Alle Publikationen
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2017
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(2017): Entangled in Digital Media. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (1), S. 106-113. DOI: 10.5840/techne20172111
Abstract: Review of Digital Media: Human-Technology Connection, by Stacey O’Neal Irwin In the first wave of digital studies, between the 1980s and the early 1990s, the term ‘virtual’ used to have at least three meanings. First, it used to indicate a realm apart, a software-based dimension detached from physically existing reality. Second, the virtual was seen as a place where people could experiment, without the risks and the physical, social, and ethical constraints of real life, new possibilities, actions, and choices. This second acceptation is closer to the etymology of the word. In fact, ‘virtual’ comes from the Latin virtus/virtualis, which translates the Greek term ‘dynamis,’ ‘ability,’ ‘potential,’ ‘potency,’ ‘power.’ In his comment on the first three chapters of the ninth book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Martin Heidegger (1995) rendered ‘dynamis’ with ‘Kraft,’ ‘force,’ and ‘Vermögen', a term that might be translated as ‘ability,’ but also ‘faculty,’ ‘capacity,’ and ‘capability.’ As such, the virtual is not opposed to the real, but rather to the actual – ‘actus’ in Latin, translation of the Greek ‘energheia.’ And this is precisely the third meaning of ‘virtual’ as computer-mediated self- and social-empowerment. In other terms, ‘virtual’ and ‘virtuality’ refer to the effects, positive and negative, of online experimentations on real life.
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(2017): Recovering a "Disfigured" Face. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (1), S. 1-23. DOI: 10.5840/techne2016121659
Abstract: Prosthetic devices that replace an absent body part are generally considered to be either cosmetic or functional. Functional prostheses aim to restore (some degree of) lost physical functioning. Cosmetic prostheses attempt to restore a “normal” appearance to bodies that lack (one or more) limbs by emulating the absent body part’s looks. In this article, we investigate how cosmetic prostheses establish a normal appearance by drawing on the stories of the users of a specific type of artificial limb: the facial prosthesis. Given that prostheses are first and foremost devices worn upon the body, such an analysis requires an understanding of the ways in which bodies and technologies interact. We thus interpret users’ stories by critically engaging with the work of disability researcher and Actor-Network theorist Myriam Winance, as well as with the postphenomenological scholarship of Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek. Using this framework, we explore users’ attempts to achieve a proper fit between their faces and their prostheses, the technological transparency such a fit enables, and the ways in which transparency mediates users’ everyday exchanges with others. We conclude that a normal appearance, when it is achieved by means of prosthetics, enables the device’s user to navigate a precarious social environment as they encounter and interact with others in public.
Keywords: Akzeptanz der äußeren Erscheinung in prekären sozialen Begegnungen in der Öffentlichkeit, Anblick, Human Enhancement Technologies, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), normales Erscheinungsbild, Philosophie, Prothesen, Realtechnik, Selbst, Technik, Technikphilosophie, Technologie, Technologische Konstruktion, Visuelle Wahrnehmung, Zeitschrift: techne -
(2017): “Extimate” Technologies and Techno-Cultural Discontent. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (1), S. 24-54. DOI: 10.5840/techne20174560
Abstract: According to a chorus of authors, the human life-world is currently invaded by an avalanche of high-tech devices referred to as “emerging,” ”intimate,” or ”NBIC” technologies: a new type of contrivances or gadgets designed to optimize cognitive or sensory performance and / or to enable mood management. Rather than manipulating objects in the outside world, they are designed to influence human bodies and brains more directly, and on a molecular scale. In this paper, these devices will be framed as ‘extimate’ technologies (both intimate and external; both embedded and foreign; both life-enhancing and intrusive), a concept borrowed from Jacques Lacan. Although Lacan is not commonly regarded as a philosopher of technology, the dialectical relationship between human desire and technological artefacts runs as an important thread through his work. Moreover, he was remarkably prescient concerning the blending of life science and computer science, which is such a distinctive feature of the current techno-scientific turn. Building on a series of Lacanian concepts, my aim is to develop a psychoanalytical diagnostic of the technological present. Finally, I will indicate how such an analysis may inform our understanding of human life and embodiment as such.
2015
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(2015): The Technological Construction of the Self. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 19 (2), S. 211-232. DOI: 10.5840/techne20159936
Abstract: This paper aims at constructing the ontological and epistemological background for a methodology to be applied in Techno-Anthropological reflection and practice. The background is constructed as a patchwork, where structuralism, constructivism and post-phenomenology are woven together in order to support Techno-Anthropological reflection and practice in relation to the construction of the self through and with technology. The paper will specifically address what has been named the morality of things, primarily by Jacques Ellul, Hans Jonas, Michel Foucault and Peter-Paul Verbeek. It is the intent of this paper to point out a direction for an appropriate and value-based Techno-Anthropology. This direction is represented by a codex that here has been coined as the 7 ‘E’s: engagement, empathy, embodiment, enactment, enhancement, empowerment, and emancipation. The paper will conclude by showing how these are connected within a Techno-Anthropological perspective.
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