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Notes
Ihde makes this point starkly in an article here in AI & Society, casting the philosopher’s role in predicting technology’s effects in terms of a logical antinomy: history reveals that technologies, as multistable, defy prediction; yet at the same time it is incumbent upon designers and their philosopher colleagues in ‘R&D’ (research and design) positions to do their best to forecast what trajectories a technology will travel along (Ihde 1999).
In addition, a festschrift on Ihde’s work is entitled Postphenomenology (Selinger 2006). Also, my own recent article on computer use here in AI & Society builds on the postphenomenological framework (Rosenberger 2009b).
Examples of constructive uses of the notion of multistability by postphenomenologists include Cathrine Hasse’s studies of the training practices of physicists, Peter-Paul Verbeek’s work on environmentally friendly design, Evan Selinger’s critique of the discourse concerning the technological transfer of cellular phones, and my own analyses of debates over scientific images (e.g. Verbeek 2005; Selinger 2007; Hasse 2008; Rosenberger 2009a).
References
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Rosenberger, R. Deflating the overblown accounts of technology: a review of Don Ihde’s Ironic Technics . AI & Soc 25, 133–136 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-009-0222-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-009-0222-5