Élie Metchnikoff, the First Modern Transhumanist?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/asclepio.2022.17Keywords:
Transhumanism, Élie Metchnikoff, Human Enhancement, Aging, MortalityAbstract
Élie Metchnikoff, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1908 and Pasteur’s successor, was undoubtedly a very intellectually fertile man. His pioneering research in a wide variety of scientific areas, such as modern gerontology, thanatology, and immunology, confirms this. But is it also possible to consider him as the first modern transhumanist? The objective of this article is to study the appropriateness of attributing him such a title. To do so, we will analyze his life and work from a transhumanist point of view. We will first examine how Metchnikoff conceived the nature of our species; then we will outline how his project of human improvement might be presented; and finally, we will expose his interesting conception of human mortality. There are two incentives for this research: to rescue Metchnikoff’s thought under this novel perspective for Spanish-speaking readers, and the need to critically observe any proposal that aspires to overcome the limits of humanity.
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