Keynote: 'Autonomy and Conviviality: remarks on phenomenology, work and automation'

Description

Keynote lecture
In 1988 the French Philosopher André Gorz published Métamorphoses du travail: Critique de la raison économique. In this book, through an engagement with Critical theory, Marxism and to a lesser extent phenomenology, Gorz sets out a critique of economic rationality and puts forward a positive programme of a “politics or time” geared towards an idea of radical autonomy as productive work outside of the industrial economy. Gorz’s work has a close relation to Ivan Illich’s theory and programme of “conviviality” published some fifteen years prior in Tools for Conviviality (1973). Illich argues for a programme of convivial technology, where he defines conviviality as autonomous and creative intercourse among persons and the intercourse of persons with their environments.

In this talk, I examine the ideas of autonomy and conviviality in relation to what can be called an institutional theory of technology and the politics of time that both Gorz and Illich set out in separate ways; and ask what autonomous time and space can be carved out within an increasingly automated world of work?

Period	12 Sept 2024
Event title	British Society for Phenomenology 2024 Annual UK Conference : ‘Embodiment and History'
Event type	Conference
Location	Bristol, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International