Thinking, Writing, and Living in a Postmetaphysical Age: Gray, Rorty, Sloterdijk, Vattimo (original) (raw)

ANDERS, SIMONDON AND THE BECOMING OF THE POSTHUMAN

Classical Literature and Posthumanism, 2019

It is said that we have entered the posthuman epoch. Humans are awoken from their own illusion of being at the centre of the world surrounded by beings such as animals, plants, objects and even phantoms. However, isn't this something that already happened at the very beginning of humanization since man is an existence without essence, without quality (Stiegler 1998)? And did the concept of the posthuman only become transparent with the emergence of a technological consciousness after modernity (Hui 2017)? We must start by contesting that the arrival of the 'posthuman' epoch is not simply out of an awakening by a brand-new ontology, but because humans are rendered obsolete by the technological artifacts produced by humans themselves. It is a dialectical movement partly compelled by the industrial revolutions, in which an internal negation is produced. Humans cease to be the centre of the world, and become just parts of gigantic technical systems, in which they are functions or mere operators. Given this fact, the question that follows is: what is meant by such a renunciation of the human? Like Nietzsche's announcement of the death of God, the question is less about the fact of the death of a transcendent being, but more about what it really means to live without God. It means the recognition of the fate of human beings, and the re-structuralization of all domains in order to create and maintain a new coherence. One can celebrate this outdatedness of the human under different names, posthuman or transhuman, European Prometheanism (Brassier 2014: 467-488) as well as accelerationism.

- A Brief Survey of the Great Postmodern Philosophical Contributions -

- Trabalho de Metafísica (Hebeche) -, 2015

The crisis of modern philosophy began, perhaps, at the moment when the moderns proposed, or conceived ideas about the unknown to men about men that neither the traditions of particular sciences, nor religious moral traditions could resolve, that is, ‘the will’ in the existence of life against ‘reason’. Likewise, it would become dark what would be the possibility of the impossibility of reaching either by philosophical means, i.e., metaphysical, or epistemic-exact means, in short, an Absolute Truth and Veritas Æterna. Men threatened by uncertainty, that is, by being unable to be certain of anything, or to truly know anything according to reason and, above all, concomitantly with the death of God enunciated by logic, historical, exact and physical epistemes would lead men either to the denial of the value of life, or what would be left for them would be to end it in all its known forms! The certainty that the nature of man possessed in its given constitution at all times, as long as men were men, a ‘will’, which was, finally, endowed with 'instincts' that would govern the destiny of all their respective activities or that, at least, would strongly influence their results, was something terribly threatening.

Call for Papers / Proposals (Philosophy) 2017 - LIMITS AND BOUNDARIES OF THE POSTHUMAN

The term " posthumanism " was used for the first time in the critical sense that entered then common language by Ihab Hassan in 1977. In its almost four decades of existence, posthuman theory has witnessed several evolutions, transformations and refinements, not least because this concept does not name an homogeneous and compact field, but is rather a " discourse " in the Foucauldian sense, a multiplicity of different streams, heterogeneous and fragmented, held together by a basic idea: the notion that old humanism is over. This issue of " Lo Sguardo " intends to attempt a sort of assessment of the last four decades, in order to analyse the limits and boundaries of the concept of posthuman. The leading thread of this issue is thus the question: what is still alive and topical, today, in the question of the posthuman? What themes and trends have progressively run out, and what instead have come to the foreground? How did the questions, and most importantly the answers, to the problem of the posthuman evolve? The question of technology, that is of the hybridization between human and machine, is still for many the most " showy " trait of the posthuman, both in popular culture and for the common understanding within academia; and yet the triumphalism of a certain posthumanism – and above all of its transhumanist deviations – alienated a number of scholars, starting precisely with one of the " mothers " of posthuman theory, Donna Haraway. The fact remains that the levels of technology's intimacy and intrusion into the human have, if anything, enormously increased sinceA Cyborg Manifesto (1983), and so have also the oppositions to it (Habermas, Fukuyama), and this keeps raising inexhaustible ontological, ethical and aesthetic questions (decisive are here Bostrom's reflexions).

Transhumanism, Metaphysics, and the Posthuman God

Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 2010

After describing Heidegger's critique of metaphysics as ontotheology, I unpack the metaphysical assumptions of several transhumanist philosophers. I claim that they deploy an ontology of power and that they also deploy a kind of theology, as Heidegger meant it. I also describe the way in which this metaphysics begets its own politics and ethics. In order to transcend the human condition, they must transgress the human.

Towards a Posthuman Hermeneutics

Journal of Posthuman Studies 3/1, 2019

The aim of this article is threefold. In the first section, the author deals with traditional hermeneutic anthropocentrism, by focusing in particular on Dilthey and Heidegger and their reflections on nature and animals. For both of them, although from different perspectives, interpretatio naturae (interpretation of nature) is no more than a figurative expression. In the second section, it is accounted for recent developments in the emerging fields of environmental hermeneutics and biohermeneutics. In particular, the author distinguishes between two main attitudes. Some researchers have argued that nature might be considered as an object of interpretation. Others have said that nature can also be seen as a proper subject of interpretation. In the third section, the ideas developed in the context of environmental hermeneutics and biohermeneutics are 'translated' into the field of digital technologies. The author presents 'digital hermeneutics' as an emerging field in which three levels can be isolated: 1) a 'zero' level, in which hermeneutics (especially the Heideggerian one) has been used to mark a clear distinction between humans and non-humans (machines); 2) a level 'one,' in which the interpretation is considered the result of the articulation between human and non-human intentionalities; 3) a level 'two' that is still emerging, and which would consist of wondering if it is legitimate to attribute an autonomous interpretational agency to digital technologies, or at least to a part of them.

Philosophical Speculations Concerning a Posthuman Future (2021)

Some philosophers, but more likely sociologists, are of the opinion that religion cannot form a stable component of experience in human affairs. Some might go so far as to suggest that eventually science will replace religion in the experience of some human beings. I suggest that a perceived lack of stability in religious experience does not suggest the latter, either individually or collectively. Rather, the lack of stability in human religious experience understood as a dynamic experience raises the question of the place of religion in the process of social evolution in the modern Western world. The question may be answered objectively or subjectively, depending upon the personal observation and interpretation of the religious phenomenon. Historically, this is approach is typical of human behaviour.

The "Consummation" and "End" of Metaphysics and the Possibility and Value of a Future Metaphysics

2022

Following shortly after the publication of Being and Time, Martin Heidegger announced “the end of metaphysics”. For Heidegger, this “end” follows from “the consummation of metaphysics”. In this article, I consider this “consummation” and “end” in order to understand the consequences of each to contemporary political activity—particularly as manifest in the postmodernist aesthetic. This will be done by considering Heidegger’s interpretation of the history of metaphysics, from Plato to Friedrich Nietzsche. Included in this analysis is a contrast between Heidegger's "anthropological" form of philosophy from the "sociological". Finally, I will consider the possibility and potential value of a future metaphysics.