•  18
    Giving Birth, Transhumanism and Human Nature
    Revista de Filosofia Aurora 33 (59): 631-651. 2021.
    Philosopher Fiona Wollard recently advocated interpreting the achievements of women while giving birth. People readily recognize men-related achievements, like running a marathon, but not achievements related to giving birth. We expand on Woollard's notion of reproductive achievements, comparing them with ideas of human enhancement, which aims at humans becoming "stronger and faster". Criticisms to evolutionary psychology challenge its defense of a notion of a fixed human nature, and its disrega…Read more
  •  7
    Religious transhumanism and its critics
    Horizonte 206118-206118. forthcoming.
    Resenha do livro de GOUW, Arvin M.; GREEN, Brain Patrick; PETER, Ted (orgs.). _Religious transhumanism and its critics_. Lanham, MD: Lexington / Rowman & Littlefield, 2022. 494 p. ISBN 978-1-4985-8413-5.
  •  399
    Bodily Alienation, Natality and Transhumanism
    Arendt Studies 6 139-168. 2023.
    Transhumanism proposes human enhancement while regarding the human body as unfit for the future. This fulfills age-old aspirations for a perfect and durable body. We use “alienation” as a concept to analyze this mismatch between human aspirations and our current condition. For Hannah Arendt alienation may be accounted for in terms of earth- and world-alienation, as well as alienation from human nature, and especially from the given (“resentment of the given”). In transhumanism, the biological bo…Read more
  •  231
    Giving Birth, Transhumanism and Human Nature
    Revista de Filosofia Aurora 33 (May/August): 631-651. 2021.
    Philosopher Fiona Wollard recently advocated interpreting the achievements of women while giving birth. People readily recognize men-related achievements, like running a marathon, but not achievements related to giving birth. We expand on Woollard's notion of reproductive achievements, comparing them with ideas of human enhancement, which aims at humans becoming "stronger and faster". Criticisms to evolutionary psychology challenge its defense of a notion of a fixed human nature, and its di…Read more
  •  367
    The Human and Beyond: Transhumanism, Historicity, Humanness
    Theology and Science 19 (04/2021): 1-16. 2021.
    “Historicity” describes the human condition during one’s life course, marked by contingency and freedom, temporality and finitude. The concept also occurs in evolutionary biology, social sciences and psychology, highlighting history and context. Hannah Arendt situates the capacity for new beginnings at the essence of human beings (natality), allowing for new generations. Transhumanist narratives are shown as foreign to the concept of historicity due to a view of human nature, the load of …Read more
  •  9
    Revisitando dois paradigmas na Ciência da Religião
    Horizonte 589-589. forthcoming.
    O estudo da religião envolve tipologias para o investigador na compreensão teórica do campo. Propõe-se aqui uma tipologia em termos de paradigmas, o newtoniano e o romântico. Após uma explicação sobre o significado da nomenclatura, colocam-se no início histórico de primeiro paradigma as regras de método do próprio Newton. Desenvolve-se daí uma das noções de razão no iluminismo, que por sua vez permitiu a elaboração do pensamento positivista no sec. XIX. Nomes importantes para a ciência da religi…Read more
  •  901
    Creatvity, Human and Transhuman: The Childhood Factor
    Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 22 (2): 156-190. 2018.
    Transhumanists, like other elites in modernity, place great value on human creativity, and advances in human enhancement and AI form the basis of their propos- als for boosting it. However, there are problems with this perspective, due to the unique ways in which humans have evolved, procreated and socialized. I first describe how creativity is related to past evolution and developmental aspects in children, stressing pretend play and the ambivalent character of creativity. Then, I outline propo…Read more
  •  425
    The goal of Transhumanism is to change the human condition through radical enhancement of its positive traits and through AI (Artificial Intelligence). Among these traits the transhumanists highlight creativity. Here we first describe human creativity at more fundamental levels than those related to the arts and sciences when, for example, childhood is taken into account. We then admit that creativity is experienced on both its bright and dark sides. In a second moment we describe attempts to im…Read more
  •  79
    Transhumanist thought on overpopulation usually invokes the welfare of present human beings and the control over future generation, thus minimizing the need and meaning of new births. Here we devise a framework for a more thorough screening of the relevant literature, to have a better appreciation of the issue of natality. We follow the lead of Hannah Arendt and Brent Waters in this respect. With three overlapping categories of words, headed by “natality,” “birth,” and “intergenerations,” a larg…Read more
  •  1689
    Some transhumanists argue that we must engage with theories and facts about our evolutionary past in order to promote future enhancements of the human body. At the same time, they call our attention to the flawed character of evolution and argue that there is a mismatch between adaptation to ancestral environments and contemporary life. One important trait of our evolutionary past which should not be ignored, and yet may hinder the continued perfection of humankind, is the peculiarly human way o…Read more
  •  50
    Many scientists have argued forcefully for the pointlessness of nature, something that challenges any doctrine of Creation. However, apparent design and comprehensibility are also to be found in nature; it is ambivalent. This trait is nowhere more evident than in the natural inclinations that lead to concupiscence and the “seven deadly sins” in human beings. These inclinations are dealt with as pertaining to the “pre-fallen” condition of nature and human beings. As a framework to make sense of t…Read more
  •  56
    Ralph Wendell Burhoe and the two cultures
    Zygon 30 (4): 591-612. 1995.
    Ralph Burhoe developed his proposals for a social reformation at a time when the “two cultures” debate was still active. It is suggested here that Burhoe, sharing with his contemporaries an understanding of culture that was Western and normative in character, overlooked the distinction between the culture of the elites and popular culture, and consequently between religion as presented by theologians and church officials and popular religion. Therefore, his proposals for the revitalization of tr…Read more