A special talk with Robert Bernasconi: Whither humanity? What may I hope for?

Human beings live from hope, but what can humanity hope for? In this talk I advocate for what I call aspirational humanism where humanity is conceived, not as a biological species that is already given, but as a possibility that we must strive to create. This sense of a humanity that is still underway has at historical moments performed a vital liberatory and unifying function against attempts to view humanity hierarchically, whether in terms of race, gender, or education. Today the old humanism faces new challenges that call for it to be reformulated. In the face of climate change it is necessary to correct the tendency of traditional humanism to neglect humanity’s embeddedness in the world. The growing dominance of artificial intelligence leading to ideas about a digital superintelligence presents a different kind of challenge to humanism because, under the name of antihumanism, it is being used to form a new basis for a very old form of racism. Humanism as a philosophical movement may seem old-fashioned and in some of its forms it is, but there is still a need for an aspirational humanism.

Join us April 28, 2 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. in the A&S Auditorium.