Nature, Man and Technique: Rewatching 2001: A Space Odyssey with Heidegger

Man transcends the nature through a consciousness of his own, and brings a civilization into being. Man, who is a metaphysical creature in the meaning of sensing a reality beyond the perceptible world, hegemonizes the nature by creating technique with that sense. Although adventure of subjugation to nature began with the emergence of consciousness, it has accelerated fully by the advent of modern age. However, at this point, his own output, technology of man, also contains the danger of escaping from supervision and imprisoning mankind in a form of existence that it imposes. These thoughts, which can be traced in the philosophy of the German thinker Heidegger, can also be clearly seen in American director Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this sense, our work subjects the Kubrick's film to a philosophical analysis in the line with Heidegger's thought on the technique. Throughout the study, it was aimed to expose the relationship between nature, man and technique by addressing the narrative and philosophical thoughts together.