The aim of my project is to demonstrate that a redefinition of the Human has taken place in contemporary culture.
Here is basic outline of my investigation
• I will explain, firstly, what Ontology is, due to the fact that it is this branch of philosophy that has been traditionally occupied with defining things, including ourselves, in order to categorise the universe
• Secondly, I will reveal that this system of ontology is obsolete in a postmodern landscape, as we see the crumbling of these categories.
• The questions we are left are, why has this crumbling of categories occurred and how does it affect our understanding of ourselves and of that which surrounds us differently?
• The answer lies simultaneously with an increasingly technocratic and cybernetic culture and the realisation that Man is not a categorical some priori but a historical one. In other words, the Human is an epistemological concept which is grounded within a particular epoch that is inevitably going to change when that knowledge finds a new form.
• Michel Foucault attributes our particular epoch’s understanding of the human to Immanuel Kant, since he was the first to recognise the epistemological consciousness of man as such.
• Therefore, I will investigate Kant’s understanding of the human and determine whether it has already found new form.
• By studying the notions of the philosophers, and in the developments in science and technology, that followed Kant, I will reveal that the Human has found a new form of knowledge.
• I will also demonstrate that certain art forms, such as literature and cinema, particularly that of the Science Fiction genre, reveal this by applying the aforementioned philosophical, scientific and technology developments to certain texts. Since art is generally seen as representation of truth, this method is perfectly valid.
• Finally, I will expose the result of this redefinition, The Posthuman.