A Heideggerian and Marcelian View of Technology: The Philosophical Challenge of Cybercrime

Abstract

The notion of technology as well as our relationships to technological tools are philosophically described by Martin Heidegger and Gabriel Marcel. Understanding the phenomenon of cyber-crime from a philosophical viewpoint is not possible without unveiling the way human being is more and more connected to his/her technological tools. Cyber-crime is contributing to put the Infinite within the finite self. In doing so, cyber-crime is distorting the meaning of existential finitude as well as the meaning of the Infinite. This is the ultimate effect of the idolatry of technology. Human being is thus facing a deep anthropological change, since the parameters of what-it-means-to-be as well as dwelling in the existence have been radically modified. When the finite-Infinite dualism has disappeared (so that the Infinite is now an aspect of human being), we no longer have any reliable parameter for analyzing the meaning of human existence. The presence of the Infinite within the finite being is not rationally justified by every discourse or practice drawn from the cyber-space (including cyber-crime). Human being has lost the basic connexion with his/her existential questioning.