Alberto Romele

This book proposes a new theoretical framework for approaching the causes and effects that digital technologies and the imaginaries related to them have on the processes of self-interpretation and subjectivation. It formulates three main theses. First, it argues that today’s digital technologies, which are primarily based on artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and big data are formidable habitus machines: they offer increasingly personalized services, but these machines are actually indifferent to individuals and their personalities. Second, this book contends that the effectiveness of these machines does not depend solely on their concrete capacity to classify the social world. It also depends on the expectations, hopes, fears, and imaginaries that we have concerning these technologies and their capacities. This cultural habitus—a worldview, or world picture—leads us to believe in the concrete effectiveness of AI and its potential for our societies. Third, the author takes this Bourdieusian notion of habitus and connects it to current “empirical turn” in philosophy of technology. He contends that, by looking too closely at the things themselves, many philosophers of technology have deprived themselves of the possibility to study the symbolic conditions of possibility in which single technological artifacts are always embedded. Digital Habitus will appeal to scholars and students working in philosophy of technology, the ethics of artificial intelligence, media studies, and science and technology studies.

This book proposes a new theoretical framework for approaching the causes and effects that digital technologies and the imaginaries related to them have on the processes of self-interpretation and subjectivation. It formulates three main theses. First, it argues that today’s digital technologies, which are primarily based on artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and big data are formidable habitus machines: they offer increasingly personalized services, but these machines are actually indifferent to individuals and their personalities. Second, this book contends that the effectiveness of these machines does not depend solely on their concrete capacity to classify the social world. It also depends on the expectations, hopes, fears, and imaginaries that we have concerning these technologies and their capacities. This cultural habitus—a worldview, or world picture—leads us to believe in the concrete effectiveness of AI and its potential for our societies. Third, the author takes this Bourdieusian notion of habitus and connects it to current “empirical turn” in philosophy of technology. He contends that, by looking too closely at the things themselves, many philosophers of technology have deprived themselves of the possibility to study the symbolic conditions of possibility in which single technological artifacts are always embedded. Digital Habitus will appeal to scholars and students working in philosophy of technology, the ethics of artificial intelligence, media studies, and science and technology studies.

This is the first monograph to develop a hermeneutic approach to the digital—as both a technological milieu and a cultural phenomenon. While philosophical in its orientation, the book covers a wide body of literature across science and technology studies, media studies, digital humanities, digital sociology, cognitive science, and the study of artificial intelligence.In the first part of the book, the author formulates an epistemological thesis according to which the “virtual never ended.” Although the frontiers between the real and the virtual are certainly more porous today, they still exist and endure. In the book’s second part, the author offers an ontological reflection on emerging digital technologies as “imaginative machines.” He introduces the concept of emagination, arguing that human schematizations are always externalized into technologies, and that human imagination has its analog in the digital dynamics of articulation between databases and algorithms. The author takes an ethical and political stance in the concluding chapter. He resorts to the notion of "digital habitus" for claiming that within the digital we are repeatedly being reconducted to an oversimplified image and understanding of ourselves.Digital Hermeneutics will be of interest to scholars across a wide range of disciplines, including those working on philosophy of technology, hermeneutics, science and technology studies, media studies, and the digital humanities.

This is the first monograph to develop a hermeneutic approach to the digital—as both a technological milieu and a cultural phenomenon. While philosophical in its orientation, the book covers a wide body of literature across science and technology studies, media studies, digital humanities, digital sociology, cognitive science, and the study of artificial intelligence.In the first part of the book, the author formulates an epistemological thesis according to which the “virtual never ended.” Although the frontiers between the real and the virtual are certainly more porous today, they still exist and endure. In the book’s second part, the author offers an ontological reflection on emerging digital technologies as “imaginative machines.” He introduces the concept of emagination, arguing that human schematizations are always externalized into technologies, and that human imagination has its analog in the digital dynamics of articulation between databases and algorithms. The author takes an ethical and political stance in the concluding chapter. He resorts to the notion of "digital habitus" for claiming that within the digital we are repeatedly being reconducted to an oversimplified image and understanding of ourselves.Digital Hermeneutics will be of interest to scholars across a wide range of disciplines, including those working on philosophy of technology, hermeneutics, science and technology studies, media studies, and the digital humanities.