.
32. Heisenberg. Across the Frontiers. trans. Peter
Heath (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), pp. 217-218.
33. In a similarly critical context, Max Wartofsky
argues that the paradox: of scientific advancement
and destructiveness can only be overcome by the
rational, or socially liberating, imperative of
responsibility for human welfare. See Wartofsky. "Is
Science Rational?" in Science, Technology and
Freedom (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.. 1974), pp.
202-209.
34. For Heidegger's unwillingness to be drawn into
a discussion of the ethical implications of
authenticity and inauthenticity in favor of the
priority of the ontological question, see: Being and
Time, especially p. 211; and "Letter on Humanism." in
Basic Writings. ed. David Farell Krell (New York:
Harper and Row, 1977). pp. 234ff.
35. Henry J. Folse, The Philosophy of` Niels Bohr
(Amsterdam: North Holland, 1985), p. 204.
36. See Ruth Moore, Niels Bohr (New York: Knopf,
1966), pp. 406-413. Moore cites as one of Bohr's
favorite examples in illustrating complementarity his
observation of Mt. Fuji, which appeared cloudy and
mist-covered one evening, concealing its peak, and
clear in the glistening snow the next morning.
According to Bohr, the "two mountains" did not simply
equal one.
37. Warren Weaver, "The Religion of a Scientist."
in Religions of America. ed. Leo Rosten (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1975), p..303.

p. 193

38. Weaver, ibid., p. 301.
39. Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker, "Heidegger and
Natural Science." in Heidegger Memorial Lectures, ed.
Werner Marx (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press,
1982), p. 98.
40. To cite some of the numerous examples: acid
rain, ozone depletion, the "greenhouse effect, ''
ocean pollution, nuclear and chemical waste disposal,
and toxic pesticides. For an analysis of issues and
possible solutions based on a holistic model, see
Gaia: An Atlas of Planer Management, ed. Norman
Myers (Garden City, New York: Anchor, 1984).
41. Robert J. Oppenheimer, Science and the Common
Understanding (London: Oxford University Press,
1952), p. 112.