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A peer-reviewed electronic journal published by the Institute for Ethics and ISSN 1541-0099 25(1) – June 2015 |
Book review: Robert Ranisch and
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, ed., Post-
and Transhumanism: An Introduction
Kevin
LaGrandeur
New York
Institute of Technology
Journal of Evolution and Technology - Vol. 25 Issue 1 – June 2015 - pgs
49-52
This is a very timely
book. As post- and transhumanism have become ever-hotter topics over the past
decade or so, their boundaries have become muddled by misappropriations and
misunderstandings of what defines them, and especially what distinguishes them
from each other. This edition of essays by various experts, edited by Robert
Ranisch and Stefan Sorgner, goes a long way to resolve these issues. The
introductory essay by the two editors – both of whom are philosophers – is alone
worth the book’s purchase price. They give a very straightforward and understandable
synopsis of what defines posthumanism, transhumanism, and the posthuman; and
they also give thumbnail sketches of the major differences between them. Basically,
transhumanists believe in improving the human species by using any and every form
of emerging technology. Technology is meant in the broad sense here: it
includes everything from pharmaceuticals to digital technology, genetic
modification to nanotechnology. The posthuman is the state that transhumans
aspire to: a state in which our species is both morally and physically improved,
and maybe immortal – a species improved to the point where we perhaps become a
different (and thus “posthuman”) species altogether.
But, as Ranish and
Sorgner discuss, this definition of the “posthuman” has been obfuscated by
posthumanists, who actually have little in common with transhumanists except
the belief that humanity is being irresistibly changed by emerging technology,
that the “end of human beings” as we know them is at hand (17).1 The
key to understanding posthumanism, as the editors point out, is to break this
word into its component parts: post and humanism; this elucidates the fact that
posthumanism is of a more academic, philosophical, and political nature – and much
less coherent as a school of thought than transhumanism. The only thing all
posthumanists agree about is the death of humanism as a philosophical way of
defining ourselves as a species, and a preoccupation with what kind of philosophical
perspective can replace it.
The concept of humanism
has ruled Western thought since the Renaissance, when lost Classical texts by
Aristotle, Plato, and others were rediscovered via versions that had been
preserved by the Byzantine Empire and the Arabs. These texts had been lost to
Europeans since the Dark Ages, during which time they had been destroyed
because of widespread social chaos and violence. But during the fourteenth
through the early sixteenth centuries, increased trade with the Middle East
brought Europeans into renewed contact with many of these lost texts. They were
then translated from Arabic and Greek into Latin and various other languages
that made them available to Western Europe. This renewed access to Classical
thought spurred an intellectual adventurism that, combined with novelties provided
by mercantile and colonial ventures, helped redefine how Europeans saw
themselves. It eventually led to new modes of inquiry (rationalism and
empiricism), and especially to a view of humans as beings of limitless, godlike
potential, as “the measure of all things,” as Ranisch and Sorgner remind us
(16).
This viewpoint has until
recently remained central to how Western culture has defined itself, and it has
even been reinforced by the advance of technology and science, which seem to
ratify the exceptional nature of humankind. But now, posthumanists argue,
humanism is falling apart. They argue that it has been undermined by
developments over the last fifty years or so that call into question human
exceptionalism, such as the discovery of other habitable planets and of facts
about animals that show them to be more complex than previously assumed, and
the advent of ever more impressive Artificial Intelligence; also important are
philosophical developments of the last hundred years or so that bring the
elevated humanistic self-image down to earth, such as poststucturalism,
deconstruction, feminism, postcolonial studies, Marxism, and Freudian
psychology (14).
Ultimately, the editors
of this edition believe the diffuse viewpoints of the posthumanists and their
differences with transhumanists may be resolved if we view both groups in
relation to the word “posthuman.” They assert that, “By being concerned with
it’s [sic] meaning, members of both
movements step outside of the limited borders of their own discourses and get
acquainted with different perspectives” (15). In other words, the fact that
both groups use the term “posthuman” highlights the fact that “both views have
in common that they regard the humanist ‘human’ as outdated, be it in
physiological [in the case of transhumanists] or conceptual terms [in the case
of posthumanists]” (17). It is the fact that their volume focuses on these
“connecting moments,” as well as the already clear differences between the two
theoretical stances, that the editors see as the chief strength of this volume.
I agree. But I see an even greater strength of this book as its wide range of
perspectives on the two philosophies and their connections.
Indeed, the
perspectives of this edition’s seventeen authors and its two editors are wide
ranging; and they are also usefully organized. The book is divided into five
sections, titled Confessions, Lands of
Cockaygne, Neo-Socratic Reflections, Ontologies of Becoming, and Paragone of the Arts. The first section,
Confessions, contains four essays
that give various historical perspectives on post- and transhumanism. Sorgner
begins the section with his essay on the “philosophical pedigrees” of these
viewpoints, arguing that they ultimately have more in common than most people
acknowledge. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson then delves into religion’s influence on the
two standpoints, concluding that transhumanists in particular have so much in
common with religion that they should redefine themselves as such. The essay
that follows, by Trijsje Franssen, unfolds the Promethean dimensions of both
trans- and posthumanism. Prometheus’ defiance of the gods is used by the
posthumanists, she maintains, as an apt symbol of humanist arrogance and of
their misguided human exceptionalism; on the other hand, the Titan is a
positive symbol for the transhumanists, who point to his story as an
inspirational one of overcoming limitations and of human progress. Finally in
this section, Yunus Tuncel has a chapter on Nietzsche, whose criticism of
humanism, Tuncel claims, is a model for posthumanists; they, like that German
philosopher, doubt human rationality, subjectivity and consciousness. The
author points to areas where Nietzsche’s thought diverges from transhumanists’,
while maintaining that their notions of potential superhuman status for our
species ultimately reflect his idea of the “superman.”
The next section of
chapters, called The Lands of Cockaygne,
is named after a mythical medieval land of plenty where people’s sole pastimes
were eating, drinking and leisure. It is named such because its three chapters
ponder various utopian – and dystopian – ideas connected with the post- and
transhuman. The first and third chapters address utopian ideas directly: the
first, by Michael Hauskeller, explicates how the roots of transhumanism lie in
Utopia because this form of thought clearly has values and hopes that align
with Thomas More’s era, particularly Renaissance humanism. He goes on to
contend that posthumanism also draws on Utopian ideals in its notions that
emerging technology might spark a realignment of traditional power structures. Related
to this, Sascha Dickel and Andreas Frewer’s chapter “Life Extension” discusses
how transhumanists’ focus on life extension and immortality evinces a form of
techno-utopianism. This vision is opposed, they maintain, by a countervailing
“speculative posthumanism” that questions the modernist underpinnings of the
transhumanist hopes, especially the validity of individualism and endless
progress. The second chapter in this section, titled “Brave New World,” interrogates
how the novel by that name represents a critique of transhumanist notions. Curtis Carbonell argues in this chapter that
the techno-paradise that Brave New
World’s leaders offer is nothing of the sort, and that this fact has been used
by critics of transhumanism as a real, dystopic possibility for their dreams. Because
the novel’s representation of technological progress represents a critique of
the dehumanizing effects of Americanization, Carbonell asserts, it also has
posthumanist overtones.
The third section of
the book, called Neo-Socratic Reflections, comprises two essays: one on politics
and one on morality. James Hughes, the author of the first of these chapters,
“Politics,” begins his essay with a very useful discussion of the history of
transhumanism and posthumanism, along with a description of their differences. This
discussion gives more detail than, and different perspectives on, the
introductory essay’s similar discussion of these issues. Especially good is his
detailed discussion of transhumanist politics, in which he presents a close
look at just which kinds of items sit on their social agenda. Hughes concludes
by noting the positive aspects of both philosophies and encourages a
rapprochement between them. Robert Ranisch astutely claims in the second chapter
of this section, called “Morality,” that some transhumanist ideals are
self-contradictory. In particular, transhumanists’ strong belief in individual
freedom with respect to reproduction and bodily alteration conflict with their
ideal of perfecting the human species: after all, eugenics was born of the
quest for human perfection, and that in turn is contrapuntal to individualism. Ranisch
suggests that transhumanists’ more careful consideration of the posthumanist
arguments against human exceptionalism might reconcile this apparent
contradiction, but he takes posthumanists to task for not doing more to fashion
useful moral precepts.
Thomas Philbeck opens the
section called Ontologies of Becoming
with his appropriately titled essay “Ontology.” In it he argues that
transhumanism essentially replicates the mind-body dualism of Enlightenment
humanism, which maintains the body is simply a meat-machine separate from the
mind. As indications of this, he points to such things as the transhumanist
belief in possibilities like uploading the mind into a robotic body. Posthumanists,
he asserts, don’t buy into this old paradigm, but they have “yet to figure out
what a new paradigm might look like” (181). Nevertheless, he sees both systems
of thought as ultimately positive because they acknowledge and struggle to make
sense of “the continuing techno-social integration and its effect on society”
(181).
In his chapter on
“Nature” Martin Weiss discusses how several modern philosophers, Heidegger and
Agamben, assess traditional definitions of human nature, then goes on to
analyze how transhumanists propose the liberation of humans, via technology,
from their biological constraints, and thus from essential natural limitations.
He asserts that this project is humanist in form. He finishes by explaining how
the transhumanists’ desire to escape the limits of their bodies is seen by
bioconservatives as a perversion of human nature, and thus why they want to ban
human enhancement.
The third chapter of
this section, titled “Evolution,” by Steve Fuller, uses Peter Singer and Ray
Kurzweil – high-profile proponents of posthumanism and transhumanism,
respectively – to demonstrate major differences between these philosophies. He
does this by laying out how each of these men would answer questions specific
to the idea of evolution and its related scientific underpinnings. He goes on
to analyze how transhumanists’ and posthumanists’ leanings are exemplified by
how they would react to certain aspects of evolutionary research: for instance,
he maintains that transhumanists’ utilitarianism and drive for apotheosis would
lead them to have little problem with using animals as subjects for
cross-species research that would lead to hybrid entities; but posthumanists,
because of their political bent against speciesism and anthropocentrism, would
object.
Francesca Ferrando
closes this section with her ruminations on “The Body.” Focusing on how science
has altered definitions of the body, she elucidates how this, in turn, has
shifted the concept of the “human” throughout history. She demonstrates this by
using examples of how the human has been constructed in various, sometimes
perverse ways by different cultures over time. For instance, she adduces the
Nazis’ reconstruction of the Jews as “non-humans” in World War II, and the
redefinitions of women and animals in the late twentieth century via the advent
of feminism, eco-feminism, and the animal rights movement. She goes on to
explain how post- and transhumanism have affected our definitions – and redefinitions
– of the body in different ways: transhumanists see human bodies as apparatuses
to be traded-in for better ones, or modified, whereas posthumanists see the
body in more socio-political terms as integral to, and integrated with the
world.
The last section of
the book, Paragone of the Arts, has
chapters on “Bioart,” “New Media Art,” “Literature,” “Science Fiction
Literature,” “Movies,” and “Music.” In the first essay, Andy Miah gives a
well-needed definition of bioart, disputes it, then looks at it from both the
trans- and posthuman perspectives. In the process, he also delves into the work
of major figures in bioart, such as Stelarc and Kac. In “New Media Art,” Evi
Sampanikou digs into this topic’s history, especially as it pertains to the
topics of the book. She assesses how, and how much, the philosophical positions
of the post- and transhumanists are relevant to the evolution of this type of
art. The chapters on literature and science fiction focus on a broad consideration
of how the two beyond-humanisms are reflected in literature, in the first
essay; and how science fiction in particular reflects specific cultural
theorists of the postmodern era, such as Baudrillard, Deleuze, Hayles, and
Haraway. Marcus Rokoff gives a useful historical survey of literature of the
modern era that reflects post- and transhumanism, in the chapter called
“Literature”; and Domna Pastourmatzi presents a profound and thoughtful essay
regarding science fiction. Somewhat like Rokoff’s chapter, “Movies,” by Donal
O’Mathuna, gives a useful survey of movies with post- and transhumanist themes.
Stefan Sorgner’s chapter on music gives a surprising insight into how various
musical works evince beyond-humanist themes. He points to operatic themes as
examples, but even more convincingly points also to the various ways in which
new technologies are used to compose musical pieces, suggesting Bjork and
Kraftwerk as instances of this.
The one thing I would
have liked to see here is better copy editing by the publisher; there were way
too many grammatical infelicities. But this does not detract from the
usefulness of the collection. Ultimately, it is very useful, and coming as it
does just when the issues of post- and transhumanism are at a cultural crescendo,
it should be a seminal tome for those who are interested in cultural theory,
twenty-first century philosophy, technology’s effects on society, and the arts.
I highly recommend it.
Note
1. All page references
are to Post- and Transhumanism: An
Introduction, ed. Robert Ranisch and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Frankfurt am
Main (et al.): Peter Lang, 2014.