Faced with the challenge of arguments about the relation of post-,and trans-humanism,putting forth questions on their“antagonism”,or“convergence”,I propose to(re-)evaluate/highlight the relevance of the thinking o...Faced with the challenge of arguments about the relation of post-,and trans-humanism,putting forth questions on their“antagonism”,or“convergence”,I propose to(re-)evaluate/highlight the relevance of the thinking of Michel Serres for posthuman debates.It specifically seems to me that Serresian idea of bodily hominescence can be read as a suggestion of“convergence”of post-and trans-humanism.Starting from the assumption that the body is a crucial node of both of them in that its consideration by one and the other marks a major front of their divergence(tool body according to transhumanism,dimensional body according to posthumanism),I seem to grasp,within the Serresian theme of the hominescent body as totipotent/virtual,the idea of bodily virtuality as a point of their convergence.Following Serres’s argument that,due to its virtuality/potentiality(intended as the totality of the possibilities),the body,though always involved in(technological)hybridization processes,is difficult to be artificially reproduced and to be reduced to information,I assume virtuality as an“operational concept”capable of“producing”convergence of post-and trans-humanism.Such a concept allows me,in fact,to read the body(re-)invested,by technology as an infiltrative agent,of a dimensional role as hybridizer(and in this sense normalized).Through virtuality,therefore,I think to be able to understand the body as a meeting ground between trans-and post-component,in the sense that technological“intervention”no longer constitutes an enhancement of the body,but a hybridizing event not implying dis-incarnation but rather normalization of body’s dimensional value;precisely such,due eminently to hybridization with otherness within a process of technological infiltration.The body normalized by such a technology is therefore a trans-posthuman body,in the sense of being contaminated by technological processes keeping it in its dimensionality.In order to better illustrate this idea,I propose to examine Serresian metaphor of the body as a trunk without branches with cultural cut twigs,which seems to me to effectively express the theme of the body as a ground/condition of hybridization,i.e.,as an anthropo-techno-poietic dimension.I aim so at showing the relevance of Serres’s thought to conceive,in a convergent perspective,a body,not to be strengthened,but to be normalized in its dimensionality,namely,a trans/posthuman body in a trans/posthumanist context.展开更多
Faced with the challenges of emerging technologies and impossibility of thinking human beings in the humanistic sense,I propose a convergent philosophical approach to posthumanism(s)and transhumanism(s).So,by means of...Faced with the challenges of emerging technologies and impossibility of thinking human beings in the humanistic sense,I propose a convergent philosophical approach to posthumanism(s)and transhumanism(s).So,by means of ideas drawn from(medieval and contemporary)philosophy,my contribution is informed by conceiving a non-anthropocentric and posthumanist transhumanism.My focus is the body as a crucial node of both transhumanism(s)and posthumanism(s),in that its consideration by one and the other seems to mark a major front of divergence between them(tool body according to transhumanism(s),dimensional body according to posthumanism(s)).My reflection is carried out,by drawing two theoretical reservoirs:the thought of Roger Bacon(13th century)and of Michel Serres.I take the former as a reference for transhumanist front and the latter as a reference for posthumanist one.I thus hypothesize that Bacon’s doctrine of the prolongation of life can be considered as an anticipation of the transhumanist research of earthly human immortality.So,I examine Bacon’s idea that the adhesion of human activity(alchemy and medicine)with the course of nature can produce,through the preparation of a long life drug,the aequalitas terrena,which is an operation of restoration/conservation of the state of bodily natural balance(health),with the connected prolongation of life within the limits allowed by nature.I therefore dwell on the Baconian idea of a body in whose wholeness of person the solution of continuity between the biological and the spiritual is attenuated,and on the connected idea,not of transcending the earthly man,but of the restoration of his fullness of person.In my thesis,Baconian ideas,anticipating transhumanism(s),can induce positions in it of care of body,without transpassing in the empowerment;of body normalization,without going beyond it;of consideration of the body as a dimension of the human and not as an instrument or burden;of the consideration of man as a natural form and not as a center.These positions can also find convergences with posthumanism(s)and Serres,that carry forward the idea of informational irreducibility of the body as well as that of its irreproducibility,and therefore of its dimensionality for man(in hybridization with nature and technology).I assume that these convergences can lead to an idea of the body as a meeting ground between transhumanism(s)and posthumanism(s):a trans-post-humanist body.展开更多
文摘Faced with the challenge of arguments about the relation of post-,and trans-humanism,putting forth questions on their“antagonism”,or“convergence”,I propose to(re-)evaluate/highlight the relevance of the thinking of Michel Serres for posthuman debates.It specifically seems to me that Serresian idea of bodily hominescence can be read as a suggestion of“convergence”of post-and trans-humanism.Starting from the assumption that the body is a crucial node of both of them in that its consideration by one and the other marks a major front of their divergence(tool body according to transhumanism,dimensional body according to posthumanism),I seem to grasp,within the Serresian theme of the hominescent body as totipotent/virtual,the idea of bodily virtuality as a point of their convergence.Following Serres’s argument that,due to its virtuality/potentiality(intended as the totality of the possibilities),the body,though always involved in(technological)hybridization processes,is difficult to be artificially reproduced and to be reduced to information,I assume virtuality as an“operational concept”capable of“producing”convergence of post-and trans-humanism.Such a concept allows me,in fact,to read the body(re-)invested,by technology as an infiltrative agent,of a dimensional role as hybridizer(and in this sense normalized).Through virtuality,therefore,I think to be able to understand the body as a meeting ground between trans-and post-component,in the sense that technological“intervention”no longer constitutes an enhancement of the body,but a hybridizing event not implying dis-incarnation but rather normalization of body’s dimensional value;precisely such,due eminently to hybridization with otherness within a process of technological infiltration.The body normalized by such a technology is therefore a trans-posthuman body,in the sense of being contaminated by technological processes keeping it in its dimensionality.In order to better illustrate this idea,I propose to examine Serresian metaphor of the body as a trunk without branches with cultural cut twigs,which seems to me to effectively express the theme of the body as a ground/condition of hybridization,i.e.,as an anthropo-techno-poietic dimension.I aim so at showing the relevance of Serres’s thought to conceive,in a convergent perspective,a body,not to be strengthened,but to be normalized in its dimensionality,namely,a trans/posthuman body in a trans/posthumanist context.
文摘Faced with the challenges of emerging technologies and impossibility of thinking human beings in the humanistic sense,I propose a convergent philosophical approach to posthumanism(s)and transhumanism(s).So,by means of ideas drawn from(medieval and contemporary)philosophy,my contribution is informed by conceiving a non-anthropocentric and posthumanist transhumanism.My focus is the body as a crucial node of both transhumanism(s)and posthumanism(s),in that its consideration by one and the other seems to mark a major front of divergence between them(tool body according to transhumanism(s),dimensional body according to posthumanism(s)).My reflection is carried out,by drawing two theoretical reservoirs:the thought of Roger Bacon(13th century)and of Michel Serres.I take the former as a reference for transhumanist front and the latter as a reference for posthumanist one.I thus hypothesize that Bacon’s doctrine of the prolongation of life can be considered as an anticipation of the transhumanist research of earthly human immortality.So,I examine Bacon’s idea that the adhesion of human activity(alchemy and medicine)with the course of nature can produce,through the preparation of a long life drug,the aequalitas terrena,which is an operation of restoration/conservation of the state of bodily natural balance(health),with the connected prolongation of life within the limits allowed by nature.I therefore dwell on the Baconian idea of a body in whose wholeness of person the solution of continuity between the biological and the spiritual is attenuated,and on the connected idea,not of transcending the earthly man,but of the restoration of his fullness of person.In my thesis,Baconian ideas,anticipating transhumanism(s),can induce positions in it of care of body,without transpassing in the empowerment;of body normalization,without going beyond it;of consideration of the body as a dimension of the human and not as an instrument or burden;of the consideration of man as a natural form and not as a center.These positions can also find convergences with posthumanism(s)and Serres,that carry forward the idea of informational irreducibility of the body as well as that of its irreproducibility,and therefore of its dimensionality for man(in hybridization with nature and technology).I assume that these convergences can lead to an idea of the body as a meeting ground between transhumanism(s)and posthumanism(s):a trans-post-humanist body.
