Posthumanism is the key to interpreting the twenty-first century and represents an international research program on the relationship with technology and the biosphere and new forms of citizenship and identity. This book clarifies the common denominators that differentiate posthumanism from other proposals.

Nonhuman animals are the most prominent alterity with which humans have engaged in interaction and in comparative self-definition. The reference point of nonhuman alterity is central both to the development of humanism and of posthumanism. In the complex and nonlinear interfaces with nonhumans, humans are extensively hybridized in a process that defines their very humanity. Understanding humans as open and interactive animals rather than as closed and autarchic entities is indispensable to the dismantling of humanism and the development of posthuman (...) thought. Nonhuman and human animals host and are hosted by one another in dynamic and emergent relations. (shrink)

Technoscientific progress brings into question both anthropocentric epistemology and anthropocentric/humanistic ontology, which considers the human being as a self-constructing and self-sufficient entity. Even though, Darwinism recomposes the humanistic disjunction between reality and representation: by defining the human being as the result of an adaptive reflection, it reveals the idealistic character of post-Cartesian thought, which is the backbone of philosophical anthropocentrism. The non-human can be a dialogic entity if and only if it is considered not as “animal-by” but “animal-with”, that is, (...) free to express its authenticity in terms of subjectivity, diversity and uniqueness. Whilst the post-human laboratory celebrates the power of human beings, the post-humanistic perspective emphasizes the conjugation with the non-human. (shrink)

Speciesism is a concept that was derived to name forms of discrimination and oppression against nonhuman animals that could be compared to racism and sexism. The concept was formulated in strong terms by Richard Ryder, Peter Singer, and Tom Regan that made it a powerful tool for social and political movements. The discourse on speciesism has been amplified and changed by a set of newer writings in the last few decades that take a more ethological, critical theory, and deconstructive bent. (...) This paper outlines some of the conditions for an antispeciesism based on posthumanism. As humanism itself is the most virulent form of speciesism, no robust antispeciesism can be developed without continued challenge to humanism. (shrink)

The figure of the chimera animates both mythology and the biotechnological imagination. The mythological construction of animals from the sections or attributes of different species parallels the surgical and genetic manipulations of animals in modern transformations. Chimerization also represents a hybridization that relationally links different species. Both the mythological imagination and biotechnical practice bear heavily on the definition and identity of the human animal. In mythology the chimera links the animal, the human, and the divine. In biotechnology like xenotransplantation and (...) genetic engineering, real patchwork combinations of humans and other animals are constructed. (shrink)

The concept of the threshold is a central one for thinking about relations between nonhuman and human animals. It refers to hosting and being hosted, the host and the guest, the inside and the outside of the domestic space. It also invokes values of mutual respect and attentiveness. This paper draws on ethological and philosophical sources to argue for the importance of the threshold in understanding human–animal interactions. Violence, sociality, technology and altruism are bound up in the threshold. As such, (...) the concept contains both descriptive and normative dimensions, encompassing both dimensions of the Greek ēthos. (shrink)

This book presents a new way to understand human-animal interactions. Offering a profound discussion of topics such as human identity, our relationship with animals and the environment, and our culture, the author channels the vibrant Italian traditions of humanism, materialism, and speculative philosophy. The research presents a dialogue between the humanities and the natural sciences. It challenges the separation and oppression of animals with a post-humanism steeped in the traditions of the Italian Renaissance. Readers discover a vision of the human (...) as a species informed by an intertwining with animals. The human being is not constructed by an onto-poetic process, but rather by close relati ons with otherness. The human system is increasingly unstable and, therefore, more hybrid. The argument it presents interests scholars, thinkers, and researchers. It also appeals to anyone who wants to delve into the deep animal-human bond and its philosophical, cultural, political instances. The author is a veterinarian, ethologist, and philosopher. He uses cognitive science, zooanthropology, and philosophy to engage in a series of empirical, theoretical, and practice-based engagements with animal life. In the process, he argues that animals are key to human identity and culture at all levels. (shrink)

The meticulous observation and imitation of animals lies deeply within human culture and identity. Zoomimesis refers to this performative animal mimicry and to how animal references and interaction are woven into the conception of the human. Zoomimesis has an anthropodecentering effect that places animal–human interactions in horizontal rather than hierarchical relation. Music, dance, and clothing show influence from animal behaviors. Many types of body art and body modification are inspired by animals. Animal movements and behaviors become an extension of the (...) capabilities of human bodies and identities. The human sense of art and aesthetics itself is shaped by animals and animality. (shrink)

Although long treated as the human space par excellence, the city is in fact a vibrant ecosystem that is home to many more nonhuman animals than human ones. Nonetheless, the longstanding emphasis on the city as human built environment and human center of culture has occluded extensive study of it as a thriving ecosystem in its own right. Ethology offers valuable tools for conducting a serious study of the zoological dimensions of urban areas. Companion and domestic animals such as dogs (...) and cats share domestic spaces. Synanthropes such as crows, raccoons, and coyotes are able to easily take advantage of areas around humans. And animals labeled as “pests,” such as rats and roaches, thrive in human buildings and on refuse. Indeed, such animals even play a key role in converting organic matter in the city and preventing its buildup. (shrink)

Philosophical ethology draws heavily upon the methods and findings of ethological traditions but must be a properly philosophical undertaking that reframes them in terms of critical and speculative questions about animal mind and animal subjectivity. Both traditional ethology and later cognitive ethology failed to call into question the dualistic Cartesian ontological paradigm that introduced and justified an unbridgeable divide between human and nonhuman animals. Following the implications of Darwinian evolution and immanentist ontological philosophy, philosophical ethology presents a model of animal (...) subjectivity and desire that encompasses nonhuman and human animals. Martin Heidegger was correct in his phenomenological description of being-in-the-world, but he erred badly in failing to extend this model to other animals. Relationships to temporality and desire indicate that subjectivity is widespread among animals. (shrink)

Like perception, physical abilities, and digestion, cognition must be treated as a skill that is subject to evolutionary adaptation. There are many forms of animal cognition keyed to different contexts and to different physical skills and needs. From an evolutionary point of view it is not possible to establish a hierarchy or ranking of these types of cognition, which are manifestations of difference. I deem them “plural intelligences” that flow from the ethological characteristics and individual experiences of each animal. A (...) better understanding of these plural intelligences also allows further characterization of the interfaces that animals have with the world. Interfaces are performative engagements with the world that give rise to a cognitive plurality and shape the ethological contours of the relations between animals. (shrink)

The figure of the chimera animates both mythology and the biotechnological imagination. The mythological construction of animals from the sections or attributes of different species parallels the surgical and genetic manipulations of animals in modern transformations. Chimerization also represents a hybridization that relationally links different species. Both the mythological imagination and biotechnical practice bear heavily on the definition and identity of the human animal. In mythology the chimera links the animal, the human, and the divine. In biotechnology like xenotransplantation and (...) genetic engineering, real patchwork combinations of humans and other animals are constructed. (shrink)

The theriosphere refers to a site of exchange, interaction, and hybridization where the forms and behaviors of the θήρ, the wild animal or living creature, deeply form the being and becoming of the particular animal human. In a dynamic, vibrant, and multifaceted context of interactions and influences between different animals, humans as a primate with a prolonged period of care for their young are dependent on social engagement and open to the world in an ongoing way that makes them permanently (...) dependent on animal interactions and references. Plurispecific maternal communities account for interspecific social and domestic units found throughout human societies and among many accounts and videos of interspecies friendship. Human observation and imitation of animals is a key source of the development of human behaviors and a means of extending the capabilities of the human body. Animal forms influence human art and inquiry from music to painting and engineering. Nonhuman animals are kn.. (shrink)

This chapter bears on the concepts of the animal epiphany and therioanthropy. The concrete, real animals in interaction interrupt humanism and human solipsism by showing animal protagonism in the world and by reflecting narcissistic human images back to them with a difference. This looking-glass-self or mirror with difference and continuity is a crucial dimension to the human relationship to nonhuman animals, which cannot be thought without an understanding of this co-belonging. Drawing on Portmann, who is also central to Merleau-Ponty’s account (...) of interanimality and Derrida’s concerns about animals and visuality, therioanthropy considers the particular dimensions of this “being-to-be-seen” and what it means for human–animal interactions. It links to animal subjectivity, an open reading of the Umwelt, and to the concept of animal epiphany. (shrink)

Roberto Marchesini presents a timely proposal within post-human philosophy in order to overcome the centuries-long separation between human beings, non-human animals and technology. This book highlights the inspiring nature of the relationship with non-human beings - what Marchesini calls "Epiphany" - and how its enhancement can open new existential dimensions. Technology is also reinterpreted, no longer as a performative tool, but as a virus that infiltrates the human dimension and changes its predicates. Technopoietic events are not just the product of (...) human intelligence, but they arise from an epiphany (a becoming alterity), thus positioning technology well within the ontological and somatic dimension of human beings. This book lays the foundations for a new and non-anthropocentric Humanism, which is able to recognize the essential role that non-human alterities have had throughout our history. (shrink)

The primary purpose of this book is to contribute to an overcoming of the traditional separation between humanties and life sciences which, according to the authors, is required today both by the developments of these disciplines and by the social problems they have to face. The volume discusses the theoretical, epistemological and ethical repercussions of the main acquisitions obtained in the last decades from the behavioral sciences. Both the authors are inspired by the concept of a “critical ethology”, oriented to (...) archive the nature/culture and human/animal dichotomies. The book proposes a theoretical and methodological restructuring of the comparative study of the animal behavior, learning, and cultures, focused on the fact that thought, culture and language are not exclusively human prerogatives. The proposed analysis includes a critique of speciesism and determinism in the ethical field, and converge with the Numanities, to which the series is dedicated, on a key point: it is necessary to arrive at an education system able to offer scientific, social and ethical skills that are trasversal and transcendent to the traditional humanities/life sciences bipartition. Skills that are indispensable for facing the complex challenges of the contemporary society and promoting a critical reflection of humanity on itself. (shrink)