Humanisms, Posthumanisms, and Their Discontents

Abstract

The introduction outlines how we are living in an automated posthuman future with smart machines that blur boundary between human and non-human. The chapter also summarizes the general problems with humanism and posthumanism for instrumentalizing the human, and documents how both work too closely with neoliberalism and financial capital. How neoliberalism functions like culture and has created a world of economic ontology are also addressed. The author then traces problems with notions of agency based on subjectivity including the posthuman and object-oriented ontology, and proposes a different strategy for thinking agency along Gilbert Simondon’s notion of transindividuation that he calls ahuman. The ahuman is then defined as a stable figuration that embodies dynamic processes and forces that actually frame reality. The chapter ends with a discussion of the aesthetic as new figurations of existence that can be mobilized for alternative political purposes, as well as a brief outline of the chapters.