The Epiphany of Becoming Human

What are some of the possible outcomes of the process of humanizing? By presenting
the human as a verb, humanizing, we aim to emphasize its performative
dynamics and its potentials, which may spark different outcomes. Until now,
we have underlined how humanizing can be experienced as an act of self identity by the
subjectivities enacting it (in other terms: “I am human, because the others are not”), and
developed through the us/them paradigm. Such an attitude carries the related risk of
developing into a fetishism of existential primacy, which may consequently justify social
discrepancies sustained by exclusivist paradigms; in its extreme forms, it may eventually
lead to practices of dehumanization and denial, such as slavery and genocide. But there are
other possible outcomes, one of which is what we will refer to as the epiphany of becoming
human. In this other possible outcome, the act of humanizing per se manifests as a location,
as a connector, and as a revelation. In other words: “I am, in my embodied human
experience, and, in relation to others.” In this sense, the recognition of alterity as necessary
to the manifestation of the self brings along ethical responsibilities and deontic significations.
In Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (1961), French philosopher Emmanuel
Lévinas (1906– 95) elaborated on the human to human encounter as a face-to-face
epiphany, which can be epitomized in this sentence, to be found in his essay “Diachrony
and Representation” (1985; Engl. Trans. 1969): “Responsibility for the Other— the face
signifying to me ‘thou shalt not kill,’ and consequently also ‘you are responsible for the life of
this absolutely other Other’—is responsibility for the unique one” (1994: 107–08). It has to be
noticed that, to Lévinas, this “Other” is an absolute Other to which “I” can unilaterally open;
Lévinas takes this stand in response to the subjectivistic tradition of Western philosophy
which, according to him, has predominantly enacted “a reduction of the Other to the Same”
(1969: 43). Although Philosophical Posthumanism also problematizes such unredeemable
reduction, it does not respond to it with the configuration of an absolute Otherness outside of
mediation, 1 but with a pluralistic-monistic deconstruction, 2 according to which the
Other(s) maintain their specific alterity, as well as their shared relationality to the Self. A
relation does not have to comply with a reduction (for instance, during pregnancy the two
bodies of the mother and of the fetus are in a necessary relation that does not resolve in an
assimilation). We shall also mention that, according to Lévinas, the face of the Other is
strictly human, while from a posthumanist approach, this humanist assumption can only be
challenged. 3 In fact, there are different types of epiphanies. Roberto Marchesini, for
instance, presents the notion of “animal epiphany” (2014) to refer to the sense of revelation,
fascination, and/or terror (but not indifference), that humans have always experienced
toward nonhuman animals, and that has been silenced in the historical categorization of the
nonhuman animal as inferior, and/or as an absence. Another posthumanist epiphany to be
addressed, among others, 4 can be epitomized in the encounter of the human with the
“face” of the planet. For instance, in his book The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and
Human Evolution (1998), Frank White defines as “the overview effect” the series of
epiphanies experienced by astronauts looking at the Earth from outer space. To White, the
overview effect is so significant that he affirms: “The Overview Effect may point to
humankind’s purpose as a species” (5). Although evocative, this teleological outcome may
be challenged by addressing the human as a plural notion, that is: How can we detect a
purpose for the human(s) as a species, if the human is not one but many? This question can
be answered in different ways. Nietzsche, for instance, saw the human as a bridge, as
constant potential, 5 focusing mainly on individual drives. Julian Huxley underlined, more
specifically, the great potentials in “the advancement of our species as a whole” (1957: n.
pg.), affirming: “The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself—not just sporadically,
an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as
humanity” (ibidem). In mediated terms, Teilhard de Chardin in his paper “From the
pre-Human to the Ultra-Human: The Phases of a Living Planet” (later published in the book
The Future of Man, 1959, Engl. Trans. 1964) sustained that “the human multitude is moving
as time passes not toward any slackening but rather toward a superstate of psychic tension”
(296–97). More in general, we can claim that humans are related through their biological
intra-actions, and still, they are all very different; from a naturalcultural standpoint,
generalizations on the species may not fully account for personal and historical specificities.
Why is the overview effect significant to the posthuman approach? The realization of the
non-separateness of the human and the planet is particularly relevant in the era of the
Anthropocene, when human activities are heavily impacting the Earth. Furthermore, White
relates this epiphanic shift in consciousness to the specific geographical perspective,6
stating: “Mental processes and views of life cannot be separated from physical location” (3).
The significance of the specific location of the embodied human perspective will be
understood in depth in Part 3, when perspectivism will be presented as an important
component of a philosophical posthumanist epistemology. Before proceeding further in our
reflection on the possible evolutionary, as well as epistemological, consequences of space
migration, we first need to proceed in our investigation on the third constituent of the
“post-human,” which is the human, and ask the question: When and how did humans
become “human”? As we have underlined, the historical outcomes of the notion of the
human have not comprehended all the beings who, for instance, would genetically count as
humans. We shall thus wonder if the historical exclusivism which has characterized the
humanizing process is interconnected to the linguistic, semantic, and etymological
mechanisms which have sustained the notion of the “human.” In other words: Is the notion
of the human inherently biased? This reflection is crucial to Philosophical Posthumanism, in
order to understand if its configuration as a “post” is only a strategic one—a “post” which,
once reaffirmed a comprehensive and non hierarchical approach of the “human,” could be
erased again (that is, getting rid of the “post” and going back to the “human”). Or, if such a
linguistic move (that is, relocating the human through the “post”) is necessary in order to
reveal different epiphanies, which could not be sustained within paradigms denoted and
connoted by the historical notion of the human. The only way to achieve an answer to this
question is by accessing the term archaeologically.
Let’s start by reviewing its vocabulary definitions. For instance, the Oxford Dictionary
describes the adjective “human,” as “relating to or characteristic of humankind” (Oxford
Dictionaries Online: entry “Human,” n. pg.), further defining it as: “1. of or characteristic of
people as opposed to God or animals or machines, especially in being susceptible to
weaknesses; 2. showing the better qualities of humankind, such as kindness; 3. Zoology of
or belonging to the genus Homo” (ibidem). The first denotation poses the human through
three consecutive oppositions (“I am human because I am not God / animal / machine”). It
thus relies on the technique of the concave mirror (that is, defining what is the human
through what it is not), and so it does not answer our question, which is: What is the human?
The second one defines it through moral characteristics. By choosing to affiliate the notion of
the human with “the better qualities” of humankind, it reflects an anthropophilic preference;
this bias does not allow us to account for it scientifically. The third one defines the human
through its taxonomical classification, and it may operate as the closest apparatus of
scientific significance to our archaeological goal. We will start from here to understand what
contemporary society is reiterating as a supposedly “neutral” notion of the human—that is,
what is often taken for granted when using the term “human.” In order to do this, we will start
by analyzing its etymology, which simultaneously covers the etymology of the taxonomical
classification of the human as Homo. Before proceeding, we shall mention that, although this
study will mostly focus on the limits and on the potentials of the term “human” in this
particular linguistic outfit, different doors may open when addressing the notion of the
“human” through different languages and cultural traditions.