Postphenomenology & Philosophy of Technology
Postphenomenology and Imaging: How to Read Technology
EDITED BY SAMANTHA J. FRIED AND ROBERT ROSENBERGER – CONTRIBUTIONS BY ROBERT P. CREASE; BAS DE BOER; ANETTE FORSS; SAMANTHA J. FRIED; JAN KYRRE BERG FRIIS; CATHRINE HASSE; DON IHDE; STACEY O. IRWIN; LISA MESSERI; DAVID RIBES; ROBERT ROSENBERGER; WILL SUTHERLAND; JANET VERTESI AND KATIE WARFIELD
How should we understand the experience of encountering and interpreting images? What are their roles in science and medicine? How do they shape everyday life? Postphenomenology and Imaging: How to Read Technology brings together scholars from multiple disciplines to investigate these questions. The contributors make use of the “postphenomenological” philosophical perspective, applying its distinctive ideas to the study of how images are experienced. These essays offer both philosophical analysis of our conception of images and empirical studies of imaging practice. Edited by Samantha J. Fried and Robert Rosenberger, this collection includes an extensive “primer” chapter introducing and expanding the postphenomenological account of imaging, as well as a set of short pieces by “critical respondents”: prominent scholars who may not self-identify as doing postphenomenology but whose adjacent work is illuminating.
Postphenomenology and Architecture: Human Technology Relations in the Built Environment
EDITED BY LARS BOTIN AND INGER BERLING HYAMS – CONTRIBUTIONS BY CHARLEY APPLETON; INGER BERLING HYAMS; DITTE BENDIX LANNG; SØREN RISDAL BORG; LARS BOTIN; ADRIAN CARTER; DON IHDE; NATALIA JUCHNIEWICZ; ANDERS MICHELSEN; SØREN RIIS AND ROBERT ROSENBERGER
Architecture and urban design are typically considered as a result of artistic creativity performed by gifted individuals. Postphenomenology and Architecture: Human Technology Relations in the Built Environment analyzes buildings and cities instead as technologies. Informed by a postphenomenological perspective, this book argues that buildings and the furniture of cities—like bike lanes, benches, and bus stops—are inscribed in a conceptual framework of multistability, which is to say that they fulfill different purposes over time. Yet, there are qualities in the built environment that are long lasting and immutable and that transcend temporal functionality and ephemeral efficiency. The contributors show how different perceptions, practices, and interpretations are tangible and visible as we engage with these technologies. In addition, several of the chapters critically assess the influence of Martin Heidegger in modern philosophy of architecture. This book reads Heidegger from the perspective of architecture and urban design as technology, shedding light on what it means to build and dwell.
How Scientific Instruments Speak: Postphenomenology and Technological Mediations in Neuroscientific Practice
BAS DE BOER
Science is highly dependent on technologies to observe scientific objects. For example, astronomers need telescopes to observe planetary movements, and cognitive neuroscience depends on brain imaging technologies to investigate human cognition. But how do such technologies shape scientific practice, and how do new scientific objects come into being when new technologies are used in science?
In How Scientific Instruments Speak, Bas de Boer develops a philosophical account of how technologies shape the reality that scientists study, arguing that we should understand scientific instruments as mediating technologies. Rather than mute tools serving pre-existing human goals, scientific instruments play an active role in shaping scientific work. De Boer uses this account to discuss how brain imaging and stimulation technologies mediate the way in which cognitive neuroscientists investigate human cognitive functions. The development of cognitive neuroscience runs parallel with the development of advanced brain imaging technologies, drawing a lot of public attention—sometimes called “neurohype”—because of its alleged capacity to demystify the human mind. By analyzing how the objects that cognitive neuroscientists study are mediated by brain imaging technologies, de Boer explicates the processes by which human cognition is investigated.
Postphenomenological Methodologies: New Ways in Mediating Techno-Human Relationships
EDITED BY JESPER AAGAARD; JAN KYRRE BERG FRIIS; JESSICA SORENSON; OLIVER TAFDRUP AND CATHRINE HASSE – FOREWORD BY DON IHDE – CONTRIBUTIONS BY JESPER AAGAARD; CATHERINE ADAMS; CIANO AYDIN; LASSE BLOND; JAN KYRRE BERG FRIIS; MICHAEL FUNK; CATHRINE HASSE; MOA PETERSÉN; MICHEL PUECH; TOBIAS RÖHL; ROBERT ROSENBERGER; KASPER SCHIØLIN; FERNANDO SECOMANDI; JESSICA SORENSON; OLIVER TAFDRUP; ARUN KUMAR TRIPATHI AND JONI TURVILLE
This edited volume is the first publication to tackle the issue of researching human-technology relations from a methodological postphenomenological perspective. While the ‘traditional’ phenomenology of the 20th century, with figures like Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, provided valuable insights into the formal structures of essence, being and embodiment, etc. their mode of philosophizing mostly involved abstract ‘pure’ thinking. Although rooted in this tradition, the postphenomenological approach to the study of human-technology relations emphasizes the “empirical turn” and interdisciplinary work in the field of philosophy – and reaches out to other disciplines like anthropology, education, media studies, and science and technology studies (STS).
The contributors discuss what it means for the field of postphenomenology to be empirically based and what kind of methodology is required in order for researchers to go out and study human-technology relations in this perspective. In many disciplines, methodology refers to the analytical approach taken – e.g. the analytical concepts you employ to make an analysis; in postphenomenology, these might include concepts such as multistability, variation, or mediation. In a discipline like anthropology, it also refers to reflections over the methods researchers use to approach an empirical field. Methods can…
Postphenomenology and Media: Essays on Human–Media–World Relations
EDITED BY YONI VAN DEN EEDE; STACEY O’NEAL IRWIN AND GALIT WELLNER – FOREWORD BY DON IHDE – CONTRIBUTIONS BY LARS BOTIN; PIETER LEMMENS; NICOLA LIBERATI; SHOJI NAGATAKI; ROBERT ROSENBERGER; FERNANDO SECOMANDI; ROBERT N. SPICER; DANIEL SUSSER; HEATHER WILTSE; STACEY O’NEAL IRWIN; GALIT WELLNER AND YONI VAN DEN EEDE
Postphenomenology and Media: Essays on Human–Media–World Relations sheds light on how new, digital media are shaping humans and their world. It does so by using the postphenomenological framework to comprehensively study “human-media relations,” making use of conceptual instruments such as the transparency-opacity distinction, embodiment, multistability, variational analysis, and cultural hermeneutics. This collection outlines central issues of media and mediation theory that can be explored postphenomenologically and showcases research at the cutting edge of philosophy of media and technology. The contributors together enlarge the range of thinking about human-media-world relations in contemporary society, reflecting the interdisciplinary range of this school of thought, and explore, sometimes self-reflexively and sometimes critically, the provocative landscape of postphenomenology and media.
Digital Media: Human–Technology Connection
STACEY O’NEAL IRWIN – FOREWORD BY DON IHDEDigital Media: Human-Technology Connection examines what it is like to be alive in today’s technologically textured world and showcases specific digital media technologies that make this kind of world possible. So much of human experience occurs through digital media that reflection on the process and proliferation of digital consumption has become necessary. This book takes on that task through an interdisciplinary array of sources including philosophy, media studies, film studies, media ecology, and philosophy of technology. When placed in the interpretive lenses of artifact, instrument, and tool, digital media can be studied in a uniquely different way that pushes the boundaries on production, distribution, and communication and alters the way humans and technology connect with each other and the world In the first section, Raw Materials, Stacey O’Neal Irwin examines pertinent concepts like digital media, philosophy of technology, phenomenology and postphenomenology . In the second, Feeling the Weave, Irwin uses the postphenomenological framework, to explore empirical cases focused on deep analysis of screens, sound, photo manipulation, data-mining, aggregate news and self-tracking. Postphenomenological concepts like multistability, variational theory, microperception, macroperception, embodiment, technological mediation are explored https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498550147/Postphenomenology-and-Media-Essays-on-Human%E2%80%93Media%E2%80%93World-Relations#
Postphenomenological Investigations: Essays on Human–Technology Relations
EDITED BY ROSENBERGER AND PETER-PAUL VERBEEK – CONTRIBUTIONS BY DON IHDE; LENORE LANGSDORF; KIRK M. BESMER; AUD SISSEL HOEL; ANNAMARIA CARUSI; MARIE-CHRISTINE NIZZI; FERNANDO SECOMANDI; ASLE KIRAN; YONI VAN DEN EEDE; SØREN RIIS; FRANCES BOTTENBERG; CHRIS KAPOSY; ADAM ROSENFELD; JAN KYRRE BERG FRIIS; ANDREW FEENBERG; DIANE MICHELFELDER AND ALBERT BORGMANN
Postphenomenological Investigations: Essays on Human–Technology Relations provides an introduction to the school of thought called postphenomenology and showcases projects at the cutting edge of this perspective. Postphenomenology presents a unique blend of insights from the philosophical traditions of phenomenology and American pragmatism, and applies them to studies of user relations to technologies. These studies provide deep descriptions of the ways technologies transform our abilities, augment our experience, and shape the world around us. This book proceeds with a preface by Don Ihde, postphenomenology’s founder, and a detailed review of the main ideas of this perspective by the editors Robert Rosenberger and Peter-Paul Verbeek. The body of this volume is composed of twelve postphenomenological essays which reflect the expansive range, detail-orientation, and interdisciplinarity of this school of thought. These essays confront a broad assortment of topics, both abstract and concrete. Abstract topics addressed include metaphysics, ethics, methodology, and analysis of the notions of selfhood, skill training, speed, and political activism. Just a few of the concrete topics studied include human-like interactive robots, ethics education, image interpretation in radiology, science fiction tropes, transportation history, wearable computing, and organ donation protocols for brain-dead bodies. The volume concludes with constructive critiques of postphenomenology by Andrew Feenberg, Diane Michelfelder, and Albert Borgmann, all figures whose work is relevant to postphenomenological projects.
Acoustic Technics
DON IHDE
Acoustic Technics opens with the 19th century discovery of radiation which exceeds our human bodily perceptual experience, light beyond light, sound beyond sound and on into what today we call the electromagnetic spectrum. Claiming a second scientific revolution through imaging technologies and drawing from both instrumental sensory mediation and animal studies, Acoustic Technics follows listening in its new forms into music, echo-location, infra and ultra-sounds, medical diagnosis, surveillance, and subsurface and interplanetary domains. Synthesized sounds, sonification, in both esoteric and popular technologies such as earbuds, cellphones, television are analyzed from a postphenomenological perspective.
A Postphenomenological Inquiry of Cell Phones: Genealogies, Meanings, and Becoming
GALIT WELLNER
Why does the announcement of a new cellphone model ignite excitement and passion? Why do most people return home when they forget their cellphones, while only few would return for their wallets? How did the cellphone technology become so dominant for many of us? This book offers an analysis of the historical evolution and of the meanings of this technology in the lives of billions of people. The book offers a unique point of view on the cellphone that merges genealogical analysis of its development since the 1990s and philosophical insights into a coherent analytical framework. With new concepts like “histories of the future” and “memory prosthesis,” the book aims to explain the excitement arising from new model announcements and the ever-growing dependency on the cellphone through the framing of these experiences in wide philosophical contexts. It is the first philosophical analysis of the important roles the cellphone plays in contemporary everydayness.
Technoscience and Postphenomenology: The Manhattan Papers
EDITED BY JAN KYRRE BERG FRIIS AND ROBERT P. CREASE – CONTRIBUTIONS BY LARS BOTIN; ANETTE FORSS; MICHAEL FUNK; CATHRINE HASSE; STACY O. IRWIN; ROISIN LALLY; SRIKANTH MALLAVARAPU; EDUARDO MENDIETA; JUNICHI MURATA; SHOJI NAGATAKI; KYLE POWYS WHYTE; ROBERT ROSENBERGER; ROBERT C. SCHARFF; EVAN SELINGER; SHANNON VALLOR; PETER-PAUL VERBEEK AND GALIT WELLNER
Friis and Crease capture Postphenomenology, a new field that has attracted attention among scholars engaged in technology studies. Contributors to this edited collection seek to analyze, clarify, and develop postphenomenological language and concepts, expand the work of Don Ihde, the field’s founder, and scout into fields that Ihde never tackled.
Many of the contributors to this collection had especially close ties to Ihde and have benefited from close work with him. This combined with the distinctive diversity of the contributors—18 people from 10 different countries—enables this volume to put on display the diversity of content and styles in this young movement.
Postphenomenology 