Editing Posthumanism (section)

==Emergence of philosophical posthumanism==
[[Ihab Hassan]], theorist in the [[literary theory|academic study of literature]], once stated: "Humanism may be coming to an end as humanism transforms itself into something one must helplessly call posthumanism."<ref name="Hassan 1977">{{cite book | author = Hassan, Ihab | editor = Michel Benamou, Charles Caramello | title = Performance in Postmodern Culture | publisher = Coda Press | location = Madison, Wisconsin | year = 1977 | chapter = Prometheus as Performer: Toward a Postmodern Culture? | isbn = 978-0-930956-00-4| author-link = Ihab Hassan }}</ref> This view predates most currents of posthumanism which have developed over the late 20th century in somewhat diverse, but complementary, domains of thought and practice. For example, Hassan is a known scholar whose theoretical writings expressly address [[postmodernity]] in [[society]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Thiher  |first= Allen  |date= 1990|title= Postmodernism's Evolution as Seen by Ihab Hassan|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1208589.pdf |journal= Contemporary Literature |volume= 31 |issue=2 |pages= 236–239|doi=10.2307/1208589  |jstor= 1208589 |access-date= December 19, 2020}}</ref> Beyond postmodernist studies, posthumanism has been developed and deployed by various cultural theorists, often in reaction to problematic inherent assumptions within humanistic and [[Age of Enlightenment|enlightenment]] thought.<ref name=miah />

Theorists who both complement and contrast Hassan include [[Michel Foucault]], [[Judith Butler]], [[Cybernetics|cyberneticists]] such as [[Gregory Bateson]], [[Warren McCullouch]], [[Norbert Wiener]], and thinkers such as [[Bruno Latour]], [[Cary Wolfe]], [[Elaine Graham]], [[N. Katherine Hayles]], [[Benjamin H. Bratton]], [[Donna Haraway]], [[Rosi Braidotti]], [[Francesca Ferrando]], [[Peter Sloterdijk]], [[Stefan Lorenz Sorgner]], [[Evan Thompson]], [[Francisco Varela]], [[Humberto Maturana]], [[Timothy Morton]], and [[Douglas Kellner]]. Among the theorists are philosophers, such as Robert Pepperell, who have written about a "posthuman condition", which is often substituted for the term ''posthumanism''.<ref name="Badmington 2000"/><ref name="Hayles 1999"/>

Posthumanism differs from classical humanism by relegating humanity back to [[biocentrism (ethics)|one of many natural species]], thereby rejecting any claims founded on [[anthropocentric]] dominance.<ref name=wolfe>Wolfe, C. (2009). [https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/what-is-posthumanism ''What is Posthumanism?''] University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis, Minnesota.</ref> According to this claim, humans have no inherent rights to destroy nature or set themselves above it in [[ethical]] considerations ''[[a priori and a posteriori|a priori]]''. Human [[knowledge]] is also reduced to a less controlling position, previously seen as the defining aspect of the world. [[Human rights]] exist on a spectrum with [[animal rights]] and posthuman rights.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Posthuman Rights: Dimensions of Transhuman Worlds|journal=Teknokultura|volume=12|issue=2|author=Evans, Woody|year=2015|doi=10.5209/rev_TK.2015.v12.n2.49072|author-link=Woody Evans|doi-access=free}}</ref> The limitations and fallibility of [[Intelligence#Human intelligence|human intelligence]] are confessed, even though it does not imply abandoning the [[rationalism|rational]] tradition of humanism.<ref>Addressed repeatedly, albeit differently, among scholars, e.g. Stefan Herbrechter, ''Posthumanism: A Critical Analysis'' (London: A&C Black, 2013), 126 and 196-97. {{ISBN|1780936907}}, 9781780936901</ref>

Proponents of a posthuman discourse, suggest that innovative advancements and emerging technologies have transcended the traditional model of the human, as proposed by [[Descartes]] among others associated with philosophy of the [[Enlightenment age|Enlightenment period]].<ref>{{cite web|last1=Badmington|first1=Neil|title=Posthumanism|url=http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405183123_chunk_g978140518312363_ss1-3|publisher=Blackwell Reference Online|access-date=22 September 2015}}</ref> Posthumanistic views were also found in the works of [[Shakespeare]].<ref name="Herbrechter Callus Rossini Grech 2022 p. 708">{{cite book | last1=Herbrechter | first1=S. | last2=Callus | first2=I. | last3=Rossini | first3=M. | last4=Grech | first4=M. | last5=de Bruin-Molé | first5=M. | last6=Müller | first6=C.J. | title=Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism | publisher=Springer International Publishing | year=2022 | isbn=978-3-031-04958-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=enaeEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA708 | access-date=2023-03-20 | page=708}}</ref> In contrast to humanism, the discourse of posthumanism seeks to redefine the boundaries surrounding modern philosophical understanding of the human. Posthumanism represents an evolution of thought beyond that of the contemporary social boundaries and is predicated on the seeking of truth within a postmodern context. In so doing, it rejects previous attempts to establish "[[anthropological universal]]s" that are imbued with anthropocentric assumptions.<ref name=wolfe /> Recently, critics have sought to describe the emergence of posthumanism as a critical moment in modernity, arguing for the origins of key posthuman ideas in modern fiction,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://criticalposthumanism.net/genealogy/|title=Genealogy|date=2013-10-01|website=Critical Posthumanism Network|access-date=2019-07-30}}</ref> in Nietzsche,<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-literature-and-the-posthuman/modern/F177AE0B05A6A081E73F17D39FFA4ED5|chapter=Modern|last=Wallace|first=Jeff|title=The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Posthuman|date=December 2016|website=The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Posthuman|pages=41–53|doi=10.1017/9781316091227.007|isbn=9781316091227|access-date=2019-07-30}}</ref> or in a modernist response to the crisis of historicity.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://brill.com/view/title/54051|title=Fantasies of Self-Mourning: Modernism, the Posthuman and the Finite|last=Borg|first=Ruben|date=2019-01-07|publisher=Brill Rodopi|isbn=9789004390355|doi=10.1163/9789004390355| s2cid=194194777 }}</ref>

Although Nietzsche's philosophy has been characterized as posthumanist,<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PRttDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22posthumanist%22+%22nietzsche%22&pg=PA203 | isbn=9781501335693 | title=Posthumanism in the Age of Humanism: Mind, Matter, and the Life Sciences after Kant | date=4 October 2018 | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SMzLDAAAQBAJ&dq=%22posthumanist%22+%22nietzsche%22&pg=PT95 | isbn=9781317044079 | title=The Routledge Handbook of Biopolitics | date=5 August 2016 | publisher=Routledge }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u7qdDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22posthumanist%22+%22nietzsche%22&pg=PA50 | isbn=9781350059481 | title=Philosophical Posthumanism | date=27 June 2019 | publisher=Bloomsbury }}</ref> Foucault placed posthumanism within a context that differentiated humanism from [[Enlightenment Thought|Enlightenment thought]]. According to Foucault, the two existed in a state of tension: as humanism sought to establish norms while Enlightenment thought attempted to transcend all that is material, including the boundaries that are constructed by humanistic thought.<ref name=wolfe />  Drawing on the Enlightenment's challenges to the boundaries of humanism, posthumanism rejects the various assumptions of human dogmas (anthropological, political, scientific) and takes the next step by attempting to change the nature of thought about what it means to be human. This requires not only decentering the human in multiple discourses (evolutionary, ecological and technological) but also examining those discourses to uncover inherent humanistic, anthropocentric, normative notions of humanness and the concept of the human.