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The emerging school of thought called “postphenomenology” offers a distinct understanding of the ways that people experience technology usage. This perspective combines insights from the philosophical tradition of phenomenology with commitments to the anti-essentialism and nonfoundationalism of American pragmatism. One of postphenomenology’s centra...
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... Ihde, who introduced post-phenomenology, identifies four different ways in which technologies can mediate our experience of the world: embodiment (integration of technology in our body schema), hermeneutic (interpretation of the technological world), alterity (interaction with technology within the world), and background (subtle integration of technology in everyday life) [40]. An important concept is multistability, the versatile nature of technology and its varying manifestations depending of context and intention [42,77]. In contrast to critical voices, post-phenomenology does not see technology as alienating humans from the world, but rather as defining for the human-world relation [27]: "Human-world relations are practically enacted via technologies" [78]. ...
The incorporation of new technology into existing human activities can be challenging. Numerous models have been proposed in human-computer interaction (HCI) to guide research and analyze effects. However, bridging the gap between experimental data and real-world applications often proves to be difficult. In the last decades, post-cognitivistic approaches have been developed to explain human cognition and the relation between humans and their environment. In this paper, we present a novel framework to systematically describe and analyze challenges in the context of HCI from multiple perspectives. It extends Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and is enriched by contemporary philosophical perspectives (enactivism, pattern theory of self and post-phenomenology). The proposed framework is further illustrated by applying it to an immersive telementoring prototype system.
... The difficulties in defining fake news highlight the need for a relational ontology that conceptualizes the relations between fake news, its creators, the end-users, algorithms, and their developers. The contribution of philosophy of technology lies in analyzing the roles of social networking and search engine algorithms as actors participating in these complex relations (Rosenberger, 2017;Verbeek, 2011). ...
... 8 A similar view can be found in other contemporary theories such as postphenomenology, which stresses the role that technology play in establishing new relations between the subject and the world s/ he lives in. (seeIhde, 1979Ihde, , 1990Liberati, 2016;Wellner, 2017Wellner, , 2018Rosenberger, 2017;Mykhailov, 2020).Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved. ...
This article suggests several design principles intended to assist in the development of ethical algorithms exemplified by the task of fighting fake news. Although numerous algorithmic solutions have been proposed, fake news still remains a wicked socio-technical problem that begs not only engineering but also ethical considerations. We suggest employing insights from ethics of care while maintaining its speculative stance to ask how algorithms and design processes would be different if they generated care and fight fake news. After reviewing the major characteristics of ethics of care and the phases of care, we offer four algorithmic design principles. The first principle highlights the need to develop a strategy to deal with fake news on the part of the software designers. The second principle calls for the involvement of various stakeholders in the design processes in order to increase the chances of successfully fighting fake news. The third principle suggests allowing end-users to report on fake news. Finally, the last principle proposes keeping the end-user updated on the treatment in the suspected news items. Implementing these principles as care practices can render the developmental process more ethically oriented as well as improve the ability to fight fake news.
... Yet, it adds to it a crucial twist: "when employing variational analysis …, what is revealed is multistability rather than stable essences" (Aagaard et al. 2018: xiii). Indeed, as a nonfoundational and anti-essentialist form of philosophy, postphenomenology does not look for invariant essences but rather for different possibilities of using technological artefacts (see Rosenberger 2017). More concretely, postphenomenology focuses on technology in its ability to shape intentionality and intentional action: "Technologies not only transform perceptions, … they also invite (Verbeek 2005) and facilitate (Rosenberger 2014) certain actions, while inhibiting and foreclosing others. ...
We live in a world where it is impossible to exist without, and beyond, technologies. Despite this omnipresence, we tend to overlook their influence on us. The vigorously developing approach of postphenomenology, combining insights from phenomenology and pragmatism, focuses on the so-called technological mediation, i.e., on how technologies as mediators of human-world relations influence the appearing of both the world and the human beings in it. My analysis aims at demonstrating both the methodological weaknesses and open possibilities of postphenomenology. After summarizing its essentials, I will scrutinize, first, its ability to turn to the technological things themselves and, second, the so-called empirical turn as realized by postphenomenology. By assessing its conceptual framework from the phenomenological perspective, I hope to demonstrate that postphenomenology needs philosophical clarification and strengthening. In short, it needs a more phenomenological, and less pragmatic, approach to technology in its influence on human experience.
... In specific, the framework enables explorations of the invitational quality of the digital (Adams & Thompson, 2016) and decentring the object of inquiry (Pink et al., 2017), allowing researchers to give an account of the mode of being constructed through digital technologies and the way agency is constrained. Taking the domains into account, it becomes clear how digital technologies can mediate our being in the world and direct our attention in a certain way, affecting how we come to know the content (Rosenberger, 2017a(Rosenberger, , 2017b. Thus, technology use fundamentally involves substantive interventions for the context into which it is embedded. ...
Developing student agency is a critical aspect of higher education and, in particular, digital education. In this sense, the capacity to understand what constitutes agency in digital contexts of education and evaluate students’ digital agency is now crucial. In contrast to traditional approaches to student agency in digital contexts that subsume technologies to educational intentions, media research has illustrated a more complex interplay between humans and technology. Drawing on this insight, the paper argues for a more critical disposition to digital student agency, wherein relational, cultural, and technological dynamics are central to agency. Specifically, the article proposes a framework for digital student agency that distinguishes five critical domains to student agency in digital contexts: (1) agentic possibility, (2) digital self-representation, (3) data uses, (4) digital sociality, and (5) digital temporality. The article concludes by outlining the implications of the framework for educational practice and academic research around student agency and student learning. Specifically, adopting the framework implies changes in how we investigate student agency in digital contexts and enables critical investigations of student-centred teaching practices.
... Postphenomenology analyzes technology use with reference to embodied human practice. Theoretically, it adheres to the two concepts of mediation and multistability, which emphasize the 'doing' and 'being' of technology, respectively: Mediation points to technological agency, while multistability signifies that even the simplest technology has no singular essence, but supports a number of different uses (Rosenberger 2017a). In fact, modern media technologies like smartphones are even designed to incorporate multistability and contain numerous additional functions like calendars, calculators, and cameras. ...
... Sometimes such restricted lid openings are combined with outer casings around the can that are fit with built-in locking mechanisms (e.g., Fig. 3). I suggest that these modifications that have an It is beyond the scope of this paper to go into much more detail here, but anti-homeless design is an issue that should be on the radar of critics in the philosophy of technology (see Rosenberger 2017a). There are many other examples, from fences that close off underpasses, to automatic sprinklers that wet down sleeping areas at night, to noise machines that deter people from spending time in parks after hours. ...
... For references to the cases referred to in this paragraph, see: https ://rosen berge r.spp.gatec h.edu/publi catio ns/. 2 Elsewhere I have articulated this point in terms of a distinction between a "positive" and "negative" usage of multistability (e.g., Rosenberger 2010Rosenberger , 2017b. The idea is that the notion of multistability is used "negatively" when wielded as part of an effort to show that some other theory does not recognize the fundamental pragmatic relationality of technology, and thus that that other theory is somehow essentializing, or foundational, or over-generalizing. ...
... E.g.,Rosenberger 2014Rosenberger , 2017aRosenberger , c, 2020a ...
How should we understand postphenomenological methodology? Postphenomenology is a research perspective which builds on phenomenological and pragmatist philosophy to explore human–technology relations, but one with open methodological questions. Here, I offer some thoughts on the epistemological processes that should be (and often implicitly may be) at work in this research. In particular, I am concerned with postphenomenological research on technological “multistability,” i.e., a device’s ever-present capacity to be used for a variety of purposes, and to always be meaningful in multiple ways. I develop a methodology called “variational cross-examination,” which entails the critical contrast of a device’s various stabilities. As a set of instructive examples, I draw on my own line of research on the politics of public spaces, and especially the critique of anti-homeless design.
... Postphenomenology analyzes the relations between humans, technologies and the world (Ihde, 1990); (Verbeek, 2005)). The theory is named post-phenomenology because it is based on phenomenology, i.e. -the study of our experience in and of the world (it also relies on pragmatism -see (Ihde, 2009);(Rosenberger, 2017); (Langsdorf, 2020)). The "post" prefix means that the theory aims at extending phenomenology, not at reversing it. ...
AI algorithms might be gender biased as evidenced from translation programs, credit calculators and autocomplete features, to name a few. This article maps gender biases in technologies according to the postphenomenological formula of I-technology-world. This is the basis for mapping the gender biases in AI algorithms, and for proposing updates to the postphenomenological formula. The updates include refereces to I-algorithm -dataset, and the reversal of the intetionality arrow to reflect the lower position of the human user. The last section reviews three ethical analyses for AI algorithms-dis-tributive justice, ethics of care and mediation theory's ethics.
... Thus, the use of a pencil is determined in contextual and relational ways between the user, the environment, and the technological object itself. Much of the current scholarship on the relationality of technological affordances comes out of a "postphenomenological" school of thought (Ihde et al., 2015;Rosenberger, 2017;Verbeek, 2005). Drawing from Ihde (1995), postphenomenology is influenced by phenomenological thought (e.g., Heidegger, 1962Heidegger, , 1977Merleau-Ponty, 1962), but rejects the romanticizing distance these theories place between humans and technology, arguing, "technologies do not afford action possibilities to preexisting subjects with fixed goals, but subtly invite and facilitate certain comportments while inhibiting and foreclosing others" (Aagaard, 2018, pp. ...
The Internet has always been understood through spatial terminology—cyberspace, web addresses, sites, domains—but this article argues for moving beyond the metaphors to recognize the Internet as an embodied and socially-produced digital space. Building from a Lefebvrian framework of perceived, conceived, and lived spaces, the article proposes a new model for examining Internet social space, featuring three co-productive spaces: a space of affordance, a space of programming, and a space of virtuality. While our interaction with Internet social space is enabled through affordances, these actions are constrained by the limitations of the Internet's underlying programming. It is possible to subvert this power dynamic through tactical action when we realize that—unlike the spaces of affordance and programming—the space of virtuality is not tethered to any specific program or paradigm, but rather exists across platforms.
... The benefit from this interpretation is clear, that is, if we endorse this axiomatic positioning, then we can endorse both hermeneutics (Charalambous & Kaite, 2013;Smebye, Kirkevold, & Engedal, 2012;Stolper, Molewijk, & Widdershoven, 2015) and foundationalism (Coliva, 2010;Laudo Castillo, 2011;Rosenberger, 2017) as a generality norm or singularity for contextual interpretation of knowledge. That is, interpretative positioning becomes dynamic, whereby, the represented states of external reality from the observer's perspective assume the agents position as not part of the observer's reality frame of reference of subsequent knowledge definition. ...
In this paper, we consider the value of knowledge in an innovation context and deliberate a contrary perspective from existing empiricisms to bring about better innovation efficiency within multi-agent arenas. To do this, we consider why, if innovation is key for developmental trajectories in a healthcare environment, and despite the resource utilised to examine its characteristics, the transfer of knowledge within healthcare, practitioner or organisational innovation domains remains a problematic event. We reflect on this duality with a doxastic attitude and draw on modal maps as underpinning structures to present a critique. Furthermore, we draw from these qualitative descriptions of conditional maps as a natural extension of contemporary KBF (Knowledge Belief Frame) models. Thus, from an innovation context, we can deliberate the parallelism between an agent who establishes belief in real time propositions, and a formal system from which they derive the proposition and reality. Uniquely, in doing so we build a legitimate frame of reference by highlighting managerial parallelisms, which synthesise key epistemic doyennes and, efficaciously underpin the plausibility of logical associations and decision-making drawn from a first-person architype of belief.
... The benefit from this interpretation is clear, that is, if we endorse this axiomatic positioning, then we can endorse both hermeneutics (Charalambous & Kaite, 2013;Smebye, Kirkevold, & Engedal, 2012;Stolper, Molewijk, & Widdershoven, 2015) and foundationalism (Coliva, 2010;Laudo Castillo, 2011;Rosenberger, 2017) as a generality norm or singularity for contextual interpretation of knowledge. That is, interpretative positioning becomes dynamic, whereby, the represented states of external reality from the observer's perspective assume the agents position as not part of the observer's reality frame of reference of subsequent knowledge definition. ...
In thispaper, we consider the value of knowledge in an innovation context and deliberate a contrary perspective from existing empiricisms to bring about better innovation efficiency within multi-agent arenas. To do this, we consider why, if innovationis key for developmental trajectories in a healthcare environment, and despite the resource utilised to examine its characteristics, the transfer of knowledge withinhealthcare, practitioner or organisational innovationdomainsremains a problematic event. We reflect on this duality witha doxastic attitudeand draw on modal maps as underpinning structures to present a critique. Furthermore, we draw from these qualitative descriptions of conditional mapsas a natural extension of contemporary KBF (Knowledge Belief Frame) models. Thus, from an innovation context, we can deliberate the parallelism between an agent who establishes beliefin real time propositions, and a formal system from which they derive the propositionand reality. Uniquely, in doing so we build a legitimate frame of reference by highlighting managerial parallelisms, whichsynthesise keyepistemic doyennesand, efficaciously underpinthe plausibility of logical associations and decision-making drawn from a first-person architype of belief.
(PDF) INNOVATION AS A SINGULAR ENABLER. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331206921_INNOVATION_AS_A_SINGULAR_ENABLER [accessed Feb 22 2019].
