On 'Posthumanism'

The label “posthumanism” identifies neither a doctrine, nor an intellectual or analytical approach with a defining set of protocols. Rather, we may take “posthumanism” as a term loosely applied to a range of contributions and approaches, on the basis of a generally under-specified collection of sympathies and commitments. Approximately stated, these sympathies and commitments would entail the claim that – with due allowance for historical variation – the category of “the human” has long played a key role at the centre of Western thought; that this role has included serving to justify the promotion of human beings above other forms of being, and indeed within this, over its history, the violent oppression of the great majority of human beings themselves; and that, in league with the effects of various recent technological developments, it is therefore important to decentre, relativize, critique, and perhaps even move beyond “the human”. In this article, I will accordingly not look to define the term “posthumanism”: rather, I will present some of the background to and influences on the range of contributions and approaches that have come to be assembled under this label; delineate two principles which may be discerned within these contributions and approaches; and consider some of the critiques which these “posthumanist” interventions have attracted. Ultimately, I will argue that the label itself matters less than the impulses behind the contributions it has come to identify.