Humanity 2.0 What it Means to be Human Past, Present and Future [Paperback]

Social thinkers in all fields are faced with one unavoidable question: What does it mean to be human in the 21st century? This ambitious and groundbreaking book provides the first synthesis of historical, philosophical and sociological insights needed to address this question in a thoughtful and creative manner.Introduction: What is Humanity 2.0?? Humanity Poised Between Biology and Ideology? Defining the Human: The Always Ready - Or Never To Be - Object of the Social Sciences?? A Policy Blueprint for Humanity 2.0: The Converging Technologies Agenda? A Theology 2.0 for Humanity 2.0: Thinking Outside the Neo-Darwinian Box? Conclusion: In Search of Humanity 2.0's Moral Horizon - Or, How to Suffer Smart in the 21st Century

'Fuller is the closest thing to a Foucault writing today in the English language.' - Metascience

'Takes the debate up a level (if not several levels) in terms of active and considered engagement with the future.' - BioCentre, http://bit.ly/rthOsV

'This is a brave and interesting book, which combines discourses that should mutually engage, but normally do not: biological and theological discussions of humanity , discussions of transhumanism and evolution, and the policy discussions of convergent technology. Connecting them provides an opportunity to rethink the category of the human. Steve Fuller grasps this opportunity with gusto, in an accessible and wide-ranging overview.' - Professor Stephen Turner, University of South Florida, USA

'Humanity 2.0 offers a wide-ranging and timely account of the next stage of technoscience: the development of a new stage of humanity. Fuller bridges the concerns of science studies and science policy, exploring the historical and philosophical currents underlying the creation of a new biotechnological species, and highlights how the technoscientific industrial complex seeks to construct a new humanity as both product and consumer.' - Robert Frodeman, lÔ