Category: Technology
We’re excited that you’ve joined the conversation! At HMU, we want to continue the great authors’ conversations in a contemporary context, and this blog will help us do that. We look back to Aristotle and the early philosophers who used reason and discourse to gain wisdom and now we endeavor to do the same every day.
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December 5, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
David Macaulay’s book Crossing on Time discusses the way that life inevitably changes. In it, he illustrates the making of the SS United States, an ocean liner from the 1950s. He writes about how, in his own lifetime, we moved from ocean liners meant to cross the Atlantic in less than a week to airplanes meant to cross in a few hours.
November 21, 2025
Thanks to Rachel D. Perez, a 2025 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
Barbie: The Movie sparked a wide range of conversations—from gender roles and identity to free will and power. But what struck me most wasn’t the obvious. It was the subtle, yet profound, commentary on the branding of liberation. That scene in the Mattel boardroom, where executives discuss how to “brand” freedom through Barbie—along with Gloria’s projections onto Barbie and Barbie’s own misconceptions of freedom—left me thinking about how we,
» Read more about: Aspiring, Achieving, and Unraveling: The Branding of Liberation »
November 14, 2025
Thanks to James Robertson, an HMU doctoral student, for today’s post.
Heraclitus tells us that we cannot return to the same river twice. With respect to Heraclitus, while this statement expresses the truth that facts are temporary and experiences fleeting, it may conceal a crucial point, one upon which it relies. We may not return to the same river, but we can return to Heraclitus. His words can enter and re-enter our experience,
April 11, 2025
Thanks to 2025 HMU Fellow in Ideas, Rachel D. Perez, for today’s post.
With the rise of artificial intelligence and rapid advancements in technology, even the fundamental aspects of human education and child-rearing are being called into question. As we move toward an era where machines increasingly shape our world, one might wonder: Can AI disrupt our humanness? In this blog, I argue that Mother in I Am Mother may represent the ideal tutor Rousseau envisioned in Émile.
» Read more about: The AI Tutor: Revisiting Rousseau’s Philosophy in a Technological Age »
December 13, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
A group of researchers recently held a webinar for the Modern Language Association (MLA) on the topic of AI integration into higher education. Part of a joint task force, the speakers came from a diverse background of large and small schools from around the country. They presented data from their progress on “Building a Culture for Generative AI Literacy in College Language,
October 11, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
I recently attended ChronFest 2024, an annual virtual conference hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Similar to last year, the event had a strong focus on AI and technology. Of course, AI has disrupted many practices common to educators. For my purposes, I’m most interested in how we will continue to assess a student’s understanding of subject matter.
September 6, 2024
Thanks to Tyler Wright, a 2024 HMU Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
How must we approach signs of life which defy our present understandings of what it is to be alive? Viruses, for instance, are periodically reexamined by scientists as they exist in a sort of transitory area between the living and nonliving (Villarreal, 2004). A specimen might exhibit characteristics so unique that a new branch of life begins to emerge.
December 8, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
In You Are Not A Gadget, Jaron Lanier mentions that early web designers chose files over other organizational systems. Now, information is so regularly compiled into manageable units called files that you probably do not even second guess it. By clicking on the small manila file folder, one is able to see a list of the documents it contains.
December 1, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
We’ve all done it. Looking for quick information on some random subject, we inevitably turn to Wikipedia. Created in 2001, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia open to edits, a collaborative effort. Merriam-Webster defines “wiki” as “a website that allows visitors to make changes, contributions, or corrections.” Merriam-Webster also claims that the first use of wiki is in 1995 (Wikipedia itself,
Thanks to Aaron Ducksworth, a 2023 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
November 10, 2023
Many movies of various genres have been made about the relationship between humans and anthropomorphic technology and the complicated relationship between them – think The Terminator franchise (1984-2019), I, Robot (2004), Virtuosity (1995), and The Matrix franchise (1999-2021). M3GAN is different! Not because it attempts to bridge the gap between horror and science fiction through an AI-based film,
» Read more about: FILM REVIEW: Philosophical Roots in Tech-Horror »