Paper short abstract:

This paper is a review of Don Ihde’s book Acoustic Technics. The book is about the embodied, sensory experience of sound and uses his postphenomenological perspective on technoscience to show how the body experiences sound beyond hearing.

Paper long abstract:

This paper in the closed session "Hermeneutics: 'let Nature and material things speak'" is a review of Don Ihde's book Acoustic Technics. The book is about the embodied, sensory experience of sound and uses his postphenomenological perspective on technoscience to show how the body experiences sound beyond hearing. Traditionally philosophy of science has had a visualist orientation. In his long career Don Ihde has always acknowledged the important role of the other senses. Already in 1976 he published Listening and Voice: a Phenomenology of Sound, a reflection upon how we experience our world from an acoustic perspective. In Acoustic Technics Don Ihde has returned to many of the same issues, now highlighting high-tech acoustic imaging technologies, like echo-location, infra and ultra-sounds, medical diagnosis, surveillance, and subsurface and interplanetary domains.

The book consists of two parts. The first part 'A sono-sightscape' locates acoustic technologies. This part is about the core idea of sound beyond sound, imaging as a second scientific revolution, and animals and robots. The other part, 'Dimensional or "case" studies' is about acoustic capacities. This part is about six different cases, from listening to cancer to embodiment and multistability. In my review I focus on Ihde's claim of a second scientific revolution through imaging technologies, the role of animals in the argument, and the role of 'what we are doing' in the world of sounds.