The Technology of the Question and the Responsibility for Sense

When Heidegger wrote “The Question Concerning Technology,” he was well aware that we are not in a situation to know what we are questioning when we question technology. For that reason, the very first sentence of his essay is: “In what follows we shall be questioning concerning technology” (Heidegger, “The Question” 3). And Heidegger even puts ‘questioning’ in italics to get his point across: the title of the essay should not be read as an indication—“The Question Concerning”—of a specific topic—“Technology.” Rather, it is altogether the topic. The essay is as much about the question as it is about technology. In fact, it is first of all about the question. And it is not about answering the question. Nor is it about determining the scope or content of the question as a preparation to such an answer. It is simply about posing the question. If anything is done in Heidegger’s essay, it is nothing other than this: “In what follows we shall be questioning…”