Post Humanism

Posthumanism is a 21st century movement that is happening right now to define what is
‘human’. The term post human can be discussed in many perspectives because it is an umbrella
term which is defined by different schools of thoughts in different ways.

Post Humanism

Post-humanism Trans-humanism Others

Critical Democratic Anti humanism

Cultural Libertarianism Meta humanism
Philosophical Extropianism New Materialism
Singularity

Basically post humanism is a topic that discusses the possibility that advances in technology are
leading to fundamental changes in the human species and its relationship with the world. It
involves fundamental alteration in the traditional and familiar notion of what is to be a ‘human’.
The conventional humanist model centers on Anthrocentricism-the notion that the figure of the
human has a natural and eternal place in the universe, where it is clearly distinguished from
machines and animals. More so, that human beings bear a unique and universal essence and it
acts according to something called “human nature”.

For humanists, “Man” is the measure of all things, and enjoys a position of automatic and
unquestionable hegemony. While on the contrary, the Posthumanists begins with the
recognition that “Man” is not the privileged and protected center, because humans are no longer
utterly distinct from animals and machines, and are the products of historical and cultural
differences that make any appeal to universal human essence impossible, are constituted as
subjects to socio-techno environment. Post humanism considers humans as “non-fixed and
mutable condition” and believes that humankind can transcend the limitations of the physical
human form.
Post Humanism deals with redefining what is ‘human’ in the 21st century. ‘human’ is an open
notion which can be understood through different notions including evolution (Darwinian
perspective, idea of adaptation), technology (‘cyborg’- someone who needs piece of technology
in order to survive), ecology (Anthropocene-humans are affecting the ecosystem of the planet as
a whole; global warming, environmental degradation, etc.).

Transhumanism includes many different approaches to achieve the common goal of human
enhancement considering science and technology in various speculative frames for instance,
cryonic (the deep freezing of human bodies at death for preservation and possible revival in the
future) or regenerative medicine, etc.. Democratic transhumanism believe that we should
embrace human enhancement but these kind of technologies should be accessible to everyone
without any discrimination based on class, gender, power or economic conditions. Libertarian
transhumanism approach is that we should embrace human enhancement but on the rules of free
market economy in order to get the best development and the best outcome.

Both the approaches have different philosophical roots. The transhumanism movement is rooted
in the tradition of enlightenment with the notions of progress and rationality in view of
Anthropocentricism (regarding human beings as the central fact of the universe). Whereas
posthumanism is very much is an idea of post modernism concerned with the approach of
deconstruction of humans through three ways. First, post-humanism, that human is not one but
many. Second, post-Anthropocentricism, that humans are not the most important specie and do
not have an anthropological privilege. And the third, post-Dualism, that existence is seen as
interconnected ways and not as dualistic way. Therefore, the only common thing between the
two movements is that ‘human’ is not a closed notion and can be defined in many ways. This
fundamental difference in approach results in different understanding of the Post Human
condition of human beings in the present century.

The transhumans believe that we have not yet entered the stage of post humanism but we may
become post human in the near future. For instance, the speculative technology of mind
uploading in which it is anticipated that we would be able to download the human consciousness
in a machine where will then emerge a new hybrid consciousness carrying both , a human
consciousness and a machine element which cannot be considered as human anymore because
humans essentially have a biological bodies and also from the aspect of human consciousness.
Another example is humans migrating to Mars and adapting to that planet in few generations.
Those transformed humans will be related with the human species but they would not be humans
anymore. So for transhumanism believe that we are now trans humans and may become post
humans in near future.

Posthumanism recognize ‘human’ as a philosophical question of existence believing that human

existence is no longer defined by any specific cultural, biological and historical fact. We can be
post human even now in the way we exist, and in the way you relate yourself in relation to others
through the deconstruction of the human done. It criticizes progress in post-modernist
perspective questioning some kind of scientific inventions can hardly be defined as progress such
as, atomic bomb, doubting that progress is in fact a regression. Also questioning the reason that
is used define human, connecting to the notion of male, western, white, civilized reducing all
others to the status of a less human.

Summarizing the whole debate of post human Francesca Ferrando writes ,

“Transhumanism offers a very rich debate on the impact of technological and

scientific developments in the evolution of the human species; and still, it holds a
humanistic and humancentric perspective which weakens its standpoint: it is a
"Humanity Plus" movement, whose aim is to "elevate the human condition." On
the contrary, speciesism has become an integral part of the posthumanist
approach, formulated on a post-anthropocentric and post-humanistic episteme
based on decentralized and non-hierarchical modes. Although posthumanism
investigates the realms of science and technology, it does not recognize them as
its main axes of reflection, nor does it limit itself to their technical endeavors, but
it expands its reflection to the technologies of existence. (Ferrando, 2013, p. 32)”