The digital age we now live in is fundamentally changing how we relate to our perceptions and images. Daniel O'Shiel provides the first comprehensive phenomenology of virtual technology in order to show how the previously well-established experiential lines and structures between three basic categories of phenomenal experience - our everyday perceptions of reality; our everyday fantasies of irreality; and our everyday engagements with external images, not least digital ones - are becoming blurred, inverted or are even collapsing in a new era where a specific type of virtuality is coming to the fore. O'Shiel examines in depth just what this means for the phenomenology behind it, as well as the concrete practical consequences going forward. The work is divided into two main parts. In the first O'Shiel fully investigates the phenomenological natures of perception and imagination through close textual analyses of the relevant works by Edmund Husserl, Eugen Fink and Jean-Paul Sartre. In each phenomenologist perception and imagination are ultimately seen as different in kind, although the dividing line differs, especially with reference to a middle category of 'image-consciousness' (Bildbewusstsein). This first part argues for basic phenomenological differences between perceptions; physical and external images; and more mental imagery, while also allowing for a more general gradation between them. The second part then applies these theoretical findings to some of the most influential 'virtual technologies' today - social media; online gaming; and some virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies - in order to show how previously clear categories of real and irreal, present and absent, genuine and fake, and even true and false, are becoming less so.

Jean-Paul Sartre's technical and multifaceted concept of magic is central for understanding crucial elements of his early philosophy (1936-1943), not least his conception of the ego, emotion, the imaginary and value. Daniel O'Shiel follows the thread of magic throughout Sartre's early philosophical work. Firstly, Sartre's work on the ego (1936) shows a personal, reflective form of consciousness that is magically hypostasized onto the pre-reflective level. Secondly, emotion (1938) is inherently magical for Sartre because emotive qualities come to inhere in objects and thereby transform a world of pragmatism into one of captivation. Thirdly, analyses of The Imaginary (1940) reveal that anything we imagine is a spontaneous creation of consciousness that has the power to enchant and immerse us, even to the point of images holding sway over us. Culminating with Sartre's ontological system of Being and Nothingness (1943), O'Shiel argues that Sartre does not do away with the concept, but in fact provides ontological roots for it. This is most evident in Sartre's analyses of value, possession and language. A second part shows how such Sartrean magic is highly relevant for a number of concrete case studies: the arts, advertising, racism and stupidity, and certain instances of psychopathology. O'Shiel shows that Sartre's magical being is important for any contemporary philosophical anthropology because it is essentially at work at the heart of many of our most significant experiences, both creative and damaging.

The digital age we now live in is fundamentally changing how we relate to our perceptions and images. Daniel O'Shiel provides the first comprehensive phenomenology of virtual technology in order to show how the previously well-established experiential lines and structures between three basic categories of phenomenal experience – our everyday perceptions of reality; our everyday fantasies of irreality; and our everyday engagements with external images, not least digital ones – are becoming blurred, inverted or are even collapsing in a new era where a specific type of virtuality is coming to the fore. O’Shiel examines in depth just what this means for the phenomenology behind it, as well as the concrete practical consequences going forward. The work is divided into two main parts. In the first O’Shiel fully investigates the phenomenological natures of perception and imagination through close textual analyses of the relevant works by Edmund Husserl, Eugen Fink and Jean-Paul Sartre. In each phenomenologist perception and imagination are ultimately seen as different in kind, although the dividing line differs, especially with reference to a middle category of ‘image-consciousness’ (Bildbewusstsein). This first part argues for basic phenomenological differences between perceptions; physical and external images; and more mental imagery, while also allowing for a more general gradation between them. The second part then applies these theoretical findings to some of the most influential ‘virtual technologies’ today – social media; online gaming; and some virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies – in order to show how previously clear categories of real and irreal, present and absent, genuine and fake, and even true and false, are becoming less so.

Jean-Paul Sartre's technical and multifaceted concept of magic is central for understanding crucial elements of his early philosophy (1936-1943), not least his conception of the ego, emotion, the imaginary and value. Daniel O'Shiel follows the thread of magic throughout Sartre's early philosophical work. Firstly, Sartre's work on the ego (1936) shows a personal, reflective form of consciousness that is magically hypostasized onto the pre-reflective level. Secondly, emotion (1938) is inherently magical for Sartre because emotive qualities come to inhere in objects and thereby transform a world of pragmatism into one of captivation. Thirdly, analyses of The Imaginary (1940) reveal that anything we imagine is a spontaneous creation of consciousness that has the power to enchant and immerse us, even to the point of images holding sway over us. Culminating with Sartre's ontological system of Being and Nothingness (1943), O'Shiel argues that Sartre does not do away with the concept, but in fact provides ontological roots for it. This is most evident in Sartre's analyses of value, possession and language. A second part shows how such Sartrean magic is highly relevant for a number of concrete case studies: the arts, advertising, racism and stupidity, and certain instances of psychopathology. O'Shiel shows that Sartre's magical being is important for any contemporary philosophical anthropology because it is essentially at work at the heart of many of our most significant experiences, both creative and damaging.