Event Details

This talk and the accompanying discussions, will be the first of a series dealing with perspectives/provocations concerning our current envisioning(s) of technological futures in both the ‘academic’ and the ‘practitioner’ worlds.

What do we mean when we speak of technology, or of “technocratic control”? What is it that technology promises to achieve, and is there any limit to this achievement? What is the relationship between technology and freedom?

In this seminar we will examine how technology becomes a means to establishing regimes of complete and satisfying presence and control, and how this presents itself as a desirable, a positive. Technology and technocratic rule become binding for the future, as what can make the future “better”. We will then ask what “better” means: what are the limitations of technology and technocratic rule? What happens when technology fails, both in specific ways and more generally, and when failure becomes “acceptable”? What sort of world is pursued in the name of utopia, and how far short of utopia is acceptable?

Laurence Hemming has been associated with Lancaster University since 2008 and is now an Honorary Professor in both the Management School and in FASS. He has published a number of books on Martin Heidegger, and written on themes in Marx, Hegel and in ancient philosophy. He recently translated Ernst Jünger’s 1932 book ’The Worker’ with Bogdan Costea and he continues to focus on issues around management and technology.