Continental Philosophy

Arun Kumar Tripathi wishes to bring this panel to your attention:

PANEL SESSION

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Postphenomenology and the Contemporary Life-World Session at SPEP / SPHS conference, Philadelphia, PA, October 13

Sheraton Society Hill Hotel at 1 Dock St., Philadelphia, Friday 2:00-4:00pm

At the 2006 conference of the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences, which will be organized in conjunction with the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, there will be a session on "Postphenomenology and the Contemporary Life-World." The session will take place Friday October 13, 2 . 4 pm.

Chair:

Paul Richer, Duquesne University

Papers:

"Globalization and Technology: What is to Become of Phenomenology?"

Paul Richer, Duquesne University

"What is Postphenomenology?" Don Ihde, SUNY/Stony Brook

"Unruly Perception" Catherine Hesse, Denmark Pedagogical University

"The Technological Mediation of Morality" Peter-Paul Verbeek, Twente University, The Netherlands

"Does Globalization Empower?" Evan Selinger, Rochester Institute of Technology

See also Arun's preface to the importance of this topic below:

In the June of 2005, Don Ihde (Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, SUNY Stony Brook) gave a paper titled "Postphenomenology and the Lifeworld."

The theme for 2005's twenty-fifth anniversary of the Silverman Center was "Phenomenology and Ecology" and implied that scholars & philosophers should address a very contemporary issue, a 21st century issue. In the context of this issue, Ihde gave this paper, by asking the audience for engagment and indulgence by importing a dialogue in which Ihde introduced the postphenomenological perspectives in the Lifeworld.

Don Ihde's approach in "Postphenomenology and the Lifeworld" has been very pragmatic to take science to be a thoroughly lifeworld embedded practice when one takes its embodiment to be that which is discoverable through instruments, technologies. Ihde's postphenomenological turn (kehre) is being grafted the echoes of pragmatism on to the phenomenological. Ihde's approach towards the phenomenology in the philosophy of technology is also pragmatist, in that the "program of instrumentality is seen as positive and productive in the new knowledges discovered and experienced." And, in some ways, accordingly Ihde's approach has perhaps been closer to an "extended Merleau-Pontyan phenomenology in that it is human embodiment, but human embodiment in its polymorphic connection to technologies, which allows the appreciation for scientific discovery to be inventive and productive." It is the "concreteness" and "phenomenological materiality" which Ihde finds suggested by Merleau-Ponty which comes closer to what he is calling postphenomenology.

The paper "Globalization and Technology: What is to Become of Phenomenology?" by Paul Richer sounds good, and the paper "Does Globalization Empower?" by Evan Selinger is a challenging the paths of development of modernization in the globalization, like Ihde is tallking in "What Globalization Do We Want" (contributed in "Globalization, Technology, Philosophy" ed. Tabachnick and Koivukoski, SUNY Press, 2004).

Don Ihde argues that as technology shapes our planet we must become aware of its unpredictable consequences. Indeed, the part of discussion on Globalization, is described and discussed in the Ihde's Technology and Lifeworld. Technology and globalization are the processes that need to managed through a new kind of civil involvement, a pragmatic approach.

In the words of Albert Borgmann (who, while reviewing the book "Globalization, Technology, Philosophy" ed. Tabachnick and Koivukoski, notes) "..Ihde, with characteristic wit and circumspection, reminds the critics and mourners of globalization of how much they use and presumably enjoy the richness of global communication; and he points out that the world whose passing the critics mourn is likely to be a romanticized version of the actual conditions…" Keywords such as globalization, technology, philosophy are very contemporary penetrating our Life-World: I would combine all three to call it "Philosophy of Globalization of Technology." Or better term is: Globalization and Technology:

Postphenomenological Perspectives. On the other hand, Andy Feenberg gives a very interesting account of how cultural and philosophical views of technology have related to one another in the twentieth century, hope followed by despair, dystopia giving way to new and dubious visions of utopia. Like Ihde, Feenberg argues that a new politics directed towards democratization can arise from within a technological order, but again, this requires set aside both dystopian ansd utopian visions of technology.