“Human and Non-Human Entanglements: An Intercultural Approach”

Abstract of the event theme

In recent years, the term “post-human” has gained popularity within the humanities. This term, although open to multiple interpretations, seeks to challenge the conventional understanding of the “human” by exploring how technology and interactions with other species blur the boundaries of “humanness”. For example, some countries like Colombia recognize nature, such as mountains and rivers, as “subjects of rights”; in other places, big apes are sometimes regarded as “non-human persons”. This means that “personhood” is not univocally human. Are humans ontologically superior to other beings? How can we ethically approach “nonhuman” entities without imposing our own perspective and thus avoid an anthropocentric viewpoint? These questions will be at the center of our workshop, which adopts a multidisciplinary and intercultural approach.

In this sense, some key questions become urgent:

1. What insights can be gained by incorporating non-European intellectual traditions and perspectives in the study of the human-non human relation? How do these perspectives expand our understanding of human, nature?
2. How is the human-non-human relationship thought of in other philosophical traditions such as Japanese, Brasilian or Philippine philosophy? In what sense were the “ways of being” of human and non-human represented?
3. How can conceive ethical relations that are not based in the category of
   “humanness”? How can we build “post-human” ethics, or at least, non-anthropocentric ethics?

Guest Speakers

Orika Komatsubara (Osaka University)
Pedro Erber (Waseda University)
Soichiro Mihara (independent artist)
Preciosa Regina de Joya (Singapore University of Social Sciences)
Felipe Cuervo (Kyoto University) : moderator

Program

More information

japanesephilosophy@outlook.com