Abstract

The essay deals with the brief yet significant correspondence between Martin Heidegger and Werner Heisenberg throughout the year 1953 that culminated in Heidegger’s lecture “Die Frage nach der Technik”. The letters and Heidegger’s accompanying thoughts about the production of scientific evidence by means of media technology and mathematics provides a missing link between the genesis of Heidegger’s own philosophy of technology and the history of modern physics. The correspondence indicates the struggle of both philosopher and physicist to understand each other but also Heidegger’s awareness for the necessity of an interdisciplinary discourse on technology within the nuclear era. One of Heisenberg’s letters worked through by Heidegger with crayons is published here for the first time.