Bringing-Forth and Challenging: The Traditional and Modern Faces of Technology in Heidegger's Philosophy

According to Heidegger, the traditional pre-modern technology un-covers beings through a bringing-forth (Hervorbringen) whereas modern tech-nology relates to them through a challenge (Herausfordern). In the context of this distinction, while Heidegger translates poiesis into German as Hervor-bringen and interpreting both physis and techne as two different ways of poiesis, he also presents these two ways of Being as incompatible with modern technol-ogy. First, this paper shows how the distinction between "challenging" and "bringing-forth" should be understood within the linguistic possibilities of Turk-ish, by establishing a close conceptual relationship between philosophically basic German and Turkish words; second, it concretizes the contrast between bring-ing-forth and challenging by comparing water mill as an example of traditional technology and hydroelectric power plant as an example of modern technology; and third, in the light of this concrete contrast, it proposes an answer to the question why physis and techne are seen by Heidegger within the sphere of poiesis while modern technology is excluded from this sphere.