LFU:online

To lern, in the encounter with leading researchers of the younger generation, to discuss the theological significance of the 'question of technology' and to bring it into conversation with the sources of the theological tradition.

Starting point for the seminar and the colloquium will be an essay by Prof. Dr. Johannes Hoff and Dr. Oliver Dürr of the university of Zürich (a further development of Hoff's monograph "Apology of the Sacred. Anthropology of Digital Transformation"). The participants of the colloquium will each write responses to this text and enter into a discussion with the authors. The written versions of these responses will later be published together with the above essay in a special issue of the Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie. The seminar will provide a preparatory introduction to this discussion and familiarize students with the topic.  
The content of the seminar will be a trinitarian conceptualization of the anthropological triangle of nature, technology, and culture, tracing the concordance of these three poles to the tradition of trinitarian anthropologies. In doing so, a specifically Christian theological perspective on technology comes into view in a constructive engagement with Bernard Stiegler's anthropology of technology and Martin Heidegger's philosophy of technology. While many contemporary philosophies of technology operate with a dualistic anthropology torn between memory (memoria) and will (voluntas), the aim here is to regain the unifying center of intelligent spiritual life (intellectus), which as such is not reducible to technical rationality (ratio). The condition for the success of this approach is a trinitarian context, which discloses the triangle of nature-technology-culture as a mystagogical principle. This enables us to develop a "discernment of spirits", which permits us to answer the question: (How) can technology be integrated into our lives in such a way that it opens up the world in its complexity and depth, awakens resonances and inspires the shaping of a future that is desirable?

Blockseminar with presentations and discussion and colloquium on 24^th and 25^th of November.

Active participation in the class and seminar paper.

Johannes Hoff, Verteidigung des Heiligen. Anthropologie der Digitalen Transformation (Freiburg - Basel - Wien: Herder 2021), 70-83, 203-299.
Aurelius Augustinus, De Trinitate. Lateinisch-Deutsch (Hamburg: Meiner 2019), Buch IX
Nikolaus von Kues, Cribratio Alkorani (Hamburg: 1986), II.2.
Martin Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik. In: Vorträge und Aufsätze, Gesamtausgabe 7, I.Abteilung (Frankfurt am Main.: Klostermann 2000), 7-36.
Daniel Ross, „Politics and Aesthetics, or, Transformations of Aristotle in Bernard Stiegler." In: Transformations - Journal of Media & Culture 17 (2009), 1-20.

None.