EN
The text explores the image of cyborg, hybrid of machine and organism, in contemporary critical discourse, tracing its political, and especially emancipatory, significance. It seeks to juxtapose an early scientific vision of improving natural human capacities by virtue of technology with Hannah Arendt’s assumptions about human condition and her condemnation of the technical reason of science. It also searches for the possible sources of fear of cyborg, emphasizing the commonalities that the figure of cyborg shares with the figure of monster, as described in Michel Foucault’s Les anormaux. Finally, it concludes with a brief discussion of Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”, explaining the basic assumption of cyberfeminism and comparing Haraway’s politics of identity with Arendt’s.