PHENOMENOLOGY

Phenomenology is an influential philosophical movement especially in relation to science and technology. It has developed critical studies of scientific rationality, artificial intelligence, electronic media, virtual reality, the Internet, and more. Leading contributors to the three waves of phenomenology are often drawn on in discussions of science, technology, and ethics: from the first wave of Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) through the second wave of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) to the third wave of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961). Even more prominent figures in debates about science, technology, and ethics discussions such as Hans Jonas (1903–1993), Emmanuel Lévinas (1905–1995), and Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) have also been strongly influenced by phenomenology, as have the critical assessments of science and technology to be found in later work by Albert Borgmann, Hubert L. Dreyfus, Andrew Feenberg, Michael Heim, Don Ihde, Langdon Winner, and others. Phenomenology nevertheless remains difficult to define, and its distinctive contributions not easy to pin down.

What Is Phenomenology?

It is difficult to define phenomenology in a way that will cover all its diverse traditions. In his monumental history of the phenomenological movement, not even Herbert Spiegelberg (1994) attempted a definitive formulation. In spite of this difficulty it is necessary to attempt some definition as a starting point—even if all phenomenologists do not accept it without qualification.

Initially, then, phenomenology may be described as an effort to disclose the transcendental features or presuppositions of the world as given in ongoing experience. Phenomenology takes as its basic concern our ongoing experiencing of the world within the unfolding horizon of temporality. Although the language of phenomenology often refers to "essences" in experience, it is not interested in some stable atemporal or a historical account of the world. For the phenomenologist essences do not stand outside of our ongoing existence. The transcendental horizon, the focus of its concern, is never divorced from the concrete experiences of everyday life. But at its foundation is the attempt to take the phenomena of human experience and subject them to deeper or broader examination than is done by the sciences, all of which, according to phenomenology, abstract from experience.

To extend this working definition, take the human experience of music and consider it phenomenologically. From the perspective of physics and physiology, music is constituted by a flux of waves of particular frequencies to which the inner ear may be sensitive. Indeed, once so analyzed, it is possible to create a technological device such as a tape recorder that is sensitive to these same sounds, and can even replay them on command. Human beings, however, when they hear sounds in everyday life never take them simply as a stream of sounds, rather they find themselves already listening to something particular—a cry for help, an automobile braking, construction noise, or a piece of music. Indeed it would take a very strange sort of attitude to hear sounds and take them as a flux of waves of particular frequencies. Listening is different than registering or recording; to listen is to already take sounds as this or that. In listening, the taking of sound as music implies an already existing sense of what music is, something that makes it possible for us to take these sounds as music rather than noise. Furthermore, in listening to music, this listening is informed by an ongoing sense (or unity) of movement, rhythm, tone, scale, style, and so forth. This ongoing active unity provides an active and ongoing framework that enables me, in the experience of listening (right now), to simultaneously "retain" the sounds I no longer hear (the past), and in anticipation to "fill in" the sounds I am not yet hearing, yet already anticipate (the future). As a phenomenological being I find myself listening to music, not merely recording sounds after the manner of a technological device. For phenomenologists the relevant question is: What is this ongoing framework that makes it possible for humans to listen to music rather than merely record sounds?

Even our encountering of mundane everyday objects takes as necessary an already existent sense or familiarity with the world. What makes it possible to encounter a chair—recognize it, see it, refer to it, use it as a chair rather than as a something else? Like sounds, we are always given it only in some one aspect. When we stand in "front" of it the "back" is not given to our senses as such. When we stand at the back the front is hidden from view. Yet when we approach the chair we do not take it as a confusing flux of sensation, but as that which it already is, a chair to sit or stand on.

What is it then that enables us to encounter music and chairs in their fullness even though we are always given, at any particular point in time, only some limited aspect of such phenomena? The answer of phenomenology isthatitisthe transcendental horizon that makes phenomena possible, where the transcendental is understood as "that which constitutes, and thereby renders the empirical possible" (Mohanty 1997, p. 52). In Don Ihde's words "phenomenology investigates the conditions of what makes things appear as such" (2003, p. 133). One could say that the transcendental is the background, or horizon, that makes the meaningful experience of the foreground possible. Yet insofar as such a formulation suggests a background that is somehow separate and "behind" that which appears in the foreground, it would be incorrect. Transcendental horizons or conditions are always and immediately already present in the very appearing as such—this is exactly what makes a horizon "disappear" or withdraw from our focal awareness. It is so evident that it simply does not come up as an issue.

It is this seemingly "forgotten" horizon that is the focus of phenomenology—indeed it is this horizon that phenomenologists want to call to our attention. All phenomenological "reductions" have as their purpose a "return" to this vital constitutive transcendental horizon. "Reduction" should be understood here in relation to its Latin root re-ducere, to lead back.

In place of the examples of listening to music or encountering a chair, we could also refer to engagements with such diverse phenomena as language, self, identity, sociality, and so forth. In the case of those phenomena known as science or technology we would attempt to provide an account of the transcendental horizons that constitute the scientific or technological and therefore render them possible in our everyday experience. What is it within our ongoing relation with the world that allows science or technology to show up as a way to structure that relationship? To this question phenomenologists have given many different and illuminating answers.

But what is the transcendental horizon? How and where do we find it? The answer differs from one phenomenologist to another. Husserl (1970, 1982, 1995) argued that it was the ongoing life of pure consciousness. For him the intentionality of consciousness allows things to appear as this or that thing. He thus proposed that we bracket out, or set aside, our normal everyday assumptions about the world—the natural attitude—and return to the life of pure consciousness.

By contrast, Roman Ingarden (1893–1970) maintained that the transcendental horizon is constituted by the a priori truths necessary for the factual world to be what we experience in ongoing experience. He proposed that we return to these truths, but also encouraged us to always ground ourselves in the real world as given in experience.

Heidegger (1962), in turn, argued that it is our always already immersion in the world of everyday life that is the transcendental or constituting horizon. For him active beings are always already busy in the world, and the world shows up precisely as that which it already is. We do not need a "bridge back to the world" from our concepts. We have never left the world of everyday life, and it is exactly this ongoing intimate relation with the world—our pre-ontological understanding of being as such—that is the very basis of all scientific knowledge. It is the "stuff" from which we construct all systems of logic, mathematics, and science.

Merleau-Ponty (1962) continues this discovery of transcendental horizons by focusing on the body, or more specifically on the always already embodiedness of our being. He calls on us to return to the already lived and situated body of our ongoing perception of the world. For him our scientific systems of orientation in time and space have their condition of possibility in our being a body—a lived body that is the ongoing horizon of orientation and meaning.

Despite their differences these phenomenologists all claim that the naturalistic empirical science (also referred to as objectivism or positivism) remains unreflective and uncritical of the importance of the ongoing constituting role of these various transcendental horizons. For example, scientists take the objects of their investigations—such as atoms, ozone layers, cultures, money, criminals, and so forth—as simply already given without considering the conditions that make it possible for them to encounter these phenomena as what they take them to be. In their emphasis on these already assumed objects of study the constituting horizons withdraw to be forgotten, thereby allowing them to move, in their analyses and arguments, way beyond the possibilities offered by the constitutive conditions of meaning. It is exactly the explication of these constitutive conditions or horizons of meaning that phenomenology seeks to call to our attention, in order to keep us from becoming lost in or misled by the abstractions of science and the powers of technology.

The Phenomenology of Everyday Encounters

To provide an illustration of the phenomenological approach it is useful to present in slightly more detail Heidegger's pivotal analysis of our everyday encounters. This presentation will then link to the work of Ihde, Borgmann, Dreyfus, and Lévinas.

For Heidegger the human encounter with things is fundamentally practical in orientation. We do not encounter chairs as chair objects—after the manner of designers or scientists—but as "possibilities for" sitting down or standing on or facing somebody, and so forth. Furthermore, the chair is a "possibility for" (what Heidegger called an "in-order-to") only within an already present referential whole including a multitude of possibility-for's. The transcendental horizon of meaning is the ongoing, unfolding referential whole in which every thing has its ongoing way of being that which it already is, while the whole draws on this very being to be the whole that it is. To describe this active and ongoing transcendental horizon of reference and meaning—in which the world and humans already implicate each other—Heidegger uses the notion of being-in-the-world, thus indicating the intimate relation between being and world. For Heidegger, any being whatsoever is a being only in an already assumed world—referential whole—that constitutes it as such. Heidegger argues that we humans-already-in-the-world (which he calls Dasein) exist in an ongoing structural openness toward the world in which the self and the world are always already a unity, a being-in-the-world (Heidegger 1962). Thus, we human beings (Dasein) have this unity as our ongoing way of being. That is why the world mostly makes sense rather than being mostly strange and unfamiliar.

Consider this example. Whenever we find ourselves or take note of ourselves, we do so already engaged in practical everyday activity in which things show up as "possibilities for" our practical intentions—as tools for this and that. When I switch on my laptop it already shows up as a possibility to write, communicate with my office, and so on. When we consider this world of practical activity we note that all the things we encounter already matter in some way or another—even if they matter only as useless, boring, or irrelevant. Heidegger claims that we, as Dasein, are always already "ahead" of ourselves—always already projected into the future as it were. In being ahead of ourselves things show up as this or that possibility-for. When we get up in the morning we already find ourselves acting in anticipation of the day ahead. When we get into our cars we already anticipate the journey. To put it rather abstractly, we are always and already projected as a necessary condition of that what we already are—as academics, politicians, managers, and so on. I did not so much decide to take up the project to write this entry as much as I found myself writing this entry as that which already made sense for an academic like me to do. Thus, as already projected beings, tools (opportunities) show up as tools (opportunities)—as possibilities-for. The world as possibilities-for shows up in particular ways to scientists (as scientists) that are different from that of artists (as artists) or managers (as managers).

This does not mean, however, that one can simply take the world any way one wants; the world—the scientific, art, or managerial world—is not simply of one's making. These tools are tools for this or that purpose only in as much as they already refer to other tools, which also already refer to them as their transcendental condition for being this or that tool. Here, "refer" is used in the sense of a necessary relation or reference for the tool to be what it already is taken to be when taken up in practical activity. The laptop I am working on, to be taken up as a laptop, rather than a piece of assembled plastic and silicone, refers to application programs, which refer to operating systems, which refer to hardware, which refer to a power supply—all of which refer to suppliers, which refer to maintenance services, and so forth. Dreyfus (1991) calls this recursively defining, necessary nexus of relations, the tool or equipment whole.

When we take up these tools, as tools, however, we do not take them up for their own sake; we take them up within an already present reference to our projects. I do not simply bang on keys; I use the laptop to type, in order to write, do e-mail, surf the Internet, and so forth. Moreover, the writing of this entry already refers to the possibility of an encyclopedia, of which it would be a part. This encyclopedia already refers to editors, which refer to a potential audience, which refers to potential publishers, and so on. Furthermore, the writing of this entry also already refers to the publication of my work, which refers to a publication record, which refers to academic status, which refers to the possibility for promotion, and so forth. Heidegger (1962) calls this recursively defining and necessary nexus of projects, or for-the-sake-of relations, the involvement whole.

The equipment whole and the involvement whole refer to each other and sustain each other as an ongoing referential whole, horizon of meaning. Heidegger calls this referential whole "the world." We humans always already dwell in the world in which the world is mostly familiar (it is simply already there, "ready-to-hand" in Heidegger's terminology). Now sometimes the world "breaks down," and then we tend to encounter it as objects or events as such—it becomes occurrent or present-to-hand in Heidegger's terminology. When we type and the key gets stuck then we notice it "as a key"; otherwise we merely type. If it remains stuck the computer becomes occurrent "as a broken laptop." But as we start to take it apart, in an attempt to fix it, it recedes back into the background as something I am fixing.

The point of Heidegger's account is "that things show up for us or are encountered as what they are only against a background of familiarity, competence, and concern that carves out a system of related roles [recursively defining references] into which things fit. Equipmental things are the roles [recursively defining references] into which they are cast by skilled users of them, and skilled users are the practical roles [recursively defining references] into which they [become] cast themselves" (Hall 1993, p. 132). The phenomenological meaning of the world of science, technology, and ethics can be understood only within the always already defining referential whole, the world we are already "in"—or more correctly the world we always already are. Grasping this phenomenological foundation is essential to making sense of some of the authors most important for science, technology, and ethics.

Phenomenology in Science and Technology

Phenomenology has been used to analyze a number of aspects of science and technology in ways that have implications for ethics. What follows is a consideration of three major cases: artificial intelligence, consumer devices, and human–technology relationships.

DREYFUS ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. In critiquing artificial intelligence (AI) Dreyfus (1979, 1992) argues that the way skill development has become understood has been wrong. He argues, using the work of Heidegger, that the classical conception of skill development, going back as far as Plato, assumes that we start with the particular cases and then abstract from these to discover and internalize more and more sophisticated and general rules. Indeed, he argues, this is the model that the early artificial intelligence community uncritically adopted. In opposition to this view he argues, with Heidegger, that what we observe when we learn a new skill in everyday practice is in fact the opposite. We most often start with explicit rules or preformulated approaches and then move to a multiplicity of particular cases, as we become an expert. His argument draws directly on Heidegger's account of humans as beings that are always already in-the-world. As humans in-the-world we are already experts at going about everyday life, at dealing with the subtleties of every particular situation—that is why everyday life seems so obvious. Thus, the intricate expertise of everyday action is forgotten and taken for granted by AI.

As a way to critique the program of AI, Dreyfus provides an account of five stages of becoming an expert. A novice acts according to conscious and context-free rules and generally lacks a sense of the overall task and situational elements. The advanced beginner adds, through experience, situational aspects to the context-free rules to gain access to a more sophisticated understanding of the situation. The relationship between the situational aspects and the rules are learned through carefully chosen examples, as it is difficult to formalize them. The competent person will have learned to recognize a multiplicity of context-free rules and situational aspects. This may lead, however, to being overwhelmed because it becomes difficult to know what to include or exclude. The competent individual learns to take a particular perspective on the situation, thereby reducing the complexity. Such "taking a stand," however, involves a certain level of risk taking that requires commitment and personal involvement. For the proficient most tasks are performed intuitively. As an involved actor the relevant situational aspects show up as part of the ongoing activity and need not be formalized. Nevertheless, a pause may still be required to think analytically about a relevant response. For the expert relevant situational aspects as well as appropriate actions emerge as part of the ongoing activity within which the expert is totally absorbed, involved, and committed. The task is performed intuitively, almost all the time. In the ongoing activity of the expert thousands of special cases are discriminated and dealt with appropriately.

With this phenomenological account of skill development in hand it is easy to see the problem for AI. Computing machines need some form of formal rules (a program) to operate. Any attempt to move from the formal to the particular, as described by Dreyfus above, will be limited by the ability of the programmer to formulate rules for such a shift—a shift forgotten by AI. Thus, what the computer lacks is an already there familiarity with the world that it can draw upon as the transcendental horizon of meaning to discern the relevant from the irrelevant in ongoing activity—that is, the computer is not a being-in-the-world in Heidegger's terms.

Dreyfus's critique pushed AI researchers into new ways of thinking. In particular it has led to the embodied cognition program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory under the direction of Rodney Brooks. Nevertheless, even such programs of embodied cognition (or cog robots as they are called) would fail if AI cannot give an account of how a cog robot's own existence would be at stake—would matter. Without such a "stake"—without being ahead of itself—the cog robot would lack the fundamental transcendental horizon of intentionality and meaning, according to Heidegger. Phenomenology's call to a "return to the things themselves," to recover the supposed transcendental horizon of meaning, will continue to challenge the progress of AI. Moreover, it seems that many of our assumptions about the relationship between the technical and the social, even the supposition of such a relation itself, will continue to provide a multiplicity of opportunities for phenomenology to explore.

BORGMANN ON CONSUMER DEVICES. In thinking about our relationship with technology in modern contemporary life, Borgmann takes up the question of the possibility of a "free" relation with technology. He agrees with Heidegger that modern technology is a phenomenon that tends to "frame" our relationships with things, and ultimately ourselves and others, in a one-dimensional manner—the world as available resources for our projects. He argues that modern technology frames the world for us as "devices," and specifically as devices that hide the referentiality of the world—the worldhood of the world—upon which devices depend. Devices do not disclose the multiple conditions that are necessary for them to be what they are taken to be. Just the opposite is true: They try to hide the effort that is necessary for them to be available for use. Thus, a thermostat that we simply set at a comfortable temperature now replaces the process of chopping wood, building a fire, and maintaining it. Our relationship with the environment is reduced to, and disclosed to us as a control that we simply set to our liking. In this way devices de-world our relationship with things, in Heidegger's terminology. By relieving us of the burden of making and maintaining fires, our relationship with the world becomes disclosed in a new way—as one of disengagement. The world of things is not something to be engaged in, it is simply available for consumption.

Against such a disengaging relationship with things in the world, Borgmann argues for the importance of focal practices based on focal things. Focal things solicit our full and engaging presence. Compare, for example, the focal practice of preparing and enjoying a meal with friends or family to the solitary consumption of a fast-food meal. If one takes Borgmann's analysis seriously one might conclude that contemporary humans, being surrounded by devices, are doomed to increasingly relate to the world in a disengaged manner. Borgmann argues, however, that it is also possible to have a free relation with technology—even modern technology—if we imbed it in focal practices rather than use it, or accept it, as devices. Otherwise we will, as Heidegger (1977) argued, become the devices of our devices.

IHDE ON HUMAN–TECHNOLOGY RELATIONSHIPS. Phenomenology does not function only as an approach to critique our relationship with technology. Ihde (1990) has used the resources of phenomenology to give a rich and subtle account of our relationship with technology. In thinking about the human–technology relationship Ihde characterizes four different I–technology–world relationships. The first type he calls "embodiment relations." In this case technology is taken into subjective perceptual experience of the world, thus transforming the subject's perceptual and bodily sense. In wearing my eyeglasses I not only see through them, they also become "see through." In functioning as that which they are, they already withdraw into my own bodily sense of being a part of the ordinary way I experience my surrounding. He denotes this relationship as having the form (I–glasses)–world. This relationship, however, has a necessary "magnification/reduction structure" associated with it. Embodiment relations simultaneously magnify and amplify or reduce and place aside (screen out) what is experienced through them. The moon seen through a telescope is different from the moon perceived by the naked eye. The person at the other end of the telephone is brought to me across a great distance at the expense of being reduced to a voice.

The second type of human–technology relationship is what Ihde calls "hermeneutic." Here, the technology functions as an immediate referent to something beyond itself. Although I might fix my focus on a map, what I actually see—immediately and simultaneously—is not the map itself but rather the world it already refers to, the landscape suggested in the symbols. In this case the transparency of the technology is hermeneutic rather than perceptual. As I become skilled at reading maps they withdraw to become immediately and already the world itself. Ihde denotes this relationship as having the form I–(map–world).

The third type of human–technology relationship Ihde calls "alterity relations." In this case, technology is experienced as a being that is otherwise, different from myself—technology-as-other. Examples include things such as religious icons and intelligent robots (the Sony dog for example). In my interaction with these technologies they seem to exhibit a "life of their own," thus as I engage with them they tend to disengage me from the world of everyday life, hence their pervasiveness in activities such as play, art, and sport. Ihde denotes these as having the form I–technology–(world), indicating that the world withdraws into the background and technology emerges as a focal entity with which I momentarily engage—as I play with my robot dog for example.

Finally, Ihde recognizes a fourth type of human–technology relationship in which technology is not directly implicated in a conscious process of engagement on the part of the human. Ihde refers to these as "background relations." Examples include automatic central heating systems, traffic control systems, and so forth. These systems are "black-boxed" in such a way that we do not attend to them, yet we draw on them for our ongoing everyday existence. They withdraw as ongoing background conditions. Although he does not designate them as such, one might formalize these relations in the form: I–(technology)–world. These invisible background technologies can be powerful in configuring our world in particular ways, yet escape our scrutiny.

Ihde's phenomenological description of the human–technology relationship provides a useful way to give an account of many everyday relations of import to science, technology, and ethics. One can imagine a very interesting phenomenological analysis of the relationship between scientists and their instruments as done in the social study of science. Furthermore, the withdrawal of technology, into my body, into my perception, and into the background, has important political and ethical implications for its design and implementation, especially if one considers that every disclosure of the world "through" technology is also immediately a concealment of other possible disclosures. The car discloses possibilities for getting to places quickly, but also conceals, in its withdrawal, the resources (roads, fuel, clean air, etc.) necessary for it to be what it is—they act as devices in Borgmann's terminology. Indeed we often lose sight of the reduction/magnification structure as we simply use these technologies. As these technologies become more and more pervasive—almost a necessary condition of everyday life—it becomes more and more difficult to see that which has become concealed in their withdrawal. With Ihde's typology of I–technology–world relationships it might be possible to bring what has become concealed back to the foreground for critical attention and ethical reflection.

FURTHER CASES, AND LÉVINAS. There are many more authors that could be used to illustrate phenomenology's relevance and influence in the domain of science, technology, and ethics. For example there are Heim's studies of virtual reality (1993) and electronic writing (1999), or Richard Coyne's discussion of being in cyberspace (1995), Tony Fry's excellent essays on the televisual (1993), Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores's critique of the use of computers in organizations (1986), and many more. Nonetheless, it is the work of Lévinas (1969, 1991) that might serve as a final signpost on our phenomenological way. The reason for this is that Lévinas, although he starts within the phenomenological tradition, wants to turn our attention to the most basic encounter of all—that of the ethical.

Lévinas argues that Western philosophy, and phenomenology in particular, is a philosophy of what he calls the same, or the totality—a totality within which every otherness becomes "domesticated." By totality he means the expectation that all things will eventually "add up," will be accounted for; that somehow there is a larger whole or "system" in which everything will eventually find its place. For Lévinas this expectation already has its source in the ongoing synthesizing intentionality of consciousness itself. The transcendental horizon of meaning, opened up by intentionality, is already colonized by our individual self-ish will to be. The gravity of our everyday existential project does not allow the other, as profoundly singular, to remain at the margins of our constituting horizon. Through our will to be—our always already projectedness in Heidegger's language—we have indeed already taken the place "in the sun" of the other. We, in our already in-the-worldness, are already guilty of violating the otherness of the other; we are already responsible, therefore we must respond. For Lévinas, taking up our responsibility for the other is the only possibility for transcending the self-ishness of the will to be.

Thus, what Lévinas points to is that although phenomenology provides a path back to the very constitutive possibilities of experience it also immediately implicates us as already responsible for violating the otherness of the other in these very possibilities. In our quest for meaning we find ourselves at the dawn of ethics, but we find ourselves already guilty. For Lévinas the ethical has always and already called into question the projects of science and technology. With Lévinas one might say that the success of science and technology has always come at the expense of masking the plight of the singular—the singular that is the incidental, idiosyncratic, and random error excluded from consideration in a world in which things always have to add up. Thus, for Lévinas, the most profound question is not the what or how of science and technology but the always already suffering of my neighbor, the specific one closest to me, that the projects of science and technology obscure even if they try to do what is right. Obviously Lévinas is not saying we should abandon science and technology. He is rather saying that we should allow the ethical, the singular other, to continually question and interrogate the already supposed legitimacy of science and technology. It is only in the currency of the singular, this individual here and now, that ethics has any possibilities.

Some Critical Comments

Phenomenology provides a variety of resources for examining relationships among science, technology, and ethics. But phenomenology also has limits. It is often criticized for essentialism and failures to provide rich accounts of the particular and the situated, such as those provided by social studies of science, as in the work of Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar (1986), Michel Callon (1986), or Andrew Pickering (1995). Phenomenology does not appear able to explain why some technologies become accepted and used rather than others in the way social constructivist accounts do, as in the work of Wiebe E. Bijker and colleagues (1987). This tension between phenomenology and social constructivism permeates the work of Feenberg (1995), whose analysis of technology retains important phenomenological insights while working with findings from social studies of technology.

Indeed, other "post" phenomenology authors in science, technology, and ethics retain insights from phenomenology while trying to move beyond its limitations. Don Ihde (1993, 2003) suggests a post-phenomenology that is not centered on the subject but on embodiment. With the notion of "embodiment" he problematizes the ongoing interrelation between the active and perceiving body (or thing) and its environment of action (or use). Likewise, although Latour rejects phenomenology, he retains Heidggger's insight that a thing or tool is what it is within a referential whole. It is this perspective that makes it possible to conceive a thing as an "actant," and therefore constitute the "network" as a network. It would therefore seem reasonable to expect that phenomenology will remain important for those seeking to make sense of our relation with the phenomena of science, technology, and ethics.

LUCAS D. INTRONA

SEE ALSO German Perspectives;Heidegger, Martin;Husserl, Edmund.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bijker, Wiebe E.; Thomas P. Hughes; and Trevor J. Pinch, eds. (1987). The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. This is a key text for social constructivism.

Borgmann, Albert. (1984). Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Borgmann's critique of technology in contemporary society.

Callon, Michel. (1986). "Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay." In Power, Action, and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge? ed. John Law. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. This is an important example of how science and technology becomes enrolled in political programs by different actors.

Coyne, Richard. (1995). Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age: From Method to Metaphor. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Applies phenomenology to the problem of information technology and design.

Dreyfus, Hubert L. (1979). What Computers Can't Do: The Limits of Artificial Reason, rev. edition. New York: Harper and Row. Dreyfus's devastating critique of artificial intelligence.

Dreyfus, Hubert L. (1991). Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's "Being and Time," Division I. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Good introduction to Heidegger's Being and Time.

Dreyfus, Hubert L. (1992). What Computers Still Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Feenberg, Andrew. (1995). Alternative Modernity: The Technical Turn in Philosophy and Social Theory. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Fry, Tony. (1993). "Switchings." In RUA TV? Heidegger and the Televisual, ed. Tony Fry. Sydney: Power Publications. Heideggarian account of our engagement with the televisual.

Hall, Harrison. (1993). "Intentionality and World: Division I of Being and Time." In The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, ed. Charles Guignon. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Heidegger, Martin. (1962). Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson. Oxford: Blackwell. Heidegger's most influential work.

Heidegger, Martin. (1977). The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt. New York: Harper and Row. One of the key texts in the philosophy of technology.

Heim, Michael. (1993). The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality. New York: Oxford University Press. An excellent and accessible account of the metaphysical assumptions of virtual reality.

Heim, Michael. (1999). Electric Language, 2nd edition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. A phenomenologicaly informed account of writing technologies in general and of word processing in particular.

Husserl, Edmund. (1970). The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. David Carr. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Husserl, Edmund. (1982). Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. W.R. Boyce Gibson. London: Allen and Unwin; New York: Macmillan.

Husserl, Edmund. (1995). Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, trans. Dorian Cairns. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Ihde, Don. (1990). Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Ihde, Don. (1993). Postphenomenology: Essays in the Postmodern Context. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. Ihde's development of a postphenomenology for studying technology.

Ihde, Don. (2003). "If Phenomenology Is an Albatross, Is Post-phenomenology Possible?" In Chasing Technoscience: Matrix for Materiality, ed. Don Ihde and Evan Selinger. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Latour, Bruno, and Steve Woolgar. (1986). Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Lévinas, Emmanuel. (1969). Totality and Infinity, trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Important work of the "early" Levinas.

Lévinas, Emmanuel. (1991). Otherwise than Being; or, Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1962). Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith. New York: Humanities Press. An important work for understanding the "embodied" literature in studies of technology.

Mohanty, Jitendranath N. (1997). Phenomenology: Between Essentialism and Transcendental Philosophy. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. A good summary of some of the important ideas of phenomenology.

Pickering, Andrew. (1995). The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shows the reciprocal interrelation between technology, humans, society, and scientific knowledge as produced in scientific and technological work.

Spiegelberg, Herbert. (1994). The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction, 3rd edition. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic. A vast survey of most of the important authors in phenomenology.

Winograd, Terry, and Fernando Flores. (1986). Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. The application of Heidegger's work to the design of organizations and computer systems.