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Postphenomenology - IV: Refining the Conceptual Framework

Sat, September 7, 9:45 to 11:15am, Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, Floor: Four, Bayside A

Abstract

Postphenomenology is a school of thought bringing together insights into human experience of technology from American pragmatism, STS, and the classical phenomenological tradition. It builds on Don Ihde’s career, and carries through work of others, including Peter-Paul Verbeek, to offer distinct tools for investigating the ways technological mediation shapes human life. Postphenomenological theory takes shape as a framework of concepts useful for articulating the details of human relationships with technologies within the case studies of STS. In this panel, we explore the edges of this conceptual framework, and develop these ideas in technical ways.
A paper by Don Ihde, the founder of the postphenomenological perspective, develops the notion of “material hermeneutics,” the interpretation of meaning within objects, and explores ancient examples, such as fossilized diatoms and cuneiform writing. Using insights from Merleau-Pontian philosophy, Kirk M. Besmer interrogates the notion of “affordances,” an idea used throughout STS and postphenomenological literature, but one not often addressed in a technical manner. Daniel Susser considers the notion of “transparency,” one central to postphenomenology and used in STS, but also of course operant in ethics, policy, and law. Stacy O. Irwin steps back and analyzes the notion of “technology” itself, both in reference to tools and forms of knowledge. And Stanley Kranc complicates our understanding of “scientific instrumentation,” and the multiple kinds of simultaneous forms of perception that must be addressed in approaching this kind of mediation.

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