Call for Papers
“Deception and Illusion” special issue of Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie (JTPhil; Yearbook of Philosophy of Technology) and the journal Technikgeschichte
Submission deadline for topic outlines (1- 2 pages): October 15, 2023
Submission deadline for complete articles: January 15, 2024
If what is claimed turns out to be false, we feel deceived. If an artifact is able to pretend something miraculous, we speak – often admiringly – of a successful illusion. So, is fake… ambivalent? Photos of people who don’t exist, videos showing real people saying things they never said, posts expressing anger or reviewing products originating from bots: Recently, the enormous potential of AI, particularly for deception, has become apparent may it be for economic, political, aesthetic or merely playful reasons.
However, the special issue of the JTPhil 2025 seeks to take a step back. It aims to inquire the systematic and, importantly, historical interplay, perhaps even connection of deception, illusion, and technology. Whether it is the history of the machine concept, which leads into the modern representation of miraculous and theatrical effects, or whether the concept of technology, as in Hegel or Sachsse, is understood from the outset as a ploy: technology and deception refer to each other not only since Generative Adverserial Networks (GAN) or the hallucinations of Large Language Models (LLM). Myth and theater, fireworks and horticulture, educational strategy and experimentation, painting and measurement offer a rich history that attests to this.
Could the history of technology be read as a history of the progress of deception? Or do new theories of technology need to distinguish between deception and illusion? Additionally, reliability and trust are crucial to the functioning of technology which is why the purpose of deception requires a certain degree of seriousness. The more complex the illusion effect, the more sophisticated the technology “behind” it? While no special means are required for a spontaneous lie, the history of deception and illusion drives invention, innovation, and the virtuoso use of technology as much as it propels criticism of technology and the development of counter-techniques designed to reveal deception.
TECHNOLOGY, APPEARANCE, AND REALITY
The discussion of new technical possibilities for deception is often understood in such a way that new options of deception emerge within a fixed distinction between appearance and reality. A more advanced thesis, however, would be that the distinction between appearance and reality changes with the technical possibilities of deception. Thus, they do not concern phenomena within these “realms”, but draw the boundary itself.
Three considerations may explain this:
- The boundary between deception and truth is historically contingent. Where the distinction between deceptiveness and trueness is drawn is not static. Consequently, not only does what is materially determined as deception and truth change, but the boundary that separates the two is subject to change. And this change is tied to techniques, as the history of the microscope, telescope, or gestalt figures show.
- The guiding distinctions are subject to historical change: Deception may be understood as a lie, an error, a simulation, an illusion, or a suggestion. It may be considered in opposition to truth, veracity, originality, authenticity, clarity, certainty.
- The boundary figure itself exhibits variability. In modern times, the separation of deception and “truth” appears as a binary opposition, especially in parts of modern philosophy and then in the natural sciences. Something is either a deception or not, undecided at best for an observer. In contrast, we hypothesize that the supposed binarity is a historically conditioned boundary figure. Areas of appearance were considered part of reality in the prehistoric period, not as undecidedness of their observer. Consequently, instead of a binary line separating illusion and “truth”, there can also be a variable zone “in between”.
POSSIBLE ASPECTS
The focus invites contributions dedicated to the following topics, for example:
- History of technology as history of technical progress of means for deception.
- The arms race between technologies that open up possibilities for deception and those that expose deceptions.
- Specific technologies for generating illusions.
- Specific technologies to detect deception (e.g., physiological or AI lie detectors)
- The technologically formatted conceptual structure of deception, illusion, feint, ruse, camouflage, disinformation, and manipulation.
- Deceptions that are intentional, as opposed to fallacies that are subliminal or expectational self-deceptions, as well as structural deceptions (media that deceive non-intentionally).
- Differences between deception/illusion as well as deception/misrepresentation or even copy/fake are discussed and further developed using concrete technical examples.
The Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie seeks to discuss these and related questions in a special issue planned together with the journal Technikgeschichte and invites authors to send in their contributions.
NOTES ON SUBMISSION
Submissions on the focus topic are invited by January 15, 2024. Furthermore, the Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie will publish essays in the philosophy of technology on freely chosen topics. In addition, controversies of interest to the discipline, archival texts, and reviews will be published. A two-stage peer review process (double-blind peer review) is a prerequisite for article publications. Controversies and reviews are reviewed by the editorial board.
The text length of manuscripts should not exceed 45,000 characters. In order to receive editorial feedback on the topic proposals in advance, it is possible and encouraged to submit topic outlines (1- 2 pages) for papers or controversies until October 15, 2023.
Please submit proposals or inquiries by e-mail to the editorial office: jahrbuch@phil.tu-darmstadt.de.