Suitable for students and scholars, this title challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.

L’influence réciproque de Merleau-Ponty et Simondon a été mise en lumière depuis plusieurs années, notamment à travers leur critique commune d’une conception « artificialiste » de la technologie. Mais la relation distante, voir critique, de Merleau-Ponty envers la technologie et ses « dispositifs de captation » semble pourtant induire une divergence entre leurs pensées. Sa réserve participe également au privilège qu’il accorde à la peinture par rapport au cinéma. Or celui-ci peut incarner un intermédiaire particulièrement puissant entre les deux auteurs (...) à travers la figure de Jean Epstein, auquel Merleau-Ponty se réfère dans ses notes de cours sur l’expression et le mouvement de 1953. On y découvre l’idée d’un usage à la fois subversif et expressif du dispositif cinématographique par rapport à son rôle automatique de « dispositif de captation » qui semble pouvoir relier la position des trois auteurs concernant les liens de l’esthétique et de la technologie.The mutual influence of Merleau-Ponty and Simondon has come to light in recent years, notably through their common criticism of an “artificialist” conception of technology. But Merleau-Ponty’s distant, even critical, relation towards technology and its “apparatuses of capture” appears to entail a divergence in their thought. His reservation applies equally to the privilege he grants painting in relation to cinema. Yet one could find a particularly powerful intermediary between both authors in Jean Epstein, to whom Merleau-Ponty refers in his 1953 course notes on expression and movement. There we discover a use, simultaneously subversive and expressive, of the cinematographic apparatus with respect to its automatic role as “apparatus of capture” that seems capable of connecting the positions of all three authors concerning the links between aesthetics and technology. L’influenza reciproca di Merleau-Ponty e Simondon è stata messa in luce da molti anni, in particolar modo attraverso la critica, comune ad entrambi, di una concezione “artificialista” della tecnologia. Tuttavia la posizione distante, finanche critica, di Merleau-Ponty verso la tecnologia e i suoi “dispositivi di ricezione”, sembra indurre una divergenza tra le loro riflessioni. Ritroviamo questa riserva merleau-pontiana nel privilegio che egli accorda alla pittura piuttosto che al cinema. Eppure, proprio in virtù di quest’ultimo è possibile individuare un forte legame tra i due autori, in particolare attraverso la figura di Jean Epstein, a cui Merleau-Ponty fa riferimento nelle sue note del corso sull’espressione e sul movimento del 1953. In questo corso, infatti, viene a individuarsi l’idea di un utilizzo sovversivo e insieme espressivo del dispositivo cinematografico, rispetto al suo ruolo automatico di “dispositivo di ricezione”, che sembra poter collegare la posizione dei tre autori circa i legami tra l’estetica e la tecnologia. (shrink)

In our everyday life, we have the genuine feeling that when something we use works very well, we forget that we are doing something that is mediated by something else. It happens when we read through our glasses, or when we drive home, or when we play guitar. In all those cases, it can be said that the device becomes an extension of our body, or that we have incorporated it. In this paper I want to discuss the extension/incorporation dichotomy (...) as presented in contemporary cognitive sciences. I will present the state of the art in the debate in order to promote a methodological shift, namely to adopt two concept borrowed from Material Engagement Theory developed by Lambros Malafouris. By advocating the concepts of temporality and metaplasticity, I will argue for two different but related things: 1) extension and incorporation don’t have to be conceived only spatially, but temporally. This shift leads to two distinctive implications: first, the sooner two entities establish a prosthetic contact, the higher the chances to reach incorporation; second, extension temporally precedes incorporation; the former being an early-staged phenomenon of – a condition of possibility for – the latter. 2) Such a temporal perspective is at the base of metaplasticity, which describes, in the context of MET, the constant, co-constitutive loop between humans and things: metaplasticity deflates the privileged role traditionally attributed to the subject in the making of phenomenal experience. Finally, I will discuss extension and incorporation in media theory, relying on the concept of radical mediation. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"... Dr. Ihde brings an enlightening and deeply humanistic perspective to major technological developments, both past and present." —Science Books & Films "Don Ihde is a pleasure to read.... The material is full of nice suggestions and details, empirical materials, fun variations which engage the reader in the work... the overall points almost sneak up on you, they are so gently and gradually offered." —John Compton "A sophisticated celebration of cultural diversity and of its enabling technologies.... perhaps the best single (...) volume relating the philosophical tradition to the broad issues raised by contemporary technologies." —Choice "... important and challenging... " —Review of Metaphysics "... a range of rich historical, cultural, philosophical, and psychological insights, woven together in an intriguing and clear exposition... The book is really a pleasure to read, for its style, immense learning and sanity." —Teaching Philosophy The role of tools and instruments in our relation to the earth and the ways in which technologies are culturally embedded provide the foci of this thought-provoking book. (shrink)

"On trouve, chez le dernier Merleau-Ponty, des formules fulgurantes qui éclairent notre rapport contemporain aux images. Mais nous venons seulement de commencer à philosopher selon leurs implications et leurs conséquences."--P. [4] of cover.

The French philosopher Renaud Barbaras remarked that late in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s career, “The phenomenology of perception fulfills itself as a philosophy of expression.” In _Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty: Aesthetics, Philosophy of Biology, and Ontology, _Véronique M. Fóti_ _addresses the guiding yet neglected theme of expression in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. She traces Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about how individuals express creative or artistic impulses through his three essays on aesthetics, his engagement with animality and the “new biology” in the second of his lecture courses (...) on nature of 1957–58, and in his late ontology, articulated in 1964 in the fragmentary text of _Le visible et l’invisible _. With the exception of a discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s 1945 essay “Cezanne’s Doubt,” Fóti engages with Merleau-Ponty’s late and final thought, with close attention to both his scientific and philosophical interlocutors, especially the continental rationalists. Expression shows itself, in Merleau-Ponty’s thought, to be primordial, and this innate and fundamental nature of expression has implications for his understanding of artistic creation, science, and philosophy. (shrink)