Phenomenology of the Technical World

In medicine and empirical research, the word phenomenology is often used to mean the most precise description possible of a concrete situation, a specific clinical picture, or ways of dealing with a particular technology. In philosophy, on the other hand, phenomenology represents a separate research direction that asks about the conditions of the possibility to experience something in exactly this way. At the IMGWF we think of both meanings together in order to grasp medical practices beyond their professional legitimation in their manifold efficacies, and in order to understand the world of technical systems better than as a mere application of knowledge from research.

This thematic field points to the particular potential of phenomenological philosophy in the face of technological and digital change in biomedicine and the life sciences: These changes intervene in practice structures and life worlds; they affect experiences and perceptions, phenomena of consciousness, body-mind constellations, and multiple dimensions of 'life'. In this context, phenomenology, both as an attitude and as a research approach, focuses on the (supposedly) self-evident as (literally) ‚questionable‘. It investigates the complexity of our technical self and world relations.