Artificiality and Enlightenment: From Sociobiology to Biosociality

Abstract

This text is the translation, by Frederic Keck, of Paul Rabinow’s “Artificiality and Enlightenment: From Sociobiology to Biosociality,” published in 1996 in his Essays on the Anthropology of Reason (Princeton, Princeton University Press). It makes available to Francophone readers an important contribution by Paul Rabinow, in which he develops the concept of “biosociality”, starting from an analysis of the Human Genome Project. This concept is central today for research on issues related to biotechnology, life sciences and, more generally, the “boundaries of the human”. The translation is completed by a presentation by Frederic Keck of the background, issues and perspectives opened by the text.