Thomas Fuchs

With the advances in artificial intelligence and digitalization, humans increasingly appear to be a product of data and algorithms – we see ourselves in the image of our machines. “Increasingly, we believe in the superiority of our own artificial creatures and are beginning to be ashamed of our existence as beings of flesh and blood,” says philosopher and psychiatrist Thomas Fuchs. He advocates a humanism of embodiment and vitality instead of a reductionist view of humanity. This new humanism strives to promote people’s bodily and ecological relationships with their environment and to use new technologies only as a means instead of submitting to them.

Thomas Fuchs is Karl Jaspers Professor of Philosophical Foundations of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Heidelberg and Senior Physician at the Psychiatric University Hospital in Heidelberg. He was awarded the Erich Fromm Prize in 2023.

In the series Philosophy