2. Philosophy - Stefano Franchi

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P HILOSOPHY, NON-PHILOSOPHY, AND SCIENCE
Another variation on the same theme is provided by Heidegger’s meditation on the re-
lationship between science and metaphysics. While not denying the Hegelian distinction,
Heidegger casts it in a new light insofar as he strives to retrieve the essential link between
the two project that unites them beyond their differences. Thus, he claims that the connec-
tion between science and metaphysics is not denied, but rather confirmed, by the abandon-
ment of a-priori procedures in favor of mathematical, scientific methods. In both “The Age
of the World Picture” and “The Essence of Technology” he stresses that the peculiar under-
standing of the real in terms of object and objectivity makes possible mathematical (math-
ematized) sciences. In other words, the relinquishing of traditional metaphysical (e.g. a-
priori) procedures is necessitated by metaphysics itself which sees its transfiguration and
accomplishment in the empirical-mathematical science and its crowning achievement in
cybernetics.
This brief hint suggest that Heidegger’s basic approach to the relationship between em-
pirical science and the tradition of Western philosophy is not very different from the basic
framework I have outlined above. Heidegger assumes the basic Aristotelian criterion and
adds to it a very interesting explanation of the reasons why, temporally speaking, Meta-
physics had to convert into the sciences. In other words, he adds a logical and causal rela-
tionship between the two parts of the basic opposition (namely, science and metaphysics)
and sees a relevant part of the development of Western philosophy as the process of trans-
formation of the former into the latter. A process he judges completed with the emergence
of the “science of control,” e.g. cybernetics. 6 It should be remarked, however that the basic
framework, however enriched, is left unaltered. The difference between the sciences and
metaphysics is still conceptualized in the same way Aristotle (and Hegel) understood it. In-
stead, I would like to argue for a more complex articulation of the basic framework which
6. Martin Heidegger, “The Age of the World Picture,” The Question Concerning Technology and other
essays (New York: Harper and Row, 1977) 118-120 (on the interpretation of the mathematical character
of science on the basis of ta mathemata, e.g. what is already known). See also “The End of Philosophy
and the Task of Thinking,” Basic Writings…, 375-377, on the necessary completion of
philosophy into the sciences and its crowning discipline, cybernetics. Finally, the same theme is picked
up again in “Science and Reflection,” where science it is more precisely thematized as the theory of
the real, and an analysis of the definition is provided, in The Question Concerning Technology and other
essays…, 155-160.