In this area of research I have analyzed man and his relationships with what is foreign to him: things, animals, artifacts.
In particular, I focused on the concept of identity as a flowing structure and reflexive relationship between identity and its difference. As part of this research, I coined the term Hybrividual.
Can we still talk about the supremacy of the human being over other non-human living beings?
What are the limits beyond which it is not allowed to hybridize the human with the non-human?
Has man always been hybridized with the artifacts he produces?
If we follow the classical humanistic vision we should consider man “an apex of the evolutionary chain”.
If, instead, we embrace the post-humanistic way (in its variants: trans-human, post-human and hyper-human) we should demolish the myth of the unique and pure man, claiming that he is ready to hybridize with the technologies he invents, the environment in which he lives and the other non-human living beings.
Perhaps the oppositions identity/alterity, stability/mutation, nature/culture should succumb.
Defending the uniqueness of the human being without accepting any hybridization with what is ‘non-human’ could be a stretch, not only by virtue of recent revelations in the field of biotechnology, but also from philosophical and sociological perspectives that have taken the path of overcoming anthropocentrism and the abolition of the separatist myth between nature and culture. Creativity, communication skills, sense of belonging, orientation, love, defense of the territory, use of habits, memory, sense of hierarchy, are also present in other mammals. The categories that separated humans from everything else are no longer sufficient to maintain the barrier: the relationship between human and non-human becomes fluid.
The challenge is to prevent the relationship between human and non-human from becoming inhuman.