ARTICOLI / 6 / Boria Sax /
This article will look at four scholars who belong, at least broadly speaking, to the ‘posthumanist’ tradition, and at the ways in which they endeavor to correct mistakes in the distant past. First, there is Paul Shepard, who believes a false turn took place with the domestication of crops and animals in Neolithic times. His solution is a return to an economy of hunting. Next, there is Jacques Derrida, who finds the fatal wrong turn in Descartes’ Meditations, a work often regarded as the manifesto of modernity. Derrida’s, solution is to repeat Descartes thought experiment of universal doubt, deciding that the one thing impossible to doubt is the existence of his cat rather than of himself. Finally, Roberto Marchesini and Rosi Braidotti locate the error in the Renaissance, most especially in Leonardo’s depiction of Vitruvian Man, and they endeavor to correct its glorification of humankind. All four regard the errors of their mentors as emblematic of an even more universal mistake of humanity at some undetermined time. They are based on highly speculative historical reconstructions, yet they have a resonance, and even a lyricism, that transcends purely intellectual analysis.
