아이러니와 기계, 인간 : 휴머니즘과 포스트휴머니즘

• 영문명: Irony, Machine, and Man: Humanism and Posthumanism
• 발행기관: 한국비평이론학회
• 저자명: 김종갑(Jonggab Kim)
• 간행물 정보: 『비평과 이론』제13권 1호, 69~92쪽, 전체 24쪽
• 주제분류: 어문학 > 영어와문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2008.06.30

영문 초록

  What is man? This question has haunted the humanities for more than twenty years, along with post humanism debates. Robert Scholes chose "The Humanities in a Posthumanist World" as the topic for his MLA presidential address in 2004, reflecting some popular contention that human as a species has come to an end already. However, the division between humanism and posthumanism is not so clear as is supposed. Because the humanity of Man, which should have been taken for granted, has always been in question. As Heidegger made clear in his discussions about Dasein, "the Human" is a being questioning the meaning of existence. It follows that humanism has never achieved a coherent and seamless discourse of humanity. This paper is an attempt to think, in terms of irony, about the difference between humanism and posthumanism on the one hand, and humans and inhumans on the other. As a literary trope, irony names a split of meaning, saying one thing but meaning another. Socrates, one of the most examplary ironists in history, tried to speak truth but found himself meaning something else. Friedrich von Schlegel interpreted Socratic irony as the consequence of the inner split of his consciousness: he has two consciousnesses positing "Ⅰ" and "non-Ⅰ" at the same time. And for Beaudelaire, ironic consciousness stretches over the two extremes, of divinity and inhumanity, and of superiority and inferiority, swinging between the two. Because of such a wide range of human consciousness, Man cannot laugh at beings such as animals and machines. Only when one forgets one"s dual natures and falsely becomes identified with a higher extreme, one can afford to laugh. Bergson"s famous "falling man" in Laughter presents such an example. Observers can laugh at the falling man only when they found him machine-like, somewhat below humanity. By underestimating the other as a machine, they are pleased to recognize their proud humanity. Their laugh is the consequence of their forgetting one half of their existence. For Beaudelaire, only the wise man ironically laughs at himself, at his inhumanity in the midst of his supposed humanity. Ironic man experiences the self alternately as human and as machine, human and pre-or post-human. Irony names such a moment where humanism becomes posthumanism and vice versa. The question about the difference between human and inhuman is also a question about the non-difference between them. Man has never been fully and sufficiently human and has always been both at the end and the beginning of humanity. If so, posthumanist discourse distinguishing itself from humanism as if the two were opposing categories cannot be sustained. And an alarm about the end of man, thus, is a false one.

키워드

인간 기계 의식 자의식 아이러니 휴머니즘 반휴머니즘 포스트휴머니즘 베르그송 보들레르 man machine consciousness self-consciousness irony humanism anithumanism posthumanism Bergson Beaudelaire