Pathos and Technology - a Matter of Rhetoric

In this thesis it is argued that Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle’s Rhetoric of 1924 provides concepts that can help understanding the phenomenon of technological mediation better. The field of postphenomenology studies such technological mediations and builds on Heidegger’s thinking on technologies in Being and Time. Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, however, also includes discourse and attunement to understand being in the world. These dimensions of being-in-the-world are strongly influenced by his earlier understanding of rhetoric. In that, Heidegger argues for a profound place of pathos in Aristotle’s rhetoric, making it possible for someone to be moved in the first place, rather than being merely ancillary to rational discourse. Such a being-moved in terms of rhetorical pathos presumes a specific understanding of human being as being-in-movement, continually moving and being moved. In the thesis the twofold understanding of pathos both as a disposition that makes change possible, and an actualization of that change itself is applied to the postphenomenological scheme of technological mediation. Before technology can mediate anything, it first has to ‘address’ a heedful listener to be realized in some form. It is concluded that this rhetorical line of thinking opens up interesting possibilities for further research.