Award Date
5-1-2025
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
English
First Committee Member
Megan Becker-Leckrone
Second Committee Member
Timothy Erwin
Third Committee Member
Cassidy Holahan
Fourth Committee Member
Paul Werth
Number of Pages
240
Abstract
This dissertation project is committed to defining the vital posthuman theory and investigating the evolution of philosophical thought concerning the definition of the terms human, being, state, society, justice, monism, dualism, and others. The theory under focus here operates on six central principles: 1. Radical Relationality (Retrospective Anticipation); 2. Interwoven Meaning and Self (Inversion principle); 3. Distributed Agency and Decentralized Ethics (Decentralization of human); 4. Transitory, Iterative Identities (Language as Feedback system); 5. Deconstruction of Binary Oppositions (Paradox principle); and 6. Extended Epistemologies and Hyperreal Consciousness (non-human cognitive connections). In order to illustrate and unpack the vital posthuman theory, this dissertation analyzes the progress of Continental Rationalism and British Empiricism by extrapolating how informational patterns and material installations operate in confluence. The six principles invoke the difference in contemporary theoretical positions regarding posthumanism. The points of disagreement often cited by posthumanism researchers include configurations that view the theory as historical/transhistorical, a state of being/thinking related/unrelated to technology while emerging from an individual/system. The key hypothesis of this project rests on the idea of de-anthropocentralization. If traditional humanist human essence and consciousness were defined by freedom from other people’s will, the vital posthuman theory does not challenge the freedom but the notion that there was an a priori self-will that is distinct from other-will. This dissertation offers an argument that the vital posthuman transformation is defined by the reconciliation of the monist and dualist doctrines. This dissertation outlines theoretical vital posthuman principles followed by a set of illustrations of the theory’s literary applicability.
Keywords
dualism; literary theory; monism; posthuman; posthumanism; vital materialism
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | English Language and Literature | Philosophy
File Format
File Size
2700 KB
Degree Grantor
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Language
English
Repository Citation
Golubev, Akim, "Posthuman Vital Materialism: An Enquiry Concerning Human Nature and Affects Through Dualistic and Monistic Views Regarding the Nature of Reality" (2025). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 5275.
https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations/5275
Rights
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