Democratic Potentialities and Toxic Actualities: Feenberg, Ihde, Arendt, and the Internet

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    Abstract

    In this paper I argue that while Feenberg’s critical constructivism can help us to see the political potential of technologies, it cannot help us to understand the political actuality of technologies without the help of postphenomenology. In part 2, I examine Feenberg’s attempt to merge Frankfurt School critical theory and SCOT into “critical constructivism.” In part 3, I focus on Feenberg’s analyses of the internet in order to highlight a blind spot in critical constructivism when it comes to threats to democracy that come from out of the demos itself. In part 4, I show how critical constructivism would benefit from adopting the theory of technological mediation found in postphenomenology by presenting a postphenomenological investigation of trolling and other forms of destructive behavior unaccounted for by Feenberg’s investigation of the internet. In part 5, I conclude by turning to the work of Hannah Arendt in order to show why, just as critical constructivism could benefit from becoming more postphenomenological, postphenomenology could benefit from becoming more critical.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)178-194
    Number of pages17
    JournalTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology
    Volume24
    Issue number1-2
    Early online date3 Mar 2020
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2020

    Keywords

    • Critical constructivism
    • Postphenomenology
    • Mediation theory
    • Hannah Arendt
    • Internet
    • Democracy
    • Trolling
    • Individualism
    • 22/2 OA procedure

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