Posthumanism and Education: Transgression or Interdependence
Posthumanism and Education: Transgression or Interdependence
Contributor(s): Ivan Nišavić (Editor), Nevena Mitranić Marinković (Editor)
Subject(s): Philosophy
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Education Series; Posthumanism Series; AI in education; androids at school; anti-humanism; Humanism; posthumanist education; quantumnormalcy; transhumanism;
Summary/Abstract: This collection delves into the ongoing debates spanning decades on the intricate interplay between posthumanism, the posthuman age, and education. Featuring authors from diverse backgrounds and theoretical perspectives, the chapters explore a spectrum of themes – from technophilia to technophobia, transhumanism to humanism, and Bildung tradition to new materialism – illuminating key dimensions of education in what is heralded as a new and distinct era.At the heart of these discussions is an exploration of whether this era truly marks a radical departure and how it influences educational practices. The chapters offer arguments both supporting and challenging these ideas, advocating for critical reflection and a fresh perspective on human experience and contemporary education. The collection suggests a creative and considerate approach to children’s learning and learning with children, which would not only respond to the challenges of imposed circumstances but also suggest active work on the desirable construction of new ones.
- E-ISBN-13: 978-1-80135-258-1
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-1-80135-257-4
- Page Count: 239
- Publication Year: 2024
- Language: English
What We Talk About When We Talk About Humanism, Posthumanism, Anti-Humanism: Educational Perspectives
What We Talk About When We Talk About Humanism, Posthumanism, Anti-Humanism: Educational Perspectives
(What We Talk About When We Talk About Humanism, Posthumanism, Anti-Humanism: Educational Perspectives)
- Author(s):Ivan Nišavić
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Social Philosophy
- Page Range:9-17
- No. of Pages:9
- Keywords:Humanism; Posthumanism; Anti-Humanism; Educational Perspectives; education Series; posthumanismseries; AI in education; androids at school; anti-humanism; humanism; posthumanist education; quantumnorm
- Summary/Abstract:The rapid advancement of contemporary technologies, often seen as a pathway to achieving the pinnacle of human beings, raises a critical question: Have we indeed entered the era of the transhuman?
- Price: 4.90 €
Should Androids Go to School?
Should Androids Go to School?
(Should Androids Go to School?)
- Author(s):Predrag Krstić
- Language:English
- Subject(s):American Literature
- Page Range:21-49
- No. of Pages:29
- Keywords:Androids; school; novel; humanism; Philip K. Dick’s; education Series; posthumanismseries; AI in education; androids at school; anti-humanism; humanism; posthumanist education; transhumanism;
- Summary/Abstract:Our title is a somewhat arbitrary variation on Philip K. Dick’s (1968) novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Yet, it is no glib retort. It occurred to us that the possibility or privilege of education, education as schooling, might be considered both the differentia specifica between humans and androids, and a lens through which other differences can be gleaned. Wondering about why androids are excluded from education, we are simultaneously seeking to think the border between them and humans, examining our visions of androids and ourselves. Speaking strictly from the point of education as a discipline, the figure of the android – non-human, yet humanoid – allows for, perhaps better than anything, an educationally-inflicted and punctuated critique of humanism, as well as a discussion of its (in)justifiability.
- Price: 4.90 €
Cinema, Different Cyborgs, Accessibility and Convenience
Cinema, Different Cyborgs, Accessibility and Convenience
(Cinema, Different Cyborgs, Accessibility and Convenience)
- Author(s):Ioanna-Maria Stamati
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Film / Cinema / Cinematography
- Page Range:53-74
- No. of Pages:22
- Keywords:Cinema, different cyborgs; accessibility; convenience; human; identity; dramatically; particularly; posthuman; anthropocentrism;
- Summary/Abstract:The landscape of human identity has shifted dramatically, particularly in the aftermath of the Posthuman movement, challenging traditional concepts enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The general field of Posthumanism embraces a wide range of philosophical, cultural, and technological perspectives that investigate the impact of moving beyond traditional concepts of human identity, capabilities, and boundaries. At its foundation, it rejects anthropocentrism—the assumption that humans are the primary or most significant beings in the universe—in favor of viewing humans as one of many agents, both biological and artificial, operating within complex systems. As the movement strives to correct historical prejudices, it highlights humanity’s unique experiences that go beyond conventional norms. The goal of the present study is to improve the understanding of how the Posthuman movement, alongside related ideologies like Critical Posthumanism and Transhumanism, confronts historical preconceptions and stresses unique human experiences that go beyond traditional expectations. The research focuses on the subjective change of identity, particularly in people who are somewhat deemed less than human due to motor limitations, hindering day-to-day life and involvement in social contexts.
- Price: 4.90 €
Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Education
Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Education
(Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Education)
- Author(s):Jelena Ostojić
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Ethics / Practical Philosophy, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
- Page Range:75-83
- No. of Pages:9
- Keywords:Ethics; artificial Intelligence; education; AI; technology; simulate; human-provided; definition; stipulating;
- Summary/Abstract:While there is no universally agreed upon definition of artificial intelligence, the definition most frequently employed describes AI as a technology for creating systems that can simulate human intelligence. However, we need the term AI system to be clearly defined in order to ensure legal certainty. As such, The Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) (Madiega 2021) puts forth a detailed definition, referring to an AI system as “a system that is designed to operate with elements of autonomy and that, based on machine and/or human-provided data and inputs, infers how to achieve a given set of objectives using machine learning and/or logic- and knowledge-based approaches, and produces system-generated outputs such as content (generative AI systems), predictions, recommendations or decisions, influencing the environments with which the AI system interacts”. In order to distinguish AI systems from more classical software systems, the AI Act further narrows the definition, stipulating that an AI system must be developed “through machine learning approaches and logic and knowledge-based approaches” (Madiega 2021: 4). A system that simply employs rules defined solely by humans in order to automatically execute operations would not qualify as an AI system. In traditional programming, a computer engineer writes a series of directions that instruct a computer how to transform input data into a desired output. AI systems are designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy and function without human involvement. The AI system was defined by the AI Group of Experts at the OECD in 2019 as a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments (Vincent-Lancrin, van der Vlies 2020: 7).
- Price: 4.90 €
Offline Education and Its Immersive Potential: Memory, Postmemory, and History in the Informational Age
Offline Education and Its Immersive Potential: Memory, Postmemory, and History in the Informational Age
(Offline Education and Its Immersive Potential: Memory, Postmemory, and History in the Informational Age)
- Author(s):Dragana Stojanović
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Education
- Page Range:85-93
- No. of Pages:9
- Keywords:Offline education; immersive potential; memory; postmemory; history informational age; posthuman; education Series; posthumanismseries; AI in education; androids at school; anti-humanism; humanism;
- Summary/Abstract:Education and educational techniques have always been closely related to both information and technology – be it an amphitheater built to accentuate the sound of the lecturer, or a book printed and designed to contain technologically as much information as it can hold, and all the way to contemporary hypersphere, where in the world of online plugged-in existences, we learn and we become through a specific bioinfotech era of open ontologies (Ovens 2018). Following Debray’s idea, each and every mediasphere brought not only new technical tool, but it profoundly transformed the way we learn, understand, and act in the world we perceive (Debray 2000; also Bangou, Arnott 2018), and so it goes for online-powered learning, that certainly offered a possibility of blending formal and informal educational techniques, as well as linear and non-linear paths of learning. Also, merging online and offline informational spaces brought the possibilities of extending the education way beyond the classroom, into a certain hybrid space, a ‘thirdspace’ (Green, Hannon 2007: 60), which would itself be a glimpse into the dissolution of boundaries between space and time, or human and machine in the processes of learning. However, it would be too simplistic, and much too soon to make a conclusion that a simple usage of online learning tools would automatically bring posthuman models of functioning, or that media and digital literacies immediately lead to posthumanly oriented amorphous, distributed learning organisms. Saturated with identities, language power-structures, and discursive frameworks, the digital human-centered subject still survives in digital humanistic world; but are we indeed locked within ever-perpetuating humanistic perspective, that actually produced the educational systems as we know them, or we have already touched the posthuman realm in education?
- Price: 4.90 €
Education for Posteriority
Education for Posteriority
(Education for Posteriority)
- Author(s):Alberto Simonetti
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Education, Sociology of Education
- Page Range:95-106
- No. of Pages:12
- Keywords:Posteriority; education; education Series; posthumanismseries; AI in education; androids at school; anti-humanism; humanism; posthumanist education; quantumnormalcy; transhumanism;
- Summary/Abstract:How to educate in posthumanism? A concrete philosophy of education intends to “lead out” (ex-duco in Latin) and this step is achievable only in a process of pure immanence where the human is a singularity among others. The rejection of the humanist yoke promotes the overcoming of the notion of person, because it is an a priori concept, an absolutism that has led to domination over the planet with consequences that endanger the vital core of the Earth.
- Price: 4.90 €
Critical Remarks About Posthumanism
Critical Remarks About Posthumanism
(Critical Remarks About Posthumanism)
- Author(s):Mark Losoncz
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Education, Social Philosophy
- Page Range:109-128
- No. of Pages:20
- Keywords:Critical remarks; posthumanism; education Series; posthumanismseries; AI in education; androids at school; anti-humanism; humanism; posthumanist education; quantumnormalcy; transhumanism;
- Summary/Abstract:Over the past decades, posthumanism has become a kind of buzzword, which, when used as a label, already gives the impression of progressivism. This article warns against posthumanist discourse in four ways. The first thesis is that posthumanism is problematic by its very name. It defines itself in relation to humanism, whose status - at least in posthumanist analyses - is extremely vague and uncertain, and as a social reality can hardly have the power that is attributed to it. I will then briefly outline how man has been viewed in Western thought and what humanism actually is. I will then suggest that the alliance that is assumed between contemporary theories (neo-realist, speculative realist, neo-materialist, object-oriented and others) and post-humanist theories is far from self-evident. On the contrary, several of these theories appear to be explicitly understood as “humanist”. Finally, I will argue that posthumanism is not aware of its own conditions of production. I will offer a possible interpretation that embeds the emergence of posthumanism in the framework of late capitalism, linking the different levels of ideology and the logic of capital, but I will not consider this explanation as exclusive and all-encompassing. In the concluding part of the article, I will discuss the implications of my argument for the relationship between posthumanism and education.
- Price: 4.90 €
Nietzsche Contra Transhumanism
Nietzsche Contra Transhumanism
(Nietzsche Contra Transhumanism)
- Author(s):Miloš Agatonović
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Social Philosophy, 19th Century Philosophy
- Page Range:129-137
- No. of Pages:9
- Keywords:Nietzsche; transhumanism; zeitgeist; contemporary; progress of technology; science; enhancement; Nietzschean; power; ontology; truthfulness; nobility; philosophy;
- Summary/Abstract:The Zeitgeist of the contemporary age is characterized by the progress of technology and science, which enables the enhancement of every aspect of human life, even of human nature itself. The transhumanist movement justifies the enhancement of human nature, while certain theorists regard Nietzsche as a predecessor of transhumanism in those terms. In the book We Have Always Been Cyborgs (2022), Stefan Sorgner develops a conception of transhumanism inspired by his reading of Nietzsche, recommending the use of gene technologies and cyborg technologies as “the most promising means for expanding human boundaries” (Sorgner 2022: 8). Sorgner’s basic premise is the Nietzschean will to power ontology, according to which the will to power as the fundamental drive underlies all human actions, and so, “moral systems and virtues are also a result of this underlying drive” (Sorgner 2022: 116). The will to power ontology represents a naturalistic worldview which enables “Nietzsche’s task of naturalizing ethics”: in virtues, such as “truthfulness” and “nobility” in Nietzsche’s philosophy, “the will to power can find its immediate expression” (Sorgner 2022: 117).
- Price: 2.00 €
Historical Ontology and Critique of the Transhumanist Educational Consciousness
Historical Ontology and Critique of the Transhumanist Educational Consciousness
(Historical Ontology and Critique of the Transhumanist Educational Consciousness)
- Author(s):Marius Markuckas
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Ontology
- Page Range:139-154
- No. of Pages:16
- Keywords:Historical ontology; critique; transhumanist; educational consciousness;
- Summary/Abstract:Some prominent thinkers of the 20th century have pointed out the strong influence philosophical ideas of modernity had on the cultural structure of the contemporary world, and the way they framed the social and political agenda, as well as anthropology (e.g., see Adorno, Horkheimer 2002; Illich 2000; Heidegger 1977; Foucault 1977, Agamben 1998). These ideas enshrined the ideal of perfecting the human and promoted the flourishing of the consciousness, which can be described as ‘educational’. All these thinkers emphasized—albeit in their specific way—the ‘impactual’ nature of such a consciousness emerging from the project of modernity and manifesting itself as a belief in the omnipotence of reality-transforming scientific and technological knowledge, as well as the human as an inseparable part of reality.
- Price: 4.90 €
The Notion of Empathy Between Humanism and Transhumanism
The Notion of Empathy Between Humanism and Transhumanism
(The Notion of Empathy Between Humanism and Transhumanism)
- Author(s):Milana Gajović
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Social Philosophy
- Page Range:155-166
- No. of Pages:12
- Keywords:Notion; empathy; humanism; transhumanism; emotions; darwin; psychology; cognitive neurology; literary theory; philosophy;
- Summary/Abstract:The essential role of emotions as internal states that are related to the way a person enters into a relationship with himself and the outside world, as well as the fact that they are some of the most important indicators of how a person reacts to external (but also internal) stimuli, has increasingly been discussed in psychology, cognitive neurology, literary theory, philosophy, etc. It was only in the 19th century, with Darwin’s studies, that scientific studies of feelings and their connections with biochemical and physiological processes in the human organism began. Until then, they were mainly the subject of philosophical considerations within which they usually played a secondary role in relation to reason.
- Price: 2.00 €
Psychological ‘Normalcy’, Structure and Education
Psychological ‘Normalcy’, Structure and Education
(Psychological ‘Normalcy’, Structure and Education)
- Author(s):Aleksandar Fatić
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Education, Psychology
- Page Range:169-180
- No. of Pages:12
- Keywords:Psychological; normalcy; structure; education; Donald Winnicott; contemporary; figures;British psychoanalysis; relationship; unconscious; generis;
- Summary/Abstract:According to Donald Winnicott, one of the key contemporary figures in British psychoanalysis, our relationship to the world forces us to put up ‘false selves’ that we present to others and, sometimes, to ourselves. Our ‘false selves’ are nice, socially acceptable, collaborative, and empathetic. But they are not our ‘authentic selves’. According to Winnicott, the authentic self is similar to what Carl Jung called ‘the shadow’: they are the less likeable, sometimes delinquent, perverse or violent selves that we hide from the world. What better place to hide an ugly psychological face than in the unconscious, or as I like to call it, subconscious. For we are not entirely unconscious of what is commonly referred to as ‘unconscious’: rather it is a basement of our psychological house, a current of thoughts and feelings running just under our feet, a repository of our forbidden memories, desires and identities that we can sometimes almost feel and touch in our dreams and daydreaming states. It is a subcurrent of our daily perceived reality, a subconscious realm where, according to Winnicott, the ‘authentic self’ resides. According to Winnicott, somewhere between the ‘false self’ that we present to the world and the ‘authentic self’ that we feel when it is dark and we are accountable to no-one, we seek a ‘self’, something we can fixate as our identity. The activity by which we negotiate this road to a self is play. Winnicott’s view is that play is a sui generis adult activity: children grow up by learning to play. Only adults actually play. Thus, most of our life is play in search of a self, and this play progresses by the use of different tools (Winnicott 2006: 71–86).
- Price: 4.90 €
Posthuman Quantum: The Case of Childhood wwwebs
Posthuman Quantum: The Case of Childhood wwwebs
(Posthuman Quantum: The Case of Childhood wwwebs)
- Author(s):Jelena Stojković
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Education, Social Philosophy, Communication studies, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
- Page Range:181-199
- No. of Pages:19
- Keywords:Posthuman; quantum; childhood; habit; idealizing; brief period; simplicity; innocence; purity; fear; darkness; uncertainty;
- Summary/Abstract:When asked, many adults will say that growing up used to be much easier back in time when there was no digital technology. But was it really? The habit of idealizing childhood as brief period of simplicity and innocence found its way to the very heart of academia, especially when it comes to the permeation of digital technology onto every aspect of life. It manifests through concerns about the “disappearance of childhood” and its “intoxication” due to the changes brought by technology (Postman 1982; Palmer 2006). Therefore, we are witnessing young generations growing up in front of the screens, not in playing outside. Even though it is factual that children are spending time in front of many different screens, this habit of childhood idealization could be more detrimental, and it should be questioned. There are a few reasons why. Firstly, childhood is experienced through many encounters with different practices, objects, processes and people, not just digital technology. Secondly, it must be seen beyond chronological frame of past, present and future (Murris 2016). Thirdly, the world was, is and will always be a challenging place to grow up in. Finally, childhood is concerned not just with joy, innocence, and purity but also with fear, darkness, and uncertainty (Mitranić 2021).
- Price: 4.90 €
(A)Maze: Challenges and Potentials of Doing Diffraction in Educational Research
(A)Maze: Challenges and Potentials of Doing Diffraction in Educational Research
((A)Maze: Challenges and Potentials of Doing Diffraction in Educational Research)
- Author(s):Nevena Mitranić Marinković
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Education
- Page Range:201-214
- No. of Pages:14
- Keywords:(A)Maze; challenges; potentials; doing diffraction; educational research; blaze; light; happened; microscopic scale;
- Summary/Abstract:This story might begin in a blaze of light, but as it all happened on a microscopic scale, it was hardly a blaze.Certainly, it revolves around diffraction – the way the waves spread when they meet an obstacle or a slit, changing their previous pathways and creating new patterns through interference. Thus, diffraction is a product of intra-action (Barad 2007) between different factors or agencies, including but not limited to the waves, which participate in the phenomenon (Perold-Bull, Costandius 2019). The most direct example of diffraction would be from observing the surface of the water, but experimental physics noticed the same behavior in all types of waves, including sound and (back to the beginning) light (Barad 2007; Carroll 2020; Holzner 2009).
- Price: 4.90 €
Should Humans Leave School?
Should Humans Leave School?
(Should Humans Leave School?)
- Author(s):Nevena Mitranić Marinković, Predrag Krstić
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Education, School education, State/Government and Education
- Page Range:217-234
- No. of Pages:18
- Keywords:Humans; school; humanity; schooling; school; bell rings; freshly; freedom; children; teacher;
- Summary/Abstract:The school bell rings, and anxiety attacks. Is it going to be another three-quarters of stillness, another three-quarters of waiting to be called out, or the tests emerging from the teacher’s bag all of a sudden? This way or another, there’s no sense of meaning in it – only leaving what you enjoy behind. If you know children, then you know that only a couple would say that they actually like school – and even less that they like it because of learning. You might see them every morning dragging their feet and trying to spend a bit more time in the yards and on the streets just to keep away from another day inside the walls, and in the afternoon, with yet another ring of the bell, you won’t wait long till you see them running out through the doors, with joy and enthusiasm of freshly tasted freedom. School is over – life may begin.
- Price: 4.90 €
