Open Book Publishers

5. Technological Mediation without Empirical Borders

Martin Ritter(author)

Chapter of: Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Technology(pp. 121–142)

Export Metadata

Raw

Metadata
Title	5. Technological Mediation without Empirical Borders
Contributor	Martin Ritter(author)
DOI	https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0421.05
Landing page	https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0421/chapters/10.11647/obp.0421.05
License	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Copyright	Martin Ritter
Publisher	Open Book Publishers
Published on	2024-10-16
Long abstract	This chapter provides a critique of the postphenomenological understanding of “technology” as something referring to empirically observable artefacts in reality. He argues that postphenomenology suffers from three main shortcomings: (1) it fails to engage with the question what constitutes a technology, (2) it mistakenly reduces technological mediations to observable interactions between humans and technologies, and (3) its commitment to the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology and its according focus on case studies provides limited access to postphenomenology’s self-proclaimed object of study: human-technology relations. In providing these critiques, the chapter offers a substantial general critique of the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology, as well as points towards the need to find a language to articulate how the notion of “technological mediation” is not bounded to particular empirical circumstances.
Page range	pp. 121–142
Print length	22 pages
Language	English (Original)

Locations
	Landing Page	Full text URL	Platform
PDF	https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0421/chapters/10.11647/obp.0421.05	Landing page	https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0421.05.pdf	Full text URL
HTML	https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0421/chapters/10.11647/obp.0421.05	Landing page	https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0421/ch5.xhtml	Full text URL	Publisher Website

Contributors

Martin Ritter

(author)

Deputy Director at the Institute of Philosophy at Czech Academy of Sciences

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7426-7005

Martin Ritter is Deputy Director at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Senior Researcher at its Department of Contemporary Continental Philosophy. He is also affiliated with the Center for Environmental and Technology Ethics - Prague. From 2007 to 2020, he taught philosophy at Charles University, Prague. From 2020 to 2022, he was a visiting scholar in the research group Philosophy of Media at the University of Vienna. Besides numerous journal articles especially on phenomenology, critical theory, media philosophy, and philosophy of technology, he has recently published two monographs: To Liberate the Future by an Act of Cognition. Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Truth (Filosofia 2018, in Czech), and Into the World. The Movement of Patočka’s Phenomenology (Springer 2019).

References

Achterhuis, H. (Ed.). (2001). American philosophy of technology: The empirical turn (R. P. Crease, Trans.). Indiana University Press.
Adorno, T. W. (2005). Minima moralia. Reflections on a damaged life (E. F. N. Jephcott, Trans.). Verso.
Arzroomchilar, E. (2022). Some suggestions to improve postphenomenology. Human Studies, 45(1), 65–92, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-021-09615-1
Aydin, C., Woge, M. G., & Verbeek, P.-P. (2019). Technological environmentality: Conceptualizing technology as a mediating milieu. Philosophy & Technology, 32, 321–338, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-018-0309-3
de Boer, B. (2023). Explaining multistability: Postphenomenology and affordances of technologies. AI & Society, 38, 2267–2777, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01272-3
de Boer, B., & Verbeek, P.-P. (2022). Living in the flesh: Technologically mediated chiasmic relationships (in times of a pandemic). Human Studies, 45, 189–208, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-022-09625-7
Bosschaert, M. T., & Blok, V. (2023). The ‘empirical’ in the empirical turn: A critical analysis. Foundations of Science, 28, 783–804, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-022-09840-6
Coeckelbergh, M. (2021). Earth, technology, language: A contribution to holistic and transcendental revisions after the artifactual turn. Foundations of Science, 27, 259–270, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-020-09730-9
Heidegger, M. (2001). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Blackwell.
Ihde, D. (1990). Technology and the lifeworld: From garden to earth. Indiana University Press.
Ihde, D. (1993). Postphenomenology: Essays in the postmodern context. Northwestern University Press.
Ihde, D. (2009). Postphenomenology and technoscience: The Peking University lectures. State University of New York Press.
Ihde, D. (2011). Husserl’s Galileo needed a telescope! Philosophy & Technology, 24, 69–82, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-010-0004-5
Ihde, D. (2016). Husserl’s missing technologies. Fordham University Press.
Kiran, A. H. (2012). Technological presence: Actuality and potentiality in subject constitution. Human Studies, 35(3), 77–93, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-011-9208-7
Lemmens, P. (2017). Love and realism. Foundations of Science, 22, 305–310, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-015-9471-6
Lemmens, P. (2022). Technologizing the transcendental, not discarding it. Foundations of Science, 27, 1307–1315, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-020-09742-5
Lemmens, P., & Van Den Eede, Y. (2022). Rethinking technology in the Anthropocene: Guest editors’ introduction. Foundations of Science, 27, 95–105, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-020-09772-z
Misa, T. J. (2009). Findings follow framings: Navigating the empirical turn. Synthese, 168, 357–375, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-008-9447-y
Mykhailov, D., & Liberati, N. (2023). Back to the technologies themselves: phenomenological turn within postphenomenology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-023-09905-2
Ritter, M. (2021a). Postphenomenological method and technological things themselves. Human Studies, 44, 581–593, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-021-09603-5
Ritter, M. (2021b). Philosophical potencies of postphenomenology. Philosophy & Technology, 34, 1501–1516, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-021-00469-0
Romele, A. (2021). Technological capital: Bourdieu, postphenomenology, and the philosophy of technology beyond the empirical turn. Philosophy & Technology, 34, 483–505, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-020-00398-4
Romele, A. (2022). The transcendental of technology is said in many ways. Foundations of Science, 27, 975–980, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-020-09758-x
Rosenberger, R., & Verbeek, P.-P. (Eds). (2015). Postphenomenological investigations: Essays on human-technology relations. Lexington Books.
Scharff, R. C. (2022). On making phenomenologies of technology more phenomenological. Philosophy & Technology, 35, 62, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-022-00544-0
Van Den Eede, Y. (2022). Thing-transcendentality: Navigating the interval of ‘technology’ and ‘Technology’. Foundations of Science, 27, 225–243, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-020-09749-y
Verbeek, P.-P. (2005). What things do: Philosophical reflections on technology, agency, and design (R. P. Crease, Trans.). Pennsylvania University Press.
Verbeek, P.-P. (2006). Materializing morality. Design ethics and technological mediation. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 31(3), 361–380, https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243905285847
Verbeek, P.-P. (2008). Cyborg intentionality: Rethinking the phenomenology of human-technology relations. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 7(3), 387–395, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-008-9099-x
Verbeek, P.-P. (2010). Accompanying technology. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 14(1), 49–54, https://doi.org/10.5840/techne20101417
Verbeek, P.-P. (2011). Moralizing technology: Understanding and designing the morality of things. University of Chicago Press.
Verbeek, P.-P. (2016). Toward a theory of technological mediation: A program for postphenomenological research. In J. K. B. Friis & R. P. Crease (Eds), Technoscience and postphenomenology: The Manhattan papers (pp. 189–204). Lexington Books.
Verbeek, P.-P. (2017). The struggle for technology: Towards a realistic political theory of technology. Foundations of Science, 22, 301–304, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-015-9470-7

Export Metadata

This chapter provides a critique of the postphenomenological understanding of “technology” as something referring to empirically observable artefacts in reality. He argues that postphenomenology suffers from three main shortcomings: (1) it fails to engage with the question what constitutes a technology, (2) it mistakenly reduces technological mediations to observable interactions between humans and technologies, and (3) its commitment to the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology and its according focus on case studies provides limited access to postphenomenology’s self-proclaimed object of study: human-technology relations. In providing these critiques, the chapter offers a substantial general critique of the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology, as well as points towards the need to find a language to articulate how the notion of “technological mediation” is not bounded to particular empirical circumstances.