Technology and Nihilism in Plato, Aristotle, and Heidegger

Athens Corner

This is the introduction to my latest addition for the "Technology and Nihilism" series on my AthensCorner.com website.
In moving from Thucydides to Aristotle and Heidegger, here I discuss the importance of Plato and Aristotle for any and all accounts of the things we all too casually refer to as "technology" and "science" as if we fully understand them.
At issue in this discussion is the unfolding of what it means for man to be the creature of speech, the creature of logos, and what that means for our pursuit of knowledge which we refer to as "science" and its counterpart "technology." This unfolding entails, among other things:
(1) The significance of rhetoric for philosophy in Plato, Aristotle, and Heidegger
(2) The contours of what is meant by the beautiful, the just, and the good with respect to the soul of man and its relation to, first, being and, second, the possibility of articulating that relation of soul and being for the flourishing of political community.
(3) The unity and diversity of so-called "practical" and "theoretical" knowledge in the various fields of knowledge.
(4) The hierarchy of pleasures attendant in the distinguishing of mind and passion in the soul of man attendant upon any clarified understanding of the beautiful.
(5) The significance of number in both Plato and Aristotle for virtue in the attempt to clarify the good life.
(6) The way in which all of the above informs the various "return" movements to the Greeks in postmodern philosophy, whether of Nietzsche, Heidegger, or Leo Strauss