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COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TRANSHUMANISM AND POSTHUMANISM IN THE CONTEXT OF THE IDEA OF POSTHUMAN
Abstract
This paper examines such modern philosophical movements as transhumanism and posthumanism. The central issue of these concepts is “What is Posthuman?”. The twentieth century is marked by a contradictory understanding of the role and status of human. On the one hand, following the understanding of the onset of the new geological epoch of the Anthropocene, some rejection of the Anthropos figure comes. Such categories of agency as historicity, sociality, subjectivity are no longer so anthropocentric On the other hand, there is a concentration of understanding of human hegemony over the whole world: humanity not only began to conquer Cosmos, invented nuclear weapons, made many amazing discoveries, but shifted the focus of its attention to itself, or rather, its “deification”. Reflection on the subject of human and his future puts into space the philosophical concepts working with human, technological, chimerical. Very often we can find a synonymous understanding of transhumanism and posthumanism. Due to the fact that these philosophical directions work with modern constructs, they use similar terminology, however, they understand it in fundamentally different ways. The unfolding discourse of transhumanism refers to the Cartesian opposition of body and soul. Despite the sacralization of technology and the desire to purify Posthuman from such seemingly permanent attributes of human as aging and death, transhumanism in many ways continues the ideas of the Enlightenment. Posthumanism turns out to be in the field of revision of the status of subject, which becomes nomadic, and therefore includes, in addition to digital, chimerical and inhuman. Thus, the main maxim of humanism about man as the highest value is violated; man ceases to be "the measure of all things". The task of this paper is to clarify some similarities and differences of these concepts.
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