The Epistemology of the In/Human

The long-term research project The Epistemology of the In/Human takes an epistemological perspective on the historical and contemporary negations of the human. It aims to understand two related but distinct phenomena: dehumanization and inhumanity. 

Dehumanization – that some people are regarded, depicted and treated as not human or less human – has often been taken to account (in part at least) for the inhuman - hatred, violence and atrocities. At issue in Phase I (2017-2023) of the project was how knowledge about individuals 'being human' (or not) was established in the history of ideas and what contemporary research on social cognition tells us about dehumanization, as a phenomenon in its own right. 

Questions dealt with were: How can one make sense of dehumanization across disciplinary boundaries of the humanities, the social sciences and technological fields? Is the epistemological status of dehumanization explanatory or only descriptive? How do we include and exclude people (and animals or machines) from the diversity of social categories used in social interaction? Is essentialism grounding dehumanization? What is (if there is) the justification to deny full human status to some people, animals and machines? How have the boundaries of humanity shifted in the past and how will they shift in the future? Which role do the animal/human and the machine/human divide play in our social ontology? How does dehumanization connect to the explanation and prevention of violence, prejudice and discrimination? What does research on dehumanization tell us about the entanglements between science and society? Are scientists and scholars sometimes complicit in dehumanization as a social wrong in its own right, and what follows from that for the ethos of science, scientific freedom, and epistemic responsibility? 

Research on these aspects continues, but focus will shift very likely to the more general relevance of the concept of the human, and the inhuman itself, as the phenomenon that is sometimes (and in part) explained by dehumanization. Stay tuned ... news to come here. 

The overall aim is to openly develop pioneering philosophical ideas via an intellectually rigorous but open interdisciplinary process and to contribute to the understanding and dissolution of key social problems that relate to the inhuman, most of them perennial (e.g., human rights in migration and armed conflicts; animal ethics; disability ethics; ethics of killing; scholars participating in atrocities), others emerging (e.g., machine intelligence, roboethics).

The project uses an embedded and reflective historical and philosophical methodology. On the one hand, the project aims at a substantive scholarly contribution to understanding dehumanization and the inhuman more generally by using an embedded historical and philosophical approach towards the social sciences, humanities and technological research. Such an approach is oriented at problems that scientists and scholars studying a specific phenomenon themselves have (e.g. in social psychology, robotics, literary studies, nationalism studies, gender studies, animal studies, etc.) without losing its philosophical core. Therefore, close collaboration with the scientists and scholars concerned is integral to such an approach. With respect to its philosophical core, the project aims at a unique and rather reflective contribution to genuinely philosophical issues related to dehumanization and the inhuman. That reflective part of the project concerns epistemological and ontological issues, in particular a philosophical reflection on the values, purposes, methods and standards in the respective scientific fields (e.g., aggression research, social psychology). Even though these issues are highly releveant for practicing scientists and scholars, the latter usually do not work on these issues directly, except if they are active in methodological discussions or discussions on how science and society relate. Since both parts, the more embedded and the more reflective part, are critical in spirit, the overall aim is – in a nutshell – to take a critical epistemological stance on dehumanization and the inhuman, the negations of the human in sciences and societies. 

Latest activities

With a small subproject, we are part of the Cluster of Excellence Project Knowledge in Crisis, with research on the crisis in the knowledge of the human. 

Topics dealt with include: None of the humanities or social sciences is studying the human (or humans) as such. What they study are rather derivative epistemic objects, such as culture, society, literature, etc. This fragmentation of the human in contemporary humanities, social sciences and natural sciences concerned with humans (i.e., biology, cognitive science, etc.) has led some philosophers to proclaim a radical incommensurability of the knowledge produced in these disciplines, if not a crisis.

The main project will continue with Phase II research on the notion of the inhuman (2023-).

In 2021, we published the Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization, featuring articles from leading experts on dehumanization, from a diversity of social science and humanities disciplines. A follow-up Paper on the paradox of dehumanization under revision. Write to Maria Kronfeldner for current version, should you be interested. For open access material on the handbook, see below. 

The handbook aims to solidify the progress that has been made in understanding dehumanization since social psychologists like Herbert C. Kelman took up the topic in the 1970s from philosophers such as Hannah Arendt, following her in the aim to understand dehumanization as an important factor in explaining atrocities such as the Holocaust. Much has been written on dehumanization ever since, be it in philosophy, political sciences, legal studies, criminology, media studies, history, Holocaust studies, gender studies, racism studies, disability studies, or literary studies, etc. It is time to synthesize and synergize the interdisciplinary discussion.

Events: 

• Performance/Exhibition at Lange Nacht der Forschung, May 2024.
• Book Launch, with contributors and Routledge's editor's, March 2021.
• Input for Lecture "Das Eigene und das Fremde", Wiener Vorlesung, May 2020.  

The text: 

• The Official Routledge Version
• Preprints and postprint at the PhilPapersPage of the Handbook.

Reviews: "Dehumanization as practiced is an all too tragically familiar feature of human history; dehumanization as analyzed and critically theorized is, sadly, far less explored. In this invaluable contribution to the literature, editor Maria Kronfeldner has brought together an impressive international team of experts to examine the dismayingly diverse ways and realms of human interaction in which dehumanization can and continues to take place. One can only hope that this major work in theory will help in the reduction and—one day—the ultimate elimination of the practice." - Charles W. Mills, The Graduate Center CUNY, USA.

 Conversation on dehumanization (Maria Kronfeldner and Alexander Reutlinger)

(Part of the series Conversations in Socially Engaged Philosophy) 

In cooperation with the artist Lukas Einsele and the Group Kultur einer Digitalstadt e.V, we realized in 2020 the philosophical-artistic project Hiding Faces, studying and visualizing together the cultural, social and philosophical meanings of faces, in order to understand how contemporary technological and social challenges affect our ways of being human. The Covid-19 siutation showed us how hard it is to 'go digital' when faces are at issue and at the same time how important it is to reflect on the importance of faces. In the first step of their shared research, Einsele and Kronfeldner collected texts and pictures, created by themselves or quoted from others, and assembled them in a "Zettelwand" (wall of notes) in the shared art-research studio at Darmstadt's Rosenhöhe (see picture). We also hosted a Digitalsalon, discussing why Faces matter so much for us, now during the 2020 Pandemic crisis and in general. 

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Conferences/workshops (2016-2021)

• Interdisciplinary Session on Dehumanization and Biology (09 Jul 2019), Conference of the International Society for History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), Oslo.
• Symposium on Dehumanization and Human nature (24 Sep 2017), XXIV. Congress of the Dt. Gesellschaft für Philosophie (DGPhil), Berlin.
• Workshop on dehumanization (31 Jan 2017) focused on philosophical issues. See event page for details.
• Dehumanization Conference  (6-8 Apr 2016): The international and interdisciplinary conference "Dehumanization: New approaches to understanding the politics of human nature" brings historians, scientists, philosophers and artists together in order to discuss the phenomenon of dehumanization. See event page for details.

Lecture series 2017

• Rebekka Hufendiek (Basel): The Essentialist Fallacy: Critical Theory and Naturalism.
• David Ludwig (Amsterdam): Why Race is Still Socially Constructed.
• Eszter Timár (Budapest): Celebrating Biodeconstruction.
• Magdalena Smieszek (CEU): The Categorized and the Categorical Human in Human Rights.
• Thomas Brudholm (Copenhagen): Dehumanization as Monstrification.
• Marianna Szczygielska and Zsuzsanna Varga (Budapest): Between Science and Show: Human Zoos in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
• Silvia Sebastiani (Paris): Humanization and Dehumanization within Enlightenment Debates: An Attempt to Contextualizing the Ape/Human Divide.

Lecture series 2016

• Julie Zahle (University of Copenhagen): Values in Qualitative Research.
• Heather Douglas (University of Waterloo): Jettisoning the Value-Free Ideal: Why do it and where does it leave us?
• Tatjana Buklijas (Senior Thyssen Fellow, CEU IAS/ University of Auckland): What is at stake in the ‘epigenetic revolution’?
• Mihai Surdu (Senior Fellow, CEU IAS): Whose blood, which genes? Narratives and sampling strategies in Roma-related genetic research.

Podcasts/Videos related to the project can be found at our Youtube-Channel.

• Slam poetry by Peter Molnar (as part of the 2016 Conference). Watch it here.
• Podcast "How we are Human" (discussion of 2017 ToPHSS course lecturer and participants, directed and compiled by Magdalena Smieszek). Listen to it here.

Interviews with PI Maria Kronfeldner: 

• Can we get rid of dehumanization? Interviewer L. Köszeghy, Élet és Irodalom (vol. LXIII/30), Jul 26,2019.  
• Relativism and Racism. Interviewer J. Steizinger, The Emergence of Relativism Blog, Jan 2017. 

Research and teaching activities included:

• A 2018 and 2019 fall term seminar on "Critical perspectives on human nature", as part of which students followed their own research interests regarding human nature, prominent among these: dehumanization. 
• A pre-study for a project "Mapping dehumanization studies", as part of a new and more focused project under the title "The Epistemology of the In/human". We analyzed the publications available on dehumanization quantitatively (using digital humanities tools). The aim was to map the history and contemporary interconnections of research on dehumanization. (Involved: Perica Jovchevski, research assistant; Maria Kronfeldner, principal investigator). 
• A 2017 winter term ToPHSS Seminar, with a series of lectures and a workshop.

Several events of the project took place avant la lettre:

• Film screening of 'Fixed – The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement'
• Talk by Robert Wilson on 'Knowing Agency from the Margins'
• Film screening of 'Surviving Eugenics'

History of the project
The project is a successor project of the Humanities Initative funded project on "Topics in the Philosophy of the Human and Social Sciences" (ToPHSS). The focus of that project was on whether there is really something – in addition to a label such as ‘the human’ – that unites academic concerns regarding humans. Thus, at issue was whether there are shared methodologies or shared ontologies at the foundation of those contemporary academic disciplines concerned with the human, such as history, literary studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, cognitive science, network science, etc. Below are a few lines of research that has been pursued as part of that. 

None of the humanities or social sciences is studying the human (or humans) as such. What they study are rather derivative epistemic objects, such as culture, society, literature, etc. This fragmentation of the human in contemporary humanities, social sciences and natural sciences concerned with humans (i.e., biology, cognitive science, etc.) has led some philosophers to proclaim a radical incommensurability of the knowledge produced in these disciplines. The pluralism is about matters, such as aggression, that are not only of scholarly importance, but also of utmost social and political importance, in the case of aggression also because it is supposed to help explain the inhuman in us. 

First, ideas such as humanity, human nature and human kinds (a term Ian Hacking introduced, refering to kinds within humanity and with a history, e.g. ‘homosexuals’) are defining for the social sciences and humanities, even if often implicitly assumed, i.e. not explicilty discussed. The same holds for what we might call constructed kinds, those things that are made by humans (e.g., artifacts). Yet, philosophers still have difficulties in classifying human kinds and constructed kinds ontologically, since, after all, the philosopher asks: are they really real – given their historicity, constructiveness and reflexivity? In reply, classificatory and explanatory looping effects have been studied as part of that focus of the project. 

Second, specific fundamental categories such as human nature, individual or person have  become contested. Take human nature: there is a consensus in philosophy of science that Darwinism means that there is no human nature, no essence of ‘being human,’ to which disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, cognitive science or even history can refer to as disciplinary primitive, as something not studied but assumed as shared between all humans. However, the variety of disciplines just mentioned – basically all those that want to refer to humans in general – simply are in need of some concept of human nature. 

Finally, leading to the current focus of the project, the category of the human has a dark side, leading to dehumanization of those conceived as less human. Because of the Darwinian challenge and because of dehumanization, philosophers have suggested that it is better to eliminate the concept of human nature from science and political philosophy. Yet social psychology has collected evidence that the category is so entrenched in our cognitive processes that it is unrealistic to reach elimination. How to resolve these issues is an open question in the field, and the project has resulted in the book "What's left of human nature? A post-essentialist, pluralist and dialectic account of a contested concept" (Kronfeldner 2018). See here for a synopsis. 

Project Assistance: Nastassia Stein, László Kőszeghy, Michele Luchetti, Justin Leuba, Perica Jovchevski.

Cooperation (Phase I): To reach out to other disciplines, to arts, to the public and to politics, requires much cooperation. Thanks therefore to the Group Kultur einer Digitalstadt e.V,  the Center for Law in Biomedicine (CELAB), the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archive (OSA) and the Center for Arts and Culture (CAC) for the interactions and cooperations regarding this project. I also want thank my colleagues Laszlo Kontler (CEU, history) and Andrea Timar (ELTE, literary studies) for the collaboration.