Review of Maggi Savin-Baden (Ed.). (2021). Postdigital Humans: Transitions, Transformations and Transcendence

Abstract

What does it mean to be human? If this question could once have been assumed to have a stable answer, this is no longer the case. Artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and cognitive enhancement are just a few categories of emerging technologies which are widely regarded as inviting a reappraisal of the core category of the human being. There are multiple reasons for this which often overlap in how this perceived challenge is explained, such as a transformation of human biological characteristics, a radical increase in psychophysical inequalities between humans or mundane dependence upon non-biological intelligences. In spite of the conceptually messy character of this field, there is an emerging consensus within both scientific and popular debates that there is a challenge which needs to be addressed. It should be noted this is not a new project, with a clear genealogy linking the anti-humanism of twentieth century continental philosophy and the posthumanism which occupies a roughly homologous position within contemporary social thought. However, there is something new about the vigour with which this project is being pursued, motivated in part by the ubiquity of once fantastical devices as newly mundane features of our social life. Postdigital Humans: Transitions, Transformations and Transcendence (SavinBaden 2021) is a welcome contribution to this debate, with the potential to speak to these discussions while also moving them forward through the introduction of the postdigital alongside the more familiar framings of posthumanism and transhumanism. Postdigital thought sets itself in opposition to the determinism and hyperbole which characterised treatments of the digital in the late twentieth and early twentyfirst century, instead proceeding from ‘contemporary disenchantment with digital information systems and media gadgets’ and the recognition that ‘our fascination