The Mapping of Posthumanism: A Philosophical Study

Abstract

Posthumanism designates a series of reactions to the idea of the study of man in terms of humanism. The studies of posthumanism, like any other studies with the same prefix ‘post’ namely postmodernism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, etc. include in itself the studies of humanism, modernism, structuralism, colonialism, and the like. The term ‘post’ has also been often used in two senses, one in terms of time frame, that is historically, and the other, as a style of thought. Posthumanism also includes within itself the studies of man’s relation to machines or technology on the one hand, and animals or non-human on the other hand. Lyotard for example used the term ‘inhuman’ in his essay Postmodern Fable to discuss the nature of posthumanism. Posthumanism has also been approached from many different aspects from literature to art to science- fiction. The paper, however, confines its discussion on the philosophical discussion of the same. Accordingly, the paper is divided into three sections. First, give a brief overview of the philosophy of (hu)man, the question of Being, and humanism. Second, is an attempt to present the postmodernist (or rather the poststructuralism) account of understanding man or rather the end of man. The crux of the paper is the mapping of the philosophy of posthumanism through the lens of deconstructing humanism. This will be explicitly discussed in the third section of the paper. Keywords: