¿ CEMAT 1. Understand an STS text, identify the ideas presented in it, summarize them and present them succinctly (CEG. 1, 2,3).
¿ CEMAT 2.- Manage the technique of philosophical text commentary applied to a STS text (CEG, 11).
¿ Know the sources, theories and arguments that historically have been put forward by the most important philosophers of technology, handle their fundamental writings and have a basic knowledge of their most important interpretations (CEG 11,12, 13).
¿ Recognize the connection between past philosophies of technology and contemporary philosophical debates (CEG 14, 15, 19).
¿ To be able to judge, from the point of view of political philosophy, individual and social actions, as well as laws and customs (CEG 13, 14, 18, 19, 29, 30).

¿ CT1. To develop the capacity for analysis and synthesis.
¿ CT2. Develop the ability to apply knowledge to practice.
¿ CT3. Evaluate, interpret and synthesize data and information.
¿ CT4. To train for critical and self-critical reasoning.
¿ CT5. Work autonomously.
¿ CT6. Work in teams and in international contexts.
¿ CT7. Plan and manage information and time.
¿ CT8. Develop creativity.
¿ CT9. Improve oral and written communication skills in the mother tongue.
¿ CT10. Appreciate cultural diversity.
¿ CT11. To be able to elaborate, program and manage projects in the field of human and social sciences.
¿ CT12. To develop a social conscience linked to the concept of equal opportunities both with respect to the individual and gender.

¿ Cognitive: To build and sustain a holistic knowledge about the possibilities of improving living conditions inherent to scientific-technological development, while recognizing its limitations, analyzing the essential links between technology, law and the social interests of the groups that promote and develop it.
¿ Communicative: Ability to argue and debate about the keys of the new information economy and its extraordinary possibilities, creating active and capable agents in the environment in which scientific and social practice is built in this new digital society.
¿ Contextual: Ability to understand, interpret and re-signify human rights on the Internet, as well as the consequences of the structure and role of social networks for the expansion of beliefs, the growth of fundamentalisms and the submergence of political phenomena based on the new populisms fed on the Net and the intensive use of the so-called "post-truth".
¿ Valuation: To develop the ability to adequately assess the opportunities and threats presented by the Information Society based on cyberculture, as well as the legal framework necessary for a fair and efficient implementation of electronic commerce.
¿ Investigative: Ability to analyze communitarian doctrines and network topology that will help us understand the importance of social interconnections in the expansion of beliefs in virtual networks. It is necessary to understand these dynamics that create the new digital ecosystem to understand who we are and how we are, and to transform society from the acquired knowledge.

METHODOLOGY AND WORK PLAN

TEACHING ACTIVITIES:



The methodology of class work is mainly participatory. The teacher introduces the topics to be covered, but participation and discussion are encouraged. On many occasions there will be discussion in the form of arguments for and against the proposed text. We do not use a textbook, but articles and selected excerpts from current authors. It is essential that the student becomes accustomed to using critical thinking and accepting diversity of opinions with all that this entails. Respect for others and the soundness of arguments are key aspects of this subject.

Sequencing of planned activities:


1. Activities before the face-to-face/virtual class

¿ Read the texts assigned to each session and take notes about them.
¿ Come to class motivated and prepared to actively participate.
¿ Periodically consult the Virtual Campus to see the "news" proposed by the teacher and other colleagues.

2. Activities during the face-to-face/virtual class

¿ .
¿ Raise questions and suggestions on class topics.
¿ Conduct discussions on the proposed materials and their interpretation.
¿ Carry out activities to construct meanings of the concepts involved in the proposed topics.
¿ Give and receive constructive feedback from peers.
¿ Make individual or group presentations on one of the proposed topics.


3. Activities after the face-to-face/virtual class

2

4

12

SINOPSIS

 

"El hombre humaniza al mundo, le inyecta, lo impregna de su propia sustancia ideal y cabe imaginar, que un día de entre los días, allá en los fondos del tiempo, llegue a estar ese terrible mundo exterior tan saturado de hombre, que puedan nuestros descendientes caminar por él como mentalmente caminamos hoy por nuestra intimidad -- cabe imaginar que el mundo, sin dejar de serlo, llegue a convertirse en algo así como un alma materializada, y como en La Tempestad de Shakespeare, las ráfagas del viento soplen empujadas por Ariel, el duende de las Ideas".

 

José Ortega y Gasset: El hombre y la gente. Revista de Occidente, 1957.

 

 

Al leer estas palabras de Ortega me asombro de su clarividencia acerca de la naturaleza de la técnica, y cómo parece anticiparse medio siglo al fenómeno de Internet. Para muchos la técnica es un fenómeno que camina en dirección opuesta a la filosofía y al derecho, sin que exista un punto de encuentro en el que humanización y tecnificación se encuentren. Sin embargo, Ortega defiende en su Meditación de la técnica que el mundo es un lugar inhóspito sin la ayuda de la técnica, que un día estará ese mundo cargado de humanidad gracias a la técnica, que la técnica es ese gran aparato ortopédico que nos permite compensar las carencias originales de la naturaleza humana, algo necesitamos para andar por el mundo. La técnica se convierte así en una segunda naturaleza humana. Me pregunto si el alma materializada de la que habla Ortega no anticipa de alguna manera la memoria colectiva, el corpus universal de conocimiento y legislación que la humanidad que está creando a través de Internet. Quizá Internet sea el más nuevo paradigma de esa técnica orteguiana, ya convertida en tecnología, que proyecta sus luces y sus sombras sobre la humanidad. Si pensamos en Internet como un simple fenómeno tecnológico no capturaremos su verdadera esencia. Internet representa esta fusión contemporánea de ciencia, tecnología, política y filosofía. Por lo tanto no es posible abordar la cuestión de los grandes paradigmas de la justicia y de la filosofía política sin tomar en cuenta como vivimos en un mundo nuevo totalmente transformado. 

 

 

SYNOPSIS

 

"Man (sic) humanizes the world, injects it, impregnates it with his own ideal substance, and it is possible to imagine that one day, in the depths of time, this terrible external world will be so saturated with man that our descendants may walk through it as we mentally walk through our intimacy today -- it is possible to imagine that the world, without ceasing to be, will become something like a materialized soul, and as in Shakespeare's The Tempest, the gusts of wind will blow, pushed by Ariel, the sprite of Ideas".

 

José Ortega y Gasset: Man (sic.) and People. Revista de Occidente, 1957.

 

 

Reading these words of Ortega, I am amazed at his clairvoyance about the nature of technology, and how he seems to anticipate the Internet phenomenon by half a century. For many, technology is a phenomenon that walks in the opposite direction to philosophy and law, without there being a meeting point where humanization and technification meet. However, Ortega argues in his Meditation on Technology that the world is an inhospitable place without the help of technology, that one day the world will be full of humanity thanks to technology, that technology is that great orthopedic device that allows us to compensate for the original shortcomings of human nature, something we need to walk through the world. Technology thus becomes a second human nature. I wonder if the materialized soul of which Ortega speaks does not somehow anticipate the collective memory, the universal corpus of knowledge and legislation that humanity is creating through the Internet. Perhaps the Internet is the newest paradigm of this Ortega’s technique, already converted into technology, which projects its lights and shadows on humanity. If we think of the Internet as a simple technological phenomenon, we will not capture its true essence. The Internet represents this contemporary fusion of science, technology, politics and philosophy. It is therefore not possible to address the question of the great paradigms of justice and political philosophy without considering how we live in a new and totally transformed world. 

 

3pt;"> 

REQUISITOS:

¿ Tener ganas de disfrutar aprendiendo de forma crítica aspectos de la tecnología como fenómeno humano que no encontrarán fácilmente en otros cursos.

¿ Ninguna formación específica previa es necesaria,


¿ Nivel B2 de inglés para el English Group.



REQUIREMENTS:

¿ Be eager to enjoy learning critically about aspects of technology as a human phenomenon that they will not easily find in other courses.

¿ No previous specific training is required, although this course is oriented to the double degree of Law and Philosophy, to the degree of Philosophy and to the BAES.

¿ Level B2 of English.

bsp;

 

div>

bsp;

 

 

THEMATIC CONTENTS:

FIRST TOPIC: NEUROPOLITICS: SOCIAL NETWORKS AND DIGITAL IDENTITY. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY IN THE POST-TRUTH ERA.

 

• Post-truth: circumstances in which objective facts have less influence on public opinion than emotions and personal beliefs.

• "they are not falsehoods, they are alternative facts". The post-truth political discourse is created.

• Lewis Powell Memorandum

• Naomi Oreskes, "Merchants of Doubt."

• Neil Postman "Amusing ourselves to death": politics and media entertainment merge.

• George Lakoff: Understanding Trump. Rhetorical strategies in political language.

• Brain function and language use. 

• Use of expressive resources that bypass the audience's rational mechanisms and address their unconscious part.

 

SECOND THEME: HISTORICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN POLITICS, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY: MODELS AND METHODOLOGIES

 

DO ARTIFACTS MAKE POLICY? TECHNOLOGIES AS LAWS

 

• By what contributions do we judge technology (L. Winner)?

• Can technology be described using political language?

  • Mumford: monotechnics. and polytechnics

  • Anti-nuclear reasoning

  • Technology as a liberating and democratizing force

 

• How technology can have political qualities:

  • As a means of resolving an issue of public life

  • "Inherently political technologies", or strongly compatible with a particular type of political relations.

• The Robert Moses case

• Louis Napoleon's Parisian avenues

 

WHEN TECHNOLOGICAL MODELS BECOME CONSTITUTIONS: TEKNÉ AND POLITÉIA

THE ACTOR-NETWORK MODEL: 

• Case study: Social history of the bicycle and the sociology of technology.

• Empirical Relativism Program (EPOR)

• The Social Construction of Technology 

CREATIVE CONVERGENCE: THE PROBLEM OF PARADIGMS (THE CASE OF CYRIL BURT).

TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH IN THE EAST: CHINESE THOUGHT AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN JAPAN. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF A CULTURAL IDYLL

ORIGINS OF THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY: ANTECEDENTS

 

• Marx, Weber, Durkheim dealt with topics in the STS orbit.

• 1950s and 1960s: crisis of the idyllic relationship between society and technology (reaction against the triumphalism of science after World War II) 

• 70's: criticism of the materialistic values of industrial society:

• 1980s: Extension to schools in Europe and the USA.

• 90's: Synthesis Stage

• In the first decade of the 21st century:

  • Two well-defined lines (different purposes and methodologies)

    •  

• Second decade of the 21st century: the post-pandemic world.

TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH IN HISTORY: THE ANTIQUITERA MACHINE 

THIRD THEME: PHILOSOPHY OF CYBERCULTURE: ETHICS, LAW, DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP AND TECHNOLOGY

ETHICS ON-LINE

• Challenges and opportunities

• Why is a new on-line ethic necessary?

THE CONVERGENCE OF DUTY, INTEREST AND TECHNOLOGY

• Is another ethics possible? The new economy

• The keys to the new economy (i)

   

DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP AND HUMAN RIGHTS: THE ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE NETWORK SOCIETY

• Towards the fourth generation of human rights: duty, interest and technology

• Hacker ethics as a new ethical paradigm

• Popular appropriation of information technology

 

THE RIGHT TO DESIGN TECHNOLOGY

 

FOURTH THEME: REVOLUTION IN CYBERSPACE: DOES THE INTERNET BRING PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY?

COMMUNICATIONAL POWER, THE INTERNET AS A DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM AND COGNITIVE CAPITALISM

EXPANSION OF CITIZENSHIP AND DIGITAL NETWORKS

Two possible attitudes to technology: Hipopolitics or hyperpolitics

THREE KEY ELEMENTS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP

COMMUNICATIONAL POWER AS BIOPOWER

THE NETWORK AS A DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM AND COMMONS (YOCHAI BENKLER)

AN INFORMATION ECONOMY THAT BREAKS AWAY FROM VALUE BASED ON THE LAWS OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND

THE REVOLUTIONARY ETHICAL PARADIGM HIDDEN IN FREE SOFTWARE

FIFTH THEME: THE NEW DIGITAL ECONOMY, VIRTUAL IDENTITY AND SOCIAL NETWORKS IN THE POST-TRUTH ERA

ETHICS, TECHNOLOGY AND NEW ECONOMY 4.0

• Technology and politics: does Internet bring participatory democracy?

• The relationship between telecommunication and democracy

• can technology transform society?

• The dark side of the Internet: E. Morozov and N. Carr

 

THE KEYS TO THE NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY (II)

• Inadequacy of the law of supply and demand: what is expensive and what is cheap?

• The value of the new economy is not based on scarcity, but on ubiquity.

• Metcalfe's Law

•  

• Law of positive externalities (Alfred Marshall and Arthur Pigou).

• Law of increasing growths of adoption (Brian Arthur)

 

CASE STUDIES FOR THE 2026-27 ACADEMIC YEAR (to be selected at the beginning of the semester)

• Hello Kitty and Soft Diplomacy in Japan

• Westworld: AI and Ethics

• The Challenger Accident

• ChatGPT and the Knowledge Crisis

• EPOR (Empirical Program of Relativism)

• Charles Perrow: Normal Accidents

• The Panopticon (J. Bentham)

• Antiquitera Machine

• The Fermi Paradox

• Understanding Neuropolitics in D. Trump (G. Lakoff)

• Bullshit, Fake News, and Post-Truth in H. Frankfurt

• Ethical, Political, and Epistemological Dimensions of LLMs

• Ethics and Robotics

rgin-top:.45pt;">Ethics and Robotics

l>

EVALUACIÓN

1. Presentaciones sobre un tema escogido dentro del programa y los estudios de casos de la asignatura. (supondrá un 50% de la calificación final).
2. Asistencia, participación y ejercicios realizados en clase, incluyendo comentarios críticos a las presentaciones en clase (50%).

No habrá trabajos a realizar en casa ni examen final. Todos los elementos de evaluación se realizarán durante las clases, Las presentaciones pueden acompañarse de una guion en PowerPoint o equivalente, pero no se utilizará texto escrito. El modelo es el de las TED Talks, con una duración de 10 a 15 minutos, además de un breve debate posterior.




EVALUATION


1. Presentations on a topic chosen from the course syllabus and case studies. (This will account for 50% of the final grade.)
2. Attendance, participation, and in-class exercises, including critical comments on class presentations. (50%).

There will be no homework assignments nor final exam. All assessment components will take place during class. Presentations may be accompanied by a PowerPoint slide deck or equivalent, but no written text may be used. The format is similar to that of TED Talks, lasting 10 to 15 minutes, followed by a brief discussion.

BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mitcham, Carl ( (1985). What is the Philosophy of Technology? International Philosophical Quarterly 25 (1):73-88.
Ortega y Gasset, José (1977) Meditation on Technique. Meditación de la técnica, Alianza, Madrid.
BUSTAMANTE, J., Computerized society, dehumanized society? Sociedad informatizada, ¿sociedad deshumanizada? Madrid, Gaia, 1993.
ELLUL, Jacques,The technological society, in Z. Pylyshyn 1970, pp. 593-609.
LEVY, Pierre, Ciberculture. Editions Odile Jacob, Paris, 1997.
LEVY, Pierre, Les technologies de l¿intelligence. Editions La Découverte, Paris: 1990.
TOFFLER, A., The Third Wave. La tercera ola. Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1983.
WINNER, L., (1986) The whale and the reactor: a search for limits in an age of high technology. University of Chicago Press.

ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

BUSTAMANTE, J. (2015a). "La expansión de las creencias en las redes virtuales (the spreading of beliefs in the virtual communities". Utopía y praxis latinoamericana, year 20, nº 69, April-June 2015.
BUSTAMANTE, J. (2014a) "Is cloud computing an inherently political technology? An analysis from the political theories of technology by L. Winner and R. Queraltó." Philosophical Studies 63, pp. 475-494.
BUSTAMANTE, J. (2018a) "Technology and Society in Japan: lights and shadows of a cultural idyll", in Japanese society: an attempt at approximation. Japan Foundation and Mediatres Estudio.
BUSTAMANTE, J. (2018b) "Political Delusion in the Model of Cloud Computing" in López Cerezo, J. L. & Laspra, Belén (eds.) Thinking Through Technology in Spain. Springer.

PRIMER TEMA: NEUROPOLÍTICA: REDES SOCIALES E IDENTIDAD DIGITAL. LA CONSTRUCCIÓN SOCIAL DE LA REALIDAD EN LA ERA DE LA POSVERDAD
¿ Post verdad: circunstancias en las cuales los hechos objetivos tienen menos influencia sobre la opinión pública que las emociones y las creencias personales
¿ ¿no son falsedades, son hechos alternativos¿. Se crea el discurso político post verdad.
¿ Lewis Powell Memorandum
¿ Naomi Oreskes, ¿Merchants of Doubt¿:
¿ Neil Postman ¿Amusing ourselves to death¿: la política y el entretenimiento mediático se fusionan.
¿ George Lakoff: ¿Understanding Trump¿. Estrategias retóricas en el lenguaje político.
¿ Funcionamiento del cerebro y uso del lenguaje.
¿ Uso de recursos expresivos que eluden los mecanismos racionales de la audiencia y se dirigen a su parte inconsciente.
¿
SEGUNDO TEMA: RELACIONES HISTÓRICAS ENTRE POLÍTICA, CIENCIA, TECNOLOGÍA Y SOCIEDAD: MODELOS Y METODOLOGÍAS
¿HACEN POLÍTICA LOS ARTEFACTOS? LAS TECNOLOGÍAS COMO LEYES
¿ ¿En función de qué contribuciones juzgamos a la tecnología? (L. Winner)
¿ ¿Se puede describir la tecnología utilizando un lenguaje político?
o Mumford: monotécnica y politécnica
o Discurso antinuclear
o La tecnología como fuerza liberadora y democratizadora
¿ Cómo la tecnología puede tener cualidades políticas:
o Como medio para resolver un asunto de la vida pública
o ¿Tecnologías inherentemente políticas¿, o fuertemente compatibles con un tipo particular de relaciones políticas
¿ El caso de Robert Moses
¿ Las avenidas parisinas de Luis Napoleón
CUANDO LOS MODELOS TECNOLÓGICOS SE CONVIERTEN EN CONSTITUCIONES: TEKNÉ Y POLITÉIA
EL MODELO DE REDES DE ACTORES:
¿ Estudio de caso: Historia social de la bicicleta y la sociología de la tecnología
¿ Programa Empírico de Relativismo (EPOR)
¿ La Construcción Social de la Tecnología
LA CONVERGENCIA CREATIVA: EL PROBLEMA DE LOS PARADIGMAS (EL CASO DE CYRIL BURT).
TECNOLOGÍA E INVESTIGACIÓN EN ORIENTE: PENSAMIENTO CHINO E INTELIGENCIA ARTIFICIAL