The Phenomenology of Virtual Technology: Perception and Imagination in a Digital Age

265 Pages·2022·1.209 MB·English

by  Daniel O'Shiel

Th e
Phenomenology of
Virtual Technology
i
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY
Sartre and Magic: Being, Emotion and Philosophy , Daniel O’Shiel
G ü nther Anders’ Philosophy of Technology: From Phenomenology to
Critical Th eory , Babette Babich
Exceptional Technologies: A Continental Philosophy of Technology , Dominic Smith
ii
Th e
Phenomenology of
Virtual Technology
Perception and Imagination
in a Digital Age
Daniel O’Shiel
iii
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
P art One Perception, imagination and the
challenge of virtuality 7
1 Husserl 9
1.1 Husserl’s perception 9
1.2 Presentation, presentifi cation and phantasy 15
1.3 Th e problem of image-consciousness 23
2 Fink 31
2.1 Presentation, depresentation and the various types and nuances of
presentifi cation 31
2.2 Image-consciousness, again 43
3 Sartre 49
3.1 Perception and the imaginary 49
3.2 Sartre’s answer for image-consciousness 67
3.3 Recapitulation and discussion 70
4 Th e challenge of virtuality 75
4.1 Heidegger and our forked being 75
4.2 Merleau-Ponty and fundamental intertwinement 81
4.3 Bergson and Deleuze: the reality of the virtual 91
4.4 Perception and imagination: a diff erence in kind or degree? 98
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vi Contents
4.5 Real virtualities: self, world, others and values 103
Part Two Irreal virtuality: the case of virtual
technology 115
5 Social media 123
5.1 Th e signifi cance and infl uence of social media 123
5.2 Changed selves, worlds, others and values on social media 133
5.3 Breeur’s challenge: a possibility for real engagement on or through
social media? 144
6 Online gaming 151
6.1 Games are not perceptions 152
6.2 Th e online gaming experience 159
6.3 Changed selves, worlds, others and values in games 167
6.4 Reality, irreality, superreality and addiction 173
7 VR, AR and MR technologies 179
7.1 A summary of VR, AR and MR technologies 179
7.2 Changed selves, worlds, others and values in VR, AR and MR
technologies 188
7.3 ‘Pure’ MR and the case of tactile holograms 194
8 Considerations and consequences 199
8.1 Virtual technology: its current status and scope 199
8.2 Blurrings, inversions and collapses? Current trends and future
possibilities 203
Conclusion 215
Notes 219
References 223
Index 235
Acknowledgements
S ome small passages throughout the introduction and fi rst part of the work
have already appeared in earlier forms for an introductory chapter
‘Phenomenology and the Challenge of Virtuality’ in a Springer edition entitled
Conceiving Virtuality: From Art to Technology (O’Shiel 2019b). Parts of
subsections 3.1.1 to 3.1.3 have already been published in earlier forms in a
2019 book entitled S artre and Magic: Being, Emotion and Philosophy , also with
Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (O’Shiel
2019a). Finally, signifi cant parts of sections 7.1 and 7.3 have already appeared
in earlier forms as parts of an article entitled ‘Disappearing Boundaries?
Reality, Virtuality and the Possibility of “Pure” Mixed Reality (MR)’ for the
Indo-Pacifi c Journal of Phenomenology (O’Shiel 2021). I have been permitted
to reuse and adapt all of these materials here.
I also need to make a number of other acknowledgements. First, this work is
the result of a postdoctoral project (no. 3180179) funded by the Fondo Nacional
de Desarrollo Cient í fi co y Tecnol ó gico (FONDECYT), a subsidiary of the
Agencia Nacional de Investigaci ó n y Desarrollo (ANID, formerly known as the
Comisió n Nacional de Investigaci ó n Cient í fi ca y Tecnol ó gica (CONICYT)),
and was carried out primarily at the Universidad Diego Portales, in Santiago,
Chile, under the supervision of Prof. Wolfh art Totschnig. I thank the institutions
for the support and Prof. Totschnig for valuable feedback at every stage.
Second, I would like to thank all of my students from a BA Phenomenology
course I taught at the University of Sussex during the spring semester of 2018.
Th ey provided me with fresh (younger!) and more nuanced perspectives
regarding many issues, especially for the second half of the work.
Th ird, I would also like to thank all the participants of the workshops I
arranged and held related to this research at the Instituto de Filosof í a,
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viii Acknowledgements
Universidad Diego Portales, in Santiago, Chile. Your presentations, insights
and discussions were valuable, interesting and infl uential. I would especially
like to single out Jake Ephros’s insight regarding the role of values in virtuality,
which made me add this category as an important fourth type of real and irreal
virtuality. Th ank you as well to all of the participants of a conference on
virtuality at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, in 2016, as well as one I
co-organized on ‘Phenomenology, Imagination, and Virtual Reality’ with Prof.
Nicolas de Warren at KU Leuven, Belgium, in 2017.
F ourth, thank you very much to all at the Institute of Digital Games at the
University of Malta for my extended visit in late 2019 and for some much-
needed expertise for my sixth chapter, not least Prof. Stefano Gualeni for
hosting, supporting and guiding me, as well as Prof. Daniel Vella and all the
other members that put this school on the forefront of philosophy of games
studies and research. I also received valuable insights and points of interest at
a Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) conference in Turin, Italy, in
2018, as well as a conference co-organized by the Game Philosophy Network
in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 2019.
Fift h, I would like to thank a number of anonymous reviewers who helped
improve certain aspects of this work.
Finally, to Katherine, for introducing me to the strange and wonderful
world of Instagram, and for making me grow older better and more slowly.
Abbreviations
For books
Bergson
MM [1896] (2005/2012) M atter and Memory , trans. N.M. Paul and
W.S. Palmer, New York: Zone Books / M ati è re et m é moire ,
Quadridge/ PUF.
Deleuze
B [1966] (2011/2013) B ergsonism , trans. H. Tomlinson and
B. Habberjam, New York: Zone Books / L e bergsonisme , Paris:
PUF.
Fink
VB [1930] (1966) ‘Vergegenw ä rtigung und Bild’, in S tudien zur
Ph ä nomenologie 1930–1939 , 1–78, Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff .
Heidegger
ET/WW [1931–32] (2009/1988) Th e Essence of Truth: On Plato’s Cave
Allegory and Th eaetetus, trans. T. Sadler, London:
Continuum / G esamtausgabe II: Abteilung – Vorlesungen
1923–1944. Bd. 34. Vom Wesen der Wahrheit: Zu Platons
H ö hlengleichnis und Th e ä tet , Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio
Klostermann.
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