Dis-encapsulation: Object-Oriented Programming and the Phenomenology of Experience

Starting out from a general consideration of the concepts of code, abstraction, and programming paradigm, and of how computers compel us to reconceive of thinking as technē rather than as the realization of a given natural endowment, this essay argues that object-oriented programming, through the concepts of encapsulation and interface, offers powerful resources for reorienting ontology. Just as the interface, which mediates between a human agent and a hidden (encapsulated) mechanism, is itself a technical accomplishment, the philosophical text, rather than serving as a representation of reality, can itself be understood as the production of a kind of interface (with beings, with Being, or even with that which is beyond Being)—or, in other words, as a script whose interpretation yields a concrete system of encapsulation and dis-encapsulation. This, in turn, offers a new way of approaching the central concern of Martin Heidegger’s later philosophy: the relation of technology and truth, and ultimately also politics and political subjectivity.