Symposium "Technology and the Good Life"

Taking on this task, this Symposium brings together scholars from Philosophy and the Social Sciences to reflect on the interplay between concrete technologies and society’s normative horizons. It invites all those interested in collectively questioning what it means to live a good life with and through technology in the present – and what prevents us from doing so.

In the last decades, two powerful ways of understanding technology in Philosophy and the Social Sciences have grown apart. On the one hand, an empirical focus on concrete technologies and detailed case studies has provided crucial insight into human-artifact relations in fields such as Science and Technology Studies and Philosophy of Technology. However, such approaches remain largely descriptive and tend to bypass broader normative questions. On the other, a critical tradition, from Heidegger and Ellul, the early Frankfurt School to Arendt and Anders, has provided vital insights into the connection between modernity and technology, but remained either too abstract or insensitive to concrete technologies.

The Symposium aims to bridge this divide by returning to the question of the good life as a central concern that must be addressed not in denial of our technological present, but through it. Those interested are welcome to join us. Registration is still possible via e-mail until Friday, March 27.

venue: “Weltbeziehungen” research building | C19.00.04 | 1–7 p.m.