Eschatology and the Technological Future

ISBN-13: 9781138826335 / Angielski / Twarda / 2015 / 252 str.

Michael S. Burdett

Opis

The rapid advancement of technology has led to an explosion of speculative theories about what the future of humankind may look like. These "technological futurisms" have arisen from significant advances in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology and are drawing growing scrutiny from the philosophical and theological communities. This text seeks to contextualize the growing literature on the cultural, philosophical and religious implications of technological growth by considering technological futurisms such as transhumanism in the context of the long historical tradition of technological dreaming. Michael Burdett traces the latent religious sources of our contemporary technological imagination by looking at visionary approaches to technology and the future in seminal technological utopias and science fiction and draws on past theological responses to the technological future with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Jacques Ellul. Burdett's argument arrives at a contemporary Christian response to transhumanism based around the themes of possibility and promise by turning to the works of Richard Kearney, Eberhard Jungel and Jurgen Moltmann. Throughout, the author highlights points of correspondence and divergence between technological futurisms and the Judeo-Christian understanding of the future.

Spis treści

1. Introduction: Our Technological Future, Philosophy and Religion  Part I: Visionary Approaches to Technology and the Future  2. Planning for the Technological Future: Technological Utopianism  3. Science Fiction and the Technological Imagination  4. Transhumanism and the Future  Part II: Theological Responses to Technology and the Future  5. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Eschatology: The Technological Optimist  6. Jacques Ellul and Eschatology: The Technological Pessimist  Part III: Philosophical and Theological Issues in Technology and the Future  7. Heidegger: Ontology, Technology and Eschatology  8. Possibility and Promise: A Christian Response  9. Conclusion: Hope in a Technological World

O autorze

Michael S. Burdett is Postdoctoral Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford, UK and a Visiting Fellow at the University of St Andrews, UK