Humanity 2.0: What it Means to be Human Past, Present and Future

by S. Fuller

Overview

Social thinkers in all fields are faced with one unavoidable question: What does it mean to be human in the 21st century? This ambitious and groundbreaking book provides the first synthesis of historical, philosophical and sociological insights needed to address this question in a thoughtful and creative manner.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230233430
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	10/06/2011
Edition description:	2011
Pages:	265
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Steve Fuller is Augustus Comte Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK.He is author of eighteen books including Humanity 2.0: What It Means to be Human Past, Present and Future, Dissent over Descent: Intelligent Design's Challenge to Darwinism, Kuhn vs Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science, The Intellectual and Science vs Religion? Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution. His work has been translated into twenty languages.

Table of Contents

Introduction: What is Humanity 2.0? Humanity Poised Between Biology and Ideology Defining the Human: The Always Ready - Or Never To Be - Object of the Social Sciences? A Policy Blueprint for Humanity 2.0: The Converging Technologies Agenda A Theology 2.0 for Humanity 2.0: Thinking Outside the Neo-Darwinian Box Conclusion: In Search of Humanity 2.0's Moral Horizon - Or, How to Suffer Smart in the 21st Century

Editorial Reviews

'Fuller is the closest thing to a Foucault writing today in the English language.' - Metascience

'Takes the debate up a level (if not several levels) in terms of active and considered engagement with the future.' - BioCentre, http://bit.ly/rthOsV

'This is a brave and interesting book, which combines discourses that should mutually engage, but normally do not: biological and theological discussions of "humanity", discussions of transhumanism and evolution, and the policy discussions of convergent technology. Connecting them provides an opportunity to rethink the category of the human. Steve Fuller grasps this opportunity with gusto, in an accessible and wide-ranging overview.' - Professor Stephen Turner, University of South Florida, USA

'Humanity 2.0 offers a wide-ranging and timely account of the next stage of technoscience: the development of a new stage of humanity. Fuller bridges the concerns of science studies and science policy, exploring the historical and philosophical currents underlying the creation of a new biotechnological species, and highlights how the technoscientific industrial complex seeks to construct a new humanity as both product and consumer.' - Robert Frodeman, Director, Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity, University of North Texas, USA

'Our understanding of humanity is sure to evolve in the course of this century, and this book enables us to think critically about our prospects.' - The Scientific and Medical Network Review

"Humanity 2.0 can be considered a milestone in Fuller's work." - Francis Remedios, LSE Review of Books

Interview with Steve Fuller: http://www.exponentialtimes.net/videos/steve-fuller-humanity-20

From the Publisher