Auerbach Lecture | 02.02.2026 | 18 Uhr

Guillermo Giucci (Geisteswissenschaften, Montevideo): Life as Self-Fabrication. Philosophy and Biotechnology

Programm

Abstract

In Meditation on Technique (1939), a pioneering text by the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, the idea is presented that life is a fabrication of itself. Ortega says that man is the animal for whom nature is insufficient. That is why man´s supernatural destiny consists of inventing a “supernature.” How does “supernature” differ from the creative indeterminacy proposed by Pico della Mirandola in his Discourse on the Dignity of Man and the faculty of perfectibility formulated by Jean Jacques Rousseau in his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men? What does Ortega y Gasset's “supernature” mean in the third millennium? In this presentation, I investigate, from the perspective of the cultural history of anthropocentrism, the connection between the philosophical notion of life as self-fabrication, biotechnology, and the creation of synthetic life.

Ort & Zeit

Bibliothek Erich Auerbach-Institut, Weyertal 59 (Rückgebäude, 3. OG), 50937 Köln |
Montag, 02.02.2026 | 18:00 Uhr

Kontakt

Maximilian Kloppert
E-Mail: m.kloppert(at)uni-koeln(dot)de