The philosophy of presence: From epistemic failure to successful observation

The paper introduces a new model of telepresence. First, it criticizes the standard model of presence as epistemic failure, showing it to be inadequate. It then replaces it with a new model of presence as successful observation. It further provides reasons to distinguish between two types of presence, backward and forward. The new model is then tested against two ethical issues whose nature has been modified by the development of digital information and communication technologies, namely pornography and privacy, and shown to be effective.