Acoustic Technics

Don Ihde is distinguished professor of philosophy, emeritus, at Stony Brook University.

While Acoustic Technics will be at home on shelves of readers already familiar with his work, it is a book that deserves recognition by a wider readership because the issues he raises concern us all. . . .Ihde draws on more than 40 years of careful thought and reflection about sight and sound in human experience and practice, and extensive and wideranging reading across both arts and sciences. This experience is evident in the breath-taking number of historical figures and topics that are covered within its 148 pages, from prehistoric rock art and Galileo the musician, to modern espionage, big data, and ‘radical’ new ways of detecting cancer cells. One might think that such coverage would lack depth but Ihde’s ability to step back from detail, distill information gained from a lifetime’s experience, and provide a framework within which it is possible to locate and critically examine past, present and (possibly) future technologies, negates any such thought. . . .Acoustic Technics is a slim volume...but it has changed the way I think about technology and it highlights the part we can all play in looking beyond the early hype of new inventions.

• Preface: Prereflections on Science, Technologies and SonificationPart One: A Sono and Sightscape: Locating Acoustic TechnologiesChapter One: Introduction: Sound beyond Sound and Light beyond LightChapter Two: Imaging: A Second Scientific RevolutionChapter Three: Animals and RobotsChapter Four: Does Postphenomenology have a Bat Problem?Part Two: Dimensional or “Case” Studies for Auditory CapacitiesChapter Five Music: Technologies-Musics-EmbodimentChapter Six: Synthesizing Sounds Chapter Seven: Prostheses: Embodying Hearing DevicesChapter Eight: Listening to CancerChapter Nine: Acoustics below the SurfaceChapter Ten: Multimedia-Multitasking-MultistabilityEpilogue: Are we Posthuman?