#57 – Sorgner on Nietzschean Transhumanism

In this episode I talk Stefan Lorenz Sorgner. Stefan teaches philosophy at John Cabot University in Rome. He is director and co-founder of the Beyond Humanism Network, Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), Research Fellow at the Ewha Institute for the Humanities at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, and Visting Fellow at the Ethics Centre of the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena. His main fields of research are Nietzsche, the philosophy of music, bioethics and meta-, post- and transhumanism. We talk about his case for a Nietzschean form of transhumanism.

You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher and a variety of other podcasting apps (the RSS feed is here).

Show Notes

• 0:00 – Introduction
• 2:12 – Recent commentary on Stefan’s book Ubermensch
• 3:41 – Understanding transhumanism – getting away from the “humanism on steroids” ideal
• 10:33 – Transhumanism as an attitude of experimentation and not a destination?
• 13:34 – Have we always been transhumanists?
• 16:51 – Understanding Nietzsche
• 22:30 – The Will to Power in Nietzschean philosophy
• 26:41 – How to understand “power” in Nietzschean terms
• 30:40 – The importance of perspectivalism and the abandonment of universal truth
• 36:40 – Is it possible for a Nietzschean to consistently deny absolute truth?
• 39:55 – The idea of the Ubermensch (Overhuman)
• 45:48 – Making the case for a Nietzschean form of transhumanism
• 51:00 – What about the negative associations of Nietzsche?
• 1:02:17 – The problem of moral relativism for transhumanists

Relevant Links

• Stefan’s homepage
• The Ubermensch: A Plea for a Nietzschean Transhumanism – Stefan’s new book (in German)
• Posthumanism and Transhumanism: An Introduction – edited by Stefan and Robert Ranisch
• “Nietzsche, the Overhuman and Tranhumanism” by Stefan (open access)
• “Beyond Humanism: Reflections on Trans and Post-humanism” by Stefan (a response to critics of the previous article)
• Nietzsche at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy