Cloaks and iPhones: The quest for more rational dealings with technology

Abstract Contemporary philosophical debate on technology is vibrant and has acquired a new relevance and urgency considering new advances in technology, especially artificial intelligence. The positions in the debate are quite extreme, in that they give too little or too much consideration to human agency with respect to technology. In this paper, I develop a golden mean approach, based on one of the central tenets of analytical Thomism, namely that reason has a fourfold relationship with order, which gives human agency the proper weight. This way opens the path to more reasonable dealings with technology on both the individual and the social and political levels.