The Dialectics of the Biosocial: Addressing Ontological Dualism and Contemplating Transhumanism

In the context of a critical review of the assumptions of the philosophical and cultural movement known as 'Transhumanism,' this paper addresses the difficult question of what is human nature, or the nature of being human. And, whether this `nature' is purely a phenotypic quality shared with all biological life, and as such open to biological modification and transformation? Or does human nature constitute a quite different and unique set of attributes? What Marx identified as 'species being,' characterised by a very different understanding of transformation, that of productive activity or praxis.