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Biofacticity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Biofacticity is a philosophical concept that allows to identify a living object as a so-called biofact, i.e. a semi-natural living entity which has been biotechnically interfered during its life-span such as transgenic plants or cloned organisms. In philosophy, sociology and the arts, a biofact stands in close relation to the anthropological concept of the human being a composite of nature and technology. Biofact was introduced to philosophy as a neologism in 2001 by the German philosopher Nicole C. Karafyllis and fuses the words artifact and the prefix "bio". One of Karafyllis' thesis is that a technical change in living objects, i.e. an increase in biofacticity, will shift the anthropological concept of hybridity towards a technological self-definition of the human.

Biofacticity vs. hybridity

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Hybridity takes into account the anthropological fact that humans are hybrid with both natural and technical essences, making them designers with an individual "Leib," which is a term in phenomenology that denotes subjectivity of one's own corporeality.[1] Biofacticity, on the other hand, is an epistemological and ontological term that reflects upon the anthropological term of hybridity. The latter deals with the self-definition of subjects rather than objects. Hybridity, thus, is an anthropological concept particularly when used for philosophical purposes while biofacticity is an epistemological concept.[2] Both of these concepts demonstrate the hybrid character of the human being as a growing and creative entity who acts in light of self-determined ends. Theorists cite that this view becomes a broad approach in understanding the idea of life not merely as a biological process or functions of the genetic code.[1]

Bibliography

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  • Nicole C. Karafyllis. Biofakte - Versuch über den Menschen zwischen Artefakt und Lebewesen. Paderborn: Mentis 2003 (in German)

References

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  1. ^ a b Heil, Reinhard; Kaminski, Andreas; Stippak, Marcus; Unger, Alexander; Ziegler, Marc (2007). Tensions and Convergences: Technological And Aesthetic Transformations of Society. Bielefeld: Transcript. p. 149. ISBN 9783899425185.
  2. ^ Poser, Hans; Li, Wenchao (2008). The Ethics of Today's Science and Technology: A German-Chinese Approach. Berlin: LIT Verlag Munster. p. 186. ISBN 9783825813635.