Reading Group

Technology, Ethics, and Human Nature

Developing a deeper understanding of technology is an urgent task. Over the course of five meetings we will examine how new technologies are transforming our relationship to the world, to each other, and to ourselves. With the help of some of the most insightful writers on the philosophy of technology we will reflect on the ethical questions raised by new technologies and the limits of technique.

This reading group is open to Yale students in any discipline. Space is limited; to sign up or for more information please contact Peter Wicks.

Thursdays | 12.00-1.30 | Elm Library

Sept 14 | Ian Barbour, “Views of Technology” & Langdon Winner, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?”
Sept 28 | Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality
Oct 12 | Ronald Bailey, “The Case for Enhancing People” & Leon Kass, “Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls”
Oct 26 | Antón Barba-Kay, A Web of Our Own Making, chapters 1-2
Nov 9 | Antón Barba-Kay, A Web of Our Own Making, chapters 3-5

We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us.

John Culkin, “A Schoolman’s Guide to Marshall McLuhan”