Digitally Mediated (Dis)embodiment

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate that the philosophical anthropology of the German philosopher Helmuth Plessner (1892-1985) enables us to gain a better understanding of the experiential presuppositions and implications of information and communication technologies, such as telepresence and virtual reality, than we can obtain through interpretations that start from a dualistic, Cartesian ontology. With the help of Plessner's concept of "excentric positionality', developed in Stages of the Organic and Man (1928), Hans Moravec's Utopian claims about the possibility of disembodied existence in cyberspace are criticized and an alternative, more adequate interpretation is presented. It is argued that the corporal "poly-excentric positionality' that is inherent in the human experience of telepresence and virtual reality, radicalizes the existential " homelessness' which characterizes human life.

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