Darian Meacham - Autonomy and Conviviality: remarks on phenomenology, work and automation

Season 9 continues with a recording from our 2024 annual conference, Embodiment and History. This episode features a keynote presentation from Prof. Darian Meacham Abstract: 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? Biography: Darian Meacham is Professor of Practical Philosophy at Maastricht University and chair of the philosophy department. Further Information: This recording is taken from our Annual UK Conference 2024, co-organised with University of the West of England. The conference was held in Bristol on the theme of 'Embodiment and History'. Biographical information of speakers is taken from the programme of that event and therefore may not be up-to-date. The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, events, and podcast. About our events: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/events/ About the BSP: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/about/