On screens and algorithms: towards a ‘Philosophy-through- Design’: Panel: Making a ‘practical turn’ in the philosophy of technology

There is a portrayal of a division of labour that goes like this: Philosophy delivers ontological and ethical foundations. Science takes these foundations to discover facts of reality, which, in the natural sciences, goes hand in hand with developing new technologies. Design, last in an implicit chain of command, uses the output of both to produce applications for a practical purpose. In line with this, academic research in design develops proven methods for the transformation from 3 science and philosophy to society. I propose a reframing of the relation between philosophy and design (ignoring science, for the moment): Design-research may itself actively contribute to philosophical inquiry. I restrict my claim to questions concerning the relations between humans and technologies, which are essentially bound up with what it means to be human. I illustrate this Research-through-Design with two case studies. Both cases used the activity design with reflections on process and outcomes to investigate questions in enactivism, a theory of human sensemaking. Case one investigates the problematic nature of the ‘representational screen’ in relation to embodied sensemaking by searching for alternative interactive forms to replace it. Case two investigates the problem of integrating machine learning algorithms in relation to enactivism, searching for an alternative division of labour between human users and AI. Reflecting on these cases I discuss the epistemic value of the public availability and empirical concreteness of designed artefacts as tools for philosophical inquiry.