Humanity in a New Reality: Global Biotechnological Challenges

Abstract

An overview of the international scientific conference which was held at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences in November 2020 as a part of the XX Readings in the Memory of Academician Ivan Timofeevich Frolov (1929–1999) is presented. The conference was dedicated to the global changes in the socio-anthropological reality associated with the use of the latest biotechnologies and the consequences of the pandemic of the coronavirus COVID-19 in the modern world. During the conference the following issues were discussed: interaction between man and technology, the upgrading of the economic structure of the world in terms of biotechnological stage of the scientific and technical revolution, anthropogenic challenges of the global ecosystem, the consequences and lessons of the coronavirus pandemic, bioethical issues of experiments on human subjects and editing of the human genome, the ethical challenges of genetic technologies in clinical practice, the problem of the status of the human embryo in embryology and genetics, state of the world in the era of global imbalances, the responsibility of modern man to the future of the planet and of the human race. At the conference three new books were presented. The book “Philosophical Conversations with Academician I.T. Frolov” includes transcripts of TV programs of the series “Philosophical Conversations” which Academician I.T. Frolov conducted on Central Television in 1986–1990. The project “Philosophical Conversations” caused a great response in the media and was recognized not only by the philosophical community but also by the general public. The other book is a second edition of I.T. Frolov's monograph “On Man and Humanism” which at the time became a kind of encyclopedia of human studies. The monograph in a concentrated form contains the main results of the Soviet philosophy of man in the 1960s and 1990s. In the book “Man in the Global World: Risks and Prospects” which is based on the results of the XIX Frolov readings man and his future are thought of as the main global problem. The scientific essence, ethical grounds and global consequences of the use of the latest NBICS technologies are considered as well as the way the collisions of global economic, environmental, and geopolitical crises affect the daily life of each person.