TY - JOUR
T1 - Dissolving nature
T2 - How descartes made us posthuman
AU - Vaccari, Andrés
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - This paper is an enquiry into the philosophical fault-line that leads from mechanicism to posthumanism. I focus on a central aspect of posthumanism: the erosion of the distinction between organism and machine, nature and art, and the biological and engineering sciences. I claim that this shift can be placed in the seventeenth century, in Descartes's biology. The Cartesian fusion of the natural and technological opened the door to distinctly posthuman understandings of the living body, its relation to technological extensions, and the possibility of its drastic alteration. Descartes's mechanicism demanded a reconceptualization of bodily boundaries, organismic unity, natural finality, causation, and bio/technological instrumentality; all of which Descartes boldly theorized in terms of the wondrous technologies of his day. This radical proposal obscured the possibility of thinking the human as ontologically unique, or as having an ideal unity. This paper will examine the posthuman ramifications of these aspects of Descartes's philosophy.
AB - This paper is an enquiry into the philosophical fault-line that leads from mechanicism to posthumanism. I focus on a central aspect of posthumanism: the erosion of the distinction between organism and machine, nature and art, and the biological and engineering sciences. I claim that this shift can be placed in the seventeenth century, in Descartes's biology. The Cartesian fusion of the natural and technological opened the door to distinctly posthuman understandings of the living body, its relation to technological extensions, and the possibility of its drastic alteration. Descartes's mechanicism demanded a reconceptualization of bodily boundaries, organismic unity, natural finality, causation, and bio/technological instrumentality; all of which Descartes boldly theorized in terms of the wondrous technologies of his day. This radical proposal obscured the possibility of thinking the human as ontologically unique, or as having an ideal unity. This paper will examine the posthuman ramifications of these aspects of Descartes's philosophy.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84875337995&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.5840/techne201216213
DO - 10.5840/techne201216213
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84875337995
SN - 0161-7249
VL - 16
SP - 138
EP - 186
JO - Techne: Research in Philosophy and Technology
JF - Techne: Research in Philosophy and Technology
IS - 2
ER -