Posthumanist Perspectives in Greek Tragedy: A Single Dominating Character and Individual Intelligence

This paper, analyzing ancient texts, illuminates the social imaginary in the new era of artificial intelligence and posthumanism. This study begins by defining the notions of the human and then extends to the possibility of the posthuman. The posthuman who has potential traits is first conceived of as a single dominating character in Greek tragedy. Antigone and Electra in Sophocles’ tragedies, who are relatively less important characters than their fathers Oedipus and Agamemnon, formulate problems and present new values at the moment of the undecidability. The heroines as provocative issue raisers experiment to activate virtual potentials. Antigone and Electra are in love with death. Death is conceptualized as net-war between war-machine and megamachine. This paper takes a close look at some important machine related concepts to reflect the posthumanist perspectives, which can be interpreted from the aspective such as dramatic actions and moral decisions which stem from the heroines’ individual intelligence.