It seems that technical systems only ever increase in complexity and reach, and never decrease. This tendency has been even more obvious since the industrial revolution, and the digital turn. Today, in the midst of the climate crisis, there is still an advocacy for "more technology" to solve problems that were created in part by technology.
This seminar investigates an alternative possibility, and looks at the limits of technology. After an introduction to the philosophy of technology, we will examine the different ways in which limits manifest themselves in our contemporary technological system. We will discuss external limits (material, moral, legal), as well as intrinsic limits (what, in life, cannot be made or grasped through a technology, and why?). We will conclude by considering the role of speculation and fiction to imagine a world within limits.
This seminar investigates an alternative possibility, and looks at the limits of technology. After an introduction to the philosophy of technology, we will examine the different ways in which limits manifest themselves in our contemporary technological system. We will discuss external limits (material, moral, legal), as well as intrinsic limits (what, in life, cannot be made or grasped through a technology, and why?). We will conclude by considering the role of speculation and fiction to imagine a world within limits.
- Dozent/in: Pierre Depaz