Hacking Death

Life-Extension Technologies and the Fate of Western Culture
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-42732-2
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 168 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Media, Culture and Critique: Future Imperfect

This monograph offers an original and timely reading of the disruptive phenomenon of ‘hacking death’, characterised as the contemporary drive to solve ageing and death as ‘problems’ through emerging technologies. It argues that this technological struggle represents Western culture's desperate attempt to nullify human temporality and, consequently, individual failure in an era of unprecedented demandingness, competitiveness, and acceleration.

Offering a unique interdisciplinary analysis combining philosophy, history, literature, sociology, and technology studies, it traces the historical roots of our technological relationship with mortality from ancient Greece through Romanticism to today's biotechnology companies and prolongevity movements. Using philosophical arguments, thought experiments, and literary analysis, it offers insight into how a growing correlation between death and individual failure exponentially typifies the contemporary Western culture in a way that significantly diverges from our past. On the other hand, it posits the question of understanding our technological struggle against mortality as a desperate attempt to definitively solve the ‘problem’ of individual failure itself. It culminates in an exploration of Socratic wisdom as an alternative to our current trajectory, emphasizing mortality's evolutionary value.

This timely work is essential reading for scholars and graduate students in philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, technology studies, anthropology, history, and literature. It will also be of interest to biotechnology professionals, policymakers, and those concerned with the ethical and cultural implications of emerging life-extension technologies.

Zielgruppe

Academic and Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Chiodo, Simona

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Thanatologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Tod, Sterbehilfe: Soziale und Ethische Themen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Wissenssoziologie, Wissenschaftssoziologie, Techniksoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction. What does hacking death mean? 2. Emerging technologies hacking ageing and death 3. How did we get here? Food for thought from the history of death and technology in Western culture 4. And where we will get to? A philosophical understanding of the fate of Western culture 5. Conclusion. Socrates’ lesson to us (as the last epigones of Romanticism?)

Über Autor(innen)

Simona Chiodo is Full Professor of Philosophy at the Politecnico di Milano, where she is a member of the Technology Foresight. Among her recent publications, the monographs Predicted Humans: Emerging Technologies and the Burden of Sensemaking (Routledge, 2024), Technology and the Overturning of Human Autonomy (2023) and Technology and Anarchy: A Reading of our Era (2020).