Insights from the phenomenological tradition of philosophy can be fruitfully applied to ongoing scientific investigations. In what follows, I review and refine a methodology I have developed for the application of concepts from the phenomenology of technology—concepts which articulate bodily and perceptual relations to technology—to a specific context of scientific practice: debate over the interpretation of laboratory images. As a guiding example, I introduce a case study of a contemporary debate over images of Mars which reveal evidence of fluid movement on the planet’s surface in the last decade. Next, the framework of phenomenological concepts is applied to this example, and contrasts are made with the results of previous case studies. I conclude with reflections on the implications of this perspective for both the use of imaging technologies in scientific research specifically, and for the phenomenology of technology generally.

In engineering design research different models of functional decomposition are advanced side-by-side. In this paper I explain and validate this co-existence of models in terms of the Kuhnian thesis of methodological incommensurability. I advance this analysis in terms of the thesis’ construal of (non-algorithmic) theory choice in terms of values, expanding this notion to the engineering domain. I further argue that the (by some) implicated threat of the thesis to rational theory choice has no force in the functional decomposition case: co-existence of different models of functional decomposition is rational from an instrumental point of view. My explanation covers cases in which different models are advanced as means for the same objective. Such cases cannot be explicated with the explanatory construct of variety in objectives, as advanced in other analyses of co-existing conceptualizations in engineering.

Until now, the body has played only a minor role in the philosophy of technology. However, more elaborate reflections on the relation between technology and the body are needed because of the advent of somatechnologies – technologies intentionally geared toward modifying bodies and that use bodily substances as technological means. The article discusses some approaches within the philosophy of technology that prove to be fruitful in this context. The article argues thatsomatechnical modifications of bodies should be understood as elements of ‘body technologies’ and body politics in a broader sense. In such a perspective, concepts of the body developed by Judith Butler and Michel Foucault should be adopted by a praxeological philosophy of technology.

Through a critique and analysis of technological dystopian literature, specifically Brave New World, 1984, and The Machine Stops, a humanizing framework analyzing the promise and responsibility of a liberal education is constructed. Through this framework we visualize agency as the central goal of education, buoyed by the development of independent thinking, affective engagement, and recognition of socio-cultural and historical contexts. Modern education must prepare learners to manage, apply, evaluate, synthesize, analyze information and knowledge and creatively contribute back to the world of information.

Rules of thumb are simple instructions, used to guide actions toward a specific result, without need of advanced knowledge. Knowing adequate rules of thumb is a common form of technological knowledge. It differs both from science-based and intuitive (or tacit) technological knowledge, although it may have its origin in experience, scientific knowledge, trial and error, or a combination thereof. One of the major advantages of rules of thumb is the ease with which they can be learned. One of their major disadvantages is that they cannot easily be adjusted to new situations or conditions.

This essay argues that a purely secular philosophy of technology omits an essential aspect of technical activity: the ultimate concern for which any action is undertaken. By way of an analysis of Borgmann and Hickman, I show that the philosophy of technology cannot articulate the nature of the good life without reference to an ultimacy beyond finite human goods. This paradoxically implies that human beings desire something infinite which they cannot name, a paradox that theologians have long understood in terms of a theological dialectic.

This article raises the problem of extended memory in the context of using a smartphone. Taking into account the extended mind hypothesis and the everyday practices of smartphone users, the article analyses four fields of memory: pictures, chats, maps and, geolocating games. Each of these fields can be used in a number of ways to reinforce memory or to participate in the memory practices of an individual or a collectivity, and this is analysed in the article using numerous examples. The problem of extended memory is considered in the article on a theoretical level by referring to new media studies (on mobile phones and iPhones). The practical dimension of this problem is presented by the results of empirical, qualitative research conducted among smartphone users.

The human imagination is puzzling. Barring extreme cases, every person has an intimate relationship with their own imagination, and although the constitution of that relationship may itself be obscure, we should not assume that it is thus inconsequential. This raises the salient question of this essay: How is imagination consequential? I develop an account of the imagination that helps to evaluate the impact of digital manipulation through Computer Generated Media on our imaginations, especially as it occurs in media-saturated societies. This essay proceeds in four parts. First, I briefly develop an account of the imagination that serves this evaluation. Second, I describe how digital technology is able to impact our imaginations. Third, I explore the impacts that this has on our imaginations—what I label the horizontal and vertical stretching of our imaginations. Lastly, I consider plausible consequences of stretching our imaginations with digital technologies.

As the Philippines continues to grapple with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, new modalities of instruction are being devised by the administration of Rodrigo Duterte, through the Department of Education (DepEd). Among these are what the DepEd provided as self-learning modules (SLMs) combined with “alternative learning delivery modalities” which include radio-based instruction (DepEd 2020). The SLMs and radiobased instruction are the most common modalities of learning, being the most accessible especially for the poor students of the country. This paper will examine the pedagogical and political dimensions of a radio-based instruction. Coming from the tradition of philosophy of technology that emphasizes the political nature of technology, I will argue how the logic of radio broadcasting predetermines a specific pedagogy and form of communication. I will further argue how this predetermined form of communication carries the danger of being an effective support for authoritarianism.

Posthumanist readings of the Heidegger corpus often conclude that the transformed future human essence must either be the ecoromanticist ideal of the attuned dweller or the technoprogressivist ideal of the technicized animal. Such inferences are untenable according to the logic of the text, where human essence is envisaged as radically unfixed and open, and humans themselves as meaningful contributors to their future essence. In this way, the transformation of human essence can become a genuinely ethicopolitical question, rather than an ontologically predetermined one. An ontologically open posthumanist and biohistorical reading of the Heidegger corpus concerning the human future is possible if focus is placed on the logic of the text itself rather than authorial intentions.

In a social situation, why is it sometimes off-putting when a person reaches for his smartphone? In small-group contexts such as a college seminar, a business meeting, a family meal, or a small musical performance, when a person begins texting or interacting with social media on a smartphone he may disengage from the group. When we do find this off-putting, we typically consider it to be just impolite or inappropriate. In this essay, I argue that something more profound is at stake. One significant way in which individuals shape their self-identities is through interactions with others in small groups. Much identity-work is interdependent; it requires generating and preserving social contexts. I argue that the smartphone-use of some individuals can fracture a group’s context and thus negatively affect the identity-work of others. In this essay, I examine identity-work, sociality, and personal technology from a perspective of existential phenomenology.