On the Human Condition

Dominique Janicaud, Eileen Brennan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9781134336173
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

The potential to clone, augment, and repair human beings is pushing the very concept of the human to its limit. Fantasies and metaphors of a supposedly monstrous and inhuman future increasingly dominate films, art and popular culture. On the Human Condition is an invigorating and fascinating exploration of where the idea of the human stands today. Given the damage human beings have inflicted on each other and their environment throughout history, should we embrace humanism or try and overcome it?

Dominique Janicaud explores these urgent questions and more. He argues that whilst we need to avoid apocalyptic talk of a post human condition, as embodied in technology such as cloning, we should neither fall back on a conservative humanism nor become technophobic. Drawing on illuminating examples such as genetic engineering, the novel Frankenstein, the legendary debate between Sartre and Heidegger over humanism, and the work of Primo Levi, Domnique Janicaud also explores the role of fantasy in understanding the human condition and asks where the line lies between the human, inhuman and the superhuman.

Index

Adam and Eve 24

Adorno, Theodor W. 42

Althusser, Louis 13, 16

anthropocentrism, critique of 10

‘anthropological sleep’ 16

anthropology 5, 13, 15

anti-humanism 13, 15

Antinori, Dr Severino 38

Aquinas, St Thomas 25

Aristotle 6

artificial intelligence 27

Atlan, Henri 37

Attila 19

Augustine St 24

Auschwitz 52

Barthes, Roland 12

Beaufret, Jean 7

being 10, 11, 15, 47

Bergson, Henri 28, 34, 55, 58

Bible 2

bioengineering 1, 32, 42

bioethics 2, 17

biopolitics 41

biotechnologies 17, 32, 38, 41

call of the superhuman 4, 43, 44, 45–7, 50, 57

Cicero, Marcus Tullius 6

cloning 4, 36–8, 39, 48, 54

consciousness 29–30

Critique of Dialectical Reason 12

cyborg, myth of 30–4

Dasein 9, 15

‘death of God’ 15, 45

‘death of man’ 15, 16, 45–6

Delphic oracle 6

Descartes, René 10, 16

Diderot, Denis 14

Dolly, the sheep 36

Dufrenne, Mikel 13

Dumézil, Georges 11

Durkheim, Émile 12

elixir of life 24

emancipatory practice 15

enfant à la carte 3...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Praise for the series
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: The Overcoming of Overcoming
• Preface
• Is Humanism the Last Resort? One
• The Danger of Monsters Two
• From Foreseeable Risks to the Unforeseeable Three
• Between the Superhuman and the Inhuman Four
• Conclusion: What 'Overcoming' Means
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index