![Stefan Sorgner](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Stefan_Sorgner.jpg)
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner is a German metahumanist philosopher, a
Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, Prose poetry, prose poet, cultural critic, Philology, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philo ...
scholar, a
philosopher of music and an authority in the field of
ethics of emerging technologies.
Life
Sorgner was born on 15 October 1973 in
Wetzlar
Wetzlar () is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany. It is the twelfth largest city in Hesse with currently 55,371 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019 (including second homes). As an important cultural, industrial and commercial center, the un ...
(Germany). He studied philosophy at
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
(BA), the
University of Durham
Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...
(MA by thesis; examiners:
David E. Cooper, Durham; David Owen, Southampton), the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen and the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (Dr. phil.; Examiners:
Wolfgang Welsch, Jena;
Gianni Vattimo
Gianteresio Vattimo (born 4 January 1936) is an Italian philosopher and politician.
Biography
Gianteresio Vattimo was born in Turin, Piedmont. He studied philosophy under the existentialist Luigi Pareyson at the University of Turin, and graduat ...
, Turin). He taught philosophy and ethics at the Universities of
Giessen
Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univer ...
,
Jena
Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a popu ...
,
Erfurt
Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...
and
Erlangen
Erlangen (; East Franconian German, East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian language, Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative d ...
.
Currently, he teaches at a US Liberal Arts College,
John Cabot University
John Cabot University (JCU) is a private American-style university in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1972 and it offers undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees, and study abroad programs to English-speaking students. The university has more tha ...
. Sorgner is a member of several editorial and advisory boards.
Nietzsche, posthumanism and transhumanism
In issue 20(1) of the
Journal of Evolution and Technology
The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) is a technoprogressive think tank that seeks to "promote ideas about how technological progress can increase freedom, happiness, and human flourishing in democratic societies."Joseph R. ...
, Sorgner's article “Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism” was published in which he shows that there are significant similarities between Nietzsche's concept of the overhuman and the concept of the
posthuman
Posthuman or post-human is a concept originating in the fields of science fiction, futurology, contemporary art, and philosophy that means a person or entity that exists in a state beyond being human. The concept aims at addressing a variety of ...
according to the view of some transhumanists.
His interpretation brought about a response both among Nietzsche scholars as well as among transhumanists. The editors of the Journal of Evolution and Technology dedicated a special issue to the question concerning the relationship between
transhumanism
Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition.
Transhuma ...
, Nietzsche and European posthumanist philosophies (
posthumanism
Posthumanism or post-humanism (meaning "after humanism" or "beyond humanism") is an idea in continental philosophy and critical theory responding to the presence of anthropocentrism in 21st century thought. It encompasses a wide variety of bran ...
). Vol. 21 Issue 1 – January 2010 of the Journal of Evolution and Technology was entitled "Nietzsche and European Posthumanisms"
and it included responses to Sorgner's article, for example by
Max More,
Michael Hauskeller
Michael may refer to:
People
* Michael (given name), a given name
* Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael
Given name "Michael"
* Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and ...
.
Due to the intense debate, the editors of the journal decided to give Sorgner the chance to react to the articles.
In vol. 21 Issue 2 – October 2010, Sorgner replied to the various responses in his article "Beyond Humanism: Reflections on Trans- and Posthumanism".
In addition, herein he also put forward some aspects of his own philosophical position which was strongly influenced by his teacher
Gianni Vattimo
Gianteresio Vattimo (born 4 January 1936) is an Italian philosopher and politician.
Biography
Gianteresio Vattimo was born in Turin, Piedmont. He studied philosophy under the existentialist Luigi Pareyson at the University of Turin, and graduat ...
. He accepts
Vattimo's pensiero debole, but criticises
Vattimo's understanding of the history of the weakening of being.
As an alternative, Sorgner suggests a this-worldly, naturalist and perspectivist interpretation of the world, which he explained in more detail in his 2010 monograph "Menschenwürde nach Nietzsche: Die Geschichte eines Begriffs" (WBG, Darmstadt 2010). Sorgner regards "
Nihilism
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...
", as described by Nietzsche, "entirely a gain": „From the perspective of my perspectivism, this also means that the prevalent conception of human dignity has no higher status in hitting truth as correspondence to reality than the conceptions of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
or
Pol Pot
Pol Pot; (born Saloth Sâr;; 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian revolutionary, dictator, and politician who ruled Cambodia as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1976 and 1979. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist a ...
." After bioethicists, and transhumanists had discussed the relationship between Nietzsche and transhumanism, the debate was taken up by some leading Nietzsche scholars:
Keith Ansell-Pearson
Keith Ansell-Pearson is a British philosopher specialising in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze. He is currently Professor of Philosophy at Warwick University.
Ansell-Pearson is the author of numerous books incl ...
,
Paul Loeb and
Babette Babich
Babette E. Babich (born 14 November 1956, in New York City) is an American philosopher who writes from a continental perspective on aesthetics, philosophy of science and technology in addition to critical and cultural theory.
Career
Including r ...
wrote responses in the journal the Agonist which is being published by the Nietzsche Circle New York.
Sorgner's perspectivist metahumanism and in particular his monograph "Menschenwürde nach Nietzsche" (WBG 2010) was dealt with in a symposium organised by the Nietzsche Forum Munich which had been co-founded by
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...
. Leading German philosophers, e.g.
Annemarie Pieper, responded to Sorgner's radical suggestions concerning the need to revise the prevalent conception of human dignity at this event. In May 2013, the weekly newspaper
Die Zeit
''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles.
History
The ...
published an interview with Sorgner in which several of his suggestions concerning human dignity, emerging technologies and trans- and posthumanism were summarized. In Autumn 2014, an essay collection entitled "Umwertung der Menschenwürde" (edited by Beatrix Vogel) was published by Alber Verlag in which leading international theologians, philosophers, and ethicists wrote critical replies to Sorgner's suggestions concerning the notion "human dignity".
Sorgner has been an invited and keynote speaker at many important events and conferences, e.g. ,
TED
TED may refer to:
Economics and finance
* TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar
Education
* ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association
** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey
** Transvaal Education Depa ...
, and the World Humanities Forum, ICISTS-KAIST.
According to Prof. Dr. Zimmmermann of the Identity Foundation, a recently set-up German private think tank, Sorgner is “Germany’s leading post- and transhumanist philosopher” („Deutschlands führender post- und transhumanistischer Philosoph“).
References
External links
*
Review of the English translation of ''On Trans-humanism''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sorgner, Stefan Lorenz
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Alumni of King's College London
German philosophers
Place of birth missing (living people)
German male writers
Nietzsche scholars
Ethics of science and technology
German transhumanists
Alumni of Durham University