EDITORS' INTRODUCTION: THE POST/HUMAN CONDITION AND THE NEED FOR PHILOSOPHY (original) (raw)
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H± TransHumanism and Its Critics
This book brings together sixteen of the world’s foremost thinkers on the prospects of a radical reshaping of human nature through biotechnologies and artificial intelligence. The often heated debate about transhumanism is an extremely fruitful field for philosophical and theological inquiry. The last hundred years of human evolution have seen remarkable scientific and technological transformations. If the pace of change continues and indeed accelerates in the twenty-first century, then in short order we will be a much-transformed species on a much-transformed planet. The idea of some fixed human nature, a human essence from which we derive notions of humane dignities and essential human rights, no longer applies in this brave new world of free market evolution. On what basis then do we make moral judgments and pursue pragmatic ends. Should we try to limit the development of certain sciences and technologies? How would we do so? Is it even possible? Are either traditional religious or Enlightenment values adequate at a speciation horizon between humans and posthumans? Is the ideology of transhumanism dangerous independent of the technology? Is the ideology of the bioconservatives, those who oppose transhumanism, also dangerous and how? Are the new sciences and technologies celebrated by transhumanists realistic or just another form of wishful thinking?
An Incursion into 'Weak Transhumanism'
DELIBERATIO. STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHICAL CHALLENGES, 2021
The acceleration of scientific and technological developments in recent decades has brought both hope and concern for mankind regarding its wellbeing and future existence. In this context, the cultural-philosophical movements of transhumanism, posthumanism and metahumanism have had an important imprint on what currently represents the finding of alternative methods to improve human and non-human living conditions. Thus, the general objective of this paper is to analyze the three aforementioned movements, using Stefan Lorenz Sorgner's book On Transhumanism (2016/2020) as a starting point. In the first part of my study, I will emphasize some of the philosophical theories and approaches that brings transhumanism and posthumanism together in their common path towards the 'posthuman', as well as those that separate them. The second part of the paper seeks to highlight the possibility that metahumanism-and especially what Sorgner calls "weak transhumanism"-is a more appropriate approach when considering the various advanced technologies designed to improve human health and lifespan. This perspective also serves to illustrate that any advanced technologies such as bio-and nano-technology, genetic engineering etc. should first of all preserve negative freedom-in terms of achieving a good life, by adopting a pluralistic, naturalistic, non-dualistic and relational understanding of our worldly existence-merged with dynamic adaptation and critical thinking regarding the challenges revealed by these future technologies.
Transhumanism, as inheritor of humanism in the age of technoscience.
The appearance of this text indicates a milestone of a bigger project about transhumanism. Since the parent text was expanded beyond my initial planning and i will take some more time to be completed I thought that this part has a rather strong unity and could appear as a a standalone whole. What remains to be depicted is primarily some aspects of technoscience and the realtions with ideology (liberalism). However their impact of the first is small and the second is here wrapped inside the idea of the progress and seems to me its internal details would not affect the basic approach, structure and content of this text.
Introducing Post- and Transhumanism
Scientific and technological advances have questioned predominant doctrines concerning the human condition. Transhumanism and posthumanism are among the most recent and prominent manifestations of this phenomenon. Debates on trans- and posthumanism have not only gained a considerable amount of academic and popular attention recently, but have also created a widespread conceptual confusion. This is no surprise, considering their recent dates of origin, their conceptual similarities, and their engagements with similar questions, topics, and motifs. Furthermore, trans- as well as posthumanism frequently question their relationship to humanism and reconsider what it means to be human. In this regard both movements are streaming beyond humanism. What this means, however, is far from clear and shall be subject of discussion in this volume.
From Boundless Expansion to Existential Threat: Transhumanists and
Futures, 2021
This essay examines visions of the future of human life in transhumanist imaginaries of the posthuman, ranging from utopian figurations to catastrophist warnings. Focusing on libertarian, liberal, and conservative posthuman imaginaries, it argues that the posthu man condition is defined by changing scientific, moral, and political narratives, including ideas of revolutionary change, progressive evolution through the ethical use of human en hancement technologies, and the mitigation of existential risk for the preservation of in telligence and civilization in the long term. Changing posthuman imaginaries, it shows, reshape spaces of present and future political imagination.
Annals of the University of Bucharest Philosophy Series, 2020
The rapid institutionalization of ‚transhumanism‛, promoted from the status of subculture to 'intellectual movement', to the point in which its interests have gained academic traction becoming a research and reflection field cannot conceal the many methodological and epistemic shortcomings it still suffers today. I intend to go through the most striking of them in order to claim that in order to properly respond to its self-imposed mission and tasks, transhumanism must either adopt a critical, philosophical posthumanism, as its own method, or renounce its claims altogether. The point is that critical posthumanism is already the immanent critique of transhumanism, and the latter cannot continue to ignore it without losing touch with its own content-which equates to the catastrophic loss of academic credibility and the relegation in the sphere of popular culture. Conversely, the transhuman as a field of actual transformations is the proper one for posthumanist research, without which its efforts to gain institutional ground are pointless.
In Pursuit of Perfection: The Misguided Transhumanist Vision
Theology and Science, 2018
In this article I will focus on the topic that has engaged me for the past 15 years-transhumanism. When I tell people that I write about transhumanism, I usually encounter a perplexed look, since most people are unfamiliar with the term. However, here at CTNS the term is well known, and I was very pleased to attend a class that studies transhumanism and that is very familiar with the current literature on the subject. To be sure we all know what we are talking about, let me begin by presenting transhumanism and telling you why transhumanism matters. Transhumanism is not easy to define. According to the leading transhumanist theorist, Nick Bostrom, "transhumanism is a loosely defined movement … [that] represents an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and evaluating the ethical, social and strategic issues raised by present and anticipated future technologies." 1 In the same essay, Bostrom also refers to transhumanism as a "worldview that has a value component," and that broader definition is more appropriate. Transhumanism is a vision about the role of technology in the evolution of the human species. There are many facets to transhumanism, but they all cohere into the claim that the human species is on the verge of a new phase in its evolution as the result of converging technologies such as genomics, robotics, informatics, and nanotechnology. According to transhumanism, these technologies will bring about the physiological and cognitive enhancement of human beings that will pave the way for the replacement of biological humans by autonomous, superintelligent, decision-making machines, which will constitute the posthuman age. Whereas biological humans emerged out of the slow, uncontrolled, and unpredictable process of evolution, the process that will bring about the posthuman will be fast, controlled, and directed, brought about by human engineering. Described as "enhancement revolution" (Buchanan), "radical evolution" (Garreau), "designer evolution" (Young), and "conscious evolution" (Chu), 2 this futurist scenario turns the human into a design project. By means of new technologies, the human species will be redesigned so as to transcend its biological limits and pave the way for the emergence of a new posthuman species. Numerically speaking, the transhumanist movement is still very small.