Posthumanism and the More-Than-Human World
Life, Matter, and the Question of Agency
Posthumanism and the More-Than-Human World is a sharp, accessible, and intellectually serious guide to one of the most important shifts in contemporary thought: the move away from the fantasy of the human as sovereign master of reality. It explains why the old image of “Man” as rational, independent, superior, and separate from the world no longer survives contact with biology, ecology, technology, disability theory, animal studies, feminist thought, climate science, capitalism, and everyday life.
This is not a book about worshipping robots, abandoning human dignity, or pretending that rivers have little legal briefcases. It is about understanding the human more honestly. Humans are embodied, dependent, technological, ecological, vulnerable, and powerful in ways they rarely control as neatly as they imagine. We live with animals, microbes, tools, algorithms, plants, infrastructures, weather systems, supply chains, histories, and forms of matter that do not politely remain passive scenery.
With dry wit and clear explanations, the book introduces major figures and ideas from Darwin, Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, Foucault, Donna Haraway, N. Katherine Hayles, Karen Barad, Rosi Braidotti, Indigenous thinkers, disability theorists, environmental scholars, and many others. Along the way, it asks what agency means when action is distributed, what responsibility means when no one is innocent, and what ethics looks like when humans are no longer alone at the center of the picture.
Posthumanism is often made unnecessarily obscure. This book does not do that. It treats difficult ideas seriously without pretending that seriousness requires fog. It is written for readers who want philosophy that can survive contact with supermarkets, smartphones, pets, bills, climate anxiety, and the ordinary indignities of having a body.
- Author
- Quim Aiguafreda
- Published
- July 9, 2026
- Pages
- 215
- Language
- English
- ISBN
- 979-8186506645
From the opening pages
The human being is, biologically speaking, an animal belonging to the species Homo sapiens. Carl Linnaeus placed that name in the tenth edition of Systema Naturae in 1758, where he arranged humans inside the animal kingdom with the confidence of a man sorting God’s stationery. Homo sapiens means “wise human,” which is already an impressive act of public relations. No other species got to name itself after its best days. The mosquito was not consulted. The octopus, for all its intelligence, did not file an appeal. Humans simply looked at themselves, noticed fire, grammar, shoes, and tax law, and concluded: wisdom.
That biological definition is useful. It tells us something about ancestry, anatomy, reproduction, and genetics. Humans are primates. We share common ancestry with other apes. We have nervous systems, digestive tracts, immune responses, hormones, skin, bones, and a tragic dependence on oxygen. We are born helpless, become social by necessity, and remain breakable under ordinary household conditions. So far, very dignified.
But philosophy has rarely been satisfied with the biological human. Biology gives us a species; philosophy often gives us a character. When philosophers, theologians, jurists, political theorists, economists, and moralists have spoken about “the human,” they have very often meant something more selective than the living creature with a spine and a tendency to misplace keys. They have meant a figure: rational, self-conscious, independent, morally responsible, capable of speech, capable of property, capable of standing above the rest of nature and explaining it, preferably in a room where someone else has prepared dinner.
Contents
8 chapters
The Human: A Brief History of Overconfidence
- Meet the Human: A Species with Branding Issues
- Humanism: The Beautiful Idea That Got Out of Hand
- The Ladder of Being, or How to Rank Everything Without Embarrassment
- Descartes and the Suspiciously Clean Mind
- The Enlightenment Human: Reason in a Very Nice Coat
Cracks in the Pedestal
- Darwin Ruins the Family Portrait
- Freud Discovers the Basement
- Marx Notices the Machinery
- Nietzsche Takes Away the Moral Furniture
- Foucault and the Human as a Recent Invention
What Posthumanism Is, Before It Escapes
- Posthumanism Is Not Robot Worship
- The More-Than-Human World
- The End of the Lone Individual, Sadly Delayed by LinkedIn
- Agency: Who or What Gets to Do Things?
- When Things Push Back
Bodies, Matter, and Other Inconveniences
- The Body: That Thing Philosophy Tried to Ignore
- Disability and the Myth of the Standard Human
- Gender, Bodies, and the Trouble with Nature
- New Materialism: Matter Gets a Speaking Role
- Karen Barad and the Universe Refusing to Stand Still
Animals, Plants, Microbes, and the Collapse of Human Specialness
- Animals: Not Failed Humans
- Donna Haraway and the Company We Keep
- The Plant Chapter, Because Plants Were Apparently Waiting for Permission
- Microbes: Your Body’s Uninvited Coauthors
- Extinction: The Footnote That Became the Plot
Technology, Machines, and the Human Upgrade Department
- The Cyborg Was Here Before the Smartphone
- N. Katherine Hayles and the Information Problem
- Algorithms: Agency Without a Soul
- Artificial Intelligence and the Return of the Mirror
- Tools That Use Us Back
Ecology, Climate, and the Planet’s Performance Review
- The Anthropocene: Congratulations, We Became a Geological Force
- Climate Change and the End of Background Nature
- Capitalism, Extraction, and the Very Profitable End of the World
- Indigenous Thought and the Embarrassment of Western Discovery
- Rivers, Forests, and Legal Personhood
Ethics After the Human Throne
- Responsibility Without Being the Center of the Universe
- How to Live as Though You Are Not Alone in Reality
- Posthumanism for People Who Still Have to Pay Bills
