Critical Analysis of Hypothetical Ideas About Posthumanity in Transhumanism and Posthumanism

The idea of posthuman future as an inevitable prospect is being actively postulated by the theorists of transhumanism and posthumanism. The article makes an attempt to identify the key ideas and essential characteristics of hypothetical posthumanity as it is presented in transhumanistic and posthumanistic readings. Against the background of the active development and use of bio- and nanotechnologies, entailing the practice of technological invasion of human biological nature, and postulating the idea about the need to overcome the anthropological boundary between the human and non-human worlds, the topic of posthumanity becomes an integral part of philosophical and anthropological discourse. The author of the article performed a comparative analysis of the conceptual contours of transhumanism and posthumanism. Posthumanism is based on the idea of inclusiveness that refutes the exclusive role of man. It deprives humans of the privileged ethical and ontological status, placing them on par with nonhuman creatures, technologies and objects. Transhumanism pursues the same ultimate goal as posthumanism: the achievement of posthumanity. Transhumanism, aimed at improving human nature with the help of scientific and technical means outside the context of moral principles, reduces a person to an object of uncontrolled technical manipulations. In transhumanism and posthumanism, two hypothetical models (forms of existence) of а non-human future can be singled out: technologically modified and hybrid. Both models are characterized by the destruction of the fundamental anthropological constants, blurring the boundaries between the human and the non-human. The posthuman world in transhumanistic and posthumanistic projections has no connection to the issues of morality, free will, spiritual or moral values. Rejecting the human world, proponents of transhumanism and posthumanism offer prospects of non-human civilization with unpredictable axiological orientations.