Heidegger’s reflections on nature are inseparable from his broader inquiry into Being. Rather than conceiving of nature as a collection of objects or a reservoir of resources, he retrieves the Greek notion of physis: that which emerges of itself, the dynamic unfolding that allows beings to appear. This contrasts sharply with the modern scientific-technical attitude, which, since Descartes and Bacon, has increasingly construed nature as calculable matter, available for manipulation and exploitation.
In The Question Concerning Technology, Heidegger diagnoses this transformation as the essence of modern technology: “enframing” (Gestell). Through enframing, nature is disclosed not in its own right but as “standing-reserve” (Bestand): rivers as energy resources, forests as timber stock, even human beings as functions. Such enframing is dangerous not because it is technological, but because it obscures alternative modes of revealing and thus threatens to eclipse our capacity to experience the world otherwise.
Heidegger counterbalances this danger with the notion of dwelling, elaborated in Building Dwelling Thinking. Dwelling entails a comportment of care and preservation within the “fourfold” of earth, sky, divinities, and mortals. Here, nature is neither subordinated to human use nor romanticized as wilderness; rather, it is acknowledged as co-constitutive of our existence.
This paper will examine Heidegger’s critique of the technological enframing of nature and his proposal of dwelling as an alternative mode of disclosure. It will argue that Heidegger’s thought, while not offering ecological policy, nonetheless provides a profound philosophical orientation that remains crucial in responding to contemporary environmental crises.