Abstract
Martin Heidegger and Gaston Bachelard , phenomenological philosophers of dwelling and the notion of self , claimed that essentially, we have to dwell in order to be able to think. Building the dwelling is synonymous of being in Heidegger’s perspective, which means that constructing a shelter for our vulnerable bodies is a prerogative for fulfilling our potentials as humans. These constructs are physical materialisations of our experiences and knowledge of how it is to be a body and closely connected to the way we are in the world. It is being-in-the-world. These are constructions, frameworks, or scaffolds (Gestell) that uphold and withhold, on an existential level, identity, and selfhood. Without these scaffolds, we are left to the dangers and atrocities of life. The general opinion of Heidegger is that modernity has been systematically constructing cages, caves, and boxes that alienate and distance man from his true being. Technology has separated man from himself and made the opposite of true scaffolding , and hence from supporting man in his life. This chapter discusses the notions of scaffolding and enframing in relation to construction of identity and selfhood in virtual reality, as well as reflection on the possibilities of meaningful and responsible Onlife existence. Scaffolding is, as every scaffold-builder would know, an impossible individual enterprise. Actually, scaffolding has been seen as the ultimate metaphor for the collective and social endeavour, where the construction of the medieval cathedral has become iconic. Scaffolding in the Onlife reality, or making “digital assemblages ”, should be seen as actions of self -determination together with others, which means that the possible outcomes of scaffolds are both results of what the scaffold withholds, contains, and conceals, and the processes of co-construction , co-creation, co-shaping, and co-constitution with others in the scaffolding . The scaffold mediates this dynamic and fluctuating reality in between selves, others, and technologies.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Asimov, I. (1964). The rest of robots. Doubleday.
Bachelard, G. (1958/1994). The poetics of space. Boston: Beacon Press.
Botin, L. (2015). The technological construction of the self: Techno-Anthropological readings and reflections. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 19(2), 211–232.
Botin, L. (2017). Sublime embodiment of the media. In Yoni Van der Eede, et al. (Eds.), Postphe nomenology and media: Essays on human-media-world relations. New York: Lexington Books.
Broadbent, S., & Lobet-Maris, C. (2015). Towards a grey ecology. In Luciano Floridi (Ed.), The onlife manifesto. Springer Science+Business Media: Being human in a hyperconnected era.
Edmundson, A. (2015). Curating in the postdigital age. M/C Journal, 18(4).
Ellul, J. (1953/1964). The technological society. New York: Vintage Books.
Ess, C. (2015). The onlife manifesto: philosophical backgrounds, media usages, and the futures of democracy and equality. In L. Floridi (Ed.), The onlife manifesto (pp. 89–109). Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London: Springer International Publishing.
Floridi, L. (2015). Commentary on the onlife manifesto. In L. Floridi (Ed.), The onlife manifesto: Being human in a hyperconnected era. Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London: Springer International Publishing.
Haraway, D. J. (2003). The companion species manifesto: Dogs, people, and significant otherness. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of commons. Science, 162, 1243–1248.
Hayles, N. K. (2017). Unthought. The power of the cognitive nonconscious. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1927/1962). Being and time. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Heidegger, M. (1950/1977). Building, dwelling, thinking. Basic Writings. HarperSanFrancisco.
Heidegger, M. (1957/1977). The question concerning technology. Basic Writings. HarperSanFrancisco.
Husserl, E. (1970). The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology. An introduction to phenomenology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Ihde, D. (1990). Technology and the lifeworld. From garden to earth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Ihde, D., & Selinger, E. (2004). Merleau-Ponty and epistemological engines. Human Studies, 27, 361–376.
Ingold, T. (2000). The perception of the environment. Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. London and New York: Routledge.
Laouris, Y. (2015). Reengineering and reinventing both democracy and the concept of life in the digital Era. In Luciano Floridi (Ed.), The onlife manifesto. Springer Science+Business Media: Being human in a hyperconnected era.
Latour, B. (2005a). From realpolitik to Dingpolitik or how to make things public. In B. Latour & P. Weibel (Eds.), Making things public. Atmospheres of democracy. Boston: MIT Press.
Latour, B. (2005b). (unpublished): Critical distance or critical proximity? (http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/P-113-HARAWAY.pdf).
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964). Eye and Mind. In J. Edie (Ed.), The primacy of perception and other essays. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Mouffe, C. (2000). The democratic paradox. London: Verso.
Nørreklit, L. (2004). Hvad er virkelighed? (What is reality?). In J. Christensen (Ed.), Vidensgrundlag for handlen. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press.
Onlife Initiative. (2015). The onlife manifesto. In The Onlife Manifesto (pp. 7–13). Springer Verlag GmbH.
Rosa, H. (2010). Alienation and acceleration: Towards a critical theory of late modernity. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Shilling, C. (2005). The body in culture, technology & society. London: Sage Publications.
Tabak, I. (2004). Synergy: A complement to emerging patterns of distributed scaffolding. The Journal of Learning Sciences, 13(3), 305–335.
Verbeek, P.-P. (2011). Moralizing technology: Understanding and designing the morality of things. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Virilio, P. (1977). Speed and politics: An essay on dromology. New York: Semiotext(e).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Botin, L. (2019). Scaffolding the Self in Onlife. In: Otrel-Cass, K. (eds) Hyperconnectivity and Digital Reality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24143-8_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24143-8_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-24142-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-24143-8
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)