| Institution: | Germany's most controversial thinker and media theorist. He has dared to challenge long‐established divisions in traditional philosophy of body and soul, subject and object, culture and nature. His 1999 lecture on “Regulations for the Human Park,” in which he argued that genetic engineering was a continuation of human striving for self‐creation, stirred up a tempest in a country known for Nazi eugenics. At the same time, he himself has concluded that “the taming of man has failed” as civilization's potential for barbarism has grown ever greater. His seminal books include “Critique of Cynical Reason” and his trilogy, “Spheres.” |
