ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how transhumanists and other techno-optimists are confused about their own conception of the posthuman: they anticipate radical transformation of the human through technology and, at the same time, assume that the criteria to determine what is “normal” and what is “enhanced” are univocal, both in our present time and in the future. Inspired by Nietzsche’s notion of the Overhuman, it is demonstrated that the slightest historical and phenomenological sense discloses copious variations of criteria, both diachronic and synchronic, of what can be considered “normal” and “enhanced.” Technologies that instigate radical transformations are not neutral means but often bring about different and, from our current perspective, foreign standards for determining what are “normal” and “enhanced” capacities. Since the qualitative meanings of these terms are themselves not fixed, it is unintelligible and too reassuring to simply predict that new technologies will enhance human beings. Against this background, it is concluded that the very notion of “human enhancement” needs to be reinterpreted, namely in terms of “sublimation.”
