The Obsolescence of the Human

by Günther Anders, Christopher John Müller (Translator), Christian Dries (Editor), Christopher John Müller (Editor)

Overview

Now available in English—one of the twentieth century’s most important works on the philosophy of technology


With this first English translation of influential German philosopher Günther Anders’s 1956 masterpiece of critical theory, The Obsolescence of the Human, a new generation of readers can now engage with his prescient and haunting vision of a “world without us” dominated by technology.

Looking at technological events such as the detonation of the nuclear bomb and the arrival of televisions in our living rooms, Anders advances a warning of what humanity looks like in a world where it has surrendered all agency. He outlines the new emotional landscapes that shape our relationship to increasingly capable technology, including Promethean shame, the human sense of unease our own superior technological innovations can instill. Confronting the growing gap between what we can collectively create and what we can individually comprehend, Anders speculates on the trajectory of a developing technological world that rapidly exceeds our ability to control or even foresee its negative consequences.

 

The Obsolescence of the Human prefigures contemporary posthumanist discourse and is eerily predictive of current debates around automation, global warming, and artificial intelligence. Providing new ways to conceptualize the intersection of technology and emotion, it offers groundbreaking frameworks for future-oriented ethics. Radical in both its stylistic experimentation and its theoretical insights, this new translation presents a cautionary tale regarding the human capacity to usher in its own destruction.

 

 

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781517912659
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	12/23/2025
Series:	Posthumanities , #75
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Günther Anders (1902-1992) was one of the twentieth century’s preeminent thinkers. He is author of more than thirty books and wrote extensively on topics spanning from philosophy to politics to art.

 

Christopher John Müller is senior lecturer in the School of Communication, Society, and Culture at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He is author of Prometheanism: Technology, Digital Culture, and Human Obsolescence.

 

Christian Dries is head of the Günther Anders Research Centre at the University of Freiburg in Germany and chairman of the International Günther Anders Society.

Table of Contents

Contents

Translator’s Preface

The Obsolescence of the Human, Volume 1

Preface to the Fifth German Edition

Introduction

1. On Promethean Shame

2. The World as Phantom and Matrix: Philosophical Reflections on Radio and Television

I. The Home-Delivered World

II. The Phantom

III. The Notification

IV. The Matrix

V. A Leap into General Perspectives

3. Being without Time: On Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

4. On the Bomb and the Roots of Our Apocalypse Blindness

I. Opening Shock Observations

II. What the Bomb Is Not

III. The Human Is Smaller Than Itself

IV. Development of Moral Imagination and the Plasticity of Feeling

V. The Historical Roots of Apocalypse Blindness

VI. Annihilation and Nihilism

VII. Concluding Remarks

VIII. Appendices

Editors’ Postscript. Scenes of Obsolescence: Günther Anders and the Method of Occasional Philosophy

Translator’s Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"Even though this translation arrives decades late, it is perhaps even more relevant to today’s technological condition—one in which Promethean shame becomes increasingly apparent: artificial intelligence is widely believed to soon surpass human capabilities. Günther Anders’s cultural pessimism serves as a counterpoint to contemporary technological optimism, but more importantly, his reflections on human obsolescence and its relation to the technological world challenge many prevailing myths and offer critical insights for contemplating the posthuman future."—Yuk Hui, author of Machine and Sovereignty: For a Planetary Thinking

From the Publisher