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Lastly, there is the philosophy Roden himself hopes to help create- Speculative Posthumanism the goal of which is to expand and explore the potential boundaries of what he calls the posthuman possibility space (PPS). Critical Posthumanism, among whom one can count a number of deconstructionists, feminists, multicultural, animal rights, and environmentalists philosophers from the last century, aims to challenge the centrality of the subject and the discourses surrounding the idea of an observer located at some Archimedean point outside of nature and society. The shining example of this move was the work of Descartes, which reduced animals to machines while treating the human intellect as mere “spirit” as embodied and tangible as a burnt offering to the gods. Then there is Critical Posthumanism by which Roden means a move in Western philosophy apparent since the later half of the 20th century that seeks to challenge the anthropocentrism at the heart of Western thinking. Interestingly, Roden sees Transhumanism as merely an updating of this humanism- the expansion of its’ tool kit for perfecting humankind to include not just things like training and education but physical, cognitive, and moral enhancements made available by advances in medicine, genetics, bio-electronics and similar technologies. I suppose the best place to begin a proper discussion of Posthuman Life would be with explaining just exactly what Roden means by Speculative Posthumanism, something that ( as John Dahaner has pointed out) Roden manages to uncover like a palimpsest by providing some very useful clarifications for often philosophically confused and conflated areas of speculation regarding humanity’s place in nature and its future.Įssentially Roden sees four domains of thought regarding humanism/posthumanism. There is Humanism of the old fashioned type that even absent some kind of spiritual dimension makes the claim that there is something special, cognitively, morally, etc that marks human beings off from the rest of nature.
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The Speculative Posthumanism (SP) he helps launch with this book a philosophy that grapples with the possibility that the future of our species and its descendents will be far weirder than we have so far allowed ourselves to imagine. Indeed, it may be that the primary point of his recent mind-bending book Posthuman Life:Philosophy at the Edge of the Human, is to make the case for the strange and unexpected. If Wilson is the 21st century’s prince of the dull future the philosopher David Roden should perhaps be crowned the king of weird one(s). How in the world can we expect, especially in light of current advances in fields like genetics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence etc, that we can, or even should, keep humanity essentially unchanged not just now, but for 100 years, or 1000s year, 10,000s years, or even longer ? an awfully long stretch of time (that is as long as we’re wise enough or just plain lucky ). It’s a bio-conservatism that, on one level, I certainly understand, but one I also find incredibly unlikely given that the future consists of….well…. The hope that he articulated in his book being that we somehow manage to keep humanity pretty much the same- genetically at least- “as a sacred trust”, in perpetuity. As far as visions of the future go Wilson’s was a real snoozer, although for that very reason it left little to be nervous about.
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Wilson’s grandiloquently mistitled tract- The Meaning of Human Existence. Back in the late winter I wrote a review of the biologist Edward O.