This paper revives phenomenological elements to have a better framework for addressing the implications of technologies on society. For this reason, we introduce the motto “back to the technologies themselves” to show how some phenomenological elements, which have not been highlighted in the philosophy of technology so far, can be fruitfully integrated within the postphenomenological analysis. In particular, we introduce the notion of technological intentionality in relation to the passive synthesis in Husserl’s phenomenology. Although the notion of technological intentionality has (...) already been coined in postphenomenology, it is “in tension” with the notion of technological mediation since there are still no clear differences between these two concepts and studies on how they relate one to another. The tension between mediation and intentionality arises because it seems intuitively reasonable to suggest that intentionality differs from mediation in a number of ways; however, these elements have not been clearly clarified in postphenomenology so far. To highlight what technological intentionality is and how it differs from mediation, we turn the motto “back to the things themselves” into “back to the technologies themselves,” showing how the technologies have to be taken into consideration by themselves. More specifically, we use the concept of passive synthesis developed by Husserl, and we apply it to technologies to show their inner passive activity. The notion of the passive synthesis enables to demonstrate how technologies are able to connect to a wider (technological) environment without the subjects’ activity. Consequently, we claim that technologies have their pole of action, and they passively act by themselves. (shrink)

During the second half of the twentieth century, several philosophers of technology argued that their predecessors had reflected too abstractly and pessimistically on technology. In the view of these critics, one should study technologies empirically in order to fully understand them. They developed several strategies to empirically inform the philosophy of technology and called their new approach the empirical turn. However, they provide insufficient indications of what exactly is meant by empirical study in their work. This leads to the critical (...) question of what counts as an empirically informed philosophy of technology in the empirical turn. In order to answer this question, we first elaborate on the problems that the empirical turn philosophers tried to address; secondly, we sketch their solutions, and, thirdly, we critically discuss their conceptions of empirical study. Our critical analysis of the empirical turn contributes to new efforts to engage in an empirically informed philosophy of technology. (shrink)