Abstract

This chapter explores media-ontological suspicion as a specific manifestation of philosophical doubt. It begins by discussing how the suspicion that something is hidden behind the visible and experienceable surface of the world that cannot be observed or described by humans and that might be threatening to them has determined the entire history of Western philosophical discourse. At least since Plato, philosophy has tried again and again to recognize and name what is hidden so as to overcome the fear of it. Yet the suspicion is a suspicion precisely because its object cannot be recognized but only presumed—and thus the suspicion can neither be confirmed nor refuted. This chapter examines how the transformation of ontological suspicion into philosophical, epistemological doubt eliminates the observer's anxiety with regard to his own fate. It also considers the degree to which one can administer his/her own doubt—a central question of every epistemological theory and media theory. Finally, it looks at the views of René Descartes, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Sigmund Freud concerning ontological suspicion.