TECHNOPHILOSOPHY

Catalog description

As "technophilosophers", students in this course will engage with existing, emerging, or merely possible technologies as a way of reflecting on the forms of life that these technologies give rise to, as well as the philosophical implications of those forms of life-ethical, metaphysical, epistemic, political, and so on. The term "technophilosophy" was coined by philosopher David Chalmers to describe "a combination of (1) asking philosophical questions about technology and (2) using technology to help answer traditional philosophical questions," where two-way interaction is key (Chalmers, Reality+, p. xviii). Similarly, students in this course will consider arguments and conceptual frameworks used by philosophers of technology to investigate the nature, value, and implications of technology, but also how different technologies themselves sometimes urge us to reconsider longstanding philosophical questions and raise new ones. The course is intended to be flexible among areas of philosophy considered and technologies examined, but possibilities include: social media, video games, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, algorithms, block-chain currency, robotics, cybernetics, surveillance, military technologies, and sustainability technologies.