What is Technoexistentialism: Debating Heidegger, Don Ihde and Sunyata

Tirtha Prasad Mukhopadhyay¹ & Victor Hugo Jimenez Arredondo^{2*   
1,2} University of Guanajuato, Mexico. *Corresponding author.

^{Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 18, Issue 2, 2026. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v18n2.02
Full-Text PDF Issue Access}

Abstract

“Technoexistentialism” may be defined as the most well-known West-centric existentialist definition of technology. We assume that the industrial project of defining technology and of coming to terms with it was first broached by Heidegger. We can indeed claim that there is a dialectical spiritualization of the forms of existential life in the writings of 19th century philosophers, starting with Hegel and evolving with Heidegger’s writings on existential ontology as well as his very important essay concerning technology (1954). Dialectical materialism also informs Heidegger’s dialectical vision of the evolution of materially created objects. Our critique of Heidegger exposes the dialectical core of technology as the “Standing Reserve” of human creative life and as an expression of the drive – of what Hegel calls Geist – that enables humans to create, objectify and endow qualitative character to the technological conception. As such technology also provides a subjective anchor for human consciousness and then an opportunity to it to physically evolve in conjunction with technological advancements. One of the most potent examples of this process is the evolution of AI. But AI precipitates through a faultline or a lacuna in the extension of the subjective spirit of technological form. We also ask if there is a certain lacuna in the consciousness of the moment of obsession with technology and its objective reality..

Keywords: Technoexistentialism, Dialectics, Standing Reserve, Geist, AI Lacuna.