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Dr Audrey Borowski is a Research Fellow on the “Desirable Digitalization” project between the Universities of Bonn and Cambridge. Her monograph Leibniz in his World: The Making of a Savant is forthcoming with Princeton University Press. She was a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy as well as a research associate at the University of Oxford. She completed her doctorate (D.Phil) in the History of Ideas at the University of Oxford. She is currently working on her second book, Philosophers of the Digital Age: A Philosophical History of Computing and AI from Leibniz to the Present.

Audrey’s research background lies at the intersection of philosophy, history and science and in the last few years she started working more closely on the philosophical history and philosophy of computing and AI. Audrey works on various projects pertaining to the philosophy of algorithms, computing and AI, including AI through the lens of 20th century philosophy, the relation between myth/ideology and AI, AI and aesthestics, and AI and the environment.

Audrey convenes and hosts the ‘AI and Digital’ seminar series in partnership with the philosopher

https://www.desirableai.com/ai-and-the-digital

 

Recent Publications

Leibniz in his World: The Making of a Savant (Princeton University Press, forthcoming November 2024), 320 pp. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691260747/leibniz-in-his-world

Co-editor (with Nicholas Halmi), ‘Universal Histories’, special issue of Intellectual History Review 33.3 (September 2023) [articles by Audrey Borowski, Elisabeth Décultot, Daniel Fulda, Maike Oergel, Maurice Olender, Olivier Pot, Ann Thomson, and Sylvana Tomaselli]

Peer-reviewed articles and chapters:

‘Leibniz and AI’, special issue of Social Science Computer Review, ed. Elly R. Truitt, forthcoming spring 2025

‘Malaise and Crisis in the Algorithmic Civilization’, forthcoming in a special issue of the International Review of Applied Economics, ed. J. Michie and Suzanne Schneider, to be republished in hardcover by Oxford University Press [invited contribution on AI]

‘The Projector as Liminal and Ambiguous Figure: The Case of Gottfried Leibniz’, in Davide Crippa (ed.), The Crisis of Traditional Sciences (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming spring 2025)

‘Gilles Deleuze’s dream of a Non-Human future of Mankind’, in Jill Müller and Guido Giglioni (eds.), Automatons and Transhumanism (Heidelberg: Springer, forthcoming 2025)

‘Hans Blumenberg and the Absolutism of Data’, in Hannes Bajohr (ed.), Thinking on AI (Cambridge: Open Humanities Press), forthcoming December 2024

‘The Universal History to bring all Universal Histories to an end: The curious case of Volney’, in ‘Universal Histories’ issue of Intellectual History Review, 33.3 (2023), 491–505

‘Friedrich Meinecke or the Defeat of Cultural Historicism’, in Hermann Paul and Adriaan van Veldhuizen (eds.), Historicism as a Travelling Concept (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), pp. 165–85

Articles in Charles Wolfe and Dana Jalobeanu (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Science and Philosophy (Heidelberg: Springer, online edition June 2020, print edition January 2021): ‘History of the Earth’, ‘Claude Perrault’, ‘Projectors’, ‘Republic of Letters’

Articles in the public press (print and online)

‘Günther Anders Philosopher of the Apocalypse’, Aeon, 17 May 2022 https://aeon.co/essays/gunther-anders-a-forgotten-prophet-for-the-21st-century

‘Hans Blumenberg: History, Metaphors and Fables’, Times Literary Supplement (TLS), 17 December 2021

‘Networks of Extraction’, Times Literary Supplement (TLS), 10 December 2021 https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/your-computer-is-on-fire-thomas-mullaney-atlas-of-ai-kate-crawford-review/

‘Golden handmaidens: How AI narratives have prompted critical reflection on human-machine relations’, TLS, 6 March 2021 https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/ai-narratives-stephen-cave-kanta-dihal-sarah-dillon-review-audrey-borowski/

‘Vanishing act: How Snobbery and Fashion Put Paid to Magic’, TLS, 12 February 2021 https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/decline-of-magic-michael-hunter-book-review/

‘Sentencing the Present: Critical Conversations in a Time of Crisis’, Public Seminar, 28 May 2020 https://publicseminar.org/essays/sentencing-the-present-part-four/

 ‘The Eternal Foreigner: Jewish Life and European Thought in the Eighteenth Century’, Times Literary Supplement, 6 March 2020 <https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/autobiographhy-of-solomon-maimon-melamed-sucher-review-audrey-borowski/>

‘Cousin de Grainville or the Impossibility of Thought’, Blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas,  January 2019 <jhiblog.org/2019/01/07/cousin-de-grainvilles-the-last-man-or-the-impossibility-of-thought/>

‘Louis-Sebastien Mercier Revisited’, Blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas, August 2018 <jhiblog.org/2018/08/01/louis-sebastien-mercier-between-prophetic-and-historical-engagement-with-time>

‘The Challenge of Contingency and Leibniz’s Cybernetic Thinking’, Blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas, February 2018 <jhiblog.org/2018/02/05/the-challenge-of-contingency-and-leibnizs-cybernetic-thinking/>

‘Leibnizian Musings on Intellectual Automation’, Marginalia: LA Review of Books Online, 28 March 2017 <marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/the-cure-for-computation/>

‘Leibniz and Deleuze on Paradox’, Blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas, September 2016 <jhiblog.org/2016/09/26/leibniz-and-deleuze-on-paradox>

‘Leibniz and the Infinite Mechanism of Life’, Philosophy Now, March 2016 <philosophynow.org/issues/108/

‘Al Qaeda and ISIS : From Revolution to Apocalypse’, Philosophy Now, December 2015 <philosophynow.org/issues/111/Al_Qaeda_and_ISIS_From_Revolution_to_Apocalypse>

‘Herder, Humboldt, Heidegger: Language as World-disclosure’, Philosophy Now, July 2015 <philosophynow.org/issues/108/Herder_Humboldt_Heidegger_Language_As_World-Disclosure>

Media Coverage

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Expertise by Geography

Expertise by Chronology

17th century, 18th century, 19th century, Early Modern, Modern, 20th century, 21st century

Expertise by Topic

Capitalism, Computational, Environment, Politics, Technology