Luca M. Possati is researcher at the University of Porto, Portugal. Educated as philosopher, he has been lecturer at the Institut Catholique de Paris and associate researcher of the Fonds Ricoeur and EHESS (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales). He is associate editor for Humanities & Social Sciences Communications.
His research focuses on the philosophy of technology and in particular on the relationship between neuropsychanalysis, affective neurosciences, and artificial intelligence.
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Thanks to you for this interview. The conference intends to be a way to make a critical assessment of the current research on transhumanism. The central questions are what transhumanism is today and how it has evolved. To ask these questions again is neither useless nor rhetorical at all. Due to the current development of digital technologies and artificial intelligence, the debate on transhumanism is today more alive than ever.
There is not a single definition of transhumanism. Transhumanism is not a well-defined philosophical doctrine.
I would say that transhumanism is more a general world-view that implies a certain evaluation of human nature and the relationship between human nature and technology. We can find transhumanist ideas in literature, art, cinema, but also in politics or science. For example, Teilhard de Chardin does not use the expression “transhuman,” but he can be called a transhumanist thinker because of his view of the cosmos and human evolution in it.
As I said, you can find transhumanist ideas also in literature: for example, think about Houellebecq’s novel The Possibility of an Island. I would say that one of the best definitions of transhumanism was given by Max More:
Transhumanism is very close to posthumanism. However, I would say that post-humanism is more of a philosophical doctrine; a way to overcome the culture-nature dualism and set up what Latour calls a symmetrical ontology. In the post-human vision, there is no such idea of …
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