Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed

by Peter Mahon

Overview

In Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Peter Mahon goes beyond recent theoretical approaches to 'the posthuman' to argue for a concrete posthumanism, which arises as humans, animals and technology become entangled, in science, society and culture. Concrete posthumanism is rooted in cutting-edge advances in techno-science, and this book offers readers an exciting, fresh and innovative exploration of this undulating, and often unstable, terrain. With wide-ranging coverage, of cybernetics, information theory, medicine, genetics, machine learning, politics, science fiction, philosophy and futurology, Mahon examines how posthumanism played-and continues to play-a crucial role in shaping how we understand our world. This analysis of posthumanism centers on human interactions with tools and technology, the centrality of science, as well as an understanding of techno-science as a pharmakon-an ancient Greek word for a substance that is both poison and cure. Mahon argues that posthumanism must be approached with an interdisciplinary attitude: a concrete posthumanism is only graspable through knowledge derived from science and the humanities. He concludes by sketching a 'post-humanities' to help us meet the challenges of posthumanism, challenges to which we all must rise.

Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed provides a concise, detailed and coherent exploration of posthumanism, introducing key approaches, concepts and themes. It is ideal for readers of all stripes who are interested in a concrete posthumanism and require more than just a simple introduction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474236812
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	02/23/2017
Series:	Guides for the Perplexed
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Peter Mahon teaches in the Department of English at The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of Imagining Joyce and Derrida: Between Finnegans Wake and Glas (2007), Joyce: A Guide for the Perplexed (2009) and Violence, Politics and Textual Interventions in Northern Ireland (2010).
Peter Mahon teaches in the Department of English at the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is the author of Imagining Joyce and Derrida: Between Finnegans Wake and Glas (2007), Joyce: A Guide for the Perplexed (2009) and Violence, Politics and Textual Interventions in Northern Ireland (2010). He has published essays in journals such as ELH, James Joyce Quarterly, Irish University Review, Partial Answers, as well as in edited volumes. He is currently writing a book on Reason and Unreason and researching digital reading as part of a project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction: Posthumanism-A Dialogue of Sorts
2 Cybernetics, Information, Prosthetics, Genetics Introduction to techno-scientific posthumanism: Trust, but verify Cybernetics and information Neuroprosthetics Genetic manipulations
3 Artificial Intelligences
An (all-too-brief) brief history of artificial intelligence Machine learning: Some basics Google DeepMind's DQN Agent 'I, Hector'
IBM Watson
4 Socio-cultural Posthumanism
The perils of representation (science and technology) Post . . . human: The entanglements of text Signs of life: Self-reflexiveness. . . art . . . posthumanism
5 Philosophical Posthumanism
Animals and robots
Animal . . . human . . . machine: An auto-affective posthumanism Transhumanism and singularity
6 Conclusion: Some Thoughts on Digital Humanities and 'Post-humanities'
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

Posthumanism - A Guide for the Perplexed is a wide-ranging, informative and engagingly written book on the emergent field of posthuman studies, which challenges traditional humanities scholarship by addressing the processes of digitalization, medicalization, and globalization, as well as contemporary environmental and political challenges like climate change, migration, biopolitics and terrorism. Mahon's book presents and explains difficult philosophical, scientific and technical questions relevant to the current discussion about posthumanism in an accessible manner. It is particularly strong and innovative in its presentation of the scientific and technical discussions about enhancement, information theory, artificial intelligence and biotechnology and how these translate into different philosophical positions on the post- and transhuman.

[A] careful analysis ... Like other books in the series, A Guide for the Perplexed, Posthumanismis a rich source of information critically and synthetically considered and presented to the reader in an attractive manner.
Reviews in Religion and Theology

From the Publisher