The Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies invites you to the annual Burman lectures in philosophy. This years invited lecturer is C. Thi Nguyen, associate professor in Philosophy at the University of Utah. He will give three open lectures over three days.
Tuesday 15 October at 13.15-15.00 PM, Lecture Hall HUM.D.220
Abstract: Games and institutions often use mechanical scoring systems. A game tells us exactly what gets us points; a bureaucracy tells us exactly how our productivity will be measured. Strangely, these mechanical scoring systems often inspire fun and free play in games – but in institutional life, they drain the life out of everything. Why? I offer a theory of the mechanical. A mechanical procedure is one where the procedures and criteria have been designed so as to be usable by anybody, to yield consistent results. Mechanical scoring systems perform a valuable social function: they guarantee convergence of evaluations, from those who have accepted the scoring system. To do this, however, such scoring systems need to strictly limit the kinds of criteria they can target. In games, this helps us be more fluid. But mechanical scoring systems perform a different function in institutions. Mechanical scoring systems are often used to make workers more replaceable. This deeply shapes the kinds of targets and goals that can be enshrined in institutions. And this process opens the door to the possibility of a kind of social selection process, whereby those agents who are willing to sacrifice all else, in the pursuit of higher mechanical scores, are rewarded with greater social power.
Lecture 1: Value Capture
Monday 14 oktober at 13.15-15.00 PM, Lecture Hall HUM.D.220
Lecture 3: Bureaucratic Meanings and Semantic Self-Determination
Wednesday 16 October at 13.15-15.00 PM, Lecture Hall HUM.D.220
All interested are welcome to these lectures!
Learn more about the Burman Lectures