Alberto Romele

The goal of this article is twofold. First, it aims at sketching the outlines of material hermeneutics as a three-level analysis of technological artefacts. In the first section, we introduce Erwin Panofsky’s three levels of interpretation of an artwork, and we propose to import this approach in the field of philosophy of technology. Second, the rest of the article focuses on the third level, with a specific attention towards big data and algorithms of artificial intelligence. The thesis is that these new technologies are not only radically transforming our interactions with the world, or our modes of production and consumption, but also our worldview. In the second section, we rely on Panofsky’s Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism to describe the Scholastic “mental habit” or worldview and its principles. In the third section, we confront this worldview with the mechanistic and informationistic worldviews. Our contribution consists in arguing that (1) despite the differences, the Scholastic, mechanistic, and informationistic worldviews are part of the same logical and causal order that dominated Western epistemology, and (2) today we are facing the appearance of a new worldview that we call “data worldview”. Examples from design, architecture, and visualization of knowledge will be set all along the article.

This article builds on the hypothesis that theoretical approaches to philosophy of technology are currently stuck in a false alternative: either embrace the “empirical turn” or jump back into the determinism, pessimism, and general ignorance towards specific technologies that characterized the “humanities philosophy of technology.” A third path is however possible, which consists of articulating an empirical point of view with an interest in the symbolic dimension in which technologies and technological mediations are always already embedded. Bourdieu’s sociology of the symbolic forms represents an important and mostly unexplored resource in this respect. In this article, we introduce the notion of technological capital and its tree states—objectified, institutionalized, and embodied. In the first section, we briefly account of the empirical turn in philosophy of technology. Specific attention is then devoted to postphenomenology. We depict three perspectives in postphenomenology: (1) standard postphenomenology, in which one single human-technology-world relation at a time is considered; (2) the attempt of some technological mediation theorists to articulate postphenomenology and actor-network theory (ANT); (3) the original effort in Ihde, which is currently practiced by a minority of postphenomenologists, to combine an interest for the empirical dimension of technological mediations with an attention to the social and cultural conditions of possibility in which these mediations are embedded. In the second section, we consider some recent critiques of the limits of the empirical turn in philosophy of technology, especially related to postphenomenology. Furthermore, we argue that Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology may benefit the philosophy of technology. One might say that according to a Bourdieusian perspective, technologies are, in their invention, implementation, and use, embedded in symbolically organized interactions among social actors or groups. The notion of technological capital is introduced. A specific attention is given to its embodied state, which is related to the habitus. Such concept suggests that, to rephrase the famous sentence by Heidegger, “the essence of technology is not totally technological.” In the conclusion, we consider three risks related to a Bourdieusian approach to technology: (1) transparency, (2) determinism, and (3) absolutism.

This is the first monograph to develop a hermeneutic approach to the digital—as both a technological milieu and a cultural phenomenon. While philosophical in its orientation, the book covers a wide body of literature across science and technology studies, media studies, digital humanities, digital sociology, cognitive science, and the study of artificial intelligence.

In the first part of the book, the author formulates an epistemological thesis according to which the “virtual never ended.” Although the frontiers between the real and the virtual are certainly more porous today, they still exist and endure. In the book’s second part, the author offers an ontological reflection on emerging digital technologies as “imaginative machines.” He introduces the concept of emagination, arguing that human schematizations are always externalized into technologies, and that human imagination has its analog in the digital dynamics of articulation between databases and algorithms. The author takes an ethical and political stance in the concluding chapter. He resorts to the notion of "digital habitus" for claiming that within the digital we are repeatedly being reconducted to an oversimplified image and understanding of ourselves.

Digital Hermeneutics will be of interest to scholars across a wide range of disciplines, including those working on philosophy of technology, hermeneutics, science and technology studies, media studies, and the digital humanities.

The aim of this article is threefold. In the first section, the author deals with traditional hermeneutic anthropocentrism, by focusing in particular on Dilthey and Heidegger and their reflections on nature and animals. For both of them, although from different perspectives, interpretatio naturae (interpretation of nature) is no more than a figurative expression. In the second section, it is accounted for recent developments in the emerging fields of environmental hermeneutics and biohermeneutics. In particular, the author distinguishes between two main attitudes. Some researchers have argued that nature might be considered as an object of interpretation. Others have said that nature can also be seen as a proper subject of interpretation. In the third section, the ideas developed in the context of environmental hermeneutics and biohermeneutics are 'translated' into the field of digital technologies. The author presents 'digital hermeneutics' as an emerging field in which three levels can be isolated: 1) a 'zero' level, in which hermeneutics (especially the Heideggerian one) has been used to mark a clear distinction between humans and non-humans (machines); 2) a level 'one,' in which the interpretation is considered the result of the articulation between human and non-human intentionalities; 3) a level 'two' that is still emerging, and which would consist of wondering if it is legitimate to attribute an autonomous interpretational agency to digital technologies, or at least to a part of them.

In this article, we show how postphenomenology can be used to analyze a visual method that reveals the hidden dynamics that exist between individuals within large organizations. We make use of the Affinity Map to expand the classic postphenomenology that privileges a ‘linear’ understanding of technological mediations introducing the notions of ‘iterativity’ and ‘collectivity.’ In the first section, both classic and more recent descriptions of human-technology-world relations are discussed to transcendentally approach the discipline of data visualization. In the second section, the Affinity Map case study is used to stress three elements: 1) the collection of data and the design process; 2) the visual grammar of the data visualization, and 3) the process of self-recognition for the map ‘reader.’ In the third section, we introduce the hermeneutic circle of data visualization. Finally, in the concluding section, we put forth how the Affinity Map might be seen as the material encounter between postphenomenology, actor-network theory (ANT), and hermeneutics, through ethical and political multistability.

In philosophy of the emerging media, several scholars have insisted on the fact that the “new” of new technologies does not have much to do with communication, but rather with the exponential growth of recording. In this paper, instead, the thesis is advanced that digital technologies do not concern memory, but imagination, and more precisely what philosophers, from Kant onwards, have called productive imagination. In this paper, however, the main reference will not be Kant, but Paul Ricoeur, who explicitly refers to the Kantian productive imagination in his works, but also offered an externalized, semioticized, and historicized, interpretation of it.
The article is developed in three steps. In the first section, it deals with Ricoeur’s theory of narrative, based on the notions of mimesis and mythos. In the second section, it is first argued that human imagination is always-already extended. Second, it will be shown how mimesis and mythos are precisely the way software works. In the third section, the specificity of big data is introduced. Big data is the promise of giving our actions and existences a meaning that we are incapable of perceiving, for lack of sensibility (i.e. data) and understanding (i.e. algorithms). Scholars have used the Foucauldian concepts of panopticon and confession for describing the human condition in the digital age. In the conclusion, it is argued that big data makes any form of disclosure unnecessary. Big data is an ensemble of technological artifacts, methods, techniques, practices, institutions, and forms of knowledge aiming at taking over the way someone narratively accounts for himself or herself before the others. Hence, another Foucauldian notion is representative of this age: the parrhesia, to speak candidly, and to take a risk in speaking the truth, insofar as such a possibility is anesthetized.

The goal of this article is to show how Ricoeur’s perspective on traces could be used in the current debate on digital traces and the “right to be forgotten” – the recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union according to which people have the right, under certain conditions, to ask search engines like Google to remove results for queries that include their name. In the first section, the author discusses Ricoeur’s unexpected “love for technology”. In particular, he shows how externalizations – i.e. methods, techniques and technologies – have been at the heart of Ricoeur’s hermeneutical reflections. In the second section, he takes into account Ricoeur’s considerations on traces and memory in Memory, History, Forgetting as potential replies to the several issues posed by digital traceability. The hypothesis is that Ricoeur’s perspective, and especially his motto “you are better than your actions”, could represent an ethical integration of both the juridical imposition of the European Court of Justice and the technical-moral solutions suggested by authors such as Luciano Floridi and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger.

Cette article représente le premier moment, la pars destruens, d'un travail en deux étapes. Dans ce contexte, le digital sera utilisé à fin de dé(cons)truire une certaine tradition herméneutique. La première partie fera l'hypothèse que l'herméneutique philosophique n'est pas seulement une théorie de l'interprétation, mais aussi et surtout une réflexion sur les limites de l'interprétation, i.e. sur les frontières entre le « monde de la vie » (Lebenswelt) et sa connaissance. Ce que le dernier Husserl voulait faire pour les sciences mathématiques et de la nature, l’herméneutique philosophique l'a fait pour les sciences humaines et sociales. En second lieu, on établira que les limites de l'interprétation fluctuent selon les techniques dont l'homme dispose. L'herméneutique a généralement traité ces limites comme si elles étaient stables. Nous soutiendrons, au contraire,  qu'il s'agit de frontières en mouvement et que la technique est précisément ce qui fait basculer les frontières entre le monde de la vie et les idéalités de la connaissance. La troisième étape consistera à démontrer que le digital est un ensemble technique qui tend à annuler les limites de l'interprétation. Du point de vue ontologique, cette idée a été indirectement argumentée par le philosophe de l'information Luciano Floridi, à travers le concept de « quatrième révolution ». Du point de vue épistémologique, la même idée a été implicitement avancée par Bruno Latour et ses collaborateurs. La conclusion envisagera le point d'inversion, le moment dans lequel le génitif du titre devient un génitif objectif. Face à la prétention du digital de tout comprendre, l'herméneutique peut jouer son rôle critique – au sens de Peter Szondi – en travaillant sur les « analogies » et les « différences » entre les épistémologies du digital.

Cette intervention représente la première esquisse d'une recherche visant à étudier le statut des sujets et de leur liberté, individuelle et collective, à l'ère de la « gouvernementalité algorithmique » (Berns et Rouvroy, 2013). Pour ce faire, nous focaliserons sur la notion d'imagination productrice, soit la faculté qui selon Kant assure la médiation entre la réceptivité de la sensibilité et la spontanéité de l'entendement. Nous avancerons en trois étapes. Premièrement, nous ferons référence à la manière dont le philosophe Paul Ricoeur a réfléchi sur l'imagination productrice, notamment entre les années 1970 et 1990. Pour lui, l'imagination productrice n'est pas, comme le suggère le schématisme kantien, un « art caché dans les profondeurs de l'âme humaine » ; elle opère plutôt à l'extérieur, dans des expressions langagières telles que les symboles, les métaphores et les narrations. En ce qui concerne ces derniers, l'imagination productrice consiste en un double mouvement : 1) la mimesis, qui est un travail de distanciation et d'appropriation sur la base d'un processus actif représentation de l'action ; 2) le mythos, c'est-à-dire la capacité de donner une cohérence (temporelle) à des éléments hétérogènes. L'imagination productrice aurait à faire en somme avec la capacité humaine de raconter des histoires sur sa propre vie et sur celles des autres, ainsi qu'avec le fait que les histoires racontées et écrites ont une force heuristique pour la compréhension de nos existences. Deuxièmement, nous montrerons comment mimesis et mythos sont à l'oeuvre dans le champ numérique. La mimesis y est présente dans la mesure où les technologies numériques produisent des représentations dynamiques du monde qui interprètent le monde, et qui peuvent être interprétées à leur tour. Le mythos est aussi lié au numérique si nous donnons crédit à la thèse de Lev Manovich (2013) selon laquelle « il n'y a que le software » et que le software est l'articulation entre base des données et algorithmes. Selon Kant, « des pensées sans matière sont vides, des intuitions sans concepts, aveugles ». Similairement, nous affirmons que des algorithmes sans données sont vides et que des données sans algorithmes sont aveugles. Troisièmement, nous considérerons la spécificité des Big Data par rapport aux autres pratiques numériques. Aujourd'hui, les Big Data promettent de donner à nos actions une signification que, par manque de sensibilité et d'entendement, nous sommes incapables d'apercevoir. Le traitement automatique de données massives n'est pas tout simplement volume, variété et vélocité (3V), comme on le définit habituellement. Il s'agit plutôt d'un ensemble d'artéfacts techniques, de méthodes, pratiques et institutions visant à corréler des données différentes pour en faire des profilages qui se substituent à la manière dont je rends compte de moi-même devant les autres. Si dans le Web 1.0 le schématisme numérique se trouvait encore au-dessous de celui des humains, et si dans le Web 2.0 il y correspondait, nous soutenons que le Web d'aujourd'hui se caractérise par un schématisme qui prend le dessus sur la possibilité humaine de dire vrai sur nous-mêmes.

This article builds on Gadamer’s rehabilitation of the Augustinian concept of inner word (verbum in corde). Unlike most interpretions, the thesis is that the Augustinian inner word does not show the potentialities, but rather the ineffectiveness of ontological hermeneutics. In the first section, it is argued that for the later Augustine the verbum in corde is the consequence of a Word- and Truth- event. In the second section, the author suggests that Gadamer has properly understood the verbum in corde as a matter of faith. In the third section, it is shown that Gadamer has found in the notion a paradigm for his philosophical and theological insights. Concerning the former, he has always been fascinated by the evenemential character of the ‘second’ Heidegger’s thought. Concerning the latter, Gadamer has explicitly accused Bultmann’s demythologization of being ‘human, all too human’, and he has implicitly praised Barth’s dialectical theology. 

Le but de cette intervention est de mettre en dialogue les pensées de Paul Ricoeur et de Gerhard Ebeling à partir du concept de parole efficace. La première partie entreprend de montrer, notamment à travers les lectures ricoeuriennes d’Ebeling dans les années 1960 et 1980, que le théologien allemand est plus «barthien» que le philosophe français en ce qui concerne le mouvement herméneutique de la distanciation. Dans la seconde partie, la question se pose, à travers une confrontation plus indirecte entre les deux auteurs, de savoir dans quelle mesure Ricoeur est plus «barthien» qu’Ebeling par rapport au mouvement contraire de l’appropriation. Dans sa conclusion, l’auteur avance la thèse selon laquelle Ebeling serait plus cohérent que Ricoeur dans sa réflexion autour de la parole efficace