Human enhancement, ectogenesis and immortality
Russian cosmism and the archeology of the transhumanism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23925/2176-2767.2022v75p89-119Keywords:
cosmism, eugenics, transhumanism, Julian HuxleyAbstract
To understand the relevance of transhumanist proposals in contemporary times, this article aims to recover their historicity, from the proposals for the technological improvement of the human body by Russian cosmists to the irradiation of their ideas in the USA and England, through from writings by liberal and left-wing geneticists. The culmination of this process will be the creation of the term “transhumanism”, in 1957, by Julian Huxley. In this research, some of these influences will be unfolded, as well as the conceptual challenge in approaching this theme, due to the scarcity of research. Such an undertaking is hampered by the gap created in understanding the implications of eugenics after 1945 mistakenly associated with Nazism.
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