Evolution, Machine, and Humanity: Rereading Samuel Butler from a Posthuman Perspective

Abstract

Abstract Samuel Butler (1835–1902) stands out among his contemporaries for engaging into a famous controversy with Charles Darwin. He develops the unconscious memory analogy and the extra-corporaneous limb theory in his famous Dystopia fiction Erewhon and his works on evolution as a counter-argument against Darwin’s version of evolutionary theory, which puts the emphasis on chance in natural selection. His treatment of machines, and particularly the relationship between man, machine, and environment in his works, attracts great critical attention in the current debate on posthuman pragmatism. The intention of this article is to show how Butler anticipates the posthumanist discourse that is characterized by the decline and deconstruction of the anthropocentric way of thinking.