How Scientific Instruments Speak: Postphenomenology and Technological Mediations in Neuroscientific Practice (Postphenomenology and the Philosophy of Technology)

Science is highly dependent on the technologies needed to observe scientific objects. In How Scientific Instruments Speak, Bas de Boer develops a philosophical account of instruments in scientific practice, focusing on the cognitive neurosciences. He argues for an understanding of scientific instruments as mediating technology. Cover How Scientific Instruments Speak Series Page How Scientific Instruments Speak: Postphenomenology and Technological Mediations in Neuroscientific Practice Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgments Introduction The Context of Discovery and the Context of Justification in Philosophy of Science Instruments in the Philosophy of Science: Three Perspectives Postphenomenology and the Technological Mediation Approach Scientific Instruments in Neuroscientific Practice Structure of the Book Note Part I: Toward a Theory of Technological Mediations in Scientific Practice Chapter 1 Scientific Instruments as Mediating Technologies and the Collectivity of Scientific Practice 1.1 Scientific Instruments as Solidified Knowledge 1.2 Scientific Instruments as Offering Perspectives on Reality 1.3 Science as Distributed Knowledge 1.4 The Postphenomenological Perspective of Technological Mediation 1.5 Immutable Mobiles and Scientific Networks: The Role of Scientific Instruments from an Actor-Network Perspective 1.6 Technological Mediation and Collective Knowing 1.7 Conclusion: Mediating Technologies and Scientific Collectives Notes Chapter 2 “Technology” and “Human-Technology Relations” 2.1 Ready-to-Hand and Present-at-Hand: Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Tool Use 2.2 From Tools to Technologies: A Postphenomenology of Human-Technology Relations 2.3 Heidegger’s Pessimism: Disclosing the World in The Question Concerning Technology 2.4 Enframing and Mediation in Human-Technology Relations 2.5 Conclusion: Technological Mediation Theory as a Non-transcendentalist Approach to Non-neutrality Notes Chapter 3 Science and the Theoretical Disclosure of Nature 3.1 Heidegger and the Primacy of Practice in Science 3.2 Science as Re-search 3.3 Science, Technology, and Heidegger’s Ambiguous Pessimism 3.4 Postphenomenology and Scientific Practice 3.5 Relating to the Present-at-Hand: Science as a Specific Kind of Practice 3.6 Conclusion: Technological Mediations and the Theoretical Disclosure of Nature Notes Chapter 4 To the Scientific Objects Themselves 4.1 The Epistemological Rupture: Science and Everyday Life 4.2 Bachelard’s Phenomenotechnique 4.3 Scientific Practice Beyond Physics 4.4 The Rationality of the Scientific Project 4.5 Phenomenotechnique as Phenomenotechnology 4.6 Conclusion: Explaining Instead of Assuming the Epistemological Rupture Notes Chapter 5 Bruno Latour and the Difference between Technical and Technological Mediations 5.1 Understanding Science as Practice and Understanding Practice as Science 5.2 Latour’s “Critique” of Critique: How to Avoid a Metalanguage? 5.3 The Construction of Scientific Entities: Pasteur’s Microbes 5.4 Scientific Instruments as Inscription Devices and the Constitution of New Entities 5.5 Science-in-the-Making Reconsidered 5.6 Integrating Postphenomenology: A Hermeneutics of Scientific Instruments 5.7 Conclusion: An Empirical Philosophy of Technoscience: Toward a Methodological Basis Note Part II: A Postphenomenological Ethnomethodology of Neuroscientific Practice Chapter 6 Postphenomenology and Ethnomethodology 6.1 EM and Reality as a Practical Accomplishment 6.2 EM and the Re-specification of Science: The Constitution of Galilean Objects 6.3 Investigating Scientific Practices and the Appropriation of Technological Mediations through CA 6.5 EM and the Appropriation of Technological Mediations 6.5 Conclusion: A Hermeneutic Approach to Technological Mediations Notes Chapter 7 Constituting “Visual Attention” in the Cognitive Neurosciences 7.1 The Technologically Mediated Way in Which Cognitive Functions Become Present in Scientific Practice 7.2 Data and Methods 7.3 NIBS, EEG, and Visual Attention 7.4 Constituting Visual Attention through NIBS 7.5 Combining NIBS and EEG: Complicating Causality 7.6 Conclusion: Technological Mediations and the Normative Expectation of Causality Notes Chapter 8 “Braining” Neuropsychiatric Experiments 8.1 The Complexity of the Brain as Technologically Mediated 8.2 Neuropsychiatry and the Clinical Function of Psychiatry: Complexity and Simplicity 8.3 The Role of Diagnostic Labels in the Interpretation of Experimental Data 8.4 “Braining” Psychiatric Experiments 8.5 Conclusion: The Objectivity of fMRI in the Context of the Trade-Off between Complexity and Simplicity Notes Conclusion The Mediating Role of Technologies in Scientific Practice A Philosophy of Scientific Instruments as a Philosophy of Scientific Practice: Technological Mediation as Reality Building The Mediated Reality of Neuroscientific Collectives and the Critical Potential of a Philosophy of Technological Mediation Notes Appendix Bibliography Index About the Author Science is highly dependent on technologies to observe scientific objects. For example, astronomers need telescopes to observe planetary movements, and cognitive neuroscience depends on brain imaging technologies to investigate human cognition. But how do such technologies shape scientific practice, and how do new scientific objects come into being when new technologies are used in science ? In "How scientific instruments speak", Bas de Boer develops a philosophical account of how technologies shape the reality that scientists study, arguing that we should understand scientific instruments as mediating technologies. Rather than mute tools serving pre-existing human goals, scientific instruments play an active role in shaping scientific work. De Boer uses this account to discuss how brain imaging and stimulation technologies mediate the way in which cognitive neuroscientists investigate human cognitive functions. The development of cognitive neuroscience runs parallel with the development of advanced brain imaging technologies, drawing a lot of public attention, sometimes called "neurohype", because of its alleged capacity to demystify the human mind. By analyzing how the objects that cognitive neuroscientists study are mediated by brain imaging technologies, de Boer explicates the processes by which human cognition is investigated