Vampyroteuthis Infernalis: A Treatise, with a Report by the Institut Scientifique de Recherche Paranaturaliste: 23 (Posthumanities)

by Louis Bec (Author), Valentine A. Pakis (Author), Vilém Flusser (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2012

  $22.85

  How far apart are humans from animals-even the \u201cvampire squid from hell\u201d? Playing the scientist/philosopher/provocateur, Vil\u00e9m Flusser uses this question as a springboard to dive into a literal and a philosophical ocean. \u201cThe abyss that separates us\u201d from the vampire squid (or vampire octopus, perhaps, since Vampyroteuthis infernalis inhabits its own phylogenetic order somewhere between the two) \u201cis incomparably smaller than that which separates us from extraterrestrial life, as imagined in science fiction and sought by astrobiologists,\u201d Flusser notes at the outset of the expedition.Part scientific treatise, part spoof, part philosophical discourse, part fable, Vampyroteuthis Infernalis gives its author ample room to ruminate on human-and nonhuman-life. Considering the human condition along with the vampire squid/octopus condition seems appropriate because \u201cwe are both products of an absurd coincidence . . . we are poorly programmed beings full of defects,\u201d Flusser writes. Among other things, \u201cwe are both banished from much of life\u2019s domain: it into the abyss, we onto the surfaces of the continents. We have both lost our original home, the beach, and we both live in constrained conditions.\u201dThinking afresh about the life of an \u201cother\u201d-as different from ourselves as the vampire squid/octopus-complicates the linkages between animality and embodiment. Odd, and strangely compelling, Vampyroteuthis Infernalis offers up a unique posthumanist philosophical understanding of phenomenology and opens the way for a non-philosophy of life.