Quipping Equipment: Apropos of Robots and Kantian Chatbots
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research
Authors
Robots, Bourdieu, Kant, and Sex – Coeckelbergh’s philosophy of technical assemblages has it all. This commentary considers his early work “on the linguistic construction of artificial others” in light of his later elaboration of a general theory of human-technology interaction. Coeckelbergh draws on “habitus”-theory, virtue ethics and a historically recontextualized Kantianism to propose nothing less than a new general moral philosophy for the technoscientific age. In so doing, he also conjures up something beguilingly elusive if not impossible — a pluralist personalism. Readers vested in pluralist accounts of agency and epistemic contingency will appreciate his invoking Bourdieu and Kant, thinkers who prioritize communalist over particularist interests. Readers of a personalist bent will welcome the voluntarism of his moral regimen — they like their reality served up in person-shaped bits, a perspective that prioritizes self-direction and self-possession. Two for the price of one: here everyone wins. Coeckelbergh appears to take the defining parameters of experience to be wholly contextual and in equal measure intrinsic. In squaring the circle, he also showcases a lurid scenario: sex with robots. The electrifying effect of this bold composition is to set the mind racing toward a position more coherent and less familiar than pluralist personalism. Central to this position is a conception of Gemüt as emergent reflexivity. Its consideration takes us via Immanuel Kant and Kant-Culture Research to such strange aberrations as corporate cannibalism and cyborg pillow talk. — This is one of a collection of critical commentaries on Mark Coeckelbergh‘s paper, followed by his brief response in this issue of Technology and Language.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Technology and Language |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 1 |
Pages (from-to) | 82-103 |
Number of pages | 22 |
ISSN | 2712-9934 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Special Topic: The Construction of the Robot in Language and Culture
- Science of art
- Philosophy - Commodified agency, Gemüt, Kant-culture research, Digital cannibalism, Personalism, Kantbot