Abstract
Taking as starting point the huge media-hype around C. Venter’s announcement of the creation of an artificial living cell in 2010, the chapter firstly explores the question if synthetic biology really amounts to playing God, given the different ways the Judeo-Christian tradition conceives the relation between man an nature, to move then on to the central question concerning the epistemological presupposition of synthetic biology, mainly that creating life equals understanding life. Based on M. Heidegger’s philosophy of technology it is shown that this constructivist paradigm is not only nothing new at all, but actually the culmination of traditional ontology, which from the beginning aimed at reification. The chapter finally asks if Bio-Art could turn synthetic biology against itself by a paradoxical intervention that uses the same tools of synthetic biology but with a complete different outcome. Whereas synthetic biology utilizes technology to reduce living cells to mere organic mechanism, Bio-Art uses the same technology to revitalize alleged mere bio-chemical machines by showing their intrinsic spontaneity.
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Notes
- 1.
Venter’s talk is available at http://www.ted.com/talks/craig_venter_unveils_synthetic_life.html. Accessed 11 Nov 2014.
- 2.
A photo of a blackboard with Feynman’s phrase can be found on the Homepage of Caltech: http://archives.caltech.edu/pictures/1.10-29.jpg. Accessed 11 Nov 2014.
- 3.
https://archive.org/stream/thomhobbesmalme03molegoog#page/n120/mode/2up. Accessed 20 June 2015.
- 4.
„Das Kunstwerk ist eine Art Analogon des ‚von Natur Seienden’, weil es selbst ein Zentrum von Bedeutsamkeit ist, das wir wahrnehmen können, und das sich für uns nicht erschöpft in dem, was es in unserem Lebenszusammenhang bedeutet. So wie jedes Lebendige, so stiftet das schöne Ding einen eigenen Horizont von Bedeutsamkeit. Und so erst ist es im vollen Sinne des Wortes wirklich und, wie bei allem Wirklichen, ist seine Bestimmtheit unendlich“ (Spaemann 2007, p. 258).
- 5.
I owe this insight to Georg Toepfer.
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Weiss, M.G. (2016). Epistemological Implications of Synthetic Biology: A Heideggerian Perspective. In: Hagen, K., Engelhard, M., Toepfer, G. (eds) Ambivalences of Creating Life. Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment, vol 45. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21088-9_18
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