Martin G. Weiß, Bios und Zoë. Die menschliche Natur im Zeitalter ihrer technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, Suhrkamp, 2009
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17041
application/pdf
2038-3460
17041
1
en
Ingrid Metzler
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Martin G. Weiß, Bios and Zoe. Human nature in the age of mechanical reproduction, Suhrkamp, 2009
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
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Book Reviews
2012-06-16
2023-05-25
2012-06-16
2023-07-10
128-131
TS
Ingrid Metzler
2012/06/16
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17041
128
University of Vienna
2038-3460
1
en
131
Martin G. Weiß, Bios and Zoe. Human nature in the age of mechanical reproduction, Suhrkamp, 2009
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17041/15935
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128 TECNOSCIENZA – 3 (1)




    but it is constructed as a major          Germany, Italy, and the United
    challenge to the traditional socio–       States, and is now at the University of
    logical theory. It is permeated by an     Klagenfurt in Austria. The title itself
    interpretive vitality that leaves the     alludes to the work of the Italian
    reader with the conviction that the       philosopher      Giorgio     Agamben,
    path taken is going in the right          whose Homo Sacer (Agamben 1995)
    direction. It requires, however, the      in particular helped to revitalize the
    effort and the modesty to abandon         two Greek terms “bios and “zoë”, as
    most of the conceptual equipment          well as to Walter Benjamin’s “The
    commonly used to interpret cultural       Work of Art in the Age of
    and social changes.                       Mechanical Reproduction” (Benja-
                                              min 1963). Moreover, Bios und Zoë is
                                              published      by    the    prestigious
                      ***                     publisher Suhrkamp, whose reco-
                                              gnizable brown paperback books
                                              often indicate a zone of philosophical
              Martin G. Weiß                  reasoning.
                                              Yet this first glance is misleading.
      Bios und Zoë. Die menschliche
                                              This book is more than a purely
         Natur im Zeitalter ihrer
     technischen Reproduzierbarkeit           philosophical collection. Assembling
                                              a plethora of authors with very
     (Bios and Zoe. Human nature in the age   different modes of reasoning and
            of mechanical reproduction)       styles of writing, the book is just as
           2009, Suhrkamp, 388 pp.            heterogeneous and difficult to
                                              categorize as the beast it seeks to
                                              study: life in the bio-age. Containing
                 Ingrid Metzler               chapters that discuss such different
                                              phenomena as synthetic biology,
              (University of Vienna)
                                              DNA codes, stem cells, egg cells, and
                                              post-genomic configurations, the
                                              collection provides not only a
    At first glance, Bios und Zoë: Die        snapshot of the many frontiers and
    menschliche Nature im Zeitalter ihrer     heterogeneous directions of contem-
    technischen Reproduzierbar–keit –         porary bio-technology, but in fact a
    which might be translated into            fairly suggestive picture of the
    English as “Bios and Zoe: Human           different modes of reasoning and
    nature in the age of technical” or        styles of writing that have emerged
    perhaps, indeed, “in the age of           within those fields of inquiry that
    mechanical reproduction” – seems to       have sought to make sense of the
    be a collection of philosophical          ways in which the life sciences have
    works. It is edited by Martin Weiss, a    unsettled our ways of thinking on life
    German philosopher who has held           and our ways of acting on it, fields
    academic positions in Austria,            such as philosophy, history of
                                                                  BOOK REVIEWS        129




science, political science, anthro–         between what he depicts as
pology and science and technology           “dissolution of human nature” in
studies. As editor, Weiss has               biological laboratories and the
managed to gather many of the big           dissolution of the individual in the
names of those fields.                      “communitarian turn of bio-ethics”.
“Bios” and “zoe”, the two terms that        He argues that biotechnologies not
constitute the main title of the book,      only “reduce human beings to the
mark the ambiguous zone on whose            materiality of their genes” but also
past, present, and possible futures         increasingly “dissolve these [mate–
the contributors seek to reflect upon.      rial] molecules in the immaterial
“[N]ew insights of the life sciences”       probabilities of potential gene
and “biotechnology’s capability to          expressions” (p. 45) – which Weiss
manipulate”, Martin Weiss writes in         reads as an interesting symmetrical
his brief introduction to this volume,      movement to the dissolution of
have moved “life in its double              human subjects in those kinds of
meaning as ‘mere biological life’           political projects that call upon
[zoë] and ‘qualified human life’            individuals to govern themselves in
[bios] as well as the relationship          light of collective truths. In the
between these two concepts at the           following chapter, Karin Knorr
center of interest of the social            Cetina seeks to think “[b]eyond the
sciences and humanities” (p. 7; my          enlightenment”, reflecting on the
translations throughout). This book,        emergence of a “culture of life”.
Weiss goes on, is meant to be a             “Citizens” and “biological citizens”
collection of “Werkstattberichte”,          more precisely are at the center of
that is, reports from the workshops         the contribution by Thomas Lemke
of these fields.                            and Peter Wehling, which is an
The contribution by Hans-Jörg               excellent      reconstruction      and
Rheinberger and Staffan Müller-             discussion of the proliferation of that
Wille is the first of these reports. It     concept, whose critical power they
reflects upon the “[t]echnical              seek to revitalize. Michel Foucault’s
reproducibility of organic nature”          work provides the bridge between
from the perspective of a “history of       this chapter and the next one, in
molecular biology”, whose practices,        which Rosi Braidotti first critically
“tool boxes”, and machineries the           discusses Foucault’s work and
authors carefully unpack in their           subsequently introduces a post-
chapter, distilling some of those           human reading of “zoe” as starting
“epistemic changes” – such as the           point for an ethics of becoming. Such
ability to read life and to rewrite life,   a post-human perspective is similarly
or to blur boundaries between               developed by Stefan Helmreich in his
species – that provide the meat of          contribution titled “Human nature
some of the following chapters. In          on sea”, in which he reflects upon
the next chapter, Martin Weiss seeks        the efforts of “environmental marine
to think through the connections            metagenomics” to genetically profile
130 TECNOSCIENZA – 3 (1)




    not individual organisms but “life in       kind, describing the past failure in
    the sea”. At a distance from this,          setting up symmetrical collaborative
    Nikolas Rose draws upon Erwin               projects with bio-scientists, and
    Schrödinger to reflect upon what life       mapping some lines for such a
    is, and seeks to revitalize this            collaboration in the future. In the
    question to catch some answers in an        final    chapter,     Bruno      Latour
    age in which what life is and what it       contributes to this debate through a
    should be is no longer tamed by             chapter that seeks to find some
    informational epistemologies.               middle-ground between modern(ist)
    Rose’s chapter is followed by a block       dichotomies.
    of philosophical contributions. These       The book as a while might be
    start with Gianni Vattimo’s more            difficult to digest for those who are
    programmatic attempt to reflect             altogether new to the literature on
    upon the possibilities and directions       the “bio-age”. Yet, it is helpful for all
    of a post-metaphysical ethics.              those who are not completely new to
    Similarly – yet, perhaps less program-      this body of literature and for those
    matically – in their chapters Kurt          who have wrestled with making sense
    Bayertz and Dieter Birnbacher both          of the life sciences and its
    reflect upon the limits and problems        implications and wish to think
    of ethical reasoning that are               outside their own box. Many of the
    grounded in notions of “human               chapters are worthy reading as such.
    nature”. Subsequently, Ulrich Kört–         For example, Rheinberger and
    ner tackles not “human nature” but          Müller-Wille give a remarkably
    the concept of the “person”. After          succinct but nevertheless deep and
    these philosophical contri–butions          detailed report on the history of
    on ethics, Anna Durnová and                 molecular biology, unpacking its
    Herbert Gottweis reflect upon               toolboxes in detail whilst embedding
    “politics between death and life”,          them also in regulatory debates.
    using    examples      from      human      Moreover, some themes cut across
    embryonic stem cell research debates        chapters: “post-genomic” research
    and end-of-life debates to distill some     practices, which are introduced in
    cardinal features of the politics of life   Rheinberger      and     Müller-Wille’s
    today.                                      contribution, are taken up in Weiss’s,
    Striking more empirical paths, Charis       Lemke and Wehling’s, and Rose’s
    Thompson discusses materials from           chapters; “human nature”, and its
    ethnographic studies in clinics of          biological and normative reconfi–
    reproductive medicine, and discusses        guration, features prominently across
    the many ways in which “race”               the chapters, in particular the more
    emerges and persists in egg donation        philosophical ones; and many contri–
    practices in the United States. Paul        butions are conversations not with
    Rabinow and Gaymon Bennett                  Giorgio Agamben, as the title
    subsequently report from a work–            somehow suggests, but with Michel
    shop that is more experimental in           Foucault’s work on biopolitics.
                                                                        BOOK REVIEWS       131




However, overall this book shows                Federico Neresini and Paolo Magaudda
that even if the various fields of the             La scienza sullo schermo. La
social science and humanities are                     rappresentazione della
assembled in one volume, they do                  tecnoscienza nella televisione
not necessarily speak to one another.                        italiana
The book does not give a coherent
message and a tension between                    (Science on the Screen. The Representa-
different modes of reasoning persists.              tion of Technoscience in the Italian
For instance, whilst some chapters                              Television)
take pains to show that “biotechnol-                    2011, Il Mulino, 250 pp.
ogy” is not a coherent actor, others
tend to take biotechnology – and its
power and agency – as a given. This                         Paola Pallavicini
tension is addressed in Latour’s                          (University of Torino)
contribution, which, however, re–
mains at a distance from the volume’s
topics. Yet, such a tension does not            The volume, edited by Federico
necessarily detract from the value of           Neresini and Paolo Magaudda, col-
this volume. Rather, it is productive           lects the main results of a research
and thought-provoking, triggering               project on technoscience in Italian
reflections not only on what kind of            television programs. Started in 2007
phenomena we are witnessing, but                at the Department of Sociology of
also on how we might want to reflect            Padova University, the project was
on them and engage with them.                   led by the PaSTIS research unit
                                                (Padova Science, Technology and
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Agamben, G. (1995) Homo sacer. Il potere
   sovrano e la nuda vita, Einaudi, Torino.     scholars from both the fields of
Benjamin, W. (1963) Das Kunstwerk im            Science and Technology Studies and
   Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduz-       Media and Communication Studies.
   ierbarkeit; drei Studien zur Kunstsoziolo-   The common reference to the
   gie, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am
   Main.
                                                sociological culture has oriented the
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                                                toward the long tradition issue of the
                                                agency of media contents in social
                                                context (i.e. the way in which media
                                                content acts socially), investigating
                    ***
                                                how the television communication
                                                takes part in and, at the same time,
                                                gives form to the social sharing of
                                                technoscience knowledge.
                                                Starting from the assumption that
