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THE REFORMATTING OF HOMO SAPIENS

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Peter Wolfendale

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Abstract

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article addresses the perennial picture of the human as rational animal, the nexus of trends undermining the cultural legacy of classical humanism, and the so-called posthumanisms that embrace its dissolution. Against critical posthumanism, which aims to break with humanism entirely, and in contrast to transhumanism, which uncritically inherits certain features of humanism, I outline an alternative–rationalist inhumanism–which critically extracts the inhuman core of humanism by unbinding rationality from animality. I begin by re-examining the history of humanism leading up to the posthuman nexus, in order to highlight the features that can be repurposed by inhumanism. I then weave these features into an outline of a genealogy of reason, encompassing its genesis in, co-evolution with, and eventual liberation from the animal that is Homo sapiens.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Wolfendale P

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Angelaki

Year: 2019

Volume: 24

Issue: 1

Pages: 55-66

Online publication date: 12/02/2019

Acceptance date: 02/04/2016

ISSN (print): 0969-725X

ISSN (electronic): 1469-2899

Publisher: Routledge

URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2019.1568733

DOI: 10.1080/0969725X.2019.1568733

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