Cover of: Hunting Tiamat
Benjamin N. Parks

Hunting Tiamat

Section: Articles
Volume 10 (2023) / Issue 2, pp. 154-174 (21)
Published 09.01.2024
DOI 10.1628/ptsc-2023-0019
  • article PDF
  • Open Access
    CC BY-SA 4.0
  • 10.1628/ptsc-2023-0019
Summary
A common narrative about secular transhumanism is that has taken shape in the past hundred or so years with philosophical roots that only go back as far as the Enlightenment. I challenge this narrative by tracing a genealogy of this kind of transhumanism's ontology. My purpose is to question the common narrative that transhumanism is a new way of thinking about and approaching the human by situating transhumanism in a greater historical context. The myth in which transhumanism is rooted is the Chaoskampf, 'struggle with chaos,' a motif found in many ancient mythologies. That is not to say that this transhumanist ontology is exactly like the Chaoskampf, but it is a revitalization and readaptation of the Chaoskampf for the present age.