Machenschaft

Heidegger's name for the mode of Being in the completed epoch of metaphysics — the form Seiendheit (beingness) takes when the Vollendung has installed Seinsverlassenheit (abandonment by Being) as the prevailing condition. Machenschaft is not a human activity (planning, fabricating, exploiting) but the Wesensgestalt des Seins in which everything shows up as machbar (makeable, producible): "Jedes Machbare bestätigt jedes Gemachte, alles Gemachte schreit nach Machbarkeit, alles Handeln und Denken hat sich darein verlegt, Machbares auszumachen" (NII V). The concept stands at the endpoint of Heidegger's genealogical schema (NII IX): ἀλήθεια → φύσις → ἰδέα → ἐνέργεια → actualitas → certitudo → vis/repraesentatio → Vorgestelltheit → Wille → Wille zum Willen → Machenschaft (Ge-stell). Ge-stell (enframing) is the later, more familiar name for the same structural determination.

Key Points

  • Machenschaft is an ontological determination, not an anthropological one: it names how Being wests (essences, unfolds) in the completed epoch, not what humans do
  • Appears at the endpoint of genealogies in both Nietzsche II (Sections V and IX) and Beiträge zur Philosophie (1936-38)
  • Connected to Sinnlosigkeit (meaninglessness): "Das Lichtungslose des Seins ist die Sinnlosigkeit des Seienden im Ganzen" — the lightinglessness of Being is the meaninglessness of beings as a whole
  • The "unbedingte Erdherrschaft des Menschen" (unconditional earth-domination by humanity) is the consequence, not the cause, of Machenschaft: it follows from Being's self-release into makability
  • Machenschaft cannot be "overcome" by moral or political resistance; it belongs to Being's own history. The response is Entgegendenken (thinking-toward Being's withdrawal)

NII V on Lichtungslosigkeit

*Nietzsche II* Section V articulates Machenschaft's Seinsmodus (mode of Being) through the formula Lichtungslosigkeit: "Das Lichtungslose des Seins ist die Sinnlosigkeit des Seienden im Ganzen" — the lightinglessness of Being is the meaninglessness of beings as a whole. The cardinal NII V passage on Machenschaft itself — "Jedes Machbare bestätigt jedes Gemachte, alles Gemachte schreit nach Machbarkeit, alles Handeln und Denken hat sich darein verlegt, Machbares auszumachen" — names the same condition from the side of makability: when Being withdraws its Lichtung (clearing), beings show up only as machbar, mutually confirming one another in a closed circuit of producibility.

The Lichtungslosigkeit formula is the structural opposite of Lichtung: where the Lichtung names the granting-of-the-clearing within which beings appear as such, Lichtungslosigkeit names the withdrawal of that granting and the consequent collapse of the ontological difference into mere Sinnlosigkeit. Machenschaft is the Wesensgestalt des Seins under this withdrawal — not a deficiency of beings but the Seinsmodus in which the Geschick of Seinsverlassenheit prevails.

The 1964 essay's Kybernetik-thesis (see below and kybernetik-as-grundwissenschaft) is, in 1964 vocabulary, the form Lichtungslosigkeit takes as a Grundwissenschaft: the cybernetic age's denial of ontological sense to categories — "Theorie« bedeutet jetzt: Supposition der Kategorien, denen nur eine kybernetische Funktion zugestanden, aber jeder ontologische Sinn abgesprochen wird" (GA 14 p. 72) — is its Lichtungslosigkeit. NII V supplies the Seinsmodus; the 1964 essay supplies its public, datable Grundwissenschaft-form.

The 1964 Cybernetic Specification

"Das Ende der Philosophie und die Aufgabe des Denkens" (1964) supplies the public, datable, late-Heidegger name for the same matter: Kybernetik. The 1964 essay (GA 14 p. 72) names Kybernetik as the Grundwissenschaft of the completed-philosophy age — the science that steers the dispersed sciences. Three structural transformations name the cybernetic specification:

  • Language is transformed into Austausch von Nachrichten (exchange of information).
  • Arts become gesteuert-steuernde Instrumente der Information.
  • Theorie becomes Supposition der Kategorien, denen nur eine kybernetische Funktion zugestanden, aber jeder ontologische Sinn abgesprochen wird.

The 1964 Kybernetik is structurally continuous with NII V Machenschaft and with the post-1953 Ge-stell analysis. Machenschaft / Ge-stell / Kybernetik are three names for the same matter at three publication moments (1939-46 / 1953 / 1964). The 1964 essay also names a structural feature of the cybernetic age that NII does not articulate: the need to ask about modern technology dies in proportion to technology's stamp on the world (GA 14 p. 72). Cybernetic Steuerung is self-erasing as a question — which is what makes the 1964 essay itself an unzeitgemäß (untimely) meditation, asking what no longer demands asking. See kybernetik-as-grundwissenschaft for the dedicated treatment.

The 1964 essay's Fortriß-irrational diagnostic at p. 89 — Vermutlich ist gerade dieser Fortriß äußerst irrational — supplies a feature Nietzsche II does not have. Cybernetic rationalization is not the most rational stance available; it is one form of rational rendering of an unthought ground. The opposition rational/irrational is internal to the Vollendung. The task of thinking is outside this opposition.

Connections

  • is the endpoint of vollendung-der-metaphysik — Machenschaft is the Unwesen (un-essence) that Vollendung installs
  • is the mode of Being in seinsgeschichte — the late-modern epoch's configuration of the ontological difference
  • is named alongside ereignis in NII IX — consciousness as the "Er-eignis, in dem das Sein sich der Wahrheit begibt... und diese der Wahrheit ent-eignet" (the event of Being's expropriation of truth)
  • contrasts with Werkheit — the Greek ἐνέργεια as what stands forth into the unconcealed; Machenschaft is what the Roman-modern transformation of Werkheit into Wirklichkeit ultimately yields
  • receives its 1964 public name as Kybernetik — the Grundwissenschaft of the completed-philosophy age; structurally continuous with NII V Machenschaft via the genealogy NII IX (ἀλήθεια → ... → Machenschaft)
  • installs the Lichtungslosigkeit opposed to Lichtung — "Das Lichtungslose des Seins ist die Sinnlosigkeit des Seienden im Ganzen" (NII V). The 1964 Lichtung is the positive correlate of Machenschaft's Lichtungslosigkeit.
  • is in seinsgeschichtlich diagnostic continuity with end-of-philosophy — Machenschaft is the mode of Being in philosophy's Vollendung; end-of-philosophy is the philosophical-historical form of the same matter.

Sources

  • heidegger-1961-nietzsche-ii — Section V (Machenschaft as Seinsverlassenheit), Section IX (genealogical schema, endpoint)
  • heidegger-1964-end-of-philosophy — Kybernetik as new Grundwissenschaft (GA 14 p. 72); the Bedürfnis-dying thesis (p. 72); cybernetic Fortriß as äußerst irrational (p. 89). The 1964 essay is the public, datable name for the genealogical endpoint NII IX names Machenschaft (Ge-stell).