On the Internet: Thinking in Action

Published in 2001, this 144-page book uses philosophical analysis to explore questions such as whether the internet can solve the problem of mass education and bring human beings to a new level of community. Drawing on philosophers such as Sören Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Dreyfus raises questions like the following: Can we leave our vulnerable bodies while preserving relevance, learning, reality, and meaning? Does life on the internet achieve Plato's dream of overcoming space and time as well as body?

In four chapters, Dreyfus argues that the Internet deprives users of essential embodied human capacities such as trust and involvement in shared local concerns. While acknowledging its economic attractiveness, he believes that distance education eliminates the possibility of finding means through the risk-taking and apprenticeship that, he claims, are key to making learning possible. He cites examples from his own experience of teaching to make this point.

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