In Defence of the Human Being: Foundational Questions of an Embodied Anthropology

With the progress of artificial intelligence, the digitalization of the lifeworld, and the reduction of the mind to neuronal processes, the human being increasingly appears to be just a product of data and algorithms.That is, we conceive ourselves “in the image of our machines”, and conversely, we elevate our machines and our brains to new subjects.At the same time, demands for an enhancement of human nature culminate in transhumanist visions of taking human evolution to a new stage.Against this self-reification of the human being, this book defends a humanism of embodiment: our corporeality, vitality, embodied freedom are the foundations of a self-determined existence, which uses these new technologies only as a means, instead of letting them rule us. In Defence of the Human Being offers an array of interventions directed against a reductionist naturalism or transhumanism in various areas of science and society.As alternative it offers an embodied and enactive account of the human per