Talk:Posthumanism

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[edit] Merge with Posthuman article?

This page needs to be merged with Posthuman. Astudent 06:33 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It no longer does. --Loremaster 02:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
In light of the fact that this page no longer talks about transhumanism and/or the transhumanist concept of the posthuman, a merge is no longer necessary. --Loremaster 03:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello. This article is in great need of help. To start, posthumanism is not absolutely related to or stemming from humanism. This is the postmodernist perspective only. I would like to provide some distinct corrections and additional information on posthumanism. Hayles is a good start. There needs to be more infomration on the postmodern french philosophers and the counter views to their hegemony. There also needs to be a wider selection of papers which can be obtained through google. I plan to add material to this page but I wanted to introduce myself first. JJRhetorical 20:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Posthumanism

There are additional topics to be covered under the "posthuman" rubric. Please see N. Katherine Hayles "How We Became Posthuman." It covers in great detail the aspects of the current culture that can be called posthumanist, in that they are explicitly and implicitly juxtaposed with the idea of humanism as proposed by philosophers such as Erasmus of Rotterdam.

Perhaps we should elaborate more on the posthumanist concept of the posthuman in order to differentiate it from the transhumanist one. --Loremaster 03:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POSThumanism - a different ideology

I don't know about you, but in Finland and in scandinavian humanism, posthumanism is the follower to the original humanism, which 1) places humans in nature instead of raising the human race on the plateau and 2) abandons the ideal of a naturalistic human as their ideal.

As such, transhumanism is a (large) subgroup among posthumanism, but posthumanism is a whole other ideology. Being transhumanistic-friendly is part of the ideology I'm sure, but posthumanism is still a very separate ideology. I'm sure "posthuman" is also a transhumanist term, but your views on the matter differ greatly from the meaning we have for the word, and e.g. what the local humanistic associations have on their web pages.

Mind if I edit the article to reflect that? Anyone? --Lussmu 22:00, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

So we have "posthumanism" as in "beyond human", and "posthumanism" as in "beyond humanism". Sure, I don't see why the article can't mention both senses of the term, so long as the relevant contexts are mentioned. - Korpios 05:14, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
It's better to have 3 articles (posthumanism, transhumanism, and posthuman) to respectively focus on one sense for the sake of clarity as we do now. --Loremaster 13:29, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
while i appreciate the logic of having 3 focused articles i cannot easily accept the attitude that their must be a prevention of overlap. from how i see it, transhumanism is inherently rooted in posthumanist ideology. it is not merely coincidental that transhumanism pursues issues of the "posthuman". being of different etymological origins is arbitrary as their issues are correlative.
let me draw an outline as i understand it-
nietzschean overhumanism encapsulates the philosophical ideologies of
posthumanism which encapsulates the ideologies of
transhumanism which encapsulates the issues of the
posthuman whose issues reflexively effect the greater ideologies of
posthumanism

not only are the ideologies bed fellows, they are constantly having intercourse. see the posthumanist/feminist writings on Bods and Borgs for example. is that too poststructuralist of an interpretation?Some thing 01:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The following is a text from James Hughes that was forwarded to me which may help clarify this issue once and for all:

Transhumanists believe in the possibility and desirability of individuals using technology to transcend the limitations of the body and brain, especially aging, disability, cognition and mood.

Posthumanism is generally used in reference to postmodernist theories in the humanities and the arts that are critiques of classical Enlightenment humanism, some of whose proponents are actually quite critical of transhumanism. One reason the posthumanist-postmodernists don't like transhumanism is because transhumanism is a direct descendent of humanism, and incorporates and extends many of its values, such as the importance of reason, democracy, individual autonomy and progress. The humanities posthumanists don't like those "narratives."

On the other hand, most people outside of the humanities probably use transhumanism and posthumanism as synonyms. For transhumanists they are not, for both terminological and strategic reasons. Terminologically we see this as a transhuman period of history, and all the transformative possibilities open in the coming century to be more properly to become "transhuman" than "posthuman." That acknowledges that there will be a posthuman transition, but it is a very subjective and ill-defined line. Politically, some of us refer to what we want to build as a transhuman civilization, one with many types of transhumanity. Strategically people have a much more negative reaction to the term posthumanism than to transhumanism. We don't want to imply that we are trying to eliminate humanity - since we aren't - merely to open new human possibilities.

--Loremaster 07:52, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Again you are narrowing the contents too tightly. You seem to be trying too hard to tie posthumansim into transhumanism. You cannot. They are different belief systems adopted for different purposes. My suggestion is to be clear about posthumanism and find substantial papers on the topic. JJRhetorical 20:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Are you talking to me? I'm trying to break the tie between posthumanism and transhumanism. --Loremaster 20:58, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pepperell

I'm sorry, but I found the Pepperell manifesto to be very distant from the rationalist humanism strand this article deals with. As I understand it, updating the reneissance humanist agenda according to the "scientific progress" that has happened means rejecting epistemologic antifundamentalism in favour of naturalism. The "natural acceptance of paranormal" or the a priori knowledge that "we can't comprehend nature fully" is epistemological fundamentalism and dogmatism. --Tmh 23:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The link to the Pepperell manifesto has been removed. --Loremaster 13:29, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. Pepperell's manifesto is unique and the fact that Hayles did not note him is her mistake. In fact, what the heck does she know about posthumanism other than academic illusions.
I know Pepperell from a few conferences in the UK. This is not a personality contest. His writings are substantial and academically sound. JJRhetorical 20:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

this edit is really a comment, since i don't have an account: most every sentence in this article is flawed. Undifferentiated, mostly meaningless period categories are lined up and placed in relations of 'transcending' [puleeze] the one before or 'returning' to something earlier. I go blank with the whole idea and am thankful this term [a tired echo of postmodern] has to date not been seriously taken up in contemporary humanities venues of academia. we need some fresh theorizations and terms so that we don't kill a subject in its fetal stages. --User 70.247.40.155

I'm assuming your comment refers to a very old version of the article. However, I've removed the word “transcends”. --Loremaster 13:34, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure where to place this comment, but here is as good a place as any. Can someone tell me what Adam Zaretsky's interview page has to do with posthumanism? First, Adam is an exception bioartist but BioArt has very little to do with posthumanism at this point in time. Were it otherwise, I would gladly support including Bioartists, but to be perfectly honest, none of the artists mentioned on this page work with posthuman concepts. Thoughts?

38.100.144.240 01:44, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On Posthumanism

Loremaster asked this comment on the "posthuman" discussion site here:

Posthumanism should better not be characterised as an "extension" of humanism. Posthumanism is explicitly antihumanist. Moreover, in Europe the philosophical (postmodernist) posthumanism paved the way for the engineer's posthumanism of the Moravecs, Minskys etc.: Posthumanist philosophers and authors belonged to the first people in Europe who made references to Moravec etc. and included texts by the posthumanist engineers in their publications. One central common feature of both posthumanisms is the idea that machines (including machine intelligences) will become ever more important "actors", and that for this reason the centrality of the human being (as in classical humanism) is an old-fashioned idea. I think it would be better to delete the sentence or to extend the article. (I'm afraid my English is not good enough for doing this myself.)

I agree. Posthumanism is not characterized as a "postmodern critique of humanism" rather than an "extension of humanism". --Loremaster 13:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

This article claims posthumanism is an emergent philosophy but also a "dominant" philosophy. According to the Emergent philosophy page, emergent philosophies are on the fringe and therefore not dominant. Please clarify and correct. Mjk2357 03:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I've corrected the article and removed the contradictory tag. --Loremaster 14:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Mjk2357 19:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] European?

The article says posthumanism is a European philosophy. I am interested in knowing more about this. I was under the impression that posthumanists existed all over the world. Perhaps the article means the posthumanistic movement began in Europe, and if that is what is meant, then I would like to learn more how, where, when and who the people behind it were. Thanks. //Kada 7 Feb 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.241.166.138 (talk) 13:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC).

Like all discussion pages, the Talk:Posthumanism page page is for discussing improvements to the Posthumanism article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject. That being said, I suggest you read the books listed in the References section. --Loremaster 13:36, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Haraway?

Haraway has never used the word posthuman to characterise her ideas. Moreover, she has made explicit reference to being against posthumanism as a guiding concept. Her work can more comfortably be characterised as cyborgology, which is particularly concerned with the politics of difference, the central thesis in her Cyborg Manifesto. --User:Andymiah

  1. It's not necessary for Haraway to have characterized her ideas as posthuman for her and her work to be legitimately characterized as posthumanist.
  2. Has Haraway made explicit refernece to being agaisnt posthumanism or transhumanism? As Shannon Bell explains in the CIAC interview, there is a clear difference between posthumanism and transhumanism.
--Loremaster 22:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Most certainly, they are distinct concepts.
In her 2006 NYU Dorothy Nelkin memorial lecture, she did urge the rejection of 'post' terminology, such as posthumanism. I think her work is more aptly characterised in recent years by the terms 'prosthesis', which takes up notions of transgressed boundaries. I suppose the main question about her appropriateness in this entry resides in the choice of the author to identify her as one of the, currently, 4 posthumanists. This creates the impression that her contribution to posthuman thought is distinct. Yet, if she is included, then we might include many more authors, perhaps including Chris Hables Gray or even Jacques Derrida. As such, unless a more comprehensive picture of this literature is presented, then her being noted creates a misrepresentation of the range of ideas that can be argued as having contributed to posthuman thought. As such, I would ask the author to explain why the entry includes only these four authors and not the many other notable thinkers whose ideas can also be read as posthuman. A possible solution might be to acknowledge the relative lack of theoretical distinctiveness to this concept, which I believe is still finding its way. --User:Andymiah
To avoid a possible dispute, I've deleted the List of notable posthumanists section until someone more knowledgeable can defend the inclusion of this people. --Loremaster 19:09, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Though I posted a large chunk below (sorry!), I wanted to briefly respond: Just because Haraway says she's not a posthumanist does not mean that her inclusion in Posthumanism's entry is unjustified. Even heuristically, it's extremely relevant (though IMHO it's not even heuristic to position Haraway in Posthumanism). The field draws on a lot of people, as you mentioned above, so I agree that a "notable list" isn't the best idea. But she does deserve some mention, as any posthumanist (in the critical posthumanist sense) is strongly informed by her work. --AdamFJohnson 23:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Haraway is certainly a posthumanist. And a notable one. The distinction between posthumanism and transhumanism is not a clear line; both re-think humanism, but in different ways. As I understand it, transhumanism throws out the idea of a unified 'man', who is in himself perfect or has the capability to achieve perfect, but takes up the latter part by integrating technology into his body. Transhumanism still seems to abide by the teleology of humanism, however, and still forms its basis on a western, white male perspective. Posthumanism is a more critical field, akin to a kind of critical theory of being (not strictly "human") and technological advancement. Haraway's book Simians, Cyborgs, and Women takes up this position, as does her later work ModestWitness@FemaleMan... though she doesn't explicitly call it "posthuman" (to my knowledge). She does engage with N. Katherine Hayles after Hayles' book How We Became Posthuman and I think even accepts the term. Cyborg theory a la Haraway is definitely worthy of this entry and more in line with it than others. In regards to both Haraway and Hayles' work, "post" means re-writing, not after. In this sense, Posthumanism is the discourse which critically questions humanist notions of individuality, unity, autonomy, etc. Heterogeneity, creation, revision, rewriting, polyvocality, etc are all characteristics of the posthuman, which is part of the concern that the field of posthumanism covers. Other than that, posthumanism is also a claim to situated knowledges, Haraway's notion that knowledge is multifaceted, located within various contexts, aware of social construction (both overuse and as a critical tool), and reliant on the sort of rational scientific knowledge that humanism enacts and modern scientific discourse follows. This is why posthumanism is not antihumanist. Anyway, just my two cents. I'll try to find some time to do a revision.--AdamFJohnson 23:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your two cents. I look forward to your revision. --Loremaster 12:01, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Harraway is a substantial voice, but her writing is more romantically transhumanist, per se. JJRhetorical 20:44, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page move and redirect

This is a highly atypical use of the word "posthumanism". I suggest we move this to posthumanism (philosophy) or somesuch and redirect posthumanism to transhumanism. Evercat (talk) 04:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. I suggest you read the archived debate on the Talk:Transhumanism page on this subject. --Loremaster (talk) 04:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)