The Human from Condorcet to Transhumanism

A Journey of Thought Beginning in a Bookstore

It was a day in 1993. I was walking from Taksim Square towards Gümüşsuyu. At the top of the slope descending to Ayazpaşa, there was a bookstore selling books published by the Turkish Ministry of National Education. I went inside. I began browsing through the shelves and got lost among them. The low prices of the books were very tempting. I remember leaving the bookstore not only with books in my bag, but also with one of my arms full of books.

That day, one book in particular caught my attention. Considering the circumstances of those days, its title aroused great curiosity in me: Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind. Its author: Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet. The book’s date: 1795.

At the time, there was neither the internet nor e-mail. The concept of artificial intelligence wasn’t even on our agenda. I didn’t know about Moore’s Law yet, had never even heard of it. However, I was well aware that a great technological transformation was approaching. The world was on the verge of a rapid transformation.

Condorcet’s work was so interesting to me that later I pursued its English version as well. It was not easy to obtain. I followed the trail of this text for nearly two years before I finally managed to reach it. Since the roots of the languages of philosophy and science are in Greek and Latin, reading such texts in English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish is always more instructive.

Today, we talk about artificial intelligence, artificial general intelligence (AGI), and software agents capable of making decisions on their own. The relationship between human and machine has entered a new phase. In such an era, it is impossible not to recall Condorcet. His conceptual framework, built upon reason and progress, offers a foundation directly relatable to today’s technological developments.

Condorcet as an Enlightenment Thinker

Condorcet’s Esquisse d’un Tableau Historique des Progrès de l’Esprit Humain (Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind) describes humanity’s progress in knowledge, morality, and politics in ten stages. Each stage represents a period in which reason surpassed a certain threshold.

The source of historical progress is the human mind. Humans emerged from the state of nature, developed language, writing, and then the scientific method. This progress occurs not only through individual effort but also through the transformation of institutions and societies.

The fundamental tools of progress are science, education, and free thought. Condorcet argued that education should be a public right for all. In his Rapport Sur L’instruction Publique, he stated this principle explicitly.

Condorcet was a historical optimist. In his view, humanity would eventually overcome war, slavery, and oppression. This perspective is a characteristic example of the Enlightenment’s progressivist philosophy of history. However, in the 20th century, this optimism was criticized by the Frankfurt School. Horkheimer and Adorno showed how the rational optimism of the Enlightenment could turn into technical rationalism and oppressive structures.

Condorcet’s belief in progress does not target the individual, but rather the collective development of humanity. Human nature is not fixed. It is shaped along with social structures. In this respect, Condorcet can be seen as having provided a philosophical groundwork for today’s transhumanist idea of the “transformability of human nature.”

On the Threshold of Our Time: Artificial Intelligence and Transformation

Artificial intelligence is not merely a technical field. It is perhaps the most important potential driver of social transformation. In recent years, the development of generative AI systems has enabled AI to reach capacities that can compete with humans in processes such as decision-making, learning, and production. This process continues to accelerate.

I have discussed this process in my earlier articles A Typology of AI and Firm-Level Adoption, AI and Energy: A Double-Edged Sword in the Climate Fight, and AI, Productivity, and the Future of Inequality. In these texts, I explored AI’s multifaceted impacts, from economic productivity to climate policies, not merely as an instrumental tool but as a form of structural transformation.

These developments confront us with a fundamental question: What is a human being, and to what extent can its boundaries be expanded by technology? Let us then turn to the history of philosophy, for whether they are aware of it or not, today’s realities have their roots in the thinkers of the past.

Humanism: Reason, Value, and Human Potential

In seeking an answer to the above question, we must return to the concept of humanism in its historical context. Humanism is a tradition of thought that emerged during the Renaissance, placing human value, freedom, and creativity at its core. Humanist thinkers emphasized the development, education, and moral competence of the individual.

Humanism is not merely a discourse developed in the cultural atmosphere of the Renaissance. It constitutes the backbone of human-centered systems of knowledge and value in Western thought. This intellectual tradition, led by figures such as Petrarch, Lorenzo Valla, and Erasmus, developed a secular understanding of humanity based on classical sources in opposition to scholastic thought. The aim of the humanists was to highlight the human capacity for thinking and creation, particularly in relation to the ethical life.

One of the most striking expressions of humanist thought is found in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Oratio de Hominis Dignitate (Oration on the Dignity of Man), written in 1486. According to Pico, human beings have no fixed nature determined by God. With free will, they have the power to shape their own essence. This opened the way to defining humans as open-ended, autonomous, and capable of development. I ask readers to keep these ideas in mind within the framework of artificial intelligence and the concept of transhumanism, which I will address below.

During the Enlightenment, Pico’s ideas became more systematic. Kant’s maxim that “Humanity must always be treated as an end, never merely as a means” stands as the pinnacle of humanist ethics. Humanity is not only a rational being, but also a moral agent carrying universal values.

In the 20th century, humanism was reinterpreted in various ways. Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist humanism argued that humans construct their essence through their actions. Marxist humanism, developed by thinkers such as Erich Fromm and Antonio Gramsci, linked human liberation to the transformation of relations of production. Liberal humanism, as defended by Martha Nussbaum, discussed how education and cultural pluralism could cultivate ethical citizens in democracies.

Critiques of humanism also exist and have intensified, particularly since the mid-20th century. Michel Foucault argued that the concept of “man” is not a universal essence but a product of a specific historical regime of knowledge. In his Les Mots et les Choses (The Order of Things), he directed a radical critique at humanist thought, claiming that “man” is a modern invention and would one day disappear.

Sylvia Wynter argued that humanism systematically excluded non-Western peoples from its definition of humanity. In the age of colonialism, Western secular humanism placed the “white European male” at the center as the measure of humanity, relegating all other groups to deficient or inferior categories. This critique suggests that humanism’s claim to universality turned into an instrument of Western domination.

Feminist critiques proceed along a similar axis. Donna Haraway argued that the humanist subject historically represents a white, male, heterosexual, and Western assumption. Her “cyborg” concept proposes a posthumanist model of the subject that transcends binaries such as nature/culture, human/machine, and male/female. The humanist conception of the subject, built on such binaries, suppresses plurality and bodily diversity.

Poststructuralist thinkers target the metaphysical assumptions of humanism. Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard argued that humanist discourse absolutizes concepts such as “subject,” “reason,” and “meaning,” thereby excluding difference. In this sense, humanism often imposes a conception of the subject that is ahistorical, universal, and totalizing.

In conclusion, humanism is a powerful tradition that exalts human freedom, reason, and moral capacity. However, its normative conception of the subject, its exclusion of difference, and its detachment from historical context in the name of universality have all been criticized.

Contemporary currents such as transhumanism and posthumanism seek to reconsider and broaden the concept of the human, taking these critiques into account.

With the Enlightenment, humanism became secularized and gained an understanding of ethical universality. Kant’s aforementioned principle is the moral foundation of this understanding. Condorcet, too, defended education and progress as a project of social emancipation.

The concepts of humanism’s theses and the counter-theses it has provoked are exactly the same as the concepts of the transformation we are experiencing today. Therefore, within the framework of the “infinity of causality,” we can analyze today’s developments by tracing them back in historical process as far as we wish. However, in this article, I take the view that today’s conceptual triggers were brought to life by the Enlightenment and the Renaissance, and so our causal analysis can be extended back to Pico, Condorcet, Kant, and their contemporaries. These interpretations are put forward by me and are entirely open to debate.

Transhumanism: Surpassing the Limits of the Human

Transhumanism is both a philosophical orientation and a cultural movement that aims to surpass human physical, cognitive, and biological limitations through technology. The term was first used by Julian Huxley in 1957. Huxley argued that humanity should think not only about what it is but also about what it could become. This idea was later given a systematic philosophical framework through the contributions of thinkers such as Nick Bostrom, Max More, Ray Kurzweil, and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner.

The core premise of transhumanism is that human nature is not fixed and can be reshaped through technological intervention. In this context, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, cybernetic limbs, neurotechnology, human-computer interfaces, and mind uploading occupy the center of the transhumanist agenda, both in practical and theoretical terms.

Today, we have abundant evidence to think and assert that we are in a transhumanist phase.

We now see that these premises are not only found in philosophical debates, but also have counterparts in concrete technological developments. Gene-editing techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9 have the potential not only to eliminate hereditary diseases, but also to produce “designer babies.” Neuralink, founded by Elon Musk, aims to enhance neurotechnological capacity through chips that directly interface with the brain. Advanced AI systems developed by institutions like OpenAI and DeepMind not only compete with humans, but also perform functions such as decision-making and pattern recognition, and in creative production are approaching “superhuman” capabilities.

All these developments show that transhumanist claims are no longer limited to abstract utopias and science fiction. Kurzweil’s theory of the technological singularity, the point at which AI will permanently surpass human intelligence, is now not only a speculative scenario but a reality discussed in the investment plans of technology companies, in university laboratories, and in military research centers.

Transhumanism is essentially based on a progressive outlook. In this sense, it is close to Condorcet’s 18th-century conception of reason-based progress. According to Condorcet, humanity can develop both individually and collectively through knowledge and education, achieving a freer future. Transhumanism also advocates maximizing human potential, but seeks to achieve this not through education or cultural reform, but through direct biotechnological intervention. Today, this appears to be the most significant difference compared to Condorcet’s time. However, I do not believe there is a “philosophical” difference.

There is an important similarity between Condorcet’s reason-based understanding of progress and transhumanism’s technology-based idea of transformation. However, Condorcet’s understanding of progress is communal. It is open to all, egalitarian, and proposes an ethical framework. In contrast, transhumanism can at times be limited to individual advantages, selective access, and market-oriented tendencies. For example, the fact that only certain economic classes can access genetic modification or cognitive enhancement technologies has the potential to deepen social inequalities. In this respect, Condorcet’s philosophy not only encompasses the concepts underlying transhumanist thought, but also provides an important resource for critically examining transhumanism.

The question of the extent to which human nature can be made an “object of engineering” lies at the heart of ethical debates. Bostrom has argued that the posthuman era contains both great opportunities and existential risks for humanity. These risks may include weak ethical oversight, technological authoritarianism beyond democratic control, and the reproduction of biological racism.

Condorcet’s idea of progress plays an important role not only in the philosophical roots of transhumanism, but also in its critical examination. He viewed progress not as a technical process, but as an ethical and public one. Today, one of the strongest historical foundations for critical thinking about transhumanist projects can be found in Condorcet. Unknowingly, and without ever imagining in 1993 that it would lead me to write this article in 2025, I first encountered Condorcet then. I had no idea at the time what a discovery I was making. I had nothing but my intuition as a reference.

Technological Possibilities and Ethical Responsibility

In this era of rapidly developing AI, neurotechnology, and biotechnology, transhumanism is not only a technological matter, but also a philosophical and political question or problem. We must think about what it means to be human, whether this meaning can change, and if so, according to which values it should be reconstructed.

In the process we are living through, we are faced with a multitude of questions. We are confronting intense debates in the realms of law, economics, morality, beliefs and religion, science, scientific ethics, democracy, mathematics, philosophy, human rights, equality, psychology, politics, sociology, and the climate crisis.

Condorcet sought to produce rational, egalitarian, and social answers to such questions using the tools of his own time. Today, we are faced with the same questions but with more advanced tools. Yet the concepts and responsibilities remain the same. We must question not only the technologies that will shape the future but also the values of that future.

Humanity has so far failed to pass a successful test when it comes to being beneficial to human beings, nature, and the universe. Power relations and the practices of dominant philosophical paradigms tell us that we should pay particular attention to critiques of humanism.

We cannot see as coincidental the fact that the birth of neoclassical economics in the late 19th century and its emergence as the mainstream economic philosophy of the 20th century coincided with the intensification of critiques of humanism during the 20th century.

To be continued.