Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:06:53.296Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Life Force and the Utopia of the Post-Human

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Souleymane Bachir Diagne
Souleymane Bachir Diagne*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Immortality is humanity's great quest, the supreme utopia. In his science fiction novel Le Grand Secret, René Barjavel reflects on the convergence between love that defies time, science that conquers sickness and wisdom that triumphs over death. Spinoza reminds us that death cannot ontologically have a place in thinking about the living and Bergson assumes a ‘current of life’ running through bodies and generations, dividing up and flowing together without losing its force. That life force has no connection with the new philosophies of the trans-human or post-human which imagine a post-humanity living longer, healthier and less miserably, thanks to biotechnology. If human beings were an exceptional diversion in the course of evolution, it is one of intensification, creation and emancipation, and not of extension and addition as the life-sciences would have it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , February 2006 , pp. 103 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2006

References

Barjavel, R. (1974) The Immortals. Translated from the French by Finletter, Eileen. New York: Morrow.Google Scholar
Bergson, H. (1977) The Two Sources of Morality and Religion [1932]. Translated by Audra, R. Ashley and Brereton, Cloudesley, with the assistance of Carter, W. Horsfall. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Bergson, H. (1988) Creative Evolution [1907]. Translated by Mitchell, Arthur. Mineola, NY: Dover.Google Scholar
Deleuze, G. (1988) Bergsonism. Translated by Tomlinson, Hugh and Habberjam, Barbara. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, F. (2002) Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.Google Scholar
Iqbal, M. (1996) Reconstruire la pensée religieuse de l’islam. Paris: Editions du Rocher/Editions de l’Unesco.Google Scholar
Onfray, M. (2003) Les Féeries anatomiques. Généalogie du corps faustien. Paris: Grasset.Google Scholar
Salomon, J. J. (1991) ‘Enjeux sociaux des nouvelles technologies’, in Salomon, Jean-Jacques, Reeves, Hubert, Stengers, Isabelle and Passet, René (eds), Du Cosmos à l’homme. Comprendre la complexité. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Sloterdijk, P. (1999) Regeln für den Menschenpark. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar