Is Posthumanism a Threat to Human Existence

Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry

Introduction to the Summer 2022 (Volume 14, No. 1) Special Isssue of Cultural and Pedigogical Inquiry with the guest editors Nikki Fairchild, Carol Lee and Kay Sidebottom. This is Part I of a double special issue that is grounded in the tenets, perspectives and the assumptions of posthumanism.

Technology has already been part of our way of life. It is being used in the social world for social innovation and communication. It has become significant in human world for creation, but has also become an instrument for destruction. It challenges human reason for it becomes the reason itself. Such human reason is the essence of humanity, hence, humanism is equated to human reason. Likewise, it claims the ending of humanism for it enters in the discourse of posthumanism in the technological realm. In this case, there is a need to clarify the idea of posthumanism that at same time uphold and will robust the sense of humanity. The study aims to articulate ethical concepts based on the idea of posthumanism as the study argues posthumanism as the synthesis of man and technology relation. The research design is qualitative in nature specifically a philosophical research employing two levels of analysis; synthesis and constructivism. The former is used to explicate and consolidate ideas on posthumanism and the latter is used to form concepts and principles on the ethical valuations. The study then presented threefold principles based on the ethical valuations on posthumanism vested in neutral position.

Medical Enhancements and Posthumanity, 2007

Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity, 2009

History of the Human Sciences, 2019

Today’s technological-scientific prospect of posthumanity simultaneously evokes and defies historical understanding. One the one hand, it implies a historical claim of an epochal transformation concerning posthumanity as a new era. On the other, by postulating the birth of a novel, better-than-human subject for this new era, it eliminates the human subject of modern Western historical understanding. In this article, I attempt to understand posthumanity as measured against the story of humanity as the story of history itself. I examine the fate of humanity as the central subject of history in three consecutive steps: first, by exploring how classical philosophies of history achieved the integrity of the greatest historical narrative of history itself through the very invention of humanity as its subject; second, by recounting how this central subject came under heavy criticism by postcolonial and gender studies in the last half-century, targeting the universalism of the story of humanity as the greatest historical narrative of history; and third, by conceptualizing the challenge of posthumanity against both the story of humanity and its criticism. Whereas criticism fragmented history but retained the possibility of smaller-scale narratives, posthumanity does not doubt the feasibility of the story of humanity. Instead, it necessarily invokes humanity, if only in order to be able to claim its supersession by a better-than-human subject. In that, it represents a fundamental challenge to the modern Western historical condition and the very possibility of historical narratives – small-scale or large-scale, fragmented or universal.

Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance, 2022

Of words and terms, I often think, they are what they door what can be done with them. I want to ask, in this brief afterword, not what posthumanism is but what it does, which is also a way of asking, what it does now and what might it do for those who still invoke it. So the point becomes to say, with Robert Sawyer, Monika Sosnowska, and the contributors "we have always been posthuman," but also then to ask "what can and should we do with that now?" Although most references to origins are dubious (and the unsavory powers associated with them), I start with two early invocations of both postmodernism and the posthuman, fully aware, in the context of this special issue, that it would be no surprise to succumb to the temptation to add "early" before any use of the term modern, modernism, or modernity, or to substitute "early modern" for any of the references to either modernism or postmodernism. This was of course very much on my mind in the years of collaboration with Scott Maisano on the volume Renaissance Posthumanism, which we thought of not as a variety of posthumanism but as an attempt to understand how the stage for later (including recent) disenchantment with and the de-centering of the human was more than capaciously set by the thinkers and the writers at heart of anything one might call Renaissance humanism. 1 In the heady days of 1976, as postmodernism was taking root both as a way of describing the world and as a staple of academic discourse, Ihab Hassan seems to have coined the term "posthumanist" in "Prometheus as Performer: Toward a Posthumanist Culture," which was first the keynote address at the International Symposium on Postmodern Performance and then later a published text appearing in the Georgia Review. 2 "Prometheus as Performer"

Studies in Sociology of Science, 2014

The author provides a philosophical and moral evaluation of a number of arguments against and in favour of posthumanism. Some of the arguments explored are: the claim that current evils are necessary to maintain our humanity; Sandel's association of radical enhancement with the striving for mastery and perfection; psychological concerns about posthumanism; the "simple conservative argument" (Buchanan); the idea of unlimited longevity; as well as possible issues in the relationship between unenhanced people and posthumans. The author defends the idea that radical enhancements are justified in view of the possible lag of natural selection to select desirable/ necessary current human traits. He also rejects the idea that "human nature" ought to be regarded as a moral desideratum. His conclusion is that the possibility of radical (also biomedical) human enhancements does not warrant blanket moral approval or disapproval. We ought to see what specific possibilities arise, and then judge those possibilities on their own, specific merit.

More Posthuman Glossary, 2023

Who are we, humans of the 21 st century? This question is at the core of posthumanism, which redefines the notion of humanity relationally, counting on plurality, ecology and technology as integral parts of the human. This opens radical opportunities in the possible evolutions of individuals and societies, the futures of the human species, the dignity of non-human entities, and the health of planet Earth. The issues at stake are very high. And still, often, theory and practice do not go hand in hand: theorists write about posthumanism, but posthumanism does not necessarily affect the ways we live and behave. Existential posthumanism marks a profound change, by focussing, specifically, on how to exist as posthumanists: right here, right now.

Leonardo Da Vinci has provided the classical definition of Humanism in the form of ‘ideal’ Vitruvian Man and there has been numerous efforts into making it work in a universal context, to make an ideal definition to represent all of the Humanity in one point. This effort has lit a fire of dispute among the scholars and has given birth to different opinionated sub-divisions in context of critique, analysis and further discoveries. Humanism has travelled from Eurocentric, imperialistic concept with massive opposition and critique on individualism, superiority over ‘others’ in a path of Anti-Humanism and finally we are standing with the concept of Post-Humanism where the scholars are trying to find another way to reach the definition in an ‘Affirmative” way. From Rosi Braidotti’s text “Post-Human: Life beyond the Self”, we see that to reach a proper definition of Humanism, it is so far has been proved that none of the classical concepts are enough to build the definition of Humanism. Rather, in different contexts, we have to go back to some dissected ideologies and build our argument over their ashes while the previously contradicted ideologies are rising as Phoenix over and over again. Coming from the Anti-Humanist background, Braidotti is convinced that the classical definition of Humanism is not satisfactory and her years of experience along with her ethical, political and scholarly efforts in Anti-Humanism, she has reached a point where she is more convinced to Post-Humanism from a critical point of view. Posthumanism deal not only with the concept of ‘Self’, but also it takes into account the ‘Other’. Where the ‘Other’ does not belong to the boundary of species. In this point, the identity of species enters the argument. This text will shed light on this point with the help from Donna Haraway’s text “When Species Meet”. The discussion will follow the journey Humanism took to evolve throughout the passage of thoughts, time and history while trying to figure out a way to define identity of the actors involved. A brief discussion on ‘Identity’ will be a part of this paper. Moreover, how our perception of the world and how the elements define our communication with other species are also discussed briefly.

In the emerging field of Posthuman Studies, extensive debate has been formulated on what is Posthumanism. The main focus has been directed towards the contents and meanings of a posthuman paradigm shift, while the methodology employed to reflect upon has hardly been disputed. This statement argues the potential of Posthumanism as a research method, presenting the reasons why posthuman theorists should reflect on methodology, and which kind of methodological risks they can encounter. It addresses what it entails to adopt a posthumanist methodology, and how a posthuman approach can be employed in applied philosophy and normative ethics, ultimately turning into a way of existential inquiry.