Abstract
This essay will present a few challenges to a new Humanism from the perspective of the sociology of technics. For this purpose Humanism will be described as an effort to intervene in the process of human formation or hominisation. In order to intervene an understanding of this process is needed. Hominisation starts in the Palaeolithic era: technics, religion, language and the human being mutually give birth to one another. Reference will be made especially to the work of Leroi-Gourhan and Girard to analyse this point. Hominisation, however, is a continuous process and has not come to an end. The most recent phase of our hominisation is the industrial revolution: Western modernisation seems to be the future of global humanity. But industrialisation spreads unevenly, leading to a varied network of the human conditions, of advantages and disadvantages. A critical assessment of Africa’s position in the global politics of technics will lead to a description of inhuman conditions as part of the network of industrialisation. The scale and extent of misery tolerated and produced by this era of hominisation could be considered as a possible springboard from where to reflect on a contemporary global Humanism even after the ‘death of God’ in modernity. But to what extent does modernisation allow intervention in the process of industrial hominisation in order to give it the quality of humanization? Aspects of theories on multiple or alternative modernities are considered. A suggestion to the kind of humanist orientation solicited by the inhuman condition of misery is presented with reference to Nussbaum’s capabilities theory. Finding the content of a new Humanism is, however, only a beginning of a new humanization. The technical conditions for the possibility of a new Humanism and of its transmission are reflected on. In conclusion, on the basis of the preceding analyses, five technics-orientated tasks for a new Humanism will be identified.
Highlights
This essay will present a few challenges to a new Humanism from the perspective of the sociology of technics
I shall reflect on hominisation and on the possibility of a new humanism from the perspective of the sociology of technics
I would like to list a number of tasks that my perspective from the sociology of technology brings to the project of a new humanism
Summary
The living organism that is in the centre of all discussions on humanism, homo sapiens sapiens, has been in existence for about 100 000 years and is, with the homo sapiens neanderthalensis, the latest. By the time homo sapiens appeared on the scene of world history, its ancestors had already made fire and fabricated tools (GP 893 ) and it had had a form of social organisation These elements of a proto-culture could still be explained in the same way as one does that of other animals. I shall reflect on hominisation and on the possibility of a new humanism from the perspective of the sociology of technics This will be done against the background of the preceding indication of the essential intertwined mutual constitution of the technical, biological, social and cultural aspects of our species. This is one of the most dramatic ones in the history of humanity and took place, or rather, has been taking place since the dawn of the industrial age
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