Nature, significance, and the human perspective: Refusing the choice between scientism and posthumanism

IF 1 Q3 SOCIOLOGY
Mathew Abbott
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Abstract

This paper criticises contemporary posthumanist theories of anthropocentrism by reading an early essay by Bertrand Russell alongside work by Rosi Braidotti and Jane Bennett. It argues that, despite appearances, scientism and posthumanism share key commitments in common, such that clarifying the problems with which Russell struggles regarding nature and significance can illuminate symmetrical problems in posthumanism. Against these alternatives, the paper draws on insights from Bernard Williams, contemporary Hegelian philosophy, and J. J. Gibson’s work on animal agency to sketch a picture of what it means to take a human perspective. It is the perspective of one species among others, with a particular evolutionary history; it is also the perspective of a species that, because of certain developments in that history, knows itself as such. That opens us to forms of answerability to the world that do not touch the lives of unselfconscious animals. Some critics of the theoretical discourse on anthropocentrism have argued that taking a human perspective is morally unobjectionable. This paper goes further: it is necessary for grasping our relation to the rest of nature and so our responsibilities for it.
自然、意义和人类视角:拒绝在科学主义与后人文主义之间做出选择
本文通过阅读伯特兰-罗素早期的一篇文章以及罗西-布赖多蒂和简-贝内特的作品,对当代后人道主义的人类中心主义理论进行了批判。本文认为,尽管表面上看,科学主义和后人文主义在关键承诺上有共同之处,因此,澄清罗素在自然和意义方面所挣扎的问题,可以揭示后人文主义中的对称问题。针对这些替代方案,本文借鉴了伯纳德-威廉斯、当代黑格尔哲学和吉布森(J. J. Gibson)关于动物能动性的著作中的见解,勾勒出一幅人类视角的图景。它是其他物种中的一个物种的视角,具有特定的进化历史;它也是一个物种的视角,由于这一历史的某些发展,它认识到自己是这样的一个物种。这就为我们提供了对世界负责的形式,而这种形式并不触及没有自我意识的动物的生活。一些批评人类中心主义理论的人认为,从人类的角度看问题在道德上是无可非议的。本文更进一步指出:人类中心主义对于把握我们与大自然其他部分的关系以及我们对大自然的责任是必要的。
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来源期刊
Thesis Eleven
Thesis Eleven SOCIOLOGY-
CiteScore
1.40
自引率
12.50%
发文量
54
期刊介绍: Established in 1996 Thesis Eleven is a truly international and interdisciplinary peer reviewed journal. Innovative and authorative the journal encourages the development of social theory in the broadest sense by consistently producing articles, reviews and debate with a central focus on theories of society, culture, and politics and the understanding of modernity. The purpose of this journal is to encourage the development of social theory in the broadest sense. We view social theory as both multidisciplinary and plural, reaching across social sciences and liberal arts and cultivating a diversity of critical theories of modernity across both the German and French senses of critical theory.
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