Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 40, No. 35.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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        Date: 2026-06-02 05:27:53+00:00
        From: Charles Ess <c.m.ess@runbox.no>
        Subject: new chapter on the Phaedrus, new media technologies, analogies for AI

Hi all,

Some of you may be interested in having a look (open source):

Ess, C. (2026). “The Gardens of Letters”: Writing, AI, and the
Kubernētic Cultivation of Phronēsis and Eudaimonia in Plato’s Phaedrus.
Danish Yearbook of Philosophy (published online ahead of print 2026).
https://doi.org/10.1163/24689300-bja10091

It may be of specific interest for

a) its background review of the readings / uses of the Phaedrus,
especially the story of Theuth as the inventor of writing and its
initial critiques by the god-king Thamus, in philosophy and media and
communication studies (including apparently only fairly recent - ca.
from 2012 or so forward - uses as an exemplar [deeply mistaken on my
reading] of moral panic);

b) a brief history of AI critique - as rooted in Plato and Aristotle [!]
- both classic (Wiener, Licklider, Engelbart, Dreyfus, Weizenbaum) and
contemporary (Dignum, Zweig, et al);

c) the especially humanist intersection: how reading the Phaedrus as an
inclusio / ring composition / "growing up" story (familiar from
philosophy, literature, and religious studies - not so much elsewhere?)
gives us a very different (pre-modern / post-modern?) understanding of
Plato's treatment of writing as the then-new media technology
- one arguing for understanding our tools (orality & literacy), their
strengths and limits, in order to use them appropriately in a
complementarity, specifically in service to the philosophical quest for
wisdom and the exercise of phronesis in pursuit of good lives of
flourishing;

d) how all of this can be applied to contemporary understandings of
generative AI, LLMs, etc., including in our teaching.

(And a thousand thanks to the several dozen AoIR-istas who, especially
around 2019-2020 or so, helped with looking further into the history of
the Phaedrus as an exemplar of moral panic.)

Comments, criticisms, and suggestions for further development welcome.

All best,
- charles

Professor Emeritus
University of Oslo
--
“Nihilism, of course, always threatens. But the romantic solution is to
keep meaning moving through space, to write as if one’s very life
depended on it — as it does.”
-- John David Black


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