Ernst Junger’s Philosophy of Technology

This book examines the work of Ernst Jünger and its effect on the development of Martin Heideggers influential philosophy of technology. Vincent Blok offers a unique treatment of Jüngers philosophy and his conception of the age of technology, in which both world and man appear in terms of their functionality and efficiency. The primary objective of Jüngers novels and essays is to make the transition from the totally mobilized world of the 20th century toward a world in which a new type of man represents the gestalt of the worker and is responsive to this new age. Blok proceeds to demonstrate Jüngers influence on Heideggers analysis of the technological age in his later work, as well as Heideggers conceptions of will, work and gestalt at the beginning of the 1930s. At the same time, Blok evaluates Heideggers criticism of Jünger and provides a novel interpretation of the Jünger-Heidegger connection: that Jüngers work in fact testifies to a transformation of our relationship to language and conceptualizes the future in terms of the Anthropocene. This book, which arrives alongside several new English-language translations of Jüngers work, will interest scholars of 20th-century continental philosophy, Heidegger, and the history of philosophy of technology.