Janos Boros

The notions of representationalism and antirepresentationalism are introduced and used in contemporary philosophical discussions by Richard Rorty to describe his and the neopragmatists' attitude toward traditional problems of epistemology. Rorty means that the history of philosophy shows that there are no final answers to the traditional questions about knowledge, truth, and representation; consequently, they should be rejected. Rorty thinks such questions should be eliminated from philosophy since there is no possibility to get outside of our mind and language. We cannot say anything about a mind-transcendent or language-transcendent, nonlocal or eternal reality. Hilary Putnam agrees with Rorty on this, but not with the conclusion that we should reject traditional philosophical questions. For Putnam, the epistemological questions are worthwhile asking and, although we cannot find the final correct answers, we should continue our investigations as if there were final answers. Our struggles with those problems can lead to refinements of the formulations and to cognitive developments. Putnam proposes a quasirealism which is often called "internal realism." Rorty rejects every refinement of realism as still realism and believes that the questions of knowledge, truth, and representation lead to regresses ad infinitum or to circular reasoning.

Contemporary progress in life sciences, particularly in genetic engineering, is changing our concept of "human being" and a whole series of other philosophical and common notions. The conventional idea of "subject" will no longer be the final reference for philosophical thinking, since even the subject qua biological or psychological structure will enjoy a high degree of unpredictability. The results of gene technology require reinterpreting such concepts as reproduction, individuality, history, freedom and subjectivity. This paper focuses on the question of freedom, where freedom means the capacity to deliberate and choose between different alternatives of action. We hold that the issue of freedom is relevant for genetics. Considering that genes can "decide" between alternatives, it is possible to speak about the freedom of genes, at least in a metaphoric sense. It has been suggested that genes are "more free" than human beings because they encoded us. The human genome program thus helps us to understand what kind of structures human beings are dependent upon. The main question that we address in this paper concerns the entire human genome project and all its implications including the functions and effects of each gene, the possibility of technological manipulation, what kind of freedom, history, and "human being" will eventually "survive."