The Human Being in the Digital Era: Awareness, Critical Thinking and Political Space in the Age of the Internet and Artificial Intelligence.
The revolution linked to the advent of the internet, social media and artificial intelligence has just begun but is about to become one of the most radical changes in the history of the human kind. However, the speed of those transformations together with the presence of growing economic interests around traffic of users' Data raises serious questions about the sustainability of these changes that will increasingly have an impact on the development of socio-cognitive and critical competencies along with the nature of the public engagement within the political sphere of future generations. In fact, alongside optimistic considerations around these technologies fostering the access to huge amounts of information and to a communication almost without space-time boundaries through the simple connection to the network with a personal device, the dysfunctions related to an inappropriate use of the digital resources are increasingly evident. The introduction starting from the early 2000s of algorithms based on the principle of the relevance and personalization of the online navigation involves a system of hetero-directionality of the online experience, from our interactions with other users in the social media to the deployment of search engines, resulting in a significant shrinkage of our ability to autonomously and critically select information. This phenomenon, known as "bubble" or "filter bubble", indicates that the algorithms based on our previous navigations evaluate the relevance that the individual user assigns to the information to which she connects by providing ad hoc navigation options. These bubbles lead to the confirmation of the user's cognitive schemes and certainties rather than possibly putting them in crisis, representing, hence, the premise for the suspension of critical thinking. Internet and artificial intelligence as a tool of progress for humanity could represent a source of cognitive regression through an increasingly plausible fusion between human and machine that will promote in the future the so-called environmental intelligence, that is the even more massive intervention of artificial intelligence in daily decisions from heating the house, to diet, to the choice of one's own partner.
This monographic issue aims to investigate these forms of hetero-directionality represented by artificial intelligence and to discuss the role of philosophy and the human sciences in order to mitigate their excessive power and indicate alternative developments. It is widely observed that the power of algorithms to establish correlations based on previous user’s navigation is already considerably more powerful than that of human intelligence, which means that their use will become increasingly vital for practical and economic reasons. Therefore, the fundamental philosophical question is the following: what about human intelligence and his specificities in the sense of ethics, language, taste, art and political space? These inventions represent the safe dimension on which human history has been built and are nowadays undermined by the omnipresence of artificial intelligence and its power to decide for us. This issue aims also to address the productive relationship between the internet users and the owners of online service companies and the way in which it generates these services, in order to understand their expansion as a result of determinate social and economical balances. Philosophy finds renewed vigor and importance in this era of necessary rediscovery of man and his peculiarities with respect to the machine; this monographic issue aims to outline the scenarios of its role and its future use.
Deadline for submission 01-09-2022
Proposals should be addressed to Prof. Guido Seddone, gseddone@uniss.it
L’uomo nell’era digitale: coscienza, pensiero critico e spazio politico all’epoca di internet e dell’intelligenza artificiale.
La rivoluzione scaturita con l’avvento di internet, dei social media e dell’intelligenza artificiale è appena iniziata ma si appresta a divenire uno dei più radicali cambiamenti nella storia dell’uomo e della civiltà umana. Tuttavia, la velocità di queste trasformazioni insieme alla presenza di crescenti interessi economici attorno al traffico dati pone delle serie questioni attorno alla sostenibilità di tali cambiamenti che hanno e avranno sempre più un impatto sullo sviluppo delle capacità cognitive, critiche e di partecipazione alla sfera pubblica delle future generazioni. Infatti, accanto a considerazioni ottimistiche attorno a queste tecnologie che consentono di accedere ad immani quantità di dati e ad una comunicazione pressoché senza confini spazio-temporali attraverso la semplice connessione alla rete con un dispositivo personale, sono sempre più evidenti le disfunzioni legate ad un utilizzo acritico della risorsa internet. L’introduzione a partire dai primi anni del 2000 di algoritmi basati sul principio della rilevanza e personalizzazione della navigazione comporta un sistema di etero-direzionalità dell’esperienza in rete, dalle nostre interazioni con altri utenti nei social media alle ricerche sui motori di ricerca, comportando una notevole riduzione della nostra capacità di selezione autonoma e critica delle informazioni. Tale fenomeno, noto con il termine di “bolla” o “bolla filtrante”, indica che gli algoritmi basati sulle nostre precedenti navigazioni valutano la rilevanza che i singoli utenti assegnano alle informazioni con cui essi interagiscono fornendo opzioni di navigazione ad hoc. Tali bolle inducono ad una conferma degli schemi e delle certezze dell’utente anziché eventualmente metterle in crisi, rappresentando così la premessa per la sospensione del pensiero critico. Internet e l’intelligenza artificiale da strumento di progresso per l’umanità potrebbero rappresentare fonte di regresso cognitivo attraverso una fusione sempre più plausibile tra uomo e macchina (teorizzata da Wu Tim, CEO di Facebook) che in futuro favorirà la cosiddetta intelligenza ambientale, ossia l’intervento ancor più massiccio dell’intelligenza artificiale nelle decisioni quotidiane dal riscaldamento della casa, alla dieta, alla scelta del proprio partner.
Questo numero monografico si propone di investigare queste forme di etero-direzionalità rappresentate dall’intelligenza artificiale e di discutere il ruolo della filosofia e delle scienze umane allo scopo di arginarne lo strapotere e indicare sviluppi alternativi. Da più parti si osserva che il potere degli algoritmi di stabilire delle correlazioni basate sulle navigazioni degli utenti è già notevolmente più potente di quella dell’intelligenza umana, il che vuol dire che il loro utilizzo diventa sempre più vitale per ragioni pratiche ed economiche. Per questo la domanda filosofica fondamentale è la seguente: che ne è dell’uomo e delle sue specificità nel senso dell’etica, del linguaggio, del gusto, dell’arte e dello spazio politico? Queste invenzioni rappresentano la dimensione di sicurezza su cui è stata edificata la storia umana ma sono al contempo messe in crisi dall’onnipresenza dell’intelligenza artificiale e dalla sua capacità di decidere al posto nostro. Altra domanda a cui questo numero si propone di rispondere è relativa ai rapporti di produzione tra utente e proprietari di aziende di servizi online e al modo in cui esso generi tali servizi, allo scopo di comprenderne l’espansione come risultato di determinati rapporti sociali. La filosofia ritrova in questa epoca di necessaria riscoperta dell’uomo e delle sue peculiarità rispetto alla macchina rinnovato vigore ed importanza; questo numero monografico si propone di delineare gli scenari del suo ruolo e del suo utilizzo futuro.
Deadline 01-09-2022
Referente: Guido Seddone, gseddone@uniss.it
Pierre Hadot’s legacy one hundred years after his birth
Call for Papers
Curators: Claudia Baracchi (University of Milan Bicocca), Giuseppe Girgenti, (University Vita-Salute San Raffaele of Milan), Romano Madera (Philo Association)
The centenary of the birth of Pierre Hadot (1922-2010) offers an opportunity to reflect on the spiritual journey of the French thinker and on the legacy he left to his students and admirers now widespread throughout the world. His studies on the Greek philosophical tradition – classical, Hellenistic and Roman – led him to identify a continuum among the numerous authors of the Greek-Latin canon he frequented (Socrates, Plato, Plutarch, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus) and the great masters of Christian theology (from Marius Victorinus, Ambrose and Augustine to Ignatius of Loyola); this ideal continuity, however, is not reconstructed by him in the light of metaphysics and theology, but rather following the history of the Delphic motto “know thyself”, the heart of Socratic ethics and of the Platonic and Neoplatonic developments that linked the treatment of self to self-knowledge. His best-known text, Spiritual Exercises and Ancient Philosophy, can be considered the manifesto of this philosophical perspective, which is enriched by the numerous monographic contributions dedicated to various ancient thinkers.
Furthermore, his interpretation of ancient and late-ancient thought starting from the Socratic care of the soul is even more stimulating when compared with the perspective of Michel Foucault, who wanted him as his successor at the Collège de France; in fact, the Foucauldian practices of “subjectivation” and “therapy”, experimented in hospitals, asylums and prisons, and corroborated by the innovative reading of some Platonic dialogues such as Alcibiades major and Lachetes and Stoic texts, present many similarities with Hadot’s interpretations, but also substantial differences, partly due to the different philosophical formation of the two authors. On the one hand, Hadot insists on the Greek roots of Christian spiritual exercises, while, on the other hand, Foucault’s interest in the ancient world germinates from his involvement with twentieth century discourses such as psychoanalysis and phenomenology.
Nonetheless, both authors, with their theoretical work, have provided a model of philosophical practice that explains the always current and re-actualizable value of ancient philosophy. Their greatest legacy consists in the multiple declinations of self-care in ascetic practices and writing, of the care of the other in spiritual direction and psychological therapy, but also of the care of the world in a renewed non-anthropocentric approach to the relationship between man and nature – which still has to be probed and revealed in all its potential.
Authors can propose contributions aimed at investigating these different aspects of Pierre Hadot’s thought with particular attention to his classical training, to his reading of Greek philosophy in continuity with medieval Christian thought and to his proposal for the actualization of related philosophical practices to the spiritual exercises, with particular reference to the following macro-themes:
• Intellectual profile of Pierre Hadot
• Interpretation of ancient and late ancient thought
• Self-care and spiritual exercises
• Philosophical practice
• Care of the world and nature
Delivery deadline: 30 July 2023
Potential contributors must send their articles, including abstract, keywords and complete institution details, to the following addresses:
NOTES:
Accepted manuscripts are published free of charge.
Manuscripts submitted to the journal must not be sent to other publications for review.