Post-Human or Neo-Vitruvian? The Contemporary Neo-Humanist Revolution

摘要

With its cybernetic and optimistic vision of the future of mankind,characterised by the birth of a human-machine hybrid no longer subject to painor chronic illness, the post-human theoretical perspective is flawed in bothscientific and philosophical terms. To deny suffering is to deny human lifeitself, and yet, though the human dream of defeating pain and death has so farbeen systematically thwarted, it has not faded. The post-human approach proposes togo beyond human biological boundaries with the help of science and technology,reprogramming nature to resemble a human-robot hybrid. However, the artificialsupports that this approach relies on (such as microchips) still cannot negatedeath and pain, which are constituent parts of biological life. The negation ofpain would mean the negation of the human being in the philosophical sense. Analternative approach, which we shall refer to as Neo-Vitruvian or neo-humanist,emphasises the scientific and technical skills of human beings, who can improvehuman lives and defeat disease and pain by using their knowledge of the secretsof nature. Armed with this knowledge, today post-modern human beings areable to control nature with the same rules by which nature creates the world.In this way, today’s human beings, like Leonardo Da Vinci in the Renaissance,use science to assume the role of the Universal Creator, without howevermanipulating nature as proposed by the post-humanists.