The Future of Humanity

An Anthropological Perspective on Body Optimisation and Transhumanism

Abstract

In times of rapid technological progress, transhumanism, which strives for radical technological transformations of the human being, spreads its ideas with great publicity and media impact. Although these ideas are directed towards the future, they influence how we understand humans, bodies, and technology today. This article examines the anthropology of transhumanism and investigates the extent to which it offers approaches for the contemporary anthropology of body optimisation. The article comes to the conclusion that the understanding of the human being in transhumanism is problematic in many respects and therefore not suitable for the further development of a contemporary philosophical anthropology. Nevertheless, corrective perspectives for an anthropology of contemporary body optimisation can be derived from these problems.