"Despite the
rejoinders that it is possible to formulate in face of the accusation that
metaphysics has bonds with artifaction [(la technique, technics, technology)], it therefore appears
clearly that these bonds, if in fact real, can be understood much more
positively than is suggested by the philosophy of Meßkirch [(i.e.
Heidegger)]. Its critique here is
finally fecund in this [respect], that it obliges one to bring to light the
characteristics by which a classical metaphysics precisely escapes it. It in fact obliges one to recognize
the analogy of the causes and their non-reduction to the formal cause. It forces a revalorization of the causes
material, efficient, and final. But more
profoundly still, it obliges one to look more closely into [(à s’interroger
sur)] the first efficient cause’s mode of action. It underscores its bond with the wisdom that
can also extend ultimately beyond all preoccupation with artifaction [(toute preoccupation
technique)], because in
the first cause resides an understanding [(connaissance)] of the causes, and because the [human]
search for the causes [of a phenomenon] results in a partial accession to that
ultimate understanding. At the same time
it puts a finger on the effect of this cause, namely the existence [(l’être, i.e.
esse)] of the entity[, not to mention
the very existence and operation of the causes].
[And] finally, it accomplishes in its own way the [very] program to
which Heidegger at times (for example in the lecture 'Contribution to the question of Being') attaches himself,
namely, a revivification or appropriation of metaphysics by the question of
Being, because it [(the question of Being)] has been lost from view, and concerning
which [program of revivification] one might ask oneself why Heidegger himself
did not carry it through to success.
. . . As distinguished from the transcendental metaphysics
that developed out of the work of Scotus, "the classical metaphysics [practiced
by Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas] need not blush at its fecund alliance with
artifaction [(la technique)]. It
rediscovers, inasmuch as [it] is a form of wisdom [(selon ce qu’est la
sagesse)], the reception of being through the causes, and [it] renews [its
friendship] with the question of Being that lies at its root [(origine)], without
having to pass first through negativity and anguish, but rather through
astonishment and admiration."
Michel Bastit, “Sagesse
et technique,” Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 105, no. 3 (Jul-Sep
2004): 233-234 (217-234), italics mine.
"when our hearts are corrupt we are hardly in any condition to contemplate Order in ourselves. We only take pleasure in considering the imaginary relations things have to us, and we scorn the real relations they have between themselves. Thus we may love Mathematics, but only because we are honored by doing so, or draw profit from it."
