Marc Gatti ’16 recently published his first book, Existentialism is a Transhumanism: The Self-Made Species. The book aims to bring together two strands of contemporary philosophical thinking. Existentialism is a school of thought that proposes human beings are fundamentally free to create their own meaning and value. Transhumanism is a school of thought that proposes human beings ought to use emerging technologies to radically enhance human capabilities. Mr. Gatti explores the possibility of philosophical alignment for these ways of thinking, showing where they converge and where they diverge. The title is a play on words of a famous lecture, “Existentialism is a Humanism,” by the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.
Gatti was a computer science major and a philosophy minor at Canisius, and his book brings together these two disciplines in a engaging and provocative study. Gatti works for M&T bank in the areas of cybersecurity and software engineering.
Submitted by: Philip Reed, Professor of Philosophy
