Tobias Rees and Humanity’s Art

Last night, Tobias Rees intrigued all of us (both in-person and live-streamed) with his talk about “The Human after `The Human'” — but he wasn’t referring to “post-humanism.” In fact, the question and answer period allowed him to expand upon the 21st century representations of “The Human” after he regaled the audience with theories about representations of art, humanity, machines, and artificial intelligence. We captured his lecture and share it below.

Description of Talk

The modern concept of ‘the human’ was invented by European philosophers between the 17th and 19th century. Today, fields like AI and biotech have rendered this philosophical concept radically insufficient. Dr. Rees discusses the repercussions for the human sciences.

Bio

Tobias Rees is Director at the Berggruen Institute, Reid Hoffman Professor at the New School of Social Research, and a Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. His expertise lies at the intersection of anthropology, art history, the history of science, and the philosophy of modernity, and concerns the study of knowledge and thought. His second book, After Ethnos, aims to decouple anthropology and ethnography—and the human from society and culture. After Ethnos is available now.