Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed

Dr Peter Mahon (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

352 Seiten

2017
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-4742-3679-9 (ISBN)

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In Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Peter Mahon goes beyond recent theoretical approaches to 'the posthuman' to argue for a concrete posthumanism, which arises as humans, animals and technology become entangled, in science, society and culture. Concrete posthumanism is rooted in cutting-edge advances in techno-science, and this book offers readers an exciting, fresh and innovative exploration of this undulating, and often unstable, terrain. With wide-ranging coverage, of cybernetics, information theory, medicine, genetics, machine learning, politics, science fiction, philosophy and futurology, Mahon examines how posthumanism played-and continues to play-a crucial role in shaping how we understand our world. This analysis of posthumanism centers on human interactions with tools and technology, the centrality of science, as well as an understanding of techno-science as a pharmakon-an ancient Greek word for a substance that is both poison and cure. Mahon argues that posthumanism must be approached with an interdisciplinary attitude: a concrete posthumanism is only graspable through knowledge derived from science and the humanities. He concludes by sketching a 'post-humanities' to help us meet the challenges of posthumanism, challenges to which we all must rise.

Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed provides a concise, detailed and coherent exploration of posthumanism, introducing key approaches, concepts and themes. It is ideal for readers of all stripes who are interested in a concrete posthumanism and require more than just a simple introduction.

Peter Mahon teaches in the Department of English at The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of Imagining Joyce and Derrida: Between Finnegans Wake and Glas (2007), Joyce: A Guide for the Perplexed (2009) and Violence, Politics and Textual Interventions in Northern Ireland (2010).

1 Introduction: Posthumanism-A Dialogue of Sorts
2 Cybernetics, Information, Prosthetics, Genetics Introduction to techno-scientific posthumanism: Trust, but verify Cybernetics and information Neuroprosthetics Genetic manipulations
3 Artificial Intelligences
An (all-too-brief) brief history of artificial intelligence Machine learning: Some basics Google DeepMind's DQN Agent 'I, Hector'
IBM Watson
4 Socio-cultural Posthumanism
The perils of representation (science and technology) Post . . . human: The entanglements of text Signs of life: Self-reflexiveness. . . art . . . posthumanism
5 Philosophical Posthumanism
Animals and robots
Animal . . . human . . . machine: An auto-affective posthumanism Transhumanism and singularity
6 Conclusion: Some Thoughts on Digital Humanities and 'Post-humanities'
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	23.02.2017
Reihe/Serie	Guides for the Perplexed
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	138 x 216 mm
Gewicht	561 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Erkenntnistheorie / Wissenschaftstheorie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
ISBN-10	1-4742-3679-0 / 1474236790
ISBN-13	978-1-4742-3679-9 / 9781474236799
Zustand	Neuware