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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
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Abstract

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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

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