Agenda

October 2026-April 2027

HISTEPS | WG is jointly coordinated by Dr. Matteo Vagelli at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and Professor Roberto Gronda at the Department of Civilizations and Forms of Knowledge, University of Pisa.

21 January 2027, 16.00 - 17.30 (CET, Venice Time), online
Parysa Mostajir (Case Western University), Instrumental Emphasis, Ontological Consequence: Extending Dewey’s Anti-Scientism to AI

Abstract
From late 19th century theories of natural selection to early 20th century theories of relativity, a series of scientific breakthroughs challenged intuitive ontologies of the world. In response, John Dewey argued that scientific discoveries do not compete for ontological status with the intuitive qualities of everyday lived experience. Scientific methiods, he wrote, are simply instrumental processes of selectively emphasizing aspects of our lived experience which are amenable to prediction and control. Despite Dewey’s efforts, an increasingly popular scientistic ontological framework continued to demote experiential qualities falling outside scientific analysis—valuative, aesthetic, moral—as having secondary ontological status. This is because technologies (or techniques such as scientific methods) encode ontologies. They enhance access to qualities of nature by selectively foregrounding some qualities while omitting others as noise, enabling human activities to organize around increased access and insights. And, as technologies organize and selectively enhance human activities, they also lead to unwitting shifts in ontological assignments, devaluing the aspects of lived experience intentionally set aside—a process I call ontological drift. At the precipice of what many are calling a technological revolution, what lessons does Dewey’s pragmatism have for understanding the ontological shifts likely to emerge from widespread integration of AI tools into human life? Does Dewey’s separation of selective emphasis from its instinctive ontological assignments point toward critical practices for keeping AI’s ontological commitments transparent, contestable, and revisable?

All meetings will be held online. To receive the Zoom link, please send a message to matteo.vagelli@unive.it.

Complete programme attached For further information, visit unive.it/sciplu.

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Progetto SCIPLU MSCA2024_0000054 finanziato dall’UE – Next-GenerationEU - PNRR - MISS4 COMP2 INV1.2. CUP: H73C24002000001