Humanism and post-humanism as fundamental frameworks for the interpretation of emerging technologies for radical life-elongation.

Abstract

This research pursued to grasp a better comprehension of the concern for the effects of human-enhancement technologies in the human being. For the sake of brevity, precision and clarity, a specific type of human enhancement technology was chosen: technologies for radical life-elongation. The main research question has been: “What is and will be the impact of the so-called ‘emergent technologies for radical life elongation’ in what is understood as the human being?". Our hypothesis before embarking in this research has been that emerging technologies for radical life-elongation cannot affect our being human.

Chapter 1 studies the term “emerging technologies” because most technologies for radical life-elongation are considered emerging. Chapter 2 argues that humanism and posthumanism are, within philosophical anthropology, the broad positions which inform different contemporary conceptions of the human being. In chapter 3 we proceed to analyse, question, and contrast the philosophical anthropology of Hannah Arendt and Hans Jonas, keeping in mind the implications their conception might have in the comprehension of emerging technologies for radical life-elongation. Chapter 4 presents the analogue exercise to the last chapter, now concerning the philosophies of Peter Sloterdijk and Bernard Stiegler. In the conclusions, we confirm the hypothesis. From the research we confirm that the examined emerging technologies for the radical elongation of life would be unable to alter what the human being is.