The Boldness of Belief and Timidity of Technology: A Symposium on Gratitude, Creation, and the Technological Mindset
Matthew CrawfordSenior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies and Culture
Mark ShiffmanSaint Patrick’s Seminary and University
Melanie BarrettUniversity of St. Mary of the Lake
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Open to students and faculty. For more information, contact dstrobach@lumenchristi.org.
This event is cosponsored and supported by the University of Chicago John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought. It is also cosponsored by The Point Magazine. This event is made possible through the support of ‘In Lumine: Supporting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide’ (Grant #62372) from the John Templeton Foundation.
In his Introduction to Christianity, Joseph Ratzinger saw that at the root of the “technological mindset” was an anxiety about how man can come to know the world. Ratzinger contrasted the technological orientation to the world with an orientation of belief. Belief was not incomplete or provisional knowing, but a trustful standing upon and loyalty to that which is given by Creation.
In this symposium, Matt Crawford, Mark Shiffman, and Melanie Barrett will come together to discuss the problem of virtue in light of Ratzinger’s distinction. Crawford will begin by exploring how the virtue of gratitude often eludes us under a technological mindset. A better approach is to boldly entrust oneself to that which one cannot make or fully grasp.
Mark Shiffman will respond by using this same distinction between technocracy and givenness to and explain the difference between optimism and hope.
Melanie Barrett will offer remarks on Aquinas on gratitude.
On Saturday, Matt Crawford and Mark Shiffman will lead a Master Class on Max Scheler's work, Ressentiment.
Matthew Crawford studied physics at UC Santa Barbara and then turned to political philosophy, earning a PhD from the University of Chicago. He has published articles on ancient Greek philosophy, neuroscience, and the philosophy of science. He is the author of Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road (2020); The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction (2015); and Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work (2009), a New York Times best seller that has been translated into seven languages.
Mark Shiffman is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for Philosophy, Technology, and Politics at Saint Patrick’s Seminary and University of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. He is the translator of Aristotle’s De Anima (Hackett, 2010). His scholarly studies span the fields of ancient philosophy, political theory, and the Catholic tradition, and his writings have appeared in Communio, Commonweal, First Things, Public Discourse, and New Polity and on Front Porch Republic.
Dr. Melanie Barrett is Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake / Mundelein Seminary, a graduate Catholic diocesan seminary located in Mundelein, Illinois. She holds two doctorates: (1) a Ph.D. in religious ethics from the University of Chicago Divinity School; and (2) an S.T.D. (Sacred Theology Doctorate) in moral theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. She also holds an S.T.L. (Licentiate in Sacred Theology) in dogmatic theology. She teaches courses on Catholic social doctrine; the ethics of sex, marriage, and family; virtue theory; and philosophical ethics. She is a member of the Society of Christian Ethics, the Catholic Theological Society of America, and the Academy of Catholic Theology. Currently, she is completing a book on suffering and the moral life in the theology of Thomas Aquinas.
