The Technology-Supplemented Bodily Subject

The Augmented Human is the latest representation of a technologically augmented human condition. The focus is on implantable or wearable information technology that enhances our bodily subjectivity. This paper examines a fundamental conceptualization of technological augmentation, namely, the supplementation of the bodily subject through technology. This is achieved through the lens of the nascent discipline of synthetic phenomenology, which highlights the role of technology in enabling the emergence of novel forms of subjective sensemaking. The paper is organized into three sections. First, it presents a reconstruction of the conceptual background of the augmented bodily subject within the broader context of related paradigms of information research and innovation. The reconstruction presents a contrast between two conceptualizations: supplementation and replacement. Secondly, the paper introduces and contextualizes synthetic phenomenology within the broader landscape of contemporary philosophical contributions to the field of the Augmented Human. Subsequently, a case study of sensory supplementation is presented, namely biomimetic prosthetic vision. The case study was selected based on two considerations: the central role played by visual perception in the formation and codification of synthetic phenomenology as an autonomous discipline, and the increasing expansion of biomimetic prosthetics as a domain of technology-supplemented bodily subjectivity.