Today, your professor complains that ChatGPT is destroying your mind. In ancient Athens, Socrates argued something similar about writing: once able consult written texts, he complained, young thinkers no longer practiced the art of memory. It is easy to laugh at the comparison, or to use it as an excuse to violate your professor’s AI policy) But this is no simple analogy. Writing (a system which anyone can learn, and which belongs to anyone who learns it) and ChatGPT (a system that hides how it operates, and which belongs to one company) are so vastly different as to almost defy comparison. But both these things are products of the human mind that also have the capacity to shape the human mind, to actually alter the way you think. The technology you choose to use may determine what capacities you cultivate, and which you neglect. It may determine what kind of human you will be. So: how will you choose?

We live in an era of rapid technological change. Voices from every quarter demand we pay more attention to the intersection of technology and ethics, technology and the environment, technology and human values. We are told that it is up to us to separate the good from the bad, the true from the false, and to figure out how to use technology responsibly.

But what is technology? What objects, structures, and practices count as technology? If coding–a practice of systematically arranging abstract symbols–is technological, then why not all of writing, or even language itself? Why do contemporary debates about technology so often exclude agriculture, pottery, and other technologies that have long been essential to human survival? Why do we so often discuss “technological progress,” or describe others as taking on a “pro-” or “anti-technology” stance, as if technology were just one thing? How can we use technology in good, ethical, or humane ways if we don’t take the time to think carefully about what constitutes the good, what defines ethics, or what, indeed, humanity is?

This course examines how philosophers, historians, inventors, engineers, biologists, anthropologists, artists, activists, factory workers, and many other sorts of people have defined and discussed technology–both technology in general, as well as specific technologies. Readings will come primarily from Western philosophical and historical discourses, though lectures and discussions will give opportunities to compare these with other traditions of thought and practice. Using a humanistic lens, we will focus not on devising general theories or engineering ideal solutions, but on the muck and muddle of human experience. What is it like to be human with technology, and how can humanistic thinking help us figure out how we want to be?

Accordingly, this course aims to draw attention to your own technology use by pushing you to learn with unfamiliar tools. We will maintain a strictly laptop- and smartphone-free classroom, and readings will be distributed in a printed course reader. In-class activities and at-home assignments will give you interactive with technologies not typically encountered in a college classroom. This class is designed for in-person attendance and for-credit, in-class assignments reward coming to class regularly. (Extra credit is available that allows students to make up for absences.)

Assignments include: daily in-class worksheets (graded on completion); weekly creative projects (graded on completion); three essay exams (10/27, 11/17, 12/17).