Intersubjectivity in the Context of Digital Reality: Phenomenological Approach

Abstract

The main goal of the article is to find out how traditional phenomenological solutions to the problem of intersubjectivity should be transformed in connection with the formation of digital reality. In order to expose this issue, the author undertakes a reconstruction of the basic ontological properties of digital objects, as well as an analysis of the main phenomenological approaches to the problem of intersubjectivity (basing on the material of the theories of the Other in Husserl and Heidegger). In the course of the study, the author found that, on the one hand, some contemporary phenomenological authors consider the ability to combine the constitutive properties of thing and non-thing as one of the basic features of the digital objects. On the other hand, they believe that the relations are also of very significance for the proper being of digital objects. As a result of the analysis of the theories of the Other in Husserl and Heidegger, the author highlights that Husserl understands the constitution of the Other in the framework of so-called appresentative model. On the contrary, Heidegger believes that the Other is always primarily given from the common-shared world. Finally, the author shows that both considered classical phenomenological models of the constitution of intersubjectivity cannot be fully applicable for investigation of intersubjectivity after the formation of digital reality as a special ontological region. The appresentative model turns out to be unsuitable, since in the digital age the givenness of the body of the Other can become completely mediated by digital representations of this body. The Heideggerian model, which interprets the givenness of the Other from the common-use of available ready-to-hand entities with him, may also not give the desired result, since the secondary ready-to-handiness of digital tools turns out to be capable of interrupting the interconnections of the of the primary ready-to-handiness.