The Posthuman Turn to the Post(non)human

Abstract

The article shows the retrospective of such modern philosophical movement as posthumanism, one of the basic ideas of which is the “posthuman”. The posthu­man in posthumanism is understood not as a being who has overcome his biol­ogy (as in transhumanism), but as a point of assembly of mythical, chimerical, technological, social, biological; as a further deconstruction of humanistic “vitru­vian man”. This aspect reveals the exceptional features of the new anthropology of posthumanism, which makes it possible to show the difference between tran­shumanism and posthumanism. The evolution of humanism, through anti-hu­manism and transhumanism (which is understood as “hyperhumanism”) leads to posthumanism. Its main features, according to R. Braidotti and Fr. Ferrando, are post-anthropocentrism, post-dualism and post-humanism. The article analyses each of these concepts, which allows us to delve deeper into the contexts of con­temporary philosophical anthropology. The analysis of the posthuman turn to­wards non-human agents and, as a consequence, the general trend of tendency of contemporary philosophy to the de-anthropologization is being carried out. The genealogy of this phenomenon includes fatigue from the hierarchy of hu­manism ideals, which, as M. Foucault showed back in the middle of the twenti­eth century, were conditioned by historical prerequisites of cultural development. Inheriting ideas of postmodern philosophy, gender theory, post-colonial studies, animal studies, unable studies, actor-network theory, and even quantum physics, posthumanism opens up a space for being in terms of subjectivity for all others previously oppressed in the era of humanism (animals, women, and all those whom Aristotle, as opposed to bios, referred to zoe). To illustrate this thesis, the article introduces a new term “post(non)human”, which reveals the concept of posthumanist discourse. The use of this term allows us to express more compre­hensively the results and consequences of the posthumanist turn in the philo­sophical anthropology of the twenty-first century.