Borgmann’s concepts enable the existential dimension of technological mediation to be fleshed out further, but a few critical remarks should be borne in mind. His diagnosis comes dangerously close to the alienation of Heidegger. (p. 185)
The power of Borgmann’s analysis consists in his approach of technology in terms of specific artifacts rather than reducing it to its conditions of possibility, as did the classical philosophy of technology.
The pattern that he perceives as organizing our existence is not something a priori of which technology is the concrete realization. Also, the particular content of this pattern – that the involvements that human beings have with the world are diminishing more and more due to devices – is questionable.
Borgmann claims that technology leads to an impoverished, consumptive existence. But Verbeek argues with the following (p. 186):
· Borgmann’s concept of impoverishment of modern life becomes ambiguous as he develops his opinion.
· Verbeek says that the exclusive alternative Borgmann offers between engagement with non-technological things and disengaged consumption of technological devices is untenable. The pattern that he outlines does not do justice to the role of technology in human existence, however enlightening it is to describe it in terms of involvements.
Two Forms of Engagement
Borgmann claims that devices diminish the engagement of human beings with their environment and invite consumption. The engagement that is thereby lost, according to Borgmann, can be recovered if people devote themselves to focal things and practices.
The engagement of focal things is not described in terms of effort and exertion, but of meaningfulness. Borgmann speaks about focal things and practices in terms of “orienting one’s life” and “realizing one’s aspirations” (p. 187).
But when the engagement that technology causes to be lost is compared with the engagement brought by focal practices, a striking difference emerges between these two kinds of engagement.
There is a distinction between practices that require effort and those that produce meaningfulness, and these are two different kinds of engagement. They can be separated as the following:
· Engagement through focal practices without any specific goals.
Also, Verbeek says the problem lies not in Borgmann’s concept of relevance or importance of practices that give meaningfulness. The problem lies in Borgmann’s ambiguity in his concept of engagement (p. 187).
He eventually merges the two following statements:
· Technology diminishes the possibilities of experiencing meaning and leading an engaged life.
· Technology diminishes the efforts that people have to expend.
On the basis of Borgmann’s theory via the device paradigm, technology primarily leads to a reduction of effort and only in an indirect way threatens focal engagement. But a device can never be a true alternative to a focal practice because such a practice is never straightforwardly aimed at the realization of an end for which technology could provide a more efficient means (i.e. running a marathon is not for transportation purposes, nor is preparing a large festive meal to satisfy hunger) (p. 188).
If people give up focal practices, they do not do this because they use technological devices, but because they are entirely submerged in the consumptive attitude that the use of devices invites.
Engaging Devices
Technologies generally diminish the amount of effort that is required to obtain goods, but their role in “focal engagement” is more ambivalent.
In some cases technologies even enhance engagement in the sense of effort; however, in the case of the microwave, it has invited a more complex cooking process. And in the case of faster means of transportation, the commuting time has lengthened the distance over which people commute.
Technology can not only reduce engagement but also amplify it. It gives rise not only to disengaged consumption, but also to new possibilities. Consumption can even be better understood by making use of products in which the amplification and reduction of engagement are entwined together in an ambivalent way (p. 190).
Borgmann only acknowledges a single aspect of the implications of technology: disengagement. Technology indeed makes things available, but the lack of human involvement in the process does not mean that humans are not involved in the product.
On the existential and hermeneutical level, technologies can be seen to play an ambivalent role in shaping the human-world relation. Borgmann’s device paradigm only reveals a small portion of the role that technologies play in human existence. Involvement, in the form both of effort and meaning-giving engagement, needs to be treated as a dimension of technological mediation and not as something that technology excludes or renders impossible (p. 191).
MEDIATED ENGAGEMENT
The goal is to translate Borgmann’s analysis to a postphenomenological perspective.
Borgmann’s analyze how human engage with reality in which many actions are mediated by technologies. Therefore, it allows Verbeek to analyze how technology affects how human existence takes shape (p.191).
Devices and Involvement
Technological artifacts mediate perception by excluding certain kinds of actions and promoting others (p.191).
Example: CD player inhibits making music but promotes listening to music.
Also true with patterns of mass consumption created by “the good life” by changing human engagement.
Also true with the environment of the artifacts by changing the activities.
Example: no more need to cut the wood, but use a power mower for cutting the borders of the lawn (p.192).
Analyzing the technological mediation of involvement (effort and engagement).
Three variants of involvement: can concern the artifact (i.e. playing the piano, its environment i.e. gathering and chopping wood for the fireplace, or the product that the artifact makes available i.e. enjoying music with a CD player (p. 192).
Ambivalence of technological mediation is more evident in the third kind of involvement (the product that the artifact makes available) that Borgmann’s describes as “commodities” (p.193).
Involvement and Human-Artifact Relations
Human experience is transformed in the technological mediation of perception and of cultural frameworks of interpretation (chp. 4).
Human existence is translated by the technological mediation of human action and its social context (p.193).
Three types of human-artifact relation, based on Ihde’s work: relation of mediation (human-technology-world), alterity relations (human-technology/world), and background relations (human/technology-world).
These can be further divide between embodiment relation and hermeneutical relation.
However only embodiment relations are relevant in the analysis of the mediation of action. (p.193).
Embodiment relations are the way in which artifacts present in the relations as “readiness-to-hand”.
There is two ways that an artifact can be ready-to-hand: engaged (i.e. does call attention to itself or a disengaged i.e. disappear in the background).
Example: Music with the piano (engage) and the CD player (disengage).
At the same time the piano is neither exclusively ready-to-hand nor present-at-end (i.e. machinery not completely in the background or in the foreground).
Therefore ready-to-hand and present-at-end are the two end point of a line that the artifacts can be position themselves on (p.194).
There is a multiplicity of ways in witch artifacts mediate human-world relations. Involvement can be an “effort” or a “focal engagement”.
Involvement can be with the device itself, its environment, or with the products that makes it available (p.195).
CONCLUSION: THE MEDIATION OF ACTION AND EXPERIENCE
Verbeek has tried to create a critical review of the positions of Ihde, Latour, and Borgmann, to develop a postphenomenological vocabulary for analyzing the mediating role of artifacts. The structure of this kind of mediation involves amplification and reduction; some interpretive possibilities are strengthened while others are discouraged. This kind of mediation can be described in terms of translation, whose structure involves invitation and inhibition some forms of involvement are fostered while others are discouraged (p. 195).
The most important post-phenomenological concepts can be seen on p. 196 of What Things Do.
The post-phenomenological perspective offers a completely different view of technology than the classical philosophy of technology. In contrast to the latter’s fear that technology alienates us from reality and from our authentic existential possibilities, the post-phenomenological perspective offers a rich picture of technology, which does justice to its ambivalent status (p. 196).
While the classical post-phenomenology speaks of technology as involving a loss of meaning, post-phenomenology speaks of transformation of the ways in which reality can be present for humans; post-phenomenology speaks of translation of the ways in which human beings can be present in the world and realize their existence (p. 197).
The value of this postphenomenological makes possible a more careful and thorough investigation of specific technologies. The concluding example for Verbeek is the PDA: it has the ability to reduce the pressure of work, but also can rob people of relaxation.
· During a train ride, it can mediate its user’s pressure from “reading”, “looking at landscape” to “working on one’s text”. It involves both effort and focal engagement: towards its intrinsic value and its original functionality.
· When one writes with a PDA, one embodies and these embodiment relations changes into alterity relations (p. 198).
· The dimensions of action and perception, with the associated reductions and amplifications of interpretations and involvements, are also present (i.e. via PDA emailing). The PDA can mediate one’s entire world. It mediates the relation between humans and world, and thus coshapes their experience and existence (p. 199).
No comments:
Post a Comment