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28Brain imaging technologies as source for Extrospection: self-formation through critical self-identificationPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 19 (4): 729-745. 2020.Brain imaging technologies are increasingly used to find networks and brain regions that are specific to the functional realization of particular aspects of the self. In this paper, we aim to show how neuroscientific research and techniques could be used in the context of self-formation without treating them as representations of an inner realm. To do so, we show first how a Cartesian framework underlies the interpretation and usage of brain imaging technologies as functional evidence. To illust…Read more
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9Earth Becomes World? Scientific Objects, Nonmodern Worlds, and the Metaphysics of the AnthropoceneEnvironmental Humanities 15 (1): 64-86. 2023.In coming to grips with the advent of the Anthropocene, contemporary philosophers have recently pushed beyond its many physical implications (e.g., global warming, reduced biodiversity) and social significance (e.g., climate justice, economics, migration) to interpret the Anthropocene metaphysically. According to such interpretations, the Anthropocene imposes nothing less than a wholly new understanding of the world. This raises the question regarding the character of such an imposition. To deve…Read more
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23Empowerment: Freud, Canguilhem and Lacan on the ideal of health promotionMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 26 (3): 301-311. 2023.Empowerment is a prominent ideal in health promotion. However, the exact meaning of this ideal is often not made explicit. In this paper, we outline an account of empowerment grounded in the human capacity to adapt and adjust to environmental and societal norms without being completely determined by those norms. Our account reveals a tension at the heart of empowerment between (a) the ability of self-governance and (b) the need to adapt and adjust to environmental and societal norms. We address …Read more
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7Constituting ‘Visual Attention’: On the Mediating Role of Brain Stimulation and Brain Imaging Technologies in Neuroscientific PracticeScience as Culture 29 (4): 503-523. 2020.An important development within cognitive neuroscience is the use of Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS), a technique which holds the promise of establishing causal relationships between brain processes and cognitive processes. However, NIBS does not allow researchers to observe neurophysiological processes, and must be coupled with imaging technologies such as Electroencephalography (EEG) for the visualization of neurophysiological change. Technologies such as NIBS and EEG are not neutral int…Read more
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26Living in the Flesh: Technologically Mediated Chiasmic RelationshipsHuman Studies 45 (2): 189-208. 2022.During the Corona pandemic, it became clear that people are vulnerable to potentially harmful nonhuman agents, as well as that our own biological existence potentially poses a threat to others, and vice versa. This suggests a certain reciprocity in our relations with both humans and nonhumans. In his The Visible and the Invisible, Merleau-Ponty introduces the notion of the flesh to capture this reciprocity. Building on this idea, he proposes to understand our relationships with other humans, as …Read more
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6Chapter 9 Attending to Your Lifestyle: Self-Tracking Technologies and RelevanceIn Maren Wehrle, Diego D'Angelo & Elizaveta Solomonova (eds.), Access and Mediation: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Attention, De Gruyter. pp. 217-238. 2022.
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42What is morally at stake when using algorithms to make medical diagnoses? Expanding the discussion beyond risks and harmsTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 42 (5): 245-266. 2021.In this paper, we examine the qualitative moral impact of machine learning-based clinical decision support systems in the process of medical diagnosis. To date, discussions about machine learning in this context have focused on problems that can be measured and assessed quantitatively, such as by estimating the extent of potential harm or calculating incurred risks. We maintain that such discussions neglect the qualitative moral impact of these technologies. Drawing on the philosophical approach…Read more
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34Explaining multistability: postphenomenology and affordances of technologiesAI and Society 38 (6): 2267-2277. 2023.A central issue in postphenomenology is how to explain the multistability of technologies: how can it be that specific technologies can be used for a wide variety of purposes (the “multi”), while not for all purposes (the “stability”)? For example, a table can be used for the purpose of sleeping, having dinner at, or even for staging a fencing match, but not for baking a cake. One explanation offered in the literature is that the (material) design of a technology puts constraints on the purposes…Read more
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10Bringing disgust in through the backdoor in healthy food promotion: a phenomenological perspectiveMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 24 (4): 731-743. 2021.Obesity has been pointed out as one of the main current health risks leading to calls for a so-called “war on obesity”. As we show in this paper, activities that attempt to counter obesity by persuading people to adjust a specific behavior often employ a pedagogy of regret and disgust. Nowadays, however, public healthcare campaigns that aim to tackle obesity have often replaced or augmented the explicit negative depictions of obesity and/or excessive food intake with the positive promotion of he…Read more
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12Constituting ‘Visual Attention’: On the Mediating Role of Brain Stimulation and Brain Imaging Technologies in Neuroscientific PracticeScience as Culture 29 (4): 503-523. 2020.An important development within cognitive neuroscience is the use of Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS), a technique which holds the promise of establishing causal relationships between brain processes and cognitive processes. However, NIBS does not allow researchers to observe neurophysiological processes, and must be coupled with imaging technologies such as Electroencephalography (EEG) for the visualization of neurophysiological change. Technologies such as NIBS and EEG are not neutral int…Read more
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14Does an Ontic Whole Exist?: Conditions of Possibility and Technology UseFoundations of Science 27 (4): 1401-1407. 2022.In this commentary, I scrutinize Coeckelbergh’s criticism of postphenomenology, and question whether postphenomenology indeed tends to neglect the social dimension of technology use (ontic), and must necessarily be conceived as being in opposition to transcendental philosophy (ontological). Second, I suggest that the Wittgensteinian concepts that Coeckelbergh introduces are interesting additions to the concepts used in postphenomenology, but that his use of the term “transcendental” seems up to …Read more
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10The Advance of Technoscience and the Problem of Death DeterminationTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 24 (3): 306-331. 2020.Death determination has long been a topic of intensive technoscientific and medical involvement. Due to advances in twentieth-century medical technology, the distinction between life and death has become less evident. Ambiguities appear when we start to use life-support technologies in order to save lives, bringing about “tragic artifacts” such as brain death and persistent vegetative state. In this paper we ask how this technoscientific and medical involvement shapes our understanding of death.…Read more
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18Science is highly dependent on the technologies needed to observe scientific objects. In How Scientific Instruments Speak, Bas de Boer develops a philosophical account of instruments in scientific practice, focusing on the cognitive neurosciences. He argues for an understanding of scientific instruments as mediating technology.
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15Discovering Subjectivity in the TechnosystemTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 24 (1-2): 62-82. 2020.Two of the main approaches of what is often referred to as the ‘empirical philosophy of technology’ are postphenomenology and critical constructivism. Critical constructivists charge postphenomenologists for paying too little attention to the fact that our society is co-constituted not only by technologies, but also by forms of rationality exercised on a political level. Postphenomenologists, then, charge critical constructivism for insufficiently recognizing that the way technologies are approp…Read more
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16Technology In Between the Individual and the PoliticalTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 24 (1-2): 1-14. 2020.Critical Constructivism and postphenomenology are two possible ways of describing, analysing and evaluating the role and meaning of technology in contemporary society and world. Whereas Critical Constructivism looks at the way technologies are dealt with on a macro level considering systems and programs, then postphenomenology digs into the individual and personal appropriation and understanding of technology in everyday life. This means that there is a gap for what concerns levels, but also in …Read more
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11The Advance of Technoscience and the Problem of Death DeterminationTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 24 (3): 306-331. 2020.Death determination has long been a topic of intensive technoscientific and medical involvement. Due to advances in twentieth-century medical technology, the distinction between life and death has become less evident. Ambiguities appear when we start to use life-support technologies in order to save lives, bringing about “tragic artifacts” such as brain death and persistent vegetative state. In this paper we ask how this technoscientific and medical involvement shapes our understanding of death.…Read more
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13Discovering Subjectivity in the TechnosystemTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 24 (1-2): 62-82. 2020.Two of the main approaches of what is often referred to as the ‘empirical philosophy of technology’ are postphenomenology and critical constructivism. Critical constructivists charge postphenomenologists for paying too little attention to the fact that our society is co-constituted not only by technologies, but also by forms of rationality exercised on a political level. Postphenomenologists, then, charge critical constructivism for insufficiently recognizing that the way technologies are approp…Read more
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21Experiencing objectified health: turning the body into an object of attentionMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 23 (3): 401-411. 2020.In current phenomenology of medicine, health is often understood as a state of transparency in which our body refrains from being an object of explicit attention. In this paper, I argue that such an understanding of health unnecessarily presupposes an overly harmonious alignment between subjective and objective body, resulting in the idea that our health remains phenomenologically inaccessible. Alternatively, I suggest that there are many occasions in which one’s body in health does become an ob…Read more
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31The Perspective of the Instruments: Mediating CollectivityFoundations of Science 23 (4): 739-755. 2018.Numerous studies in the fields of Science and Technology Studies and philosophy of technology have repeatedly stressed that scientific practices are collective practices that crucially depend on the presence of scientific technologies. Postphenomenology is one of the movements that aims to draw philosophical conclusions from these observations through an analysis of human–technology interactions in scientific practice. Two other attempts that try to integrate these insights into philosophy of sc…Read more
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24The Perspective of the Instruments: Mediating CollectivityFoundations of Science 23 (4): 739-755. 2018.Numerous studies in the fields of Science and Technology Studies and philosophy of technology have repeatedly stressed that scientific practices are collective practices that crucially depend on the presence of scientific technologies. Postphenomenology is one of the movements that aims to draw philosophical conclusions from these observations through an analysis of human–technology interactions in scientific practice. Two other attempts that try to integrate these insights into philosophy of sc…Read more
Enschede, Netherlands
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Technology |
General Philosophy of Science, Miscellaneous |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Technology |
General Philosophy of Science, Miscellaneous |