ABSTRACTWhile there have been numerous critiques of the ideology of technology, it is useful to situate technology within both a liberal and a conspiratorial framework. The early work of Auguste Comte offers an ideal vehicle for this kind of analysis. Liberalism’s embrace of technology is developed in Comte to produce a theory of scientific and technical elites intent on reinventing society and the individual. This “technological conspiracy” reads very much like elements of a Silicon Valley manifesto describing the cyber-utopia of (...) a near tomorrow. For these reasons Comte is relevant to a discussion of conspiracy today. (shrink)

This paper defends the possibility that meaningful learning can be supported by the Internet. Responding to Hubert Dreyfus’s neo-Kierkegaardian contention that the Internet inhibits and does not support meaningful learning, we argue that it is a valuable tool for learning that can promote the development of intellectual expertise without the accompanying atrophy of personhood that Dreyfus believes is a prominent effect of extensive engagement with the Internet. Additionally, we argue that a conflation of practically ultimate commitments and epistemically ultimate commitments (...) underlies Dreyfus’s conception of unconditional commitments that constitutes the core of his critique of the possibility of meaningful learning on the Web. (shrink)