Posthuman oder Übermensch. War Nietzsche ein Transhumanist?

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Skowron

AbstractRecent discussions (especially in the Internet) about the question whether Nietzsche was a Transhumanist or at least a forerunner of the Transhumanist movement have drawn new attention to Nietzsche’s concept of the Overhuman and the relation to the Posthuman. The article is taking a critical stance by turning suggested analogies between education and genetic manipulation of humans into an argument against the latter, by relating self-education to self-overcoming and eternal recurrence of the same (which is excluded by Transhumanists), and by reminding of Nietzsche’s distinction between ‘Overhuman’ and ‘last human’ as two different ways to the future. Linguistic analysis of the epitheta used in speaking of the different ‘types’ in question as well as structural analogies between critical considerations in Michael Sandel and Jürgen Habermas on the one hand, Nietzsche on the other are also evidence that Nietzsche would not have endorsed the technological path to perfection of the human but would emphasize his own way of self-overcoming instead.

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Sandro Serpa ◽  
Ana Isabel Santos ◽  
Carlos Miguel Ferreira

Ivan Illich was a heavy critic of traditional schooling. His proposals were disregarded, perhaps too quickly, for various reasons. This paper, based on review research, aims to add to a current (re)reading of Illich, seeking to answer the following question: what is the relevance of Illich’s proposal for a successful education in an increasingly digitalised society? The results of this research allow concluding, on the one hand, that Illich’s proposal to replace strict schooling with (self)training networks in a society that is increasingly digitalised and linked by the internet may offer potential benefits, and it is worth, at least, of an in-depth analysis. On the other hand, provocative scholars that allow us to get out of any ideologically and socially delimited system have the merit of helping to provide instruments that enable a better understanding of the present and, consequently, a rationale for the options for the future. Ivan Illich is one of these scholars.


Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson

Alvin Toffler’s writings encapsulated many of the tensions of futurism: the way that futurology and futures studies oscillated between forms of utopianism and technocracy with global ambitions, and between new forms of activism, on the one hand, and emerging forms of consultancy and paid advice on the other. Paradoxically, in their desire to create new images of the future capable of providing exits from the status quo of the Cold War world, futurists reinvented the technologies of prediction that they had initially rejected, and put them at the basis of a new activity of futures advice. Consultancy was central to the field of futures studies from its inception. For futurists, consultancy was a form of militancy—a potentially world altering expertise that could bypass politics and also escaped the boring halls of academia.


Author(s):  
Matthias Albani

The monotheistic confession in Isa 40–48 is best understood against the historical context of Israel’s political and religious crisis situation in the final years of Neo-Babylonian rule. According to Deutero-Isaiah, Yhwh is unique and incomparable because he alone truly predicts the “future” (Isa 41:22–29)—currently the triumph of Cyrus—which will lead to Israel’s liberation from Babylonian captivity (Isa 45). This prediction is directed against the Babylonian deities’ claim to possess the power of destiny and the future, predominantly against Bel-Marduk, to whom both Nabonidus and his opponents appeal in their various political assertions regarding Cyrus. According to the Babylonian conviction, Bel-Marduk has the universal divine power, who, on the one hand, directs the course of the stars and thus determines the astral omens and, on the other hand, directs the course of history (cf. Cyrus Cylinder). As an antithesis, however, Deutero-Isaiah proclaims Yhwh as the sovereign divine creator and leader of the courses of the stars in heaven as well as the course of history on earth (Isa 45:12–13). Moreover, the conflict between Nabonidus and the Marduk priesthood over the question of the highest divine power (Sîn versus Marduk) may have had a kind of “catalytic” function in Deutero-Isaiah’s formulation of the monotheistic confession.


2001 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard Goggin ◽  
Catherine Griff

Much of the present debate about content on the internet revolves around how to control the distribution of different sorts of harmful or undesirable material. Yet there are considerable issues about whether sufficient sorts of desired cultural content will be available, such as ‘national’, ‘Australian’ content. In traditional broadcasting, regulation has been devised to encourage or mandate different types of content, where it is believed that the market will not do so by itself. At present, such regulatory arrangements are under threat in television, as the Productivity Commission Broadcasting Inquiry final report has noted. But what of the future for certain types of content on the internet? Do we need specific regulation and policy to promote the availability of content on the internet? Or is such a project simply irrelevant in the context of gradual but inexorable media convergence? Is regulating for content just as quixotic and fraught with peril as regulating of content from a censorship perspective often appears to be? In this article, we consider the case of Australian content for broadband technologies, especially in relation to film and video, and make some preliminary observations on the promotion and regulation of internet content.


1977 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Dutton

If a catalogue were made of terms commonly used to affirm the adequacy of critical interpretations of works of art, one word certain to be included would be “plausible.” Yet this term is one which has received precious little attention in the literature of aesthetics. This is odd, inasmuch as I find the notion of plausibility central to an understanding of the nature of criticism. “Plausible” is a perplexing term because it can have radically different meanings depending on the circumstances of its employment. ln the following discussion, I will make some observations about the logic of this concept in connection with its uses in two rather different contexts: the context of scientific inquiry on the one hand, and that of aesthetic interpretation on the other. In distinguishing separate senses of “plausible,” I shall provide reason to resist the temptation to imagine that because logical aspects of two different types of inquiry—science and criticism—happen to be designated by the same term, they may to that extent be considered to have similar logical structures.


Target ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iwona Mazur

In recent years localization has become a popular concept in both translation practice and theory. It has developed a language of its own, which, however, still seems to be little known among translation scholars. What is more, being primarily an industry-based discourse, the terms related to localization are very fluid, which makes theorizing about it difficult. Therefore, the aim of this article is, first of all, to explain the basic terms of the metalanguage of localization, as they are used by both localization practitioners and scholars, and, secondly, to make this metalanguage more consistent by proposing some general definitions that cover the basic concepts in localization. This, in turn, should, on the one hand, facilitate scholar-to-practitioner communication and vice versa and, on the other, should result in concept standardization for training purposes. In the conclusions I link the present discussion of the metalanguage of localization to a more general debate on metalanguage(s) in Translation Studies and propose that in the future we might witness the emergence of a new discipline called Localization Studies.


2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 319-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron W. Hughes

Abstract NAASR faces an existential dilemma. It is currently caught between the desire for greater numbers and panels that take place at the Annual Meeting of the AAR on the one hand, and the idea of a more exclusive group that focuses solely on historical and scientific analysis on the other. This paper argues that the future of NAASR resides in the latter option as opposed to the former. It even goes a step further and argues that NAASR should—intellectually, if not logistically—split from the AAR because as things currently stand the AAR defines the parameters of the conversation: NAASR, by default, becomes that which the AAR is not. However, in so doing, NAASR still defines itself using the discourses and categories of the AAR. NAASR’s physical departure from the AAR would provide it with the intellectual space necessary for further growth and reflection on things theoretical and methodological.


Target ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Iribarren

This article explores translational literary Web 2.0 practices and user-generated cultural creations on the Internet, focusing on video poetry that re-creates canonical poets’ bodies of work. It will be argued that the use of for-profit platforms like YouTube and Vimeo by indie creators and translators of video poetry favours the emergence of new translational attitudes, practices and objects that have positive but also contentious effects. One the one hand, these online mediators explore new poetic expressions and tend to make the most of the potential for dissemination of poetic heritage, providing visibility to non-hegemonic literatures. On the other hand, however, these translational digitally-born practices and creations by voluntary and subaltern mediators might reinforce the hegemonic position of large American Internet corporations at the risk of commodifying cultural capital, consolidating English as a lingua franca and perhaps, in the long run, even fostering a potentially monocultural and internationally homogeneous aesthetics.


1901 ◽  
Vol 47 (198) ◽  
pp. 548-550
Keyword(s):  

Specialisation is ever advancing, and examination follows fast; if the one is established the other is almost justified. The reasons for an examination in medico-psychology are certainly cogent, and it is to be hoped will be more convincing in the future to possible examinees than they appear to have been recently.


Author(s):  
Konstantin S. Sharov

The paper is concerned with a study of the changing content and style of non-canonical Christian religious preaching in the digital age. Special attention is paid to the analysis of modern rhetoric Christian preachers practice in their Internet channels, forums and blogs. It is shown that the content of the Internet sermon is largely determined by the Internet users themselves and the topics of their appeals. The fundamental characteristics of the content of the Internet sermon are: 1) focus on the individual, their private goals and objectives, not just on theological problems; 2) rethinking the phenomenon of the neighbour; 3) a shift from the Hesychast tradition of preaching the importance of inner spiritual concentration to the preaching of religious interactivity. The observed stylistic features of the digital preaching can be summarised as follows: 1) moving away from simple answers to the rhetoric of new questions addressed to the audience; 2) empathy, co-participation with a person in his/her life conflicts and experiences; 3) desire to share religious information, not to impose it; 4) resorting to various rhetorical techniques to reach different audiences; 5) a tendency to use slang, sometimes even irrespective of the audience’s language preferences and expectations. It should be pointed out that the Orthodox Internet sermon in the Russian Internet space has a dual and contradictory nature. On the one hand, this phenomenon can be regarded as positive for the Orthodox preaching in general, since it is a means of spreading Christian ideas in the social groups that do not constitute a core of parishioners of Orthodox churches, for example, schoolchildren, students, representatives of technical professions, etc. On the other hand, the effectiveness of such preaching is still unclear. Lack of reliable statistics as well as the results of the survey related to the Orthodox Internet preaching gives us no opportunity to judge about effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the phenomenon at this stage of its development.


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