Rezzesi, Riccardo

Between transhumanism and personalism. The nature of man according to Teilhard de Chardin - 2024.


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At a time when transhumanists are calling on Teilhard’s work to find the intellectual foundations of their project of transformation of the human, it seems relevant to question the discourse on the human specific to Teilhard, suspended between evolutionary thought and cosmic Christology. Present transversally in the writings of the French Jesuit, the notion of person, if investigated in depth, makes it possible to “test” the reconcilability of his anthropology with the key ideas of transhumanism. Who is Teilhard de Chardin? The supporter of a reductionist naturalism? Or the heir to a Christian humanism which sees in the person an incarnate spiritual being, transcending Nature and the World? Can we speak of a Teilhardian personalism, close to that of Mounier?<br/>Such is the subject of a debate which took place within the personalist movement, in the pages of the journal Esprit towards the beginning of the 1960s. So it appears that taking stock of the highlights of this debate offers a good springboard for penetrating what Teilhard has to say about the human being, in an era in which transhumanists attempt to appropriate his spiritual heritage.