Some phenomenologically inspired remarks on the phenomenal aspect of the virtual

This article attempts to give a phenomenologically-inspired description of the specific sort of phenomenality that is produced by Virtual Reality (VR), and in particular to distinguish it from so-called “natural” perception and from imagination. This raises a number of fundamental philosophical issues, such as the opposition between reality and illusion; the phenomenological approach adopted here seeks to find in the “thing itself” which is described the means to overcome this sort of opposition. In the course of this description, we are led: 1) to insist on the fact that VR does seem to require abandoning the representational paradigm; 2) to specify the status of the lived body and lived experience in virtual environments, 3) to emphasize that reality is “that which resists”, and that the genericity of virtual entities is decisive as a criterion for distinguishing between VR and the phenomenality of natural perception.