Computers and the alienation of thinking

from deep blue to the googlemobile

Kathryn Dean

pp. 215-256

in: James S. Ormrod (ed), Changing our environment, changing ourselves, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Abstract

Peter Dickens's life's work is marked by a remarkable broadness of perspective, intellectual boldness, and political sensitivity. What is particularly appealing about this multi-faceted body of work is the ethic of human flourishing that provides its informing principles. In this respect, Dickens's focus on the relationship between "internal" and "external" nature, derived from Marx's famous claim that, in making a world we are also making ourselves, has been particularly inspiring. In his book Society and Nature (Dickens 2004), he reminds us of the destructive effects, on both human and non-human natures, of the immense revolution in thinking and doing experienced in Western Europe from the "Age of Enlightenment" onwards. As part of the evaluation of these effects, the book includes a discussion of the implications and possible effects on our internal natures of the "informational society" of post-Fordism.

Cited authors

Marx Karl