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In this commentary, I argue that attention to intersecting social inequalities is crucially important for any scholarly analysis of the relationship between transhumanism, markets, and consumption....

One of the more popular transhumanist ideas is the belief that technology will allow for the transfer of human personality into a machine or cyborg body. Additionally, some transhumanists believe that this transfer could happen with few to no problems, and that such a transfer would result in a definite improvement of the human species. The episode “DNA” from the humorous British science-fiction television series Red Dwarf presents a story that challenges this idea of the easy transfer of personality. The story of the android who gets his wish to become human allows the writers to invert the common belief in Western thought that being human is inherently better than being an imitation of a human, and that technologically upgrading human bodies will produce “better” humans. By inversion, the program presents the idea that clearer and more ethical thinking is needed regarding technological enhancement, and not the utopian visions of many transhumanists.

“Historicity” describes the human condition during one’s life course, marked by contingency and freedom, temporality and finitude. The concept also occurs in evolutionary biology, social sciences a...

The article examines two worldview strategies of the evolutionary-projective philosophy of Russian Cosmism: the strategy associated with elimination of human corporeality, which has found adherents in current transhumanism, and the strategy proposed by humanistic worldview paradigm that directs humanity to the implementation of a deontological noospheric project of coevolution of planetary nature and society as a necessary condition for progress of our socio-natural universe. The focus is on analysis of the worldview insights of Russian Cosmists. In particular, the article addresses Vladimir Vernadsky’s worldview concepts regarding the changing role of man in nature and society. This is caused by changes in material resources, methods and degree of man’s transformation of the world as a result of the use of the microworld’s objects and processes as tools of labor (which are now called nanotechnologies). Among V.I. Vernadsky’s major insights that have been successfully verified in social practice, the article considers such worldview conceptions as orientation toward peaceful use of nuclear energy and the inevitability of replacing organic energy sources with inorganic ones; the need to maintain invariability of the biogenic constants of the planetary ecosystem (biosphere); human autotrophy – providing mankind with abiogenic food and other technogenic resources instead of substances and resources of biogenic origin; formation of a specific hu man person as a factor in the evolution of a planetary socio-natural whole. Taken together, all of these are due to the change in the place and role of modern man in nature and society, and these are also reflected in the formation of an ideological paradigm that is adequate to new trends in the practical evolution of the planetary socio-natural whole.

The crisis state of society at the beginning of the 21st century is increasingly described as chaos. At the same time, the desire of people to theatricalization of many types of their activities remains unchanged. This gives grounds to consider the theatricality of being as a sociocultural constant, immanently inherent in humanity. The fact that it persists even during periods of cardinal changes, social transformations, civilizational shifts, breaking cultural stereotypes, destruction of traditional institutions and discreditation of established ideals can be explained by the fact that theatricalization of life allows people to cope with sociopsychological discomfort and existential fears, caused by the feeling of total chaos. At the same time, people are faced with the problem of increasingly complex self-identification, which is largely facilitated by the ideas of transhumanism, which actively shatter the already weak notions of what a human being is. One of the approaches to solving this scientific problem is proposed to consider human activity in the context of theatricality of being. The purpose of the article is to comprehend the practice of theatricalization of various types of human activity in the context of the ideas of transhumanism. The methodological strategy of this research is based on the concept of theatricality of socio-communicative manifestations of culture. Analysis of the theoretical material showed that in the conditions of transhumanism, the development of criteria that make it possible to determine whether a human is still a human or has already turned into something else becomes an urgent task. One of these markers is proposed to consider the desire of a human to theatricalization of various types of their activities. Being one of the sociocultural constants immanently inherent in humanity, theatricality will be present in people's lives as long as they remain human, as long as they feel the need to articulate their social communication.

Los adelantos técnicos que se desarrollan a una velocidad prodigiosa y que tienden a modificar las costumbres y las relaciones humanas en las sociedades occidentales llevan a plantear una frase : adónde va la ciencia. Pero esta locucion puede tener una connotación interrogativa ¿adónde va la ciencia? o exclamativa ¡adónde va la ciencia! En efecto, el contenido semántico de esta aparentemente simple frase está cargado de múltiples significaciones relacionadas con diversos procesos psicosociológicos que se acentúan al referirse al transhumanismo. Para dar una respuesta a la conformación de sus múltiples significados y con el objeto de precisar si el transhumanismo es una filosofía científica o una ideología tecnológica vamos a proceder a un análisis ideosemántico.

In this piece, I consider various problematic themes of the transhumanist literature that carry significant ethical import, to point out that traditional utilitarian approaches, the ones standardly preferred by transhumanism, reveal some grave conundrums and are thus unable to satisfactorily address several pressing issues that afflict the movement. Instead of aiming at solving each one of them, I propose rethinking the novel ethical problems triggered by transhumanism via a consideration of divergent ethical frameworks, as opposed to the utilitarian one used by default. I advance that alternative ethical positions, such as duty and virtue ethics, deserve to be seriously examined as viable systems of moral reasoning for this pervasive phenomenon. In this vein, I jump-start the articulation of deontological and aretaic narratives applied to transhumanism. I conclude by urging further investigation on alternative ethical outlooks applied to the movement, suggesting further scholarship on the intersection of these with the shared aim of human flourishing.

In this paper, I analyze the risks of transhumanism from a legal-philosophical perspective, a development that proposes to transform human beings through the direct application of advanced technologies. I highlight the weak points of transhumanism, calling into question its goals, its moral principles and its conception of the human being. Instead, I defend a humanism that preserves personal autonomy and human dignity. Moreover, I point to the need for an adequate ethical education to recognize the enormous danger involved in blindly following science and technology. En esta contribución se analizan, desde un punto de vista filosófico-jurídico, los riesgos que encierra el transhumanismo, al defender la transformación de los seres humanos a través de la aplicación directa de las tecnologías avanzadas. Aquí se analizan los puntos débiles del transhumanismo, cuestionando sus fines, principios morales o concepción del ser humano. Se argumenta en favor de la defensa del humanismo que defiende la autonomía personal y la dignidad humana. Asimismo, se resalta cómo una adecuada formación ética puede ayudar a evitar los peligros que encierra el seguimiento a ciegas tanto de la ciencia como de la técnica.

Across the globe, human experiences of death, dying, and grief are now shaped by digital technologies and, increasingly, by robotic technologies. This article explores how practices of care for the dead are transformed by the participation of non-human, mechanised agents. We ask what makes a particular robot engagement with death a breach or an affirmation of care for the dead by examining recent entanglements between humans, death, and robotics. In particular, we consider telepresence robots for remote attendance of funerals; semi-humanoid robots officiating in a religious capacity at memorial services; and the conduct of memorial services by robots, for robots. Using the activities of robots to ground our discussion, this article speaks to broader cultural anxieties emerging in an era of high-tech life and high-tech death, which involve tensions between human affect and technological effect, machinic work and artisanal work, humans and non-humans, and subjects and objects.

The article examines the development of genetic science from the moment of its inception to the present state, shows the transformation of ideas about genetics and attitudes towards it during the evolution of public consciousness (from utopianism to alarmism). The modern possibilities of genetic technologies, the prospects of their influence on social structures and on the nature of the person himself are analyzed, the risks and social consequences associated with this process are explicated. The potential of genetic engineering, technologies of "human improvement", genetic testing is considered, its ability to influence the fundamental foundations of human existence, the ability to transform the boundaries between biological and social, nature and culture, is demonstrated. The authors also touch upon the problem of transhumanism, within the framework of which the contradiction between the position of the supporters of the emergence of mankind on a new round of evolution and modern ideas about the natural equality of all people is indicated, the overcoming of which carries ethical, legal and political consequences that are difficult to predict.

Introduction. The ideology and methodology of solving the problem practically posed in modern Russia is discussed: to preserve traditional values in a high-tech modern society. The author substantiates the legitimacy of comparing the current global situation with the situation between the two world wars in the twentieth century and referring to the heuristic potential of the ideas about the essence of technology expressed at that time.Methodology and sources. An attempt has been made to move from a categorical to a conceptual analysis of the interface between the traditional person and the imperative of technological development. A traditional person is described in a postmodern paradigm that configures several analytical perspectives: the “tradition and modernity” interpretation scheme, an individualizing method, a civilizational approach, a historical perspective, Orthodox anthropology, the concept of organ projection, transhumanism and posthumanism. The works of the 20s – early 30s of the XX century are used as sources for the analysis. “Man and Technology” by O. Spengler, “Man and Machine” by N. Berdyaev, “Organoprojection” by P. Florensky.Results and discussion. Examples of interpretation of a traditional person are considered, which allow rethinking the linear scheme “from tradition to modernity”. 1. A traditional person belongs to a distinctive culture. Scientific and technological progress is a product of the Western European cultural type. The enslavement to technology is not a cause, but a symptom of its decay due to a lack of perspective and purpose. 2. A traditional person is a person who is changing, continuing the creation of the world and maintaining a connection with eternity. From the reflections of Berdyaev follows the methodological setting: to treat man at the same time as God and as nature. It has a heuristic significance for the analysis of modern technologies. 3. A traditional person is an ancient, classical person who has yet to be restored in its integrity in synergy with technology, not in piece or elite, but in mass incarnations. The ideas of pairing traditional man and technological growth – cultural identity, connection with eternity, synergy of man and technology in organ projection are considered as guidelines for possible scenarios for the development of modern technologies in the interests of man, alternative to trans- and posthuman projects of improvement or pre- overpowering man based on secular eschatology. A critical analysis of proactive experimental and bioconservative approaches to the development of new technologies is given.Conclusion. A shift in the attention of researchers and practitioners – in education, upbringing, management from traditional methods of social reproduction and personal development to technical improvements of a person – is fixed. Which again makes the question of the normativity of human nature urgent.

Without extending the historical analysis, this article analyzes the relationship between the legal concept of person with regard to the notion of living independently. The concept is normatively established in Article 19 of the CRPD and is presented as a legal fiction. The legal technique of fictio iuris is the premise for analyzing contemporary problems, for example, the attribution of responsibilities to non-human personalities, such as robots. The article, however, develops the problem of attributing rights to persons with disabilities. The contraposition of robots and disabled people, understood as opposing visions of anthropological and human models, is part of the philosophical dispute between humanism and post- or transhumanism. The conception of man appears different if created in the image and likeness of God, or as the fruit of evolution from primates, or as a transhumanist entity that can be replaced by the robot. The latter vision is rooted in the mechanization of the mind triggered by cybernetics and cognitive sciences and referable to problems of justice theory and political philosophy concerning the inclusion in society of disabled people. In this article I will limit myself to analyzing, against the background of this complex problem, the link between person, legal fiction and the right to disability starting from the criticism addressed by Nussbaum to Rawls based on the convention and following the methodology developed by Marchisio and Curto in order to clarify the legal connection between thirdness, disability, and person.However, I go one step further by including the issue of disability as justice within the evolution of the notion of the legal person, through the inclusion of fictio iuris and rhetorical methodology in positive law, as a criterion for the interpretation of art. 19 CRPD.

The article examines the phenomenon of the religious factor in modern world politics, suggests taking into account the religious factor along with other factors of historical development (economic, political, social, natural and climatic, etc.). From the traditionalist point of view, the confrontation between the teachings of humanism and traditional religions is shown, as a spiritual confrontation of various religious teachings. The main spiritual and political processes in the modern world are revealed: the process of purposeful destruction of traditional values, religions and cultures and the process of reviving traditional values, religions and cultures in order to preserve the “blooming complexity”, i.e., the civilizational diversity of the world community. In the first process, on the basis of numerous data, shows the struggle of the supporters of the religious-philosophical doctrine of humanism with traditional religious teachings, especially Christianity, and the main task of this struggle provided dechristianization of man and society, because the Christian faith is the basis of the locomotive of world history, European civilization. The main goal of this struggle is to replace Christianity and the traditional world religions with the religion of man-God, i.e., humanism and rationalism. The author reveals the meaning of the concept of transhumanism: the creation of an artificial, unified, fully controlled world populated by biological objects without individuality or any personal characteristics at all. Thus, the ant-human essence of the religion of man-god is revealedthe destruction of the “natural man”. The article presents the main essential features of the second spiritual-political process, which is opposite to the first one. On the basis of numerous sociological studies, it is proved that in general, there is a noticeable increase in traditional religiosity and the importance of traditional religions in the world. The strengthening of the role of traditional religions and religious organizations in the life of society, especially Orthodoxy and the Russian Orthodox Church, is also recorded in Russia. At the same time, the article notes the contradictory nature of both processes, the confrontation of which is still far from complete. As a result of the analysis, three main conclusions are made. First, in the future, those peoples and civilizations whose spiritual roots will be the strongest will remain and will determine world politics, and traditional spiritual meanings and values will continue to be significant for the majority of members of a particular community. Second, those nations and civilizations that will continue to be in a state of spiritual impoverishment and, as a result, will finally lose their own spiritual sovereignty will be the losers, even to the point of complete disappearance. Third, the rejection of traditional religions, meanings and values in favor of the religion of man-god can lead humanity to the physical disappearance and replacement of “natural man” with “artificial intelligence”.

This essay sheds light on the “father of epigenetics,” Conrad Hal Waddington’s (1905–1975) tacit critique of one of the most prominent biologists of the twentieth century, Julian Huxley’s (1887–1975) theses concerning the evolutionary meaning and importance of learning and education for the human species. This topic has great significance today when it comes to educators both recognizing and being able to orient themselves in relation to the profound biological and evolutionary aspects of their role and purpose, and in determining their own ethos and modes of activity therein. Here, I highlight Waddington’s stance in relation to Julian Huxley’s thesis that education comprises humanity’s new “psycho-social,” or alternatively, “socio-genetic,” mode of biological inheritance parallel to, yet beyond, the “rawer” biological struggle for existence that most other living organisms are engaged in, namely, that involving natural selection acting on genes or genomes and the exigency of adapting successfully to the environment. According to Huxley, the gradual, yet cumulative, transmission of the knowledge and attainments of one generation to the next, over evolutionary time, via various modes of learning and education, has enabled the human species to have surpassed the capacities of all other organisms on the planet, such that it has become super-dominant. Waddington was in general agreement with Huxley’s thesis regarding the evolutionary significance of humanity’s learning and education here, as well as the latter’s notion that education is an epigenetic phenomenon, namely, comprising a distinct, yet interrelated inheritance system beyond that of genetic inheritance. However, Waddington tacitly disagreed with Huxley’s assertions that in light of such realizations, going forward: (1) humanity should exert the power of its selective agencies so as to take control of the biological processes of all life-forms on the planet; (2) formal education should be reformed into a function of evolutionary humanist ideology, eugenics, and transhumanism; (3) humanity ought to attempt to transcend its current capacities, as though there were a linear progression to some higher stage of biological development that is mechanistically calculable in advance. Waddington’s chief argument against Huxley is that this “socio-genetic” and/or epigenetic system of inheritance has part of its foundation in ethics and in the moral conduct of teacher and learner, and that Huxley’s inert vision of the future of education and of the role and conduct of educators therein are unethical. As such, for Waddington, Huxley’s view can be said to undermine the very inheritance system that has enabled humanity to reach its privileged place, rendering it unsustainable. From a Waddingtonian standpoint, Huxley’s stance is “biologically unwise” in that it undermines the teacher-learner relationship, given that it treats learners mechanistically, namely, as means only to the ends of evolutionary humanist and transhumanist ideology, rather than organismically, meaning as having selective agency and intrinsic worth (a notion that is grounded in the notion that living organisms are bearers of intrinsic purposiveness, as evidenced by the homeostatic, chronobiological, and autopoietic processes belonging to them which enable persistence in the face of entropy). On the contrary, Waddington calls for the cultivation of “biological wisdom” surrounding formal education (e.g., in relation to the aims of such education, its content, its curricula, the behaviour of educators, and the educational activities to be engaged in by learners), that would serve to strengthen the foundations of education qua humanity’s “psycho-social” inheritance system rather than to diminish or undermine it. Last, I associate the Waddingtonian notion of “biological wisdom” with the evolutionary-environmental ethic of “critical pan-selectionism.”

This special issue engages with the unsettling of the humanities to further explore its relevance for management learning and education. It explores how themes traditionally belonging to the humanities have spurred critical inquiry and raised theoretical issues within other disciplines, following the crisis of the classical humanist ideal as ‘the measure of all things’. It focuses on how the tensions resulting from this crisis can be constructively thematized in the field of management and organization studies, and how the unsettling of the humanities’ privileged access to studying the ‘especially human’ can be taken into the classroom. In this manner, the special issue engages with questions related to the Anthropocene, posthumanism and transhumanism, and raises issues concerning the human possibilities for knowing, learning and living in entangled ways. Additionally, it helps us understand the critical role of the humanities in making sense of the reciprocities between imagination, information and the human crafting of meaningful knowledge.

This paper pushes theological engagements with transhumanism to attend to issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation through analysis of three works of speculative fiction – Greg Egan’s Diaspor...

The present study adopts a critical posthuman perspective to investigate how Octavia Butler’s Kindred aims to reconstruct and later dismantle binary oppositions that have been part and parcel of oppressive systems of power such as slavery. Opening his essay with a brief theoretical outline of posthumanism and transhumanism, the author then strives to elaborate on the conceptual framework of the essay and the relevance of the discussion of slavery. Through the main part of the essay, the author focuses on Butler’s primary objective, which is to problematise the stereotypical relationship between the enslaved and the enslaver, united by fear and rape, to demonstrate that slavery—in a sense—oppressed them both. The author contends that Butler constructs various borderlands founded on binary oppositions to reveal the arbitrariness of the latter so that a posthuman relational cyborg body can emerge. As the author concludes, this symbiotic body becomes a site of transgression in which all boundaries eventually topple over. Keywords: critical posthumanism; American South; slavery; rape; binary oppositions

Recent exhibitions and publications evidence an increased focus in the artworld on non-human animals. I take this trend as an opportunity to assess the intersection of contemporary art and critical...

Transhumanist and post-humanist studies present the improvement of the human body as a way of guaranteeing more autonomy to individuals, however, the more involvement and improvement of the bodies, the more robotic the humans can become. Some dystopian works, which bring the discussion about human bodies and artificial bodies, point to a phenomenon of distance between humans and exclusion of the weakest and/or different from a physical appearance and standard behavior. In contrast, there are humanoid robots with artificial life enhancement that seeks to show human behavior in robotic bodies. In this work, it will be analyzed how empathy can be manifested in non-human bodies from the concept of artificial life in the work Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), by Philip K. Dick, trying to understand how the concept of empathy presented in the narrative is flawed and manifests itself as a way to restrict and eliminate the existence of non-human bodies. To this end, researchers such as Hayles (1999), Bedau (2007) and Brand (2013) will be used to discuss conceptual aspects of transhumanism, post-humanism and artificial life.

Grzech pierworodny zniszczył naturę ludzką. Człowiek odkupiony przez Chrystusa ponosi ciągle konsekwencje tego zepsucia. Obserwując jednak współczesne społeczeństwo, można jednak odnieść wrażenie, że wielu myślicieli i naukowców zdaje się nie pojmować, czym w istocie są konsekwencje grzechu pierworodnego, przez co popadają w zbytni optymizm. Optymizm ten został nazwany przez autora optymizmem antropologicznym. Prezentując trzy przejawy tegoż optymizmu, autor szukał odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy nauka o grzechu pierworodnym wpływa jakoś na pojmowanie go i czy może ona pomóc ten optymizm ocenić. Stosując dostępne sobie metody, autor doszedł do wniosku, że prezentowany przez niego nurt myślowy stoi w sprzeczności z nauką o grzechu pierworodnym, co stanowi o jego fałszywości. Wynika stąd, że praktyczne zaaplikowanie optymizmu antropologicznego może prowadzić do poniżenia godności osoby ludzkiej, niezrównoważonego rozwoju człowieka, ustanawiania praw niezgodnych z właściwą godnością człowieka. Autor zauważa ostatecznie, że obecna sytuacja społeczna, wynikająca w dużej mierze z praktycznego wykorzystania idei optymizmu antropologicznego, wymaga ciągłego pogłębiania i odważnego przeciwstawiania się jej.

The paper discusses the prospects for the formation of strong Artificial Intelligence in its relation to the realization of human immortality. Russian cosmism, NBIC-technologies, as well as the latest achievements in the fields of science, technology and philosophical discourse are taken for the premises for the formation of a transhumanism, posthumanism and essentiocognitivism paradigms. The theme of immortality is studied in history, philosophy, culture and the natural sciences. The tendencies towards augmentation of Homo sapiens for overcoming diseases, suffering, senility and death are studied. The purpose of the research is to conduct a consistent analysis of the phenomenon of immortality and the ethical foundations of the stated philosophical trends. The inquiry provides for a number of results: the achievement of immortality seems feasible, and leading to the good of all intelligent living species; humanism requires renewal to create imperatives of new ethics; scientific education and support of scientific and technological progress contribute to the development of the philosophy of transhumanism, posthumanism and essentiocognitivism; anti-scientism leads to regression and degeneration of species; creation of artificial intelligence requires the preloading of the values of the new ethics. The article will be interesting to philosophers of science, specialists of the indicated directions, specialists in the field of life extension technologies.

El objetivo de este artículo es determinar en qué sentido el proyecto del transhumanismo tecnocientífico supone una revolución teórica que termine alterando radicalmente nuestra concepción tradicional del ser humano. Para ello, primero se presenta el debate contemporáneo entre las posturas bioconservadoras y posthumanistas con el propósito de señalar los argumentos más comunes que sostienen ambas. Después se discuten los principales conceptos que articulan este debate y que pueden reducirse a dos: la naturaleza y el humanismo. Para analizarlos son examinados a la luz de la tradición en la que se enmarcan y de los últimos desarrollos tecnocientíficos, mostrándose como sumamente problemáticos y multívocos como para poder dar una contestación suficiente al fenómeno transhumanista. A continuación, se muestra hasta qué punto el transhumanismo se halla imbricado dentro de la tradición del humanismo filosófico, examinando la consideración del ser humano que se desprende de éste y las distintas vertientes presentes. Al analizar minuciosamente el pensamiento humanístico clásico, es posible encontrar el marco de ideas y creencias necesarias para acabar definiendo al transhumanismo como la apoteosis y consumación del proyecto metafísico y antropocéntrico del humanismo teórico antiesencialista. Finalmente se propone reorientar el proyecto transhumanista primando las cuestiones políticas con el objetivo de que responda a intereses emancipatorios, necesarios para establecer un desarrollo de tipo humanista en sentido práctico que inspire la construcción de un sistema socio-económico alternativo.

Fil: Lafferrière, Jorge Nicolás. Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina. Facultad de Derecho; Argentina Resumen: Evidenciando su desmesura, el transhumanismo pretende recurrir a las biotecnologías reproductivas con la pretensión de superar las limitaciones biológicas del cuerpo humano, seleccionando las características genéticas de la descendencia (beneficencia procreativa). Con fundamento en el principio de la dignidad humana y el reconocimiento de los derechos fundamentales, en este trabajo se hace una valoración del objetivo enunciado tanto como de los medios propuestos para lograrlo. Sólo una dimensión ontológica de la dignidad, que exige el respeto de la vida humana y la originalidad de su forma de transmisión, ofrece fundamento fuerte para responder a estos desafíos. Abstract: Transhumanism intends to overcome the biological limitations of the human body, selecting the genetic characteristics of the offspring using reproductive biotechnologies (procreative beneficence). Based on the principle of human dignity and the recognition of fundamental rights, this paper makes an assessment of the objective mentioned before as well as the means proposed to achieve it. Only an ontological understanding of human dignity, which requires to respect the right to life of human beings and the originality of the transmission of life, offers a strong foundation to respond to these challenges.

The philosophy of transhumanism, which found its fi rst solid outlines in the works of N. Bostrom, M. Minsky, G. Moravec, M. Mohr, R. Kurzweil, D. Peirce, and other authors at the end of the XX century, gradually becomes an increasingly acute topic of discussion, both in the academic environment and in the media. Being one of the most radical philosophical trends of our time and, with a high probability, having the potential to produce a significant impact on the development of world culture in the XXI century, transhumanism attracts both a growing stream of criticism and a growing number of followers. To a signifi cant extent, this is due to the fact that transhumanism is almost the only ideology today that covers and consolidates a huge range of disparate ideas based on technological breakthroughs of recent decades. The author demonstrates the strong and weak components of the concept of transhumanism, allowing to present this phenomenon in an objective way.

Autor podejmuje próbę odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy biomedyczne ulepszanie pozbawia nas człowieczeństwa. Refleksja filozoficzna koncentruje się wokół kilku zagadnień: eugeniki, transformacji ludzkiej natury oraz charakteru miłości rodzicielskiej. Na podstawie przeprowadzonych analiz autor wykazuje, że w przypadku biomedycznego ulepszania możemy mówić o potrójnym negowaniu człowieczeństwa. Po pierwsze, ulepszanie człowieka ściśle wiąże się z eugeniczną selekcją. Po drugie, przekształca lub niszczy naturę ludzką. Po trzecie, dokonuje zmiany charakteru miłości rodzicielskiej z bezwarunkowej na miłość własną (egoizm).

Appeals to ‘nature’ have historically led to normative claims about who is rendered valuable. These understandings elevate a universal, working body (read able-bodied, white, producing capital) that design and disability studies scholar Aimi Hamraie argues ‘has served as a template […] for centuries’ (2017: 20), becoming reified through our architectural, political, and technological infrastructures. Using the framing of the cyborg, we explore how contemporary assistive technologies have the potential to both reproduce and trouble such normative claims. The modern transhumanism movement imagines cyborg bodies as self-contained and invincible, championing assistive technologies that seek to assimilate disabled people towards ever-increasing standards of independent productivity and connecting worth with the body's capacity for labor. In contrast, disability justice communities see all bodies as inherently worthy and situated within a network of care-relationships. Rather than being invincible, the cripborg's relationship with technology is complicated by the ever-present functional and financial constraints of their assistive devices. Despite these lived experiences, the expertise and agency of disabled activist communities is rarely engaged throughout the design process. In this article, we use speculative design techniques to reimagine assistive technologies with members of disability communities, resulting in three fictional design proposals. The first is a manual for a malfunctioning exoskeleton, meant to fill in the gaps where corporate planned obsolescence and black-boxed design delimit repair and maintenance. The second is a zine instructing readers on how to build their own intimate prosthetics, emphasizing the need to design for pleasurable, embodied, and affective experience. The final design proposal is a city-owned fleet of assistive robots meant to push people in manual wheelchairs up hills or carry loads for elderly people, an example of an environmental adaptation which explores the problems of automating care. With and through these design concepts, we begin to explore assistive devices that center the values of disability communities, using design proposals to co-imagine versions of a more crip-centered future.

‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ is a required reading in many graduate programs to explore technofeminism, transhumanism, and studies of science and technology to explore notions of gender, race, and other minoritized identities. However, in this essay, I note the ways that Haraway’s piece still exacerbates categories of difference, and my own difficulties and critiques of the cyborg identity. I encourage readers to not only consider its importance, but also the limits of the cyborg identity, and how the concept of cyborg itself is fraught with a Western, patriarchal violence that cannot be ignored in the greater context of technology and technological innovation. Although useful in imagining a departure from traditional categories of difference, I inquire as to whether it upholds the very things it purported to dismantle, and explore other scholars’ works in challenging the concept. Ultimately, ‘cyborgs’ are not outside of the politics within which they exist, and must be interpreted in relation to other identity categories without upholding whiteness and Western epistemologies as the center.

The issue of human beings’ interaction with technology has acquired a special topicality. There has emerged a philosophy of technology aimed at researching the anthropological social dimension. The anthropological approach towards understanding technology is based on the human being himself determining his own existence and creating objective reality, while being a subject. The author of the article examines two trends within the anthropological approach: the solution of the problem of human beings’ connection with technology in the philosophy of postmodernism and within the conception of transhumanism. In the transhuman conception, the “anthropomorphic qualities of technology” presented a worldview principle of mastery of the technocratic principle in postmodern and post-postmodern eras (the culture of the future). The “anthropomorphic qualities of technology” signifies the character of technologies preserving the algorithm of human behavior and not transforming the human being into a subservient entity in regards to technology. The presented critique of transhumanism makes it possible to disclose its anti-humane character. The present conception, which shows a predominance of the technical-technological side of human development, presents a threat to humanity in the post-postmodern era. By expounding these two trends, it is demonstrated that on the threshold of the advent of the post-postmodern era it becomes necessary to perceive the phenomenon of technical reality on the basis of an anthropological approach. Keywords: the philosophy of postmodernism, the philosophy of technology, transhumanism, the anthropomorphic aspect of technology.

The article identifies the main features of the Russian writer Andrei Platonov’s (1899-1951) comprehension of the anthropological consequences of the radical social transformation during the years of the “Great Turn,” or “Great Break” (i.e., the years of Stalin’s reforms that started in 1929). Platonov’s evaluation is unique in its scale and depth. He was among the first authors to draw attention to the typological commonness of Soviet and German totalitarianisms. Their similarities are not only rooted in the design of the respective regimes. Vice versa, the design itself is generated by the possibilities of inhuman rationalistic activism in mass society. Platonov’s texts written in 1929-1934 were devoted, rather than to mass collectivism or political and socio-cultural reorganization, to anthropology and the possibility of reorganizing man, together with his cosmos. The main idea of these literary works is search for a universal way of human existence in general, including the living and the dead. In these texts, Platonov deeply conceived and felt the complete emptiness and inhumanity of doctrinaire rationalistic activism, when it is accepted as a practical maxim for the universal human will. This body of texts does not represent a dystopian view of a possible future, yet it relates the shock of an encounter with an unexpectedly ambiguous future and the author’s longing and suffering in his attempts to understand it. Such attempts lead to the need for a new anthropodicy as a justification for a human existence, notwithstanding man’s limitations and finiteness. In this respect, the results of Platonov’s reflections are extremely relevant in relation to the analysis of humanitarian factors and the consequences of currently ongoing digitalization of practically all spheres of life, as well as in terms of searching for new foundations of human life under these conditions. Platonov’s works turn out to be more relevant than the alarmism of the philosophers of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory and than the contemporary demonization by the conceptions of digital posthumanity and transhumanism. Platonov’s relevance is due to the depth of the topics and problems he raised, and their meaning is just beginning to be revealed today.

In this article we examine the changing relationship to risk as revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the ways this has, and may in future, alter sacramental practice, considering the radical effects this could have on traditional Christian practice. We consider the cultural trends that may lie behind this developing approach to risk, examining this in the context of an emergent transhuman identity that is technologically moderated and seeks to overcome risks of human mortality.

The body is a contended space in today’s society – theories of transhumanism and posthumanism interact with models of embedded, embodied and extended cognition in ways which makes us question the l...

The cyberpunk genre has long been caught in a dystopian view of the future as opposed to the rest of science-fiction which has presented us many utopian scenarios of a future where humanity is saved by technology. This countercultural aspect of it comes from a critique on corporate power, which is thought to use technology in an attempt to reshape the human subject into a more efficient worker and consumer. The growth of digital corporations, the practices of internet surveillance and the ever-increasing presence of technology in our daily lives surely add to the plausibility of this cyberpunk future. In a corporate society, everything from information to human relations will be functioning by the logic of capital, every aspect of human life becoming something to be shared and exchanged for someone to make a profit. Nothing that is not quantifiable and marketable will be of any use, thus making it hard for the human subject to value human experiences outside of this system. The danger that augmentations advocated by transhumanists pose is that in the capitalist system they become consumer goods, that will act in the same way as any other product does, increasing already existing inequalities by giving more advantages to the rich that will afford them. Moreover, human nature itself will be modified when these off-the-shelf augmentations that are supposed to liberate us will contribute to the uniformization of character, our intelligence, charisma or beauty being a serial product that will hold nothing original. The cyberpunk literary genre starting with William Gibson’s novel “Neuromancer” can give us some insight into how to live with this dystopian future that seems imminent.

Introduction. The purpose of the study is to analyze and generalize the views on transhumanism (TH), presented in the modern discourse, and conceptual approaches to assessing the consequences of its spread. The relevance of the sociological analysis of TH is determined by the intensity of discussions and the inconsistency of its assessments in social media and the expert community, the growth of its international influence and the threats of the implementation of new norms set by the ideology of TH. The scientific novelty of the work consists in a typological interpretation of the concept of TH in its activity and information and communication aspects.Methodology and sources. In the work the results of studies presented in domestic and foreign publications on TH are used, as well as the materials of the public pages of the online communities Transhumanism and Transhumanism Without Borders in the social networks VKontakte and LiveJournal. Explanatory models of classical and non-classical sociology are involved: the theory of imitation of G. Tarde, the sociocultural approach of E. Durkheim, the structural-functional analysis of T. Parsons, the genealogical analysis of M. Foucault, the theory of rationality of J. Habermas. The historical-genetic method is used, which is adequate to the individualizing nature of socio-historical knowledge.Results and discussion. TH is a new global ideology that configures images of the social world dating back to archaic myths with representations of a synthetic theory of evolution, technoscience, and social philosophy. TH is an ideology adequate to the conditions that gave rise to it and a new type of social subject: weakening nation-states and the formation of the information contour of global society, a new communication infrastructure as a space for universal material and spiritual exchange, a new social subject – “communities” mobilized to fight for personal rights and self-determination in the anthropological field. The lifestyle constructed in the experimental mode is given a normative value. TH meets the imperative of globalization as a cultural ideology, since it interprets culture as a universe of methods, tools, and technologies that allow a person to rationally influence himself. Rationality in the TH is the highest value, a criterion for assessing and selecting the normative constructions of the future, developed by communities (minorities), which are underlined by features of ethnicity and cultural and historical identity.Critical arguments and polemics with TH in religious discourse are examined. The ideological status of TH is discussed. There is a radicalization in the TH of the ideas of liberalism and communism. TH is being studied as a platform uniting the ideological subcultures of communities oriented toward “rationality”, the analysis of which draws on the potential of non-classical sociology.Conclusion. TH is a utopia in a specific sense: it is a socio-anthropological practice, represented in the theoretical consciousness as an image of the future, and in practical terms as an experimental present. We must evaluate the social consequences of the spread of the ideology of TH at the same time by methods of historical analysis and futuristic modeling.

The paper studies the artificial intelligence, the presence of robots, including anthropomorphic androids, endowed with artificial intelligence and using neuro-algorithms in the practices of modern man. The authors analyze the technology of the Internet of things, artificial intelligence in various spheres of modern life ‒ production, education, agriculture, public service and everyday practices. The authors study the problems of android: corporal ‒ aspects of the anthropomorphic appearance and “rational” ‒ possibilities and limitations of consciousness and reflection. The authors research the question of androids’ appearance. They study the question of perception of androids, especially if they look like humans and the features of the phenomenology of the android body. In this regard, the authors highlight the problem of “digital colonialism” ‒ a human consideration of technologies including androids in a utilitarian sense in the context of instrumental rationality. Despite the fact that in the nearest future androids will have characteristics that are almost indistinguishable from humans, and androids’ intellect is in many respects comparable to human ones, a man fails to “see” in robots a full-fledged “subject” or the Other. Phenomenological problem of gender, in relation to the image of the android, remains one of the acute topics, which is rarely discussed. Finally, the authors make assumptions about the place of androids in human and human-machine interactions. They discuss the idea of digital everyday life and the need to build harmonious relationships with the world of technical devices in the future.

O artigo visa entender a sociedade globalizada contemporânea como uma sociedade formada pela vigência da biotecnociência, representada, em particular pelos projetos do transhumanismo e do posthumanismo. Para tanto aborda a questão dos riscos envolvidos, que são estruturais e propõe uma análise conceitual e uma genealogia dos conceitos de “risco”, “perigo” e “dano”, assim como seus desdobramentos contemporânea de “transhumanismo” e “posthumanismo”, a partir da concepção da crítica filosófica entendida como uma terapia referente aos conceitos e argumentos que usamos, para tentar esclarecer e até para dissolver problemas, ou desconstruí-los, quando olhados a partir de pontos de vista menos comprometidos emocionalmente.