This paper is a contribution to a discussion in philosophy of technology by focusing on the epistemological status of the example. Of the various developments in the emerging, inchoate field of philosophy of technology, the “empirical turn” stands out as having left the most enduring mark on the trajectory contemporary research takes. From a historical point of view, the empirical turn can best be understood as a corrective to the overly “transcendentalizing” tendencies of “classical” philosophers of technology, such as Heidegger. Empirically oriented philosophy of technology emphasizes actual technologies through case-study research into the formation of technical objects and systems (constructivist studies) and how they, for example, transform our perceptions and conceptions (the phenomenological tradition) or pass on and propagate relations of power (critical theory). This paper explores the point of convergence of classical and contemporary approaches by means of the notion of the “example” or “paradigm.” It starts with a discussion of the quintessential modern philosopher of technology, Martin Heidegger, and his thinking about technology in terms of the ontological difference. Heidegger’s framing of technology in terms of this difference places the weight of intelligibility entirely on the side of being, to such an extent that his examples become heuristic rather than constitutive. The second part of the paper discusses the methodological and epistemological import of the “example” and the form of intelligibility it affords. Drawing on the work of Wittgenstein (standard metre), Foucault (panopticism), and Agamben (paradigm), we argue that the example offers an alternative way of understanding the study of technologies from that of empirical case studies.

本文通过关注示例的认识论状态，对技术哲学的讨论做出了贡献。在新兴的、早期的技术哲学领域的各种发展中，“经验转向”在当代研究的轨迹上留下了最持久的印记。从历史的角度来看，经验转向最好被理解为对海德格尔等“古典”技术哲学家过度“超验”倾向的纠正。以经验为导向的技术哲学强调通过案例研究研究技术对象和系统的形成（建构主义研究）以及它们如何，例如，改变我们的看法和观念（现象学传统）或传递和传播权力关系（批判理论）。本文通过“例子”或“范式”的概念探讨了古典和当代方法的融合点。它首先讨论了典型的现代技术哲学家马丁·海德格尔（Martin Heidegger），以及他从本体论差异的角度对技术的思考。海德格尔根据这种差异对技术的构架将可理解性的权重完全放在存在的一方，以至于他的例子变成了启发式的而不是构成性的。论文的第二部分讨论了“例子”的方法论和认识论意义以及它提供的可理解性形式。