Humanity 2.0 [electronic resource] : What it Means to be Human Past, Present and Future /
Fuller, S.author.
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.
Description based upon print version of record.
Cover; Contents; List of Tables; Introduction: What is Humanity 2.0?; Chapter 1 Humanity Poised Between Biology and Ideology; 1 Science's twin taboos: Race and religion; 2 Sociology's official anti-biologism and unofficial soft racism; 3 Alternative biological foundations of the modern welfare state: Germany and Scandinavia; 4 Britain's curious erasure of both biology and sociology: 1907 and all that; 5 Methodological interlude: Towards a normative historiography of science; 6 Memes vs. genes: Humanity's perennial need to decouple ideology from biology
7 One step back to Weimar: The New Left's retrenchment of human embodiment8 Two steps beyond Darwin: Disembodying humanity in the search for extraterrestrial life; Chapter 2 Defining the Human: The Always Already - or Never to be - Object of the Social Sciences?; 1 Does the success of the social sciences depend on our humanity?; 2 The precariousness of the human: Why Foucault is (unfortunately) correct; 3 Humanity as a bipolar disorder and the legacy of John Duns Scotus; 4 Renaturalisation as dehumanisation: The long march back to Scotland
5 Recapitulating humanity's bipolar disorder: Towards a theory of mendicant modernities6 The fugitive essence of 'The Human': Towards Humanity 2.0?; Chapter 3 A Policy Blueprint for Humanity 2.0: The Converging Technologies Agenda; 1 Converging technologies as public relations for science; 2 The transatlantic stakes in the CT agenda; 3 Defining 'convergence' in converging technologies: Ontological levelling; 4 CT's fixation on nanotechnology: The resurgence of the chemical worldview; 5 Better living through biology: A hidden theme in the history of social science
6 The transhumanist challenge: Can CT 'enhance evolution'?7 Conclusions: The prospects for the CT agenda; Chapter 4 A Theology 2.0 for Humanity 2.0: Thinking Outside the Neo-Darwinian Box; 1 Theology at its worst: Philosophy of science as neo-Darwinian apologetics; 2 Theology at its best: Intelligent design as heuristic for scientific discovery; 3 Theology as a source of empowerment in science education; 4 Joseph Priestley's Theology 2.0: The completion of Newton's Unitarian project; 5 Teilhard de Chardin's Theology 2.0: The completion of divine creation itself
Chapter 5 Conclusion: In Search of Humanity 2.0's Moral Horizon - Or, How to Suffer Smart in the21st Century1 Divine suffering and its human remediation, aka distributive justice; 2 The human simulation of divine legislation, aka justified suffering; 3 How might suffering be justified in the days to come?; 4 Can either wisdom or prophecy justify suffering in a secular age?; 5 The dawn of suffering smart: Recycling evil in the name of good; Bibliography; Index
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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.
Religion and sociology.
Human body—Social aspects.
Sociology.
Popular works.
Philosophy and science.
Anthropology.
Sociology of Religion.
Sociology of the Body.
Sociology, general.
Popular Science, general.
Philosophy of Science.
Anthropology.