Exploring Virtual Reality through Ihde's Instrumental Realism
He Zhang, John M. Carroll
TL;DR
The paper analyzes virtual reality as an instrumental technology grounded in Ihde's Instrumental Realism, examining how VR extends human perception, cognition, and scientific practice. It draws on phenomenology to show how VR alters embodiment, presence, and perspective, and on Husserlian ideas to frame experience within controlled virtual environments. The work highlights mechanisms such as presence (PI) and plausibility (PSI), argues for VR's potential to enable new observations, experiments, and empathetic insight, and discusses risks like simulacra, determinism, privacy, and escapism. Overall, VR is positioned as a substantive instrument that can redefine scientific inquiry and everyday understanding by mediating between the real and the virtual.
Abstract
Based on Ihde's theory, this paper explores the relationship between virtual reality (VR) as an instrument and phenomenology. It reviews the "technological revolution" spurred by the development of VR technology and discusses how VR has been used to study subjective experience, explore perception and embodiment, enhance empathy and perspective, and investigate altered states of consciousness. The paper emphasizes the role of VR as an instrumental technology, particularly its ability to expand human perception and cognition. Reflecting on this in conjunction with the work of Husserl and Ihde, among others, it revisits the potential of VR to provide new avenues for scientific inquiry and experience and to transform our understanding of the world through VR.