Posthumanism

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Posthumanism is a philosophy that aims to rethink traditional conceptions of being human . The concept of the "posthuman" - an overcoming of the current human stage - is closely linked to the thought of transhumanism .

overview

In contrast to classical humanism , posthumanism negates the special position of humans and portrays them as one of many natural species . From this u. a. concluded that humans also do not have the right to destroy nature or to regard themselves as ethically superior. The limitations and fallibility of humans are made clear.

Despite all the different arguments of the posthumanists, they are united by the idea that biological humanity has already reached the peak of its evolution and that the next development of intelligent life lies in the hands of artificial, computer-aided intelligence , which could be superior to humans in many areas.

Posthumanism thus describes an age of development after humanity. Since this naturally lies in the future, there are only speculations and theses about it at first . However, posthumanism also tries to describe the posthuman human being as a hypothetical future being, whose capabilities far exceed those of today's human being. A posthuman being can also be described as a creature that arises through an expansion of physical and psychological abilities. Posthuman can, however, also mean that a unit of human and artificial intelligence is created and that consciousness is loaded into a foreign body or computer. Examples of this can be a change in the human organism through nanotechnology or a combination of genetic engineering , psychopharmacology , life-extending measures , neural interfaces, memory-expanding drugs and portable or implanted computer technology.

Whether transhumanism should be viewed as a special form of posthumanism or whether it is a question of two different cultural traditions was discussed in several articles and a special edition of the journal "Journal of Evolution and Technology" in 2009 and 2010. In the course of this discussion it turned out that there are reasons to assume that Friedrich Nietzsche can be seen as both the ancestor of trans- and posthumanism. However, he had forerunners like Guy de Maupassant , who in his novella The Horla emphasized in a similar way both the inadequacies of man and pointed out a being that would replace him.

Science fiction

In the field of science fiction , u. a. the following authors (explicitly or implicitly) in their works with posthumanity:

art

See also

literature

  • John Brockman : The New Humanists. Science at the limit (Ullstein Hc; October 2004), ISBN 978-3-550-07597-1
  • Achim Bühl: Cyber ​​Society. Myth and Reality of the Information Society. (Cologne: PappyRossa Verlag, 1996)
  • Bernd Flessner (ed.): After humans - the myth of a second creation and the emergence of a posthuman culture (Freiburg im Breisgau: Rombach, 2000)
  • Francis Fukuyama : The End of Man (Stuttgart: DVA, 2002)
  • Stefan Herbrechte: Posthumanism. A critical introduction (Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft 2009)
  • Karl Kegler (ed.): The artificial human being: body and intelligence in the age of their technical reproducibility (Cologne: Böhlau, 2002)
  • Oliver Krüger : Virtuality and Immortality. God, evolution and the singularity in post and transhumanism. , 2nd revised u. supplemented edition, Freiburg: Rombach 2019, ISBN 978-3-7930-9939-0 .
  • Lutz Marz: Man, Machine, Modernity - On the Discursive Career of Posthuman Reason . In: Series of publications by the Organization and Technology Genesis department of the Technology-Work-Environment research focus of the Berlin Science Center for Social Research, FS II 93-107; (1993) pp. 1-95; The model of posthuman reason - For discursive technology assessment of artificial intelligence . In: ibid., FS II 93-111, pp. 1-75
  • Stefan Lorenz Sorgner : Human dignity according to Nietzsche. The history of a term (Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft 2010) (The author develops a concept of dignity that is appropriate for the epoch of posthumanism)
  • Raimar Zons: The Age of Man - Critique of Posthumanism (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, ​​2001)
  • Mieke Mosmuller : Posthumanism. About the future of man . Occident Verlag, Baarle-Nassau 2020. ISBN 978-3-946699-13-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bert Gordijn, Ruth Chadwick: Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity . ( Online ).
  2. ^ Anthony Miccoli: Posthuman Suffering and the Technological Embrace . Lexington Books, Plymouth 2010, ISBN 978-0-7391-4402-2 , pp. 60 ( Google Books ).
  3. ^ Journal of Evolution and Technology: Manuscript and answers:
    • Stefan Lorenz Sorgner : Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism . In: Journal of Evolution and Technology . Vol. 20, Issue 1, March 2009, ISSN  1541-0099 , p. 29–42 (English, online [accessed January 2, 2019]).
    • Michael Hauskeller : Nietzsche, the Overhuman and the Posthuman: A Reply to Stefan Sorgner . In: Journal of Evolution and Technology . Vol. 21, Issue 1, January 2010, ISSN  1541-0099 , p. 5–8 (English, online [accessed January 2, 2019]).
    • Max More: The Overhuman in the Transhuman . In: Journal of Evolution and Technology . Vol. 21, Issue 1, January 2010, ISSN  1541-0099 , p. 1–4 (English, online [accessed January 2, 2019]).
    • Stefan Lorenz Sorgner: Beyond Humanism: Reflections on Trans- and Posthumanism . In: Journal of Evolution and Technology . Vol. 21, Issue 2, October 2010, ISSN  1541-0099 , p. 1–19 (English, online [accessed January 2, 2019]).