УДК 141(597)

MARTIN HEIDEGGER’S PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY

THROUGH VIETNAMESE AND ANGLOPHONE PERSPECTIVES

Dang-Thanh Nguyen

The paper presents a comparative study of how Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of technology is situated in two intellectual contexts, the Vietnamese and Anglophone, which pursues Yuk Hui’s idea of “noodiversity”. This comparison, therefore, avoids the hierarchical value manner in which the author must answer a question, such as which context, in the last analysis, offers a better understanding of the subject matter. Rather, the noodiversity approach calls for recognising the differences between these two contexts as distinct ways of thinking in the Heideggerian sense. Therefore, Heidegger’s philosophy of technology has no single, fixed meaning but is continuously reconfigured in each intellectual context. Its appearance in Vietnam raises a sort of paradox. On the one hand, Heidegger’s philosophy has been widely translated and discussed. But on the other hand, his philosophy of technology is almost systematically absent. In opposition, its appearance is highly diverse in the Anglophone world, leading to multiple ways of understanding his philosophy of technology. This comparison, as Heidegger might say, reveals the Vietnamese and Anglophone ways of thinking about Heidegger’s philosophy of technology. The author’s task, following the spirit of noodiversity, is not to stop at the number of different points, but to explain their difference and ask how each of these two contexts might contribute to the other. Such a comparison might also serve as an attempt toward a philosophical dialogue between a Global South one and other Western ones, with each trying to hear, understand, and learn from the other.

Keywords: philosophy of technology, Martin Heidegger, Yuk Hui, noodiversity, Vietnam.

ФИЛОСОФИЯ ТЕХНОЛОГИИ МАРТИНА ХАЙДЕГГЕРА:

ВЬЕТНАМСКАЯ И АНГЛОЯЗЫЧНАЯ ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ

Данг-Тхань Нгуен

В статье проводится сравнительное исследование того, как философия технологии Мартина Хайдеггера воспринимается в двух интеллектуальных контекстах – вьетнамском и англоязычном, продолжая концепцию «нооразнообразия» Юй Хуэя. Такой сравнительный подход избегает иерархической оценки того, какой контекст «лучше» объясняет предмет. Напротив, нооразнообразие призывает признать различия между этими контекстами как своеобразные способы мышления в хайдеггеровском смысле. Следовательно, философия технологии Хайдеггера не имеет единого, фиксированного значения, но постоянно переосмысляется в каждом интеллектуальном контексте. Ее появление во Вьетнаме характеризуется своеобразным парадоксом: с одной стороны, труды Хайдеггера широко переводятся и обсуждаются, а с другой – его философия технологии практически отсутствует. В противоположность этому в англоязычном мире наблюдается большое разнообразие интерпретаций, приводящее к множеству подходов к его философии технологии. Такое сопоставление, как сказал бы сам Хайдеггер, раскрывает особенности вьетнамского и англофонного восприятия его идей. Задача автора, придерживаясь духа нооразнообразия, состоит не только в перечислении различий, но и в объяснении того, как каждый из этих контекстов может обогатить другой. Подобное сравнение также можно рассматривать как попытку философского диалога между странами глобального Юга и Запада, где каждая сторона стремится слушать, понимать и учиться друг у друга.

Ключевые слова: философия технологии, Мартин Хайдеггер, Юй Хуэй, нооразнообразие, Вьетнам.

Introduction

The philosophy of technology is widely recognized as a promising branch of philosophy [7; 8; 5]. Among philosophers of technology, according to Don Ihde [30, p. 1], Martin Heidegger “is widely hailed as one of the major figures in the foundations of the philosophy of technology.” In his breakthrough monograph, Technics and Paxis, Ihde [28, p. 103] himself stated that Heidegger “was among the first to raise technology to a central concern for philosophy”. “Society for the History of the Philosophy of Technology” agrees with Ihde’s statement that Heidegger’s seminar work “The question concerning technology”, first published in 1954, is “often considered to be one of the most influential essays in the history of the philosophy of technology” [25]. In the contemporary digital age, where we dwell in post-Heideggerian technological phenomena, as Ihde [30, p. 4] might say, his reflections are still important. By interpreting, reinterpreting, and creatively analysing Heideggerian fruitful ideas, contemporary philosophers of technology have established their own philosophies that, more or less, follow the spirit of this great German thinker to address the question of human-technology relationships [30; 26; 11].

Questioning, in turn, as Heidegger [18, p. 3] claimed, builds ways of thinking through specific languages. These philosophers, based on their own particular languages, traditions of philosophy, and academic contexts in which they, to some degree, place themselves (or are placed), would establish ways of thinking about our highly modern technological age through their critical theoretical reference, namely, Martin Heidegger. Their ways of thinking about Heidegger’s philosophy of technology are therefore diverse. This diversity, in turn, should become an important subject matter not only within a singular academic tradition, as Hans Achterhuis [1] brilliantly argued, but also in a comparative way.

The author thus suggests a comparative investigation of the appearance and influence of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of technology in two different intellectual contexts: Vietnamese, the author’s mother tongue, and Anglophone, the seemingly common language of the globalized era today that people might easily access. This comparison does not propose a hierarchical valuation to answer which academic sphere has a better understanding of his philosophy of technology. However, the author attempts to make a study of what Yui Hui [27] conceptualized as “noodiversity”, as ways of thinking in each language and, broadly, intellectual tradition. From there, each of these might reveal itself and what it can learn from another one. This noodiversity attitude could be suitable with Heidegger’s own demand for the question (and questioning) as philosophical task: searching for manners of thinking that free us from the one that dominates today, that is, technological or calculative thinking. Only by these attempts can we hope to establish free relationships with technological devices, leading us to the authentic understanding of the essence of technology and of human-technology relations [18, p. 3-4]. This comparative study between local insight from Vietnam and Anglophone ways of interpreting the Heideggerian legacy in the philosophy of technology positions itself and moves towards the above objective. Vietnamese and Anglophone literature reviews are not only publications written in these languages, but also translations into them. What both of these academic contexts select to translate is also important to continue to indicate their diverse ways of thinking or noodiversity.

Vietnamese perspective

The meaning of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of technology in Vietnam can be seen as a hybrid combination of philosophy of technology and his own philosophy. The position of philosophy of technology, however, remains unclear in Vietnam. The Vietnamese State Council for Professorship [44] does not recognize philosophy of technology as a distinct branch of philosophy. The closest sub-discipline to philosophy of technology is “philosophy in natural sciences”. This absence does not mean that there are no academic discussions about the philosophy of technology in Vietnam. Instead, Vietnamese philosophy of technology researchers have produced numerous publications on this topic since the beginning of this century.

Pham Thi Ngoc Tram’s 2003 monograph “Technoscience, the consciousness of changing world consciousness, and human beings: Theoretical and practical issues” [40], could be considered the first serious philosophical publication on modern technology. Adopting the Marxist-Leninist framework, Pham Thi Ngoc Tram describes how modern technology shapes human existence, especially in their thinking and mode of production.

Nguyen Thi Lan Huong in her doctoral dissertation “Informational technology and its effect on modern society: A social philosophy analysis” [37] also employs the same theoretical framework. Nguyen’s work is the first time a Vietnamese philosophy scholar has systematically interpreted such a global phenomenon across seemingly every aspect of society, including economics, politics, ethics, education, and culture. Since then, there have been philosophical publications dedicated to this topic in the same procedure [32; 6], or, as Heidegger might say, way of thinking. This way of thinking, however, has taken for granted the question concerning the definition of “technology” and its varied concepts, such as “technoscience,” “informational technology” and “digital technology”.

These concepts have been defined only in a realistic, technical (and common-sense) way and also lack the plurality of theoretical frameworks, which have not been situated within any tradition of philosophy of technology. Therefore, these publications could only express the philosophical reflections on modern types of technological phenomena. In the third decade of this century, the Vietnamese way of thinking about technology has shifted slightly away from its stereotypes to investigate other Western philosophical frameworks.

Nguyen Anh Tuan in his 2024 article “Alan Turing and philosophy of AI” [34] returns to the famous Turing test to question whether AI can think like human beings. One year later, Nguyen Huu Son raises the same question in his paper “AI: A challenge to philosophy of mind” [36], referring to t American philosophers John Searle and Daniel Dennett. The two Vietnamese researchers above, however, focus on the intellectual capacity of a specific technological device, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and locate their work not in the philosophy of technology. These efforts over more than twenty years, therefore, cannot establish Vietnamese philosophy of technology as a mature sub-discipline of philosophy, as the Vietnamese State Council for Professorship demonstrated in its official document. The appearance of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of technology in the Vietnamese academic context, thus, needs to be found in a different direction: in studies of German thinker’s philosophy.

The first impression that observers might find is that Martin Heidegger’s philosophy has arrived early and attracted a widespread Vietnamese readership. Even among non-academic Vietnamese readers, he remains a familiar and influential figure, as reflected in the popular books that introduce his thought. Cathcart and Klein [4] through a Vietnamese translation of Heidegger’s “Being and Time” and a Hippo “Walk through those pearly gates”, first published in 2016, present their doctrine of human existence as being-toward-death. Walther Ziegler [46] in the translated work “Heidegger in 60 minutes” introduces the key concepts of his philosophy, such as “Dasein,” “Being-in-the-World,” “Being-toward-Death,” “anxiety,” “authenticity,” “inauthenticity,” and, especially, “technology.” Most recently, in 2024, the translation of the picture book by Briere-Haquet and Vissiere “Philosophical FABLES: Heidegger’s lizard” [2], popularizes the basic ideas of Heidegger as a phenomenologist and existentialist among a broad audience.

Coming back to the 1960s and 1970s, when Heidegger was still alive, his thinking had already arrived in Vietnam. According to Nhu Hanh his philosophy became widespread in Vietnamese intellectual life at that time [39]. Heidegger’s masterpiece “Being and Time” was translated and published in 1973 [13; 14]. One year later, in 1974, translation of his three other works emerged in Vietnamese: “What is Metaphysics?”, “Letter on Humanism” and “What is Philosophy?” in its second printing edition, first published in 1969 [15; 16; 17]. Earlier, in 1968, “The essence of truth” had already been translated [12].

Since the beginning of the 21th century further translations have gradually arose, including: “On the way to language” [19], “Gelassenheit”, “The thing” [20], “Building dwelling thinking” [21], “The origin of the work of art” [22], a new translation of the introduction to “Being and Time” [23] and a new translation of “The essence of truth” [24]. Until early 2026, 10 works by Martin Heidegger have been translated into Vietnamese, including two editions of “The essence of truth” in 1968 and 2022, and an attempt to retranslate “Being and Time” in 2021, although the translator has published only the introduction. By these translations, Heidegger appears in Vietnam as a phenomenologist, existentialist and hermeneutic philosopher.

However, this identification conceals the many important aspects of his thinking, such as his philosophy of technology. The most significant work in Heidegger’s philosophy of technology, and, to some degree, of the history of philosophy of technology, “The question concerning technology”, has been ignored. This situation coincides with the lack of attention to research on his philosophy of technology in Vietnam. Nevertheless, if readers agree with Peter-Paul assessment that Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of technology is his phenomenology of technology or his phenomenological approach to technology, they might see an implicit insight in the work of Vietnamese scholars Verbeek’s [45, p. 120-121].

In the 2017 article “Heidegger and the transition from Being to the Thing in Das Ding” Nguyen Huu Minh Vuong [35] indirectly places technology as a subject matter in his later phrase, in which Heidegger undergoes a radical transformation of his phenomenology. Heidegger, in this stage, stops actively seeking the essence of Being and then waits for Being to reveal itself through research into essential aspects, including technology. In this sense, Nguyen Huu Minh Vuong questions the possible conditions for his philosophy of technology and suggests that its answer lies not in external factors but in his own internal phenomenology as an attempt to find different ways of thinking. This potential result cannot hide the fact that Vietnamese scholars pay little attention to Heidegger’s philosophy of technology. The only work dedicated to this subject is a 2025 article by Nguyen Van Hoa, titled “Technology: Tools or destiny of being?” [38]. The author can also include the Vietnamese translation of Ziegler’s “Heidegger in 60 Minutes” in this list. In 2020, that is, more than 50 years after Heidegger’s philosophy entered Vietnamese intellectual life, Ziegler was the first author to discuss its technological aspect.

The findings above show that Vietnamese scholars have sufficient potential and attempt to research this subject, but they choose not to focus on it. It is obvious to claim that researchers from an academic tradition that has enthusiastically translated, researched and written thousands of pages on Heidegger’s philosophy have sufficient possibility to focus on his philosophy of technology. However, they seem, if Heidegger might say, to be enframed to regard his philosophy only through some labels, but not his philosophy of technology. The worries of Ziegler and Nguyen Van Hoa about the Heideggerian warming of the unspottable enframing process in our highly technological era coincide with the enframing of a particular academic tradition within Heidegger’s own philosophy of technology. This challenging situation is uncovered. Vietnamese intellectuals should look back at their own way of thinking and also look forward to a different way of thinking in formulating proposals for forthcoming resolutions. A case study of the Anglophone perspective questioning Heidegger’s philosophy of technology should serve as a crucial reference point for the Vietnamese perspective to know itself inside out and to learn from others in the spirit of noodiversity, and vice versa.

Anglophone perspective

The first factor that Vietnamese scholars can easily perceive and learn from Anglophone discussions is the principle of plurality. Indeed, even at the basic level of defining “what is Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of technology?”, different questions, that is, diverse ways of thinking, have already arisen. The noodiversity, therefore, does not come only from different languages but also from distinct intellectual traditions. There cannot be a single fixed meaning of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology, as it is a hybrid combination of the philosophy of technology and his own philosophy, as the author suggests in the Vietnamese context above. On the contrary, in the same common language, English, philosophers from different mother tongues and intellectual traditions have appropriated and reinterpreted Heideggerian ideas of technology in different ways to build their own philosophies. Such practices generate endless debates, in which each question appears to admit more than one answer. In doing so, the positions of philosophy of technology and translations of Martin Heidegger’s work in the Anglophone world are highly recognized.

The first English translation of his work, according to Miles Groth’s list [10], appeared in 1949. Until 2011, as Groth claims, Anglophone scholars had published a total of 225 papers on Heidegger, including his books, articles, lecture manuscripts, official documents, letters, etc. Compared 255 English translations with 10 published Vietnamese translations of his work, readers might notice differences in how the two academic spheres approach Heidegger’s philosophy. This endeavour of Anglophone scholars is expressed in their question concerning Heidegger’s philosophy of technology, too.

In the Anglophone context, two components of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology that the author identifies above are his philosophy of technology and his own philosophy, both of which are controversial. Precisely, their meanings in each author’s thinking are also controversial. When they try to position Heidegger in the history of philosophy of technology, these discussions appear. Don Ihde, a major representative of American pragmatic philosopher of technology, asserts in “Philosophy of technology: An introduction” that philosophy of technology is a relatively young sub-discipline of philosophy, emerging only in the twentieth century [29, p. 38]. In contrast the Society for the History of the Philosophy of Technology [25] suggests a much longer history, tracing its origins at least to the early 19th century in Western contexts, occurring during the Industrial Revolution. This society argues: “Beginning in the early 19th century, as the Industrial Revolution advanced, philosophers began to critically engage with technology’s influence on labor, human agency, and societal structure”. Franssen, Lokhorst and de Poel [9], however, challenge both understandings. They assert that philosophy of technology originates in reflections on technics that are “as old as philosophy itself”, locating, from a Western viewpoint, its beginnings in ancient Greek thought. While acknowledging that reflections on technology are indeed ancient, Thomas A.C. Reydon discusses that the philosophy of technology as a distinct field properly begins only in the second half of the 19th century [41]. These competing interpretations of the history of philosophy of technology demonstrate the complexity and plurality in our understanding of this promising branch of philosophy. As a result, the position of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology within this history becomes itself a matter of on-going debate.

The second field in this debate is the question: What are the crucial possible conditions that lead to Heidegger’s philosophy of technology? At this point, philosophers still disagree with each other. In 2016 work “The ontology of technology: A Heideggerian Perspective” Roisin Lally [31] closes with the view of Franssen, Lokhorst and de Poel that the philosophy of technology needs to find its roots in the ancient world. Lally then offers to return to investigate the ancient Greek concept “techne” in Aristotle’s perspective as a fundamental premise for Heidegger’s own philosophy of technology. From there, Lally offers a way of thinking that places his philosophy of technology in the Aristotelian tradition. Such an approach is against the way of thinking about the history of philosophy of technology in linear or merely chronological accounts. In the 2006 monograph “The gods and technology: A reading of Heidegger” Richard Rojcewicz [42] does not directly reject Lally’s argument. Nevertheless, he suggests that Heidegger’s philosophy of technology still needs to be situated within a sort of chronological account, namely, the historical transformation of technology from ancient Greece to modern times during Heidegger’s lifetime, when modern physics developed rapidly.

These transformations occur alongside the critical shifts in ontology and the way of thinking that Heidegger [18] negatively stresses. In opposition to such “long duration” approaches that Lally and Rojcewicz share, Michael Zimmerman [47] locates the emergence of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology within a rather short duration: the specific political and historical conditions of Germany in the first half of the 20th century. Zimmerman’s contextualist interpretation has received considerable support, such as that of Don Ihde. In his 2010 monograph “Heidegger’s technologies: Postphenomenological perspectives” [30] Ihde also situates the establishment of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology within the intellectual, political and industrial context of early 20th century Europe and within the broader development of the philosophy of technology as a specific field. Ihde claims that his philosophy of technology might be comprehended as “echoes of a Euro-German common intellectual attitude toward modernization in its technologized form” [30, p. 10].

At that time European intellectuals witnessed the unstoppable industrialisation transforming human existence, social structures, cultural forms and worldviews, while also contributing to increasingly large-scale warfare that culminated in two World wars. This pervasive feeling of chaos, especially in Germany between these wars, as Georges Steiner [43] claims, when Heidegger’s masterpiece “Being and Time” was published, emerged from such mechanization, which directs Heidegger’s thinking about technology. Dwelling in these diverse Anglophone interpretations, the question of which account is correct or legitimate becomes less effective. From the perspective of noodiversity, a more suitable question is: what does each of these interpretations enable us to understand about the openness and relevance of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology and how do they contribute to our understanding of the past and present stages of technology? Such a question, in turn, leads to multiple answers. We, as Heidegger might say, need to hear these diverse (and also controversial) voices coming from different mother tongues and intellectual traditions in order to perceive the ongoing influence of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology today.

Rooted in Deweyan pragmatism, Don Ihde [30] sees in Heidegger a negative attitude toward modern technology, leading Heidegger to declare its essence as enframing. Ihde, furthermore, criticizes Heidegger’s idealistic conception of technology in the past, such as “techne” in ancient Greek and other pre-modern technologies. Returning to such a past is impossible. Therefore, our task is to learn to live with contemporary, or post-Heideggerian, technological devices, and to move beyond the historical conditions in which Heidegger lived. In this sense, technology should be regarded as a mediation that enables humans to experience the world in different ways than they have before. Ihde, then, modifies Heideggerian ideas to orient toward a pragmatic question: how can contemporary highly modern technological systems be effectively beneficial to human life while remaining careful of their risks?

In opposition to Ihde, Yuk Hui, a Hong Kong-born philosopher and Byung-Chul Han, a German Korean-born philosopher, interpret Heideggerian philosophy of technology from different languages and intellectual traditions. Yuk Hui rooted in the Chinese language and tradition, initially worked as a computer scientist before becoming a philosopher. Hui decides to publish his work directly in English to the Anglophone readership. Hui argues that the Heideggerian concept of “technology” remains insufficiently universal and fails to capture the complexity and potential of later Heidegger’s thinking itself [26]. Therefore, he proposes to elaborate on it with his own concept, “cosmotechnics”, which seeks to account for the plurality of civilisations and their corresponding worldviews from which technological devices have been formulated.

Unlike Hui, Byung-Chul Han situates himself not in his mother tongue, Korean, nor in the global language today, English, but only in German as a particular language and tradition. As an inheritor of German idealism and phenomenology, Han writes only in German. His works, fortunately, have been widely translated into English. Han inherits what Heidegger might have intuited as chaos caused by the great technologicalization of the world, but in a different period. Through intensive reading of Heidegger, Han does see the potential and diversity of technology as Ihde and Hui claim. Han, nevertheless, pessimistically perceives the contemporary relationship between humans and technology as “digital swarm”, which we can not escape, as well as the disappearance of things that used to be most intimate to human existence [11]. Three different philosophers offer three different ways of thinking about Heidegger’s philosophy of technology in the Anglophone context.

This list, indeed, is only a preliminary sketch and can be elaborated in the future by adding other notable figures, such as the critical theorist of technology Andrew Feenberg and three great philosophers from the French tradition, Jacques Ellul, Bernard Stiegler and Bruno Latour. The author only mentions a few. Such philosophers, with their discussions of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology, have established the richness, complexity, and diversity of its appearance and influence in the Anglophone context.

A comparison in the spirit of noodiversity

As the author mentioned above, this comparative study does not claim to identify that an intellectual context, Vietnamese or Anglophone, has a greater understanding of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology. This paper follows the spirit of noodiversity to argue against hierarchical valuation, such as dichotomies between good and bad, civilized and barbarian, high and low qualities, etc. Nevertheless, by comparing how Heidegger’s philosophy of technology appears and influences in each academic context, the author might reveal differences in ways of thinking between Vietnamese and Anglophone scholars, each rooted in its language and intellectual tradition. The task of this comparative study, furthermore, is not only to identify the number of differences. Rather, it aims to interpret the reason for these differences and how each perspective, or each way of thinking, might learn from one another. The findings here should be considered as preliminary and remain open to further advancement. There are two principles which structure these differences: empathy and plurality. These principles would be revealed during this comparison.

The significant disparity in the number of translations of Heidegger’s works in Vietnamese, that is, 10, compared to more than 225 in English [10], requires an adequate explanation. Heidegger’s seminar text “The question concerning technology” has also not yet been translated into Vietnamese. The meaning of this fact lies in the historical dimension. Heidegger’s philosophy entered both Vietnamese and Anglophone intellectual contexts at relatively close historical moments: during the 1960s in Vietnam and in 1949 in the Anglophone world. At that time, Heidegger himself still lived. Moreover, Vietnamese intellectuals have shown great enthusiasm for Heidegger’s philosophy since its early appearance in Vietnam [39]. Therefore, the question is: why is the number of translations of his work in Vietnam so limited compared to the Anglophone world? The attempt to answer this inquiry needs to be situated in the historical conditions of Vietnam when Heidegger’s philosophy arrived.

This nation at that time was in the war, with limited economic and educational resources, making it hard for its intellectuals to access global academic networks. The Vietnamese language, therefore, held a minor position worldwide, primarily used in the country. English, in contrast, has rapidly evolved into a global language, making it possible for foreign philosophical works, including those of Heidegger, to be translated into this language soon. Academic networks further strengthened this structural asymmetry. Heidegger’s pupils, such as Hannah Arendt and Hans Jonas, emigrated to the United States and then actively institutionalized and popularized his philosophy within Anglophone academia. However, there was no Vietnamese student or Heidegger who could build such a bridge as Arendt and Jonas did. Moreover, the number of Vietnamese scholars pursuing their philosophy education in Europe (most often in France rather than Germany, Heidegger’s fatherland) was extremely limited. During the same period Don Ihde as a representative Anglophone philosopher of technology was developing his new interpretation of Heidegger, supported by already available English translations of his texts. In such harsh conditions, how can the Vietnamese understand, admire, and even translate and analyse Heidegger’s philosophy? Addressing this seemingly paradoxical fact might help us understand the specific mode of engagement between Vietnamese intellectuals and his philosophy, which the author characterises as a principle of empathy. Indeed, empathy plays a significant role in the Vietnamese way of thinking regarding Heidegger’s philosophy of technology.

Vietnamese scholars might not have a mature understanding of his philosophy, as Nhu Hanh claims [39], but they know it in their heart, or their empathy. They know Heidegger’s objection is categorised as an existentialist one, but they sense that he is still approached through an existentialist lens [33]. This interpretation should not be identified as a misunderstanding or a distortion. In fact, Vietnamese intellectuals at that time, amid a seemingly endless war, uncertainty, anxiety, and existential precarity. They found in existentialism, in which Heidegger was unfortunately placed, an actual analysis of their lived experience [3]. In this sense Vietnamese translations of (and also publications dedicated to) Heidegger’s work are a form of philosophical empathy. The Anglophone world might learn from the Vietnamese approach to encountering Heidegger’s philosophy, especially his philosophy of technology. This sort of knowledge is not rigorously theoretical as Ihde or Feenberg have done, but is rooted in the practical world, in the heart, in the sympathy. This practical way of thinking in the Vietnamese context can therefore benefit the Anglophone world.

The only thing missing here is that Vietnamese researchers during the 1960s-1970s stressed too much the position of human existence in the world and overlooked the position of modern technology, which contributes to the large scale of the war that they experienced. This ignorance leads not only to the absence of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology but also to the absence of philosophy of technology itself in Vietnam. If they paid attention to the technological problem in Heidegger’s philosophy, the foundation of his philosophy of technology in Vietnam might be established in the same period as in the Anglophone world. That is truly missing a chance.

The lack of such a foundation leads to a lack of plurality in the philosophical reflections on philosophy in Vietnam. There is no academic publication that has yet identified itself as a study of “philosophy of technology”. Therefore, the author cannot state an explicit and legitimized philosophy of technology and Heidegger’s philosophy of technology in Vietnam. Furthermore, such reflections tend to derive from almost one theoretical framework, Marxism-Leninism (a crucial component of Vietnamese official ideology) [6; 32; 37; 40]. From this perspective the possible development of philosophical reflections on technology in Vietnam might not necessarily adopt a Heideggerian framework, but rather continue to apply Marxism-Leninism. The future of philosophy of technology in Vietnam, thus, unfortunately, is not in the hands of Heidegger’s philosophy, which has been an endless inspiration for generations of philosophers of technology in the Anglophone world. In the spirit of noodiversity this fact does not mean a poor state of plurality, but rather the distinct decision of a nation to lead its way of thinking down a path other than the multiple ones in the Anglophone context. Both ways of thinking are equally respected.

Conclusion

This paper, in short, does a dual-task. The first task is to compare Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of technology, or, more precisely, its appearance and influence, from Vietnamese and Anglophone perspectives. This comparison follows Yuk Hui’s concept of “noodiversity” to argue that these differences arise not merely from language but also from historical conditions. In the Vietnamese context, Heidegger’s philosophy has been widely translated, discussed, and interpreted since the 1960s. Vietnamese intellectuals at the time of war engaged with Heidegger through empathy with his existential analysis of Dasein, which matched their uncertainty and the chaotic reality they experienced. However, Vietnamese intellectuals focus too much on this topic and neglect Heidegger”s philosophy of technology, leading to its near absence and the underdeveloped status of philosophy as a distinct field or sub-discipline in Vietnam.

These findings derive from the Vietnamese-specific historical conditions, such as 1) war, 2) the lack of international academic networks directly to Heidegger when he was still alive and 3) the institutional dominance of Marxism-Leninism as a legitimized framework. The Anglophone world, in opposition, has received Heidegger’s philosophy of technology through numerous translations of his own works and multiple debates. Philosophers, coming from different mother tongues and academic traditions (such as Ihde’s pragmatism, Hui’s cosmotechnics, Han’s traditional German idealism and phenomenology, etc.), have situated Heidegger’s philosophy of technology within broader discussions and still find in it fruitful ideas for continuous reinterpretation today. This pluralistic attitude makes Heidegger still a major question for Anglophone philosophy of technology.

From there the second task of this comparison is to examine how these two intellectual perspectives, as different ways of thinking in the Heideggerian sense, can learn from each other. On the one hand, Vietnamese scholarship might learn from the Anglophone principle of plurality to formulate the philosophy of technology as a diverse field or sub-discipline of philosophy in the future. On the other hand, the Anglophone world might learn from Vietnamese intellectuals about how their philosophical understanding can derive from lived experience and contextual relevance. In short, this comparative study argues that Heidegger’s philosophy of technology should be approached through cross-cultural dialogue, not only from Western sorts of thinking but also from those of Global South nations. Revealing diverse ways of thinking about Heidegger’s philosophy of technology is a valuable manner to hope, as the philosopher claims [18, p. 3], to establish a free relationship between humans and technology, which is essential in our contemporary, highly modern technological age.

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Data about the author:

Dang-Thanh Nguyen – PhD Candidate in Philosophy, Lecturer of Hanoi Law University (Hanoi, Vietnam).

Сведения об авторе:

Данг-Тхань Нгуен – соискатель ученой степени доктора философии (PHD), преподаватель Ханойского юридического университета (Ханой, Вьетнам).

E-mail: thanhnd@hlu.edu.vn [15].