PRESUPOSITIONS OF THE TRANSHUMANIST PROJECT

a philosophical-interdisciplinary investigation

Abstract

The objective of the present article is to investigate the concept of technique underlying the Transhumanism project. The central question that guides our reflection can be stated as follows: What are the presuppositions and the possible pragmatic consequences of the development of the Transhumanism project in the social sphere? This question will be discussed in three steps. Firstly, the main presuppositions of the Transhumanism project are going to be presented; its conception of technique is then considered from the perspective of the Philosophy of Technology, with emphasis on the papers by Feenberg (2015) and Hui (2016). Finally, we provide a philosophical-interdisciplinary problematization of the transhumanist conception of technique, arguing that the adherents of the Transhumanism project use a reductive conception of technique. This instrumental and mechanistic conception leaves aside the self-engendered and self-organized dimension of the complex organic processes underlying the social sphere, imposing on them a supposedly scientific principle that reproduces the western illuminist desire for human domination over nature.