The Body, the Soul, the Robot: 21st-Century Monism

The thesis we will defend in the following pages is twofold. First, we indicate two linguistic-cultural turning points in the concept of the robot. The introduction of the body and the soul in the machine has paved the way towards new technical and epistemic possibilities and, thus, it has granted a new conceptual definition of robot. Second, we propose a return to Descartes as a starting point for a reinterpretation and redefinition of the concept of robot in the contemporary world. Here we will show how Cartesian dualism (in the description of humans) becomes a (material) monism in the development and construction of robots. As a result, we call on our fellow philosophers and historians of science and technology to explore, critique, reject, or further investigate the features of the 21st-century material monism proposed in this paper.