Carl Mitcham - Seminars / Workshops / Lectures

MEDIATING SCIENCE: Science Mediating (3 Credits)

Carl Mitcham

Description: This seminar will explore multiple ways in which modern science mediates human experience and is mediated by human experience (especially ethics and politics). The exploration will take place on the back of critical engagements with four often neglected philosophers who offer important theoretical perspectives on these multiple mediations: John Dewey, Leo Strauss, Hans Jonas, and Ivan Illich. References will also be made to the “mediation school” in the philosophy of technology including Don Ihde, Bruno Latour, Peter-Paul Verbeek.

Required Readings:

Dewey, John. Sections 1 and 21 in: Democracy and Education. 1916.

Dewey, John. Public and Its Problems (1927), chapter 1, “Search for the Public”

Dewey, John.“From Absolutism to Experimentalism” (1930)

Dewey, John. “The Supreme Intellectual Obligation” (1934)

Dewey, John. Freedom and Culture (1939), chapter 6, “Science and Free Culture”

Strauss, What is Political Philosophy? and Other Studies (1959), chapter 1, “What Is Political Philosophy?” and chapter 3, “On Classical Political Philosophy”
On Strauss: C. Bradley Thompson, “Conservatism Unmasked,” Cato Unbound (March7, 2011) Available at: http://www.cato-unbound.org/2011/03/07/c- bradley-thompson/neoconservatism-unmasked/

If people can get it, also recommended is Leo Strauss, On Tyranny (1961, rev. ed. 2000), especially the section, “Restatement on Xenophon’s Heiro” (which can also be found in What Is Political Philosophy?)

Jonas, Philosophical Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological Man (1980, reprint 2010), eclectic browsing
— , Morality and Morality: A Search for the Good after Auschwitz, ed. Lawrence Vogel (1996), chapter 1, “Evolution and Freedom: On the Continuity among Life-Forms”

On Illich: Jean Robert, “Energy and the Mystery of Iniquity” (2002)

Supplementary use may also be made of select chapters in draft from Ethics and Science: An Introduction (C.Mitcham and A. Briggle)

POLITICS, ETHICS AND TECHNOLOGY: Evolution of Humanity (3 credits)

Carl Mitcham, Ph.D.

Description: This course explores fundamental shifts in humanity. We examine these shifts by critically analyzing contemporary politics and ethics. Specifically we will look at ethic and politics as they manifest and perpetuate themselves within contemporary communication technology. We will examine the possibility of ethics post computers. How does computing shift our understanding of responsibility towards the other? How does computer technologies create a shift in public/private spheres and necessarily influence politics?

Objectives: Students shall leave this course with a firm grasp on the history of computer technologies. Students will be engaged in new modes of thought surrounding responsibility, ethics and politics in today’s computer dominated world. As we explore these relationships the course will aim to develop new ways of thinking and new modes of being that can help solve the problems of the 21st Century.

Required Reading:

Johnson, Deborah G. Computer Ethics. Prentice Hall College Div. December 15 2000. Paperback, 224 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0130836990. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Johnson, Deborah G.(Editor) and Helen Nissenbaum (Editor).Computers, Ethics and Social Values. Prentice Hall. February 2 1995, 656 pages, Paperback, 1 edition, ISBN: 0131031104. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Mitcham, Carl (ed). Research in Philosophy and Technology: Social and Philosophical Constructions of Technology (Vol 15). JAI Press. November 1995, Hardcover, ISBN: 1559388862. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

MacKey, Robert (Introduction) and Carl Mitcham (Preface). Philosophy and Technology: Readings in the Philosophical Problems of Technology. Free Press. January 1983, 403 pages, Paperback, ISBN: 0029214300. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.