Books by Iain Thomson
Heidegger on Technology's Danger and Promise in the Age of AI, 2025
How exactly is technology transforming us and our worlds, and what (if anything) can and should w... more How exactly is technology transforming us and our worlds, and what (if anything) can and should we do about it? Heidegger already felt this philosophical question concerning technology pressing in on him in 1951, and his thought-full and deliberately provocative response is still worth pondering today. What light does his thinking cast not just on the nuclear technology of the atomic age but also on more contemporary technologies such as genome engineering, synthetic biology, and the latest advances in information technology, so-called generative AIs like ChatGPT? These are some of the questions this Element addresses, situating the latest controversial technologies in the light of Heidegger's influential understanding of technology as an historical mode of ontological disclosure. In this way, we seek to take the measure of Heidegger's ontological understanding of technology as a constellation of intelligibility with an important philosophical heritage and a dangerous but still promising future.
Heidegger on Technology s Danger and Promise in the Age of AI, 2025
Abstract: How exactly is technology transforming us and our worlds,
and what (if anything) can an... more Abstract: How exactly is technology transforming us and our worlds,
and what (if anything) can and should we do about it? Heidegger
already felt this philosophical question concerning technology pressing
in on him in 1951, and his thought-full and deliberately provocative
response is still worth pondering today. What light does his thinking
cast not just on the nuclear technology of the atomic age but also on
more contemporary technologies such as genome engineering,
synthetic biology, and the latest advances in information technology,
so-called generative AIs like ChatGPT? These are some of the questions
this Element addresses, situating the latest controversial technologies
in the light of Heidegger's influential understanding of technology as
an historical mode of ontological disclosure. In this way, we seek to take
the measure of Heidegger s ontological understanding of technology
as a constellation of intelligibility with an important philosophical
heritage and a dangerous but still promising future.
Heidegger on Technology s Danger and Promise in the Age of AI, 2025
Abstract: How exactly is technology transforming us and our worlds,
and what (if anything) can an... more Abstract: How exactly is technology transforming us and our worlds,
and what (if anything) can and should we do about it? Heidegger
already felt this philosophical question concerning technology pressing
in on him in 1951, and his thought-full and deliberately provocative
response is still worth pondering today. What light does his thinking
cast not just on the nuclear technology of the atomic age but also on
more contemporary technologies such as genome engineering,
synthetic biology, and the latest advances in information technology,
so-called generative AIs like ChatGPT? These are some of the questions
this Element addresses, situating the latest controversial technologies
in the light of Heidegger s in uential understanding of technology as
an historical mode of ontological disclosure. In this way, we seek to take
the measure of Heidegger s ontological understanding of technology
as a constellation of intelligibility with an important philosophical
heritage and a dangerous but still promising future.
Rethinking Death in and after Heidegger (front matter), 2024
is renowned for radically rethinking Heidegger's views on metaphysics, technology, education, art... more is renowned for radically rethinking Heidegger's views on metaphysics, technology, education, art, and history, and in this book he presents a compelling rereading of Heidegger's important and inûuential understanding of existential death. Thomson lucidly explains how Heidegger's phenomenology of existential death led directly to the insights that forced him to abandon Being and Time's guiding pursuit of a fundamental ontology, and thus how his early, prometaphysical work gave way to his later efforts to do justice to being in its real phenomenological richness and complexity. He also examines and clariûes the often abstruse responses to Heidegger's rethinking of death in Levinas, Derrida, Agamben, Beauvoir, and others, explaining the enduring signiûcance of this work for ongoing efforts to think clearly about death, mortality, education, and politics. The result is a powerful and illuminating study of Heidegger's understanding of existential death and its enduring importance for philosophy and life.
Rethinking Death in and after Heidegger, 2024
Rethinking Death in and after Heidegger (excerpt), 2024
Sterblichen sterben den Tod im Leben." Martin Heidegger, "Hölderlin's Earth and Heaven [1959]" (E... more Sterblichen sterben den Tod im Leben." Martin Heidegger, "Hölderlin's Earth and Heaven [1959]" (EHP 190/GA4 165). 2 I say "begin" because I think some of the best evidence for the reading advanced here is the revealing light it casts on the interconnected issues taken up in subsequent chapters, which develop and extend aspects of this analysis while also focusing on details and implications of the view not addressed here (as well as addressing some critical responses to it).
The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945-2015, 2019
Introduction to Kelly Becker and Iain Thomson, eds, The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945-2015.
The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945–2015 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020)., 2020
This landmark achievement in philosophical scholarship brings together leading experts from the d... more This landmark achievement in philosophical scholarship brings together leading experts from the diverse traditions of Western philosophy in a common quest to illuminate and explain the most important philosophical developments since the Second World War. Focusing particularly (but not exclusively) on those insights and movements that most profoundly shaped the English-speaking philosophical world, this volume bridges the traditional divide between "analytic" and "Continental" philosophy while also reaching beyond it. The result is an authoritative guide to the most important advances and transformations that shaped philosophy during this tumultuous and fascinating period of history, developments that continue to shape the field today. It will be of interest to students and scholars of contemporary philosophy of all levels and will prove indispensable for any serious philosophical collection.
Heidegger, Art, and Postmodernity offers a radical new interpretation of Heidegger's later philos... more Heidegger, Art, and Postmodernity offers a radical new interpretation of Heidegger's later philosophy, developing his argument that art can help lead humanity beyond the nihilistic ontotheology of the modern age. Providing pathbreaking readings of Heidegger's "The Origin of the Work of Art" and his notoriously difficult Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), this book explains precisely what postmodernity meant for Heidegger, the greatest philosophical critic of modernity, and what it could still mean for us today. Exploring these issues, Iain D. Thomson examines several postmodern works of art, including music, literature, painting, and even comic books, from a post-Heideggerian perspective. Clearly written and accessible, this book will help readers gain a deeper understanding of Heidegger and his relation to postmodern theory, popular culture, and art.
Papers and book chapters by Iain Thomson
Gatherings, 2022
The work contains two short pieces by Iain Thomson: “Hearing the Pro-Vocation within the Provoca... more The work contains two short pieces by Iain Thomson: “Hearing the Pro-Vocation within the Provocation: Heidegger on the Way to Post-Metaphysical Humanism” (pp. 187–97) and “Ontopoliticosexual Pro(-)vocations” (pp. 206–210), both included in the “Symposium: The Human Being” (which also includes contributions from Kevin Aho, Jill Drouillard, Jesús Adrían Escudero, Tricia Glazebrook, and Róisín Lally), Gatherings: The Heidegger Circle Annual XII (2022), Scott Campbell, ed., pp. 157–205.
''Thinking Love: Heidegger and Arendt'' explores the problematic nature of romantic love as it de... more ''Thinking Love: Heidegger and Arendt'' explores the problematic nature of romantic love as it developed between Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt, whom Heidegger later called ''the passion of his life.'' I suggest that three different ways of understanding love can be found at work in Heidegger and Arendt's relationship, namely, the perfectionist, the unconditional, and the ontological models of love. Explaining these different ways of thinking romantic love, this paper shows how the distinctive problems of the perfectionist and unconditional models played out in Heidegger and Arendt's relationship and how that relationship eventually gave rise to the third, ontological understanding of love. This ontological vision of love combines some of the strengths of the perfectionist and unconditional views while avoiding their worst problems, and so emerges as perhaps the most important philosophical lesson about romantic love to be drawn from studying the lifelong love affair between two of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers.
Continental Philosophy Review, 2004
In Heidegger on Ontotheology: Technology and the Politics of Education, I argue that Heidegger's ... more In Heidegger on Ontotheology: Technology and the Politics of Education, I argue that Heidegger's ontological thinking about education forms one of the deep thematic undercurrents of his entire career, but I focus mainly on Heidegger's later work in order to make this case. The current essay extends this view to Heidegger's early magnum opus, contending that Being and Time is profoundly informed-albeit at a subterranean level-by Heidegger's perfectionist thinking about education. Explaining this perfectionism in terms of its ontological and ethical components (and their linkage), I show that Being and Time's educational philosophy seeks to answer the paradoxical question: How do become what we are? Understanding Heidegger's strange but powerful answer to this original pedagogical question, I suggest, allows us to make sense of some of the most difficult and important issues at the heart of Being and Time, including what Heidegger really means by possibility, death, and authenticity.
International journal of philosophical studies, Jan 1, 2001
JBSP. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Jan 1, 2003
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Books by Iain Thomson
and what (if anything) can and should we do about it? Heidegger
already felt this philosophical question concerning technology pressing
in on him in 1951, and his thought-full and deliberately provocative
response is still worth pondering today. What light does his thinking
cast not just on the nuclear technology of the atomic age but also on
more contemporary technologies such as genome engineering,
synthetic biology, and the latest advances in information technology,
so-called generative AIs like ChatGPT? These are some of the questions
this Element addresses, situating the latest controversial technologies
in the light of Heidegger's influential understanding of technology as
an historical mode of ontological disclosure. In this way, we seek to take
the measure of Heidegger s ontological understanding of technology
as a constellation of intelligibility with an important philosophical
heritage and a dangerous but still promising future.
and what (if anything) can and should we do about it? Heidegger
already felt this philosophical question concerning technology pressing
in on him in 1951, and his thought-full and deliberately provocative
response is still worth pondering today. What light does his thinking
cast not just on the nuclear technology of the atomic age but also on
more contemporary technologies such as genome engineering,
synthetic biology, and the latest advances in information technology,
so-called generative AIs like ChatGPT? These are some of the questions
this Element addresses, situating the latest controversial technologies
in the light of Heidegger s in uential understanding of technology as
an historical mode of ontological disclosure. In this way, we seek to take
the measure of Heidegger s ontological understanding of technology
as a constellation of intelligibility with an important philosophical
heritage and a dangerous but still promising future.
Papers and book chapters by Iain Thomson