Abstract
Transhumanism traces its roots to Enlightenment humanism and claims to be the harbinger of the next phase of humanistic activity through designer evolution. In this essay, I briefly trace medicine’s relationship with transhumanist philosophy to the philosophy of medicine and show that each accepts a kind of ambiguity of the body at the heart of its metaphysical assumptions. I show that these metaphysical assumptions are committed to a power ontology, and that this power ontology is fundamentally at odds with the traditional Christian lifeworld.
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Notes
- 1.
Taylor , Modern Social Imaginaries.
- 2.
Bishop , “Body Work and the Work of Bodies.”
- 3.
McGill , Death and Life.
- 4.
Cassirer , An Essay on Man; Fleck , Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact; Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
- 5.
Cassirer , a philosopher , was a German Jew who was forced to flee Germany when the Nazis came to power.
- 6.
Cassirer , An Essay on Man.
- 7.
Skidelsky , Ernst Cassirer.
- 8.
Cassirer , An Essay on Man, 25.
- 9.
Ibid., 26.
- 10.
Bacon , The New Organon; McKenny , To Relieve the Human Condition; Bishop , The Anticipatory Corpse.
- 11.
Gagen and Bishop , “Ethics, Justification and the Prevention of Spina Bifida.”
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Roberts et al., “The Efficacy of a Serum Screening Service for Neural-tube Defects: the South Wales Experience.”
- 14.
Campbell et al., “Ultrasound in the Diagnosis of Spina Bifida;” Gagen and Bishop , “Ethics, Justification and the Prevention of Spina Bifida.”
- 15.
de Grey and Rae , Ending Aging; Kurzweil , The Singularity is Near.
- 16.
de Grey , “HO2•: The Forgotten Radical;” de Grey , “Free Radicals in Aging: Causal Complexity and Its Biomedical Implications;” de Grey , “Alzheimer’s, Atherosclerosis, and Aggregates: A Role of Bacterial Degradation;” de Grey et al., “Is Human Aging Still Mysterious Enough to be Left Only to Scientists?” Khrapko , et al., “Does Premature Aging of the mtDNA Mutator Mouse Prove that mtDNA Mutations are Involved in Natural Aging?”
- 17.
de Grey , “Zeno’s Paradox and the Faith that Technological Game-changers are Impossible,” 94.
- 18.
de Grey , “HO2•: The Forgotten Radical;” de Grey , “Reason and Methods for Promoting Our Duty to Extend Healthy Life Indefinitely;” de Grey , “Zeno’s Paradox and the Faith that Technological Game-changers are Impossible;” de Grey and Rae , Ending Aging.
- 19.
Kurzweil , “Reinventing Humanity: The Future of Machine-human Intelligence;” Kurzweil , “The Future of Intelligent Technology and Its Impact on Disabilities.”
- 20.
Kurzweil , The Singularity is Near, 205–298.
- 21.
Ibid., 21.
- 22.
Bostrom , The Transhumanist FAQ v. 2.1.
- 23.
Bishop , “Transhumanism, Metaphysics, and the Posthuman God.”
- 24.
Bostrom , “The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant.”
- 25.
Bostrom , The Transhumanist FAQ v. 2.1, 6.
- 26.
Nietzsche, “The Birth of Tragedy,” 1–116.
- 27.
Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 119–188; Richardson , Nietzsche’s System, 11–65; Richardson , Nietzsche’s New Darwinism, 12–13.
- 28.
Harris , Enhancing Evolution.
- 29.
Bishop , “Transhumanism, Metaphysics, and the Posthuman God.”
- 30.
Heidegger , “The Question Concerning Technology,” in Heidegger, Basic Writings.
- 31.
Ibid., 324–325.
- 32.
Ibid.; Borgmann , Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life; Verbeek , Moralizing Technology.
- 33.
Davis , Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture.
- 34.
Bostrom , The Transhumanist FAQ v. 2.1, 5.
- 35.
Kee , Medicine, Miracle and Magic in New Testament Times; Ferngren , Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity.
- 36.
Kee , Medicine, Miracle and Magic in New Testament Times, 112.
- 37.
Ferngren , Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity, 127.
- 38.
Cf., Bostrom , The Transhumanist FAQ v. 2.1, 5.
- 39.
Bacon , The New Organon, 20.
- 40.
Heidegger , “The Question Concerning Technology,” in Heidegger , Basic Writings, 319.
- 41.
Wirzba , From Nature to Creation.
- 42.
Young , Designer Evolution.
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Bishop, J.P. (2018). Nietzsche’s Power Ontology and Transhumanism: Or Why Christians Cannot Be Transhumanists. In: Donaldson, S., Cole-Turner, R. (eds) Christian Perspectives on Transhumanism and the Church. Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and its Successors. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90323-1_7
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