Gurevich P.S. Human triumph

Abstract: This article reviews a remarkable monography by V. I. Samokhvalova “Superhuman: image, metaphor, and program” (M., 2015), in which the author based on the significant philosophical material attempts to substantiate Nietzsche’s idea of Übermensch (superhuman). This problem is examined in traditional doctrines, various religious systems, myths, and modern cultural perceptions. It is evident that this topic has an outstanding background story, but at the same time it attained many stereotypes, free interpretations, and various meanings. Today, the notion of superhuman could be understood very differently – from the idea of perfection of a human, all the way until human brain replacement with a silicon chip. The author bases on an extensive philosophical tradition, including the modern transhumanism, and also applies hermeneutic method that allows revealing hidden meanings in the well-known philosophical texts. Even recently, with regards to a human, we could hear exceptionally funeral motifs. Philosophers were ecstatically describing the human demise not only as a topic of philosophical anthropology, but also as a flickering anthropological given. Human died not only as an animal, but also as a historical creature, human dissolved in everything that surrounding him – nature, society, technologies. However, the topic of a living, bodily, and almost immortal human gradually became evident in even post-modernistic philosophy.

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