N.2/2022 L’uomo nell’era digitale: coscienza, pensiero critico e spazio politico all’epoca di internet e dell’intelligenza artificiale

Conversions of Space-Time
On the transcendental phenomenology and ethics of digitality

Robert König

Published in December, 2022

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The following theses address the questions of why, how and to what
extent digitality can and should be made an object of philosophy. In arguing my

position, I am combining the methods of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and Kant’s moral philosophy. Therefore, we must first briefly say a few words

about these methods. Hence, in an initial step, the philosophical concept of a transcendental phenomenon will be clarified. The second step applies this concept

to digitality and to the process of digitalization. In the third step, the essence of

digitalization will be discovered in a specific transcendental operation with space-
time, which I call conversion to data or datafication. The fourth step highlights

ethical, political and anthropological consequences of digital datafication according to Kantian (i.e. transcendental) ethics. In particular, the constitution of subjectivity and the chance for subjects to remain autonomous protagonists play a

significant role in the digital age. On this basis, my results mark the extent to which
philosophy and ethics are a central and necessary partner in the discourse about
digitalization processes.

phenomenology, ethics, digital, big data, algorithm.

DOI

10.53129/gcsi_02-2022-08