IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020 - 74

hermeneutics and phenomenology. Ihde's main reliance
is on phenomenology, and along with his use of hermeneutics, he calls his method " Cultural Hermeneutics. " In
some ways, this can be regarded as the application of his
phenomenological views to the social dimension.
The individual and social outcomes of these two
approaches in the field of technology lead to the elimination of the dichotomy between man and technology in the
individual realm, and the elimination of the dichotomy
between culture and technology in the social realm. Thus,
questioning the dominance of culture over technology
and vice versa would basically not make any sense. From
this point of view, technology only appears in the cultural
context or in human and social actions, and therefore the
analysis of technology, regardless of the human relationship with it in a cultural context, is an inaccurate analysis.

According to Ihde, the pluricultural
revolution will eliminate the cultural
centrality of the West and bring about
the recognition of other cultures
as well.

Ihde's interest in the tradition of phenomenology is
older than the time he started to publish in the field of
the philosophy of technology. He takes phenomenology from its founder, Edmund Husserl, and approaches
the views of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, making some
changes. He calls the result " postphenomenology " [20,
pp. 5-8]. Regarding Ihde's social and cultural thoughts
on technology, multistability is the concept that helps
him out of this dichotomy of determinists. Ihde develops multistability in his postphenomenology, and then
introduces it in his philosophical thoughts on technology. Multistability from the perspective of phenomenology means that a phenomenon in the outside world can
have different perceptions and appearances for different people under different conditions. These different
perceptions are influenced by two aspects of the
human look and the capacities of the external phenomenon [21, p. 145]. Ihde explains this in detail,
using examples from past phenomenologists and innovative examples.7

For more information about Ihde's phenomenology and its difference with
other phenomenalists refer to Experimental Phenomenology: Multistabilities [12, ch. 12].

The philosophical concept of multistability enables
Ihde to consider technology as ambiguous. The ambiguity here means that technology has various capabilities
to emerge in face of different societies and people. Thus,
what Heidegger refers to as the essence of technology
[14], Ellul calls the autonomy of technology [8, pp. 125-
155], and Mumford describes as the myth of the
machine [32, pp. 187-206], are all called into question.
The famous example that Ihde uses in this discussion is
the " oval sardine cans left behind " by the Australian gold
prospectors which " were immediately snatched by the
New Guineans as treasured objects and promptly made
into the centerpieces of the elaborate headwear they
wore for special occasions " [14, pp. 125-126]. Ihde uses
this example and many other pieces of evidence regarding the various and unusual use of tools and objects in
different cultures8 to reveal that the concept of multistability enables us to speak about different technology
experiences in a new cultural context. According to Ihde,
multistability is not just about different uses of a single
technological device to fulfill specific needs of new cultural contexts. Rather, Ihde also discusses this relationship from the other way around, which is to fulfill a
specific need by different devices. To prove the latter,
Ihde mentions the example of two types of navigators
used by Europeans and Polynesians. Western navigation
practices, which led to wide discoveries throughout the
world, used accurate tools and mathematical calculations. But on the other hand, the Polynesians were navigating throughout the Pacific using their deep
understanding of nature and natural phenomena such as
wind, clouds, birds, and waves. Interestingly, the results
of using these two types of technologies for navigating
oceans were the same and what the Westerners were
doing with the help of sophisticated devices, the Polynesians were also doing without using any devices and
with the mere understanding of nature [14, pp. 147-148].
Ihde explains the encounter of different societies
with technology at two levels. First it enters a society,
and depending on the level of overlap between the cultural context of technology and the cultural context of
the target community, technology either replaces its
similar traditional devices - such as the replacement of
animal bones with metal knives and spears - or finds a
limited usage based on the culture of the target community such as the use of pocket watches as a kind of
ornament in Chinese aristocrats. This level of use can
be low or high, usually based on the cultural overlap of
the community of origin and destination, as well as the
8
Ihde uses many examples from the ancient world, such as Indian prayer
wheels, compariing them with windmills in medieval Europe; and Chinese
clock, compariing them with the clocks of the Jesuits (17, pp. 126-127,
129-130], or contemporary examples such as the development of the typewriter and the telephone for blind and hearing-impaired people [18, p. 116].

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DECEMBER 2020

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020

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