Postphenomenological variation of instrumental realism on the "problem of representation"

Abstract

In the present paper, I take findings from the postphenomenological variation of instrumental realism to develop an ‘environmental framework’ to provide a philosophical answer to the ‘problem of representation.’ The framework focuses on three elements of the representational environment, image-making technology, image as a representational device, and scientific hermeneutic strategies occurring within the image interpretation process in the laboratory set-up. The central idea in this regard is that scientific images do not produce meanings without their instrumental environment or that an image becomes representational through the interplay between three framework elements. In the second part of the paper, I apply the framework to contemporary debates on fMRI imaging. I show that fMRI images receive meaning not in isolation but within a complex instrumental environment.

Keywords

• the ‘problem of representation’, scientific image, instrumental realism, postphenomenology, hermeneutical mediation, imaging technology, fMRI.