Defamiliarizing Technology, Habituation, and the Need for a Structuralist Approach

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Abstract

In response to my article “Earth, Technology, Language”, Christopher Müller asks whether use-oriented theory and Wittgensteinian language can capture the structural relations of power that shape habituation and argues that digital media do not provide opportunities for empowerment and democracy because there is no co-ownership. In my reply I argue that I have shown that this can be done with the broader conception of use I propose, that the grammar of technology should also be understood in terms of implicit knowledge, and that technology, like language, also has a public dimension: I claim that there is no such thing as a private technology or private power, and that some degree of co-ownership or resistance is possible. In the second part of the paper I reply to Bas de Boer’s questioning of my criticism of postsphenomenology. I insist that postphenomenology does not have the full instrumentarium to carry out an adequate and comprehensive analysis of the social dimension of technology use, and that it is important to attend to the structural dimension of technology, with or without use of the term ‘transcendental’. I clarify my use of the term as referring to conditions of possibility.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1415-1420
Number of pages6
JournalFoundations of Science
Volume27
Issue number4
Early online date2 Jun 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

  • 603122 Philosophy of technology

Keywords

  • Grammar
  • Habituation
  • Postphenomenology
  • Power
  • Technology and language
  • Wittgenstein

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