This workshop aims to explore why contemporary philosophical approaches to technology tend to seek close proximity to phenomenology, and what this proximity means and entails. Although the role of technologies in contemporary life is carefully analyzed in various ways, what remains undiscussed is how such careful attention must be qualified as having a phenomenological character. How, for instance, does (post)phenomenological writing about technologies differ from sociological or ethnographic studies? How, if at all, does phenomenology differ from sociological analysis? How do the various considerations from the phenomenological tradition inform contemporary phenomenological analyses of temporality, use, cognition, embodiment, and environmentality? We bring together speakers from the field of philosophy of technology that in one way or another relate to phenomenology in their work to explore these questions.
This workshop is funded by the 4TU center for Ethics and Technology. Attendance is free, registration is mandatory.
Registration: If you want to register for the workshop, please send an email to . Places are limited, online attendance is not possible.
Date: 22 September 2023
Program: (Titles might be subject to small changes)
1000-1030: Welcome and Introduction by Bas de Boer & Jochem Zwier
1030-1215: Session 1: Technology as Phenomenon
1030-1050: Galit Wellner – Artificial Intelligence and the Need to Redefine Human Traits
1050-1110: Martin Ritter – Technological Mediation Without Empirical Borders
1110-1130: Vincent Blok – Networking Phenomenology as Method to Research the Ontic and Ontological Dimensions of New and Disruptive Technologies
1130-1200: Plenary Discussion
1200-1300: Lunch
1300-1445: Session 2: Phenomenology’s Potential Impact on Technical Practice
1300-1320: Annie Kurz – Nothing in Practice: Entanglements of Sartre’s Nothingness and Social Media Practice
1320-1340: Lavinia Marin – Attending the Online Other. A Phenomenology of Attention for Social Media Platforms
1340-1400: Janna van Grunsven, Caroline Bollen, and Bouke van Balen – Three Embodied Dimensions of Communication: Phenomenological Lessons for and from the Field of Augmented and Alternative Communication Technology
1400-1420: Robert Rosenberger – The Activist Potential of Postmodern Phenomenology of Technology (Hybrid)
1420-1445: Plenary Discussion
1445-1515: Break
1515-1645 : Session 3: The Phenomenological Method in the Philosophy of Technology
1515-1535: Darian Meacham – The Institution of Technology
1535-1550: Jan Peter Bergen – Levinas’ Phenomenologies of Technology
1550-1620: Dana S. Belu – Seeing the Phenomenon: On the Radical Disembodiment of Human Reproduction (Hybrid)
1620-1700: Plenary Discussion & Closing
Where: DesignLab, University of Twente, the Netherlands, Hengelosestraat 500, 7521 AN Enschede. Room: Learn-X
Organizers: Jochem Zwier & Bas de Boer