HUMAN UNIQUENESS

Abstract

This issue of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science contains a Symposium on “human uniqueness” that derives from a symposium hosted by the Department of Zoology at Harvard University of Harvard initially in March 2020 and subsequently in April 2022, under the title “Just How Special Are Humans Really? Insights from Science, Philosophy, and Theology on the Mystery of Human Uniqueness.” For an introduction to this Symposium, I refer the reader to the first piece in the Symposium, written by guest editors Eric Priest, Joseph Henrich, Celia Deane-Drummond, and Mary Ann Meyers. The Articles section contains three articles. In the first article, Yogi Hendlin criticizes “object-oriented ontology,” which offers an ontology for posthumanism; he is afraid of the kind of solipsism and “ontological flattening” that comes with such philosophy and pleas for philosophical approaches that are more open to “plural (interspecies) perspectives,” such as biosemiotics. In the second article, Andrew Sloane addresses an aspect of virtual versions of transhumanism (a category which should be separated from posthumanism), namely that those with disabled minds seemingly cannot participate in resurrection hopes if bodies are considered disposable. Finally, in the third article, Simon Balle and Ulrik Nissen offer a nice transition into the thematic section on “human uniqueness” by addressing one angle: they argue that what makes humans distinct from robots and AI are capacities that rise from and depend on our responsive bodies. The issue ends with five book reviews. I review John Slattery's T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Theology and the Modern Sciences and Neil Wollman and C.J. Love's Reinventing Society with Philosophy, Religion, and Science, Victoria Lorrimar reviews Phil Hefner's Human Becoming in an Age of Science, Technology, and Faith, Abel Aruan reviews Rebecca Copeland's Created Being: Expanding Creedal Christology, and Jaume Navarro reviews Miguel de Asúa's Science and Catholicism in Argentina (1750–1960): A Study on Scientific Culture, Religion, and Secularisation in Latin America. As I had announced last summer, the charitable corporation behind Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science will “flip” the journal to diamond open access (where neither authors nor readers have to pay to publish or read, respectively). From January 1, 2024, all Zygon articles—past, present, and future—will be openly accessible to all through another publishing agent, the Open Library of Humanities (which is funded by university libraries worldwide). From this summer already, the new submission portal and information about the journal and the corporation can be reached via our own domain zygonjournal.org. From January 2024, all articles can be accessed via the same domain. This moment marks a major transition for the journal, which has been many years in the making. Wiley-Blackwell has served as our publishing agent for Zygon for more than 33 years. The Board of the corporation has expressed to Wiley its deep appreciation and gratitude for their many efforts and critical contributions to Zygon’s success.