Ontophany Theory: Historical Phenomenology of Technology and the Digital Age

Abstract

For over 20 years, the concept of the virtual has prevailed in French digital studies. Yet two decades of daily cultural integration with interfaces have demonstrated that virtuality is only one of many aspects of our interactive experience with digital devices. A need therefore exists for new concepts more apt to address the philosophical complexity of the digital phenomenon and the significance of our interactions with calculated matter as they are true existential experiences of phenomenological significance. In this chapter I explain why I have suggested introducing the phenomenological concept of ontophany (manifestation of being). In close relationship with a comprehensive and broadened understanding of Bachelard’s notion of “phenomenotechnique,” I examine the hitherto unidentified technicality of this manifestation process. Prior to their existence as tools in uses, technologies are first the perceptual structure of our existence; they are the “devices” or the invisible matrixes, produced by culture and history, into which our potential experience-of-the-world is cast. Not only do the following theoretical propositions seek to contribute, philosophically, to Internet Studies and to a better understanding the Digital Age, they also hope to give rise to a broader deliberation on technology and perception, as they relate to an approach I would characterize as a historical phenomenology of technology.