“But, That’s Not Phenomenology!”

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Rosenberger ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Vulnerable Group ◽  
Critical Constructivism ◽  
Systematic Biases

A discussion is emerging within the contemporary philosophy of technology over issues of discrimination through design. My suggestion is that a productive way to approach this topic is through a combination of insights from the postphenomenological and critical constructivist perspectives. In particular, I recommend that we build on the postphenomenological notion of “multistability” (i.e., the idea that technologies are always subject to different uses and meanings) and conceive of instances of discrimination through design as a kind of discriminatory “stability,” one possible instantiation of a device that could be usefully contrasted with others. Through the adoption of ideas from critical constructivism and postphenomenology, it is possible to draw out some of the features of discriminatory stabilities, including how systems of bias can go unnoticed, especially by those not targeted by them. These ideas could be of use in the identification of ways that unjust systematic biases become set within dominant culture, designed into technologies, sedimented within individual bodily-perceptual habits, and even constructed into prevailing senses of reason. As a practical contribution to this ongoing discussion, I identify a distinction that can be made between two broad categories of discrimination via technology: 1. that occurring along what could be called “an axis of difference,” and 2. “an axis of usage.” In the former, discriminatory efforts occur as different users are advantaged and disadvantaged by a device, even as they use it for similar purposes. In the latter, discriminatory effects occur as the particular usage of a technology preferred by a vulnerable group is shut down through design choices. Although the various emerging discussions on technology and discrimination each tend to gravitate toward analysis along one of these axes, it will of course be important to keep our eyes on the variety of ways that biases are faced by the vulnerable.

Derrida’s Quasi-Technique

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-389
Author(s):  
Susanna Lindberg
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
The Other ◽  
List Type ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
As If

The article’s aim is to measure the potential of Derrida’s work for a philosophy of technique. It shows why Derrida does not present a positive philosophy of technology but rather describes technique as a quasi-technique, as if a technique. The article inquires into the potential of such a quasi-technique for a contemporary philosophy of technology: it is suggested that it can function as a salutary “deconstruction” of mainstream philosophy of technology (that “knows” the “essence of technology”) because it shows how to think technique in the absence of essence and as the absence of essence. The article begins with a survey of the machines that figure in Derrida’s texts. It then examines three propositions concerning technology in Derrida’s work: Derrida thinks technology as a metaphor of writing and not the other way round. Derrida thinks technique as prosthesis, firstly of memory, then more generally of life. Derrida’s quasi-technique relies on his peculiar conception of the incorporal materiality of technique.

scholarly journals Philosophy of technology: performance review and expected development

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 01019
Author(s):  
Elena Papchenko ◽  
Ruslan Bazhenov ◽  
Emma Bestaeva ◽  
Sergey Bogatenkov
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Performance Review ◽  
Approaches To Study ◽  
Classical Philosophy ◽  
Development Outcomes

The paper is related to viewing the genesis and prospects for the development of one of the most important branches of philosophy - the philosophy of technology. The authors begin their survey with the time when a grounding of the philosophy of technology was given, i.e. when technology became comprehensible in terms of a philosophical and philosophical point of view until such extended studies concerned to the technology that developed into one of the most dominating factors in social development. It is reported that exact antipodes of opinion were made up in the classical philosophy of technology. Criticism of technology lasted long till its sacral significance and understanding technological reality requirements. Finally, it culminated in creating various approaches to study technology: engineering, humanitarian, social and philosophical. However, a pragmatic approach to the technology observation and development outcomes developed gradually. The paper comes to the point that contemporary philosophy of technology is harmonious and holistic in nature.

scholarly journals The Internet as Idea

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-410
Author(s):  
Dominic Smith ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Regulative Idea ◽  
Philosophical Consideration

This article has two related aims: to examine how the Internet might be rendered an object of coherent philosophical consideration and critique, and to contribute to divesting the term “transcendental” of the negative connotations it carries in contemporary philosophy of technology. To realise them, it refers to Kant’s transcendental approach. The key argument is that Kant’s “transcendental idealism” is one example of a more general and potentially thoroughgoing “transcendental” approach focused on conditions that much contemporary philosophy of technology misunderstands or ignores, to the detriment of the field. Diverse contemporary approaches are engaged to make this claim, including those of Verbeek, Brey, Stiegler, Clark and Chalmers, Feenberg, and Fuchs. The article considers how these approaches stand in relation to tendencies towards determinism, subjectivism, and excessive forms of optimism and pessimism in contemporary considerations of the Internet. In terms of Kant’s transcendental idealism, specifically, it concludes by arguing that contemporary philosophy of technology does not go far enough in considering the Internet as a “regulative idea”; in terms of transcendental approaches more generally, it concludes by arguing that openness to the transcendental has the potential to call into question presuppositions regarding what constitutes an “empirical” object of enquiry in philosophy of technology, thereby, opening the field up to important new areas of research.

Discovering Subjectivity in the Technosystem

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bas de Boer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Critical Constructivism ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
The Way

Two of the main approaches of what is often referred to as the ‘empirical philosophy of technology’ are postphenomenology and critical constructivism. Critical constructivists charge postphenomenologists for paying too little attention to the fact that our society is co-constituted not only by technologies, but also by forms of rationality exercised on a political level. Postphenomenologists, then, charge critical constructivism for insufficiently recognizing that the way technologies are appropriated in the lifeworld often evades forms of institutionalized rationality. The goal of this paper is to show how these different approaches should not be juxtaposed, but can better be seen as complementary in the development of a political philosophy of technology. This will be made clear through a discussion of the role of STS in the work of Peter-Paul Verbeek, and in the work of Andrew Feenberg. I suggest that developing an ‘empirically informed’ political philosophy of technology requires to both recognize how technologies constitute particular forms of subjectivity and to understand the rational processes through which particular technologies are designed. When combining both of these insights, it becomes possible to articulate a normative position with regard to technological developments.

The Modern Aristotle: Michael Polanyi’s Search for Truth against Nihilism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Hoinski ◽  
Ronald Polansky
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Michael Polanyi ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
The Face ◽  
Human Desire ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Theoretical Science

David Hoinski and Ronald Polansky’s “The Modern Aristotle: Michael Polanyi’s Search for Truth against Nihilism” shows how the general tendencies of contemporary philosophy of science disclose a return to the Aristotelian emphasis on both the formation of dispositions to know and the role of the mind in theoretical science. Focusing on a comparison of Michael Polanyi and Aristotle, Hoinski and Polansky investigate to what degree Aristotelian thought retains its purchase on reality in the face of the changes wrought by modern science. Polanyi’s approach relies on several Aristotelian assumptions, including the naturalness of the human desire to know, the institutional and personal basis for the accumulation of knowledge, and the endorsement of realism against objectivism. Hoinski and Polansky emphasize the promise of Polanyi’s neo-Aristotelian framework, which argues that science is won through reflection on reality.

What is a Process of Individuation?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Didier Debaise
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Historical Aspects ◽  
The Real ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
The Status

This chapter poses the question of “reality”. In opposition to a substantialist vision that has notably characterized modernity, Whitehead develops a processual conception of the real which is made of becomings and individuations. This vision of the real is envisaged starting from three distinct questions: First of all, how to exactly define a process of individuation? This question is treated in its historical aspects (Aristotle and Leibniz) and with respect to contemporary philosophy (Simondon and Deleuze). Secondly, where do the forms, the puissances, the virtualities derive from which accompany any individuation? Starting from this question it is most notably the relation with Platonism and its heritage that is elaborated. And third, which vision of time is implied in a theory of individuation? Even though close to Bergson, Whitehead’s philosophy profoundly differs from it with respect to the status of time and builds up new links with contemporary science.

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