The Ister (Film) as an Experience of Visual Philosophizing: Ethical Aspects of Technology in M. Heidegger’s Philosophy

Abstract

The article dwells on the heuristic potential of cinematography as an experience of visual philosophizing. The documentary film The Ister is constructed as a journey to the source of the Danube in the company of such modern philosophers as B. Stingler, P. Lacoue-Labarthe, J.-L. Nancy and others, interpreting Heidegger’s philosophy and related topics: technology and culture, Heidegger and the Jews, Heidegger and the question of technology. The theoretical significance of this paper lies in the dialogic comprehension of Heidegger’s philosophical texts and the cinematographic text by D. Barison and D. Ross. The practical significance lies in the fact that the philosophical dialogue of two cultural eras on the key anthropological and cultural-philosophical problems of humans and technology, constructed by means of cinematography, becomes a methodological material and a didactic tool that can be applied in university seminars when considering the burning issues of modern philosophy. The authors investigate the methodological potential of using the documentary film in philosophy seminars with the aim of introducing students to the process of philosophizing and study the modes of philosophical reflection in the logical (linguistic) and phenomenological (optical and sensory) aspects. When analysing the film, students are suggested to test the hypothesis about the risks of the “technological” basis of identity (national, political, religious, ethnic, professional, etc.) in the context of an unclear basis for the concept of human. As a result, it is asserted that a cinematic work can serve as a tool for understanding complex philosophical concepts and be an experience of philosophizing as a thinking practice. Following the structure and content of The Ister, we can pose and discuss at a philosophical level current socio-cultural problems, such as the relationship between humans and technology, the philosophical foundations of politics, the issue of human identity in a globalizing culture, the structure of historical time, marked by humans according to their ideas about what is right and proper. Further studies are relevant due to the diversity of modern philosophical films, requiring a creative approach to the methodology of their use in the educational process.