아이러니와 기계, 인간 : 휴머니즘과 포스트휴머니즘

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

  What is man? This question has haunted the humanities for more than twenty years, along with post humanism debates. Robert Scholes chose The Humanities in a Posthumanist World as the topic for his MLA presidential address in 2004, reflecting some popular contention that human as a species has come to an end already. However, the division between humanism and posthumanism is not so clear as is supposed. Because the humanity of Man, which should have been taken for granted, has always been in question. As Heidegger made clear in his discussions about Dasein, the Human is a being questioning the meaning of existence. It follows that humanism has never achieved a coherent and seamless discourse of humanity. This paper is an attempt to think, in terms of irony, about the difference between humanism and posthumanism on the one hand, and humans and inhumans on the other. As a literary trope, irony names a split of meaning, saying one thing but meaning another. Socrates, one of the most examplary ironists in history, tried to speak truth but found himself meaning something else. Friedrich von Schlegel interpreted Socratic irony as the consequence of the inner split of his consciousness: he has two consciousnesses positing Ⅰ and non-Ⅰ at the same time. And for Beaudelaire, ironic consciousness stretches over the two extremes, of divinity and inhumanity, and of superiority and inferiority, swinging between the two. Because of such a wide range of human consciousness, Man cannot laugh at beings such as animals and machines. Only when one forgets one"s dual natures and falsely becomes identified with a higher extreme, one can afford to laugh. Bergson"s famous falling man in Laughter presents such an example. Observers can laugh at the falling man only when they found him machine-like, somewhat below humanity. By underestimating the other as a machine, they are pleased to recognize their proud humanity. Their laugh is the consequence of their forgetting one half of their existence. For Beaudelaire, only the wise man ironically laughs at himself, at his inhumanity in the midst of his supposed humanity. Ironic man experiences the self alternately as human and as machine, human and pre-or post-human. Irony names such a moment where humanism becomes posthumanism and vice versa. The question about the difference between human and inhuman is also a question about the non-difference between them. Man has never been fully and sufficiently human and has always been both at the end and the beginning of humanity. If so, posthumanist discourse distinguishing itself from humanism as if the two were opposing categories cannot be sustained. And an alarm about the end of man, thus, is a false one.

참고문헌 (Reference)

1 도미니크 바뱅, "포스트휴먼과의 만남" 궁리 2007

2 위르겐 하버마스, "의사소통행위이론" 나남출판 2006

3 앙리 베르그송, "웃음: 희극성의 의미에 관한 시론" 세계사 1992

4 클라우디아 스프링거, "사이버 에로스: 탈산업시대의 육체와 욕망" 한나래 1998

5 프랜시스 후쿠야마, "부자의 유전자, 가난한 자의 유전자" 한국경제신문 2003

6 스튜어트 심, "리오타르와 비인간" 이제이북스 2003

7 Badmington, Neil, "Theorizing Posthumanism" 53 : 10-27,

8 Foucault,Michel, "The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences" Vintage Books 1973

9 Glickberg, Charles, "The Ironic Vision in Modern Literature" Martinus Nkjhoff 1969

10 Lyotard, Jean-Francis, "The Inhuman: Reflections on Time. Trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby" Stanford UP 1991

11 Derrida, Jacques, "The Ends of Man” in Margins of Philosophy" U of Chicago P 109-136, 1982

12 Gray,Chris Hables, "The Cyborg Handbook" Routledge 1995

13 Lewis,C.S., "The Abolition of Man" Harper 1974

14 Balsamo, Anne, "Technologies of the Gendered Body" Duke UP 1995

15 de Man, Paul, "Semiology and Rhetoric.in: Allegories of Reading" Yale UP 3-19, 1979

16 de Man, Paul, "Rhetoric of Temporality.in: Blindness and Insight" U of Minnesota P 1983

17 Plato. Greater Hippias, "Plato: The Collected Dialogues" Princeton UP 1963

18 Readings, Bill, "Pagans, Perverts or Primitives? Experimental Justice in the Empire of Capital in:Posthumanism" Palgrave 112-128, 2000

19 Heidegger, Martin, "Letter on Humanism.in: Basic Writings" Harper 189-242, 1977

20 Bergson, Henri, "Le Rire: Essai sur la signification de comique" Quadrige/PUF 1983

21 Ostry, Elaine, "Is He Still Human? Are You?’: Young Adult Science Fiction in the Posthuman Age" 28 (28): 222-246, 2004

22 Oesterreich, Peter, "Irony in:Encyclopeida of Rhetoric" 404-406, 2001

23 Preminger, Alex, "Irony in: Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics" Princeton UP 407-408, 1974

24 Behler,Ernst, "Irony and the Discourse of Modernity" U of Washington P 1990

25 Gilligan,Carol, "In a Different Voice" Harvard UP 1982

26 Davis, Tony, "Humanism" Routledge 1997

27 Hayles, Katherine, "How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics" U of Chicago P 1999

28 Sterling, Bruce, "Holy Fire" Bantam 1997

29 Althusser, Louis, "For Marx. Trans. Ben Brewster" Verso 1969

30 Descartes, Rene, "Discourse on Method and Related Writings. Trans. Desmond Clarke" Penguin 1999

31 Baudelaire, Charles, "De l’essence du rire.” Baudelaire Oeuvres Comple?tes" Gallimard 525-543, 1976

32 Rorty,Richard, "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" Cambridge UP 1989

33 Heffernan, Teresa, "Bovine Anxieties, Virgin Births, and the Secret of Life" 53 : 116-133,

34 Haraway, Donna, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. in: Posthumanism" Palgrave 2000