Intellectual Autonomy

The course will provide an overview of philosophical questions about intellectual autonomy, our ability to govern ourselves as thinkers. “Thinking for yourself” is a traditional educational emphasis; but recent history has also dramatized the risks of “doing your own research” instead of trusting experts on topics from climate change to vaccine risks to election outcomes. Meanwhile, the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT illustrates the possibility of “outsourcing” some of our thinking to technology; and problems of misinformation press us to consider how individuals and governments can permissibly shape people’s intellectual behavior. This course brings these topics into perspective by considering how the value of intellectual autonomy relates to our dependence on other people, labor-saving tools, and healthy informational environments.