THE REFORMATTING OF HOMO SAPIENS. Issue 1 (2nd January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wolfendale, Pete
• Is Part Of: Angelaki. Volume 24:Issue 1(2019)
• Page Start: 55
• Page End: 66
• Publication Date: 2019-01-02
• Subjects: posthumanism -- language -- technology -- rationality -- evolution; Literature -- Criticism and interpretation -- Periodicals; Philosophy -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals; 100
• DOI: 10.1080/0969725X.2019.1568733
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0969-725X

Abstract

Abstract: This article addresses the perennial picture of the human as rational animal, the nexus of trends undermining the cultural legacy of classical humanism, and the so-called posthumanisms that embrace its dissolution. Against critical posthumanism, which aims to break with humanism entirely, and in contrast to transhumanism, which uncritically inherits certain features of humanism, I outline an alternative – rationalist inhumanism – which critically extracts the inhuman core of humanism by unbinding rationality from animality. I begin by re-examining the history of humanism leading up to the posthuman nexus, in order to highlight the features that can be repurposed by inhumanism. I then weave these features into an outline of a genealogy of reason, encompassing its genesis in, co-evolution with, and eventual liberation from the animal that is Homo sapiens .