Beyond Humanisms
In the first part of this paper a short history of Western humanisms (Socrates, Pico della Mirandola, Descartes, Kant) is presented. As far as these humanisms rest on a fixation of the ‘humanum’ they are metaphysical, although they might radically differ from each other. The second part deals with the present debate on trans- and posthumanism in the context of some breath-taking developments in science and technology.
Angeletics, a theory of messengers and messages, intends to give an answer to the leading question of this paper, namely: ‘what does it mean to go beyond humanisms?’ The conclusion exposes briefly an ethics of hospitality and care from an angeletic perspective.