Realist Responses to Post-Human Society: Ex Machina (The Future of the Human)

This volume is the first of a trilogy which investigates, from a broadly realist perspective, the place, and challenges, of the human in contemporary social orders. The authors, all members of the Centre for Social Ontology, ask what is specific about humanity's nature and worth, and what are their main challenges in contemporary societies? Examining the ways in which recent advances in technology threaten to blur and displace the boundaries constitutive of our shared humanity, Realist Responses to Post-Human Society: Ex Machina explores the philosophical and ethical questions raised by these developments, and discusses the dangers posed by the combination of transhumanism with post-humanist social theories and antihumanist practices, institutions and ideologies. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of illustrations List of contributors 1. Introduction: Post-humanism in morphogenic societies Sociological context: the significance of living in morphogenic societies Vindicating humanity in morphogenic societies Note References 2. Bodies, persons and human enhancement: Why these distinctions matter Introduction What role for the body? Bodies and selfhood Three approaches to personhood From selfhood to personhood Conclusion: humankind and bodily enhancement Notes References 3. Vulcans, Klingons, and humans: What does humanism encompass? Introduction The humanist target of poststructuralism The I and the Thou Persons Machine anxiety The relationality debate How do we know? Human rights Conclusion Notes References 4. Transcending the human: Why, where, and how? What does ‘transcending the human’ mean? The issue Three scenarios of human evolution The distinction human/non-human as a transcendental relation, and its enigma How can we confront the enigma? We need a new relational cultural matrix The social ontology of the relation in and through which the human is transcended When can a social form be called human? In conclusion: the transcendence of the human lies in the social relation Notes References 5. Yesterday’s tomorrow today: Turing, Searle and the contested significance of artificial intelligence Introduction Two concepts of artificial intelligence (AI) Shifting, adequacy and the interstitial problem Transhumanism lower and upper case (th↔TH) Turing, AIw and AIs: finding a question that can be answered Playing the imitation game, substitution as seduction Searle: AIs, semantic versus syntax and the failure of successful simulation Dispute perpetuated through the limits of argument: designing a successful failure and the context of ‘insufficient’ AIw and AIs: resolutely unresolved lines of inquiry What follows from function: interstitial problems and ontology as critique Constitution and second subcategory AIs From Searle to real problems of ‘AI’ Function, AI, substitution, delegation and Relational Goods Conclusion Notes References 6. Trans-human (life-)time: Emergent biographies and the ‘deep change’ in personal reflexivity Introduction Time and the post-human: an approach to trans-humanization, sociology, and cultural critique Time categories and personal biographies: the temporal fabric of human subjectivity Toward trans-human lifetimes Emergent biographies and their time: a few examples Conclusion: changing time structures and the emerging bulimic self Notes References 7. The evisceration of the human under digital capitalism Introduction The emergence of ‘big data’ The epistemology of transactional data The politics of transactional data Conclusion Notes References 8. Management and dehumanisation in late modernity Introduction Management and organisation studies: guilty of dehumanisation? Management and organisation: a century of dehumanisation How can we rehumanise organisation and management studies? Notes References Index