Existential, Instrumental and Cyber Spaces as Ontological Modi of Human Being

Context and relevance of the research: the task of developing a general theoretical basis and methodology of ontological problems of interaction and interrelation of the Internet space and the physical world comes forward with the formation of the virtual computer environment determined both by the presence of a human being in computer network and presence of computer network in the life world of the human being. Virtual reality, even in its current state, is already widely recognized and described in academic sources. There are prospects of its application in medicine, education, professional training, space, military, art, automotive industry, shipbuilding, trade, leisure, consulting assistance to population, administration, and other spheres of management. According to academic forecasts, intensive, large-scale, multidirectional development of virtual computer environment will continue in the 21st century. The purpose of the study is to carry out a systematic analysis of the concepts: existential space, instrumental space and cyberspace in their interrelationship and interaction; to propose the author’s definition of existential space as a methodological construction for the study of its ontological modi: instrumental space and cyberspace; to define the ontological characteristics of instrumental space and cyberspace, their common features (connection) and distinction; to reveal features of existential immersion of a person into virtual computer reality – the process of emotional perception of existence in the information field – an artificially created world of ‘people and things,’ as well as subjective-personal effects accompanying this process. The methodology used: M. Heidegger’s Dasein analytics, D. Ihde’s instrumental realism, systems-based approach, comparative analysis. Key findings: the creation of cyberspace and computer virtual reality has unveiled a new stage in the formation of existential experience and project as a system of information technology and socio-psychological competencies. There is a necessity in the system-based elaboration of conceptual and categorical apparatus. The researcher will use it to describe the ontological modi of both existing and a new (computer virtual) reality and their interconnection.

Instrumental Realisms and their Ontological Commitments

This paper shall concern itself with two variants of instrumental realism that have developed independently of each other and have made a mark on contemporary philosophies of science as well as of technology in their own respective ways. One is that of Don Ihde, the progenitor of the postphenomenological approach to technoscience, and the other that of Davis Baird, who emphasizes the epistemic centrality of instruments as bearers of knowledge in themselves. I shall juxtapose Ihde’s instrumental realism with the instrumental realism of Baird, both of whom emphasize the importance of experimentation and instrumentation to any comprehensive philosophy of science. Whereas Ihde wants to extend hermeneutics to science praxis, Baird wants to maintain an epistemological commitment to what he calls ‘thing knowledge.’ In comparing and contrasting these two variants of instrumental realism, I shall discern the implicit ontological and epistemological claims that underlie the two realisms in the background of scientific realism and critically evaluate their contributions to a more comprehensive understanding of science, technology, and the relation between the two.

From Interrelational Ontology to Instrumental Ethics

Current human/social science research supports Don Ihde’s postphenomenology. In particular, archeology and anthropology support Ihde’s instrumental realism, and history identifies the culture that nourished Platonic and Aristotelian separation of mentality and materiality. Deweyean pragmatism, beginning with his analysis of the reflex arc, supports both instrumental realism and an interrelational ontology that rejects the residual Cartesian dualism in Husserlian phenomenology. Ihde’s acknowledgment of the affinity between postphenomenology and Deweyean pragmatism enables expanding his prevalent epistemological and structural orientation to encompass a normative dimension. Peter-Paul Verbeek’s focus on the ethical dimension of how products are designed and how things interact with humans is an important expansion of pragmatic postphenomenology as well as an expansion of current research on the “4e’s” of cognition—embedded, embodied, enacted, and extended—to include a fifth: ethical.

Control in the Face of Uncertainty

The mental health benefits of the sense of personal control are well documented, but do these benefits persist in social contexts of powerlessness and uncertainty? Drawing from two national panel surveys of American and Canadian workers, we examine whether the association between perceived control and reduced distress is undermined by the uncertainty of threatened employment. While we find evidence that higher levels of perceived control are associated with reduced distress, the association is curvilinear among insecure workers, such that subsequent increases in control produce diminishing reductions in distress for workers reporting the threat of job loss. This curvilinear pattern is particularly prominent among American insecure workers, with higher than moderate levels of control associated with more rather than less distress for this group. We draw from Mirowsky and Ross’s “instrumental realism” model to interpret these patterns and suggest that high control beliefs may be less beneficial for mental health in uncertain role contexts.

Ihde’s Instrumental Realism and the Marxist Account of Technology in Experimental Science

Edgar Zilsel offers a Marxist account of the rise of experimental science avoiding both crude determinism and the anti-scientific bias of much “Western Marxism.” This account supplements Don Ihde’s instrumental realism with a social account of the systematic extension of perception by instrumentation. The social contact of non-literate craftspeople with purely intellectual scholars forged the social basis of what became technoscience.