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Dr. Dennis M. WeissYork College of PennsylvaniaOn this page you will find links to my publications, conference presentations, and lectures. Some of this material is in draft form. My core interests revolve around philosophical anthropology and its two fundamental philosophical question: "what am I that I am a human being?" and "what is my place in the cosmos?" Exploring these questions has led me to think about the posthuman, human enhancement technologies, gender and identity, and the nature of technology. |
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This is my dissertation, completed in 1991 at The University of Texas at Austin, under the direction of Dr. Douglas Browning. A brief account of its central argument can be found below in the essay "Renewing Anthropological Reflection."
A critique of contemporary philosophy from the perspective of philosophical anthropology, this essay, appearing in Man and World, critically examines the philosophy of Michel Foucault and Daniel Dennett.
Appearing in Philosophy Today, this essay explores the philosophical anthropology of Max Scheler, as detailed in his Man's Place in Nature, and argues for his continuing relevance.
This essay was written for the volume Philosophy and Human Nature, from Davies Publishing, Co., and part of the Critical Studies in the Humanities series and is an expanded version of "Renewing Anthropological Reflection."
This is a handout that outlines a lecture I delivered on the theme of the posthuman and various problems attendant to it.
Published in the journal Expositions, this essay examines the recent vogue of the posthuman from the perspective of the philosophical anthropology of Michael Landmann.
This essay examines the nature of the human being at the close of the twentieth century and the analogies often drawn between human beings, animals, and machines. It was presented as a public lecture for the Pennsylvania Humanities Council.
This essay, published in the Southwestern Philosophical Review, explores and critiques the image of human nature dominant in much research in Artificial Intelligence.
This is an updated version of a conference paper presented at the World Congress of Philosophy and published in Contemporary Philosophy. It argues that the view of human nature predominant in the digital culture is a Cartesian view long rejected by philosophers.
What can popular culture tell us about human nature and the posthuman? Quite a bit, this paper suggests. This essay examines the Star Trek franchise from the perspective of the human-machine interface and the claim that the boundary between human being and machine is ever more elusive. I suggest that Star Trek actually has a much more complicated vision of human nature than is often inferred.
This is a review of N. Katherine Hayles' book How We Became Posthuman which appeared in The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory.
While the core questions of philosophical anthropology are fundamental philosophical questions, the topic of human nature has not been thought to be central to contemporary philosophy and it is not often taught in the undergraduate philosophy curriculum. This draft of an essay was presented at a meeting of the American Association of Philosophy Teaches and discusses courses in philosophy and human nature.
A brief book review appearing in Questions: Philosophy for Young People.
Presented at a conference organized to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of the Species, this conference presentation critically assesses the view of human nature implicit in John Harris' Enhancing Evolution.
Drawing on the philosophical anthropology and philosophy of technology of Ernst Cassirer, this essay examines competing frameworks for addressing the issue of transforming humanity. It was presented at the conference "Transforming Humanity: Fantasy? Dream? Nightmare?"
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Interpreting Man Dennis M. Weiss, Editor Are human beings little more than complicated animals? Are we defined by our biology? What role does culture play in shaping us? Can science account for the whole of our nature? These perennial philosophical questions are being raised with new urgency in recent provocative debates over mapping the human genome, the merits of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, and the moral claims of animals and the environment. These questions are central as well to the group of essays collected in this volume. Interpreting Man brings together for the first time substantial selections from an international group of philosophers and social theorists devoted to a critical examination of what it means to be human. United in their concern for understanding the nature of the whole human being, the essays collected here, many formerly out of print and no longer widely available, offer fresh insights into human nature and address issues that go to the heart of contemporary philosophical, scientific, and humanistic studies. They represent some of the finest contemporary perspectives on human nature and are an essential resource for anyone interested in either perennial philosophical problems or the contemporary human scene. Interpreting Man includes selections from Max Scheler, Arnold Gehlen, Ernst Cassirer, Helmuth Plessner, Michael Landmann, Martin Buber, and Jose Ortega y Gasset. Interpreting Man was published in 2003 by the Davies Group Publishing Company and is available on Amazon. |
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Published in Humanities and Technology Review, this essay argues that some of the leading metaphorical constructions of cyberspace are misleading and we should be suspicious of the rhetorical construction of cyberspace as a democratic community.
Presented at the International Association of Philosophy and Literature. Considers cyberculture from the standpoint of Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Postmodernism.
A lecture delivered at various colleges and universities in central Pennsylvania.
How can the digital culture be introduced into the classroom? This essay, published in Proteus: A Journal of Ideas details some of the ways I have used computer technology in the philosophy classroom.
This essay examines William Gibson's take on the digital culture.
An outline of conference presentation given at the annual meeting of the Humanities and Technology Association, this talk considers the masculine values associated with the digital culture.
Comparing their respective visions of the cyborg, this essay argues that Marge Piercy's fictional account of cyborgs offers a more persuasive account that Andy Clark's Natural Born Cyborg.
Don Ihde is one of this country's leading philosophers of technology and this essay, which appeared in Techne, is a response to a collection of essays celebrating his work.
This is an early draft of an essay in which I was beginning to explore the impact of new technologies on our sense of place and home.
The paper, which was presented at an annual meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Technology, explores the impact of technology on our sense of being at home in the world.
This handout from a conference presentation explores accounts of space, community, and self in the emerging cyberculture, focusing on the manner in which cyberspace has been conceived as a place for community and a context for fashioning self-identity.
This is a review of N. Herzfeld's book In Our Image, which examines the field of artificial intelligence from a religious studies perspective. This book review appeared in The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory.
These reflections were prepared as a sample exercise for my course in feminist philosophy. They seek to analyze the digital culture from the perspective of a variety of feminist theories.
A lecture delivered at Gettysburg College exploring the relationship between human nature and computers.
While some what dated, this lecture deals with different facets of gender and technology, many points of which are I think still relevant.
Written for a conference on technology and religion sponsored by the Humanities and Technology Association, this conference presentation critically examines Richard Dawkins' and Daniel Dennett's use of the notion of memes to analyze religious belief.
What does Buffy the Vampire Slayer have to do with technology? This essay explores Joss Whedon's views on technology as they come up in Buffy, possibly one of the best television shows ever.
This conference presentation examines our sense of place in the contemporary urban technopolis.
Originally a presentation delivered at the 2009 meeting of the Society for Philosophy of Technology, this essay examines the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive psychology from the perspective of Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of culture and symbolic forms. It is slated for inclusion in the anthology Form and Technology: Reading Ernst Cassirer from the Present, edited by Aud Hoel and Ingvild Folkvord, whose suggestions and comments on an earlier version of this essay I appreciate.
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This is the text of a lecture delivered at York College exploring the nature of self and subjectivity in the digital culture.
This conference presentation argues that the view of identity presented in the work of Sherry Turkle, Rosanne Stone and Kenneth Gergen is flawed.
A reworked version of the previous essay, now concentrating on the work of Stone and Poster and contrasting it with Daniel Dennett's account of the multiple self, this essay appeared in the Humanities and Technology Review.
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Appearing in the Humanities and Technology Review, this essay examines the recent popularity of television reality shows premised upon cosmetic surgery and places it in the context of accounts of human enhancement technologies and the posthuman.
This is a revised and slightly extended version of the previous essay.
This essay is a work in progress and expands upon the previous essay, analyzing the limits to makeover narratives. It features a section on how one might incorporate feminist perspectives to analyze these issues.
Yet another take on the Extreme Makeover phenomenon, this one co-authored with Rebecca Kukla and looking in greater depth at the question of nature and norms.
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This work in progress is a feminist reading of the film Demon Seed.
This is a draft of an essay in which I explore the nature of self and subjectivity in the digital culture through the lens of four films: The Net, Robocop, Johnny Mnemonic, and Ghost in the Shell.
Stephen Mulhall's On Film has received a lot of critical attention for its claim that film can do philosophy. This conference presentation explores that claim, especially in relation to films based on the work of science fiction author Philip K. Dick.
A review of Stephen Spielberg's film A.I.
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A conference presentation, this essay examines several different approaches within contemporary feminist thought to the issue of identity.
This essay, a conference presentation, examines Catherine Mackinnon's critique of the difference approach and discusses her dominance theory from a postmodern perspective.