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Work #1107 · Mid period

Simians, Cyborgs, and Women

Donna Haraway's 1991 essay collection — gathering "A Cyborg Manifesto" and "Situated Knowledges"

Donna Haraway · 1991 · English · Essay collection

Tradition: Science and technology studies / Feminist science studies / Cyborg feminism

Haraway's 1991 essay collection gathering the canonical "A Cyborg Manifesto" and "Situated Knowledges"

Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (1991) is Haraway's influential essay collection, gathering "A Cyborg Manifesto" (1985), "Situated Knowledges" (1988), "Gender for a Marxist Dictionary," and other major essays of the 1980s. The volume articulates Haraway's mature cyborg-feminist position: the cyborg as ironic-political figure for late-twentieth-century socialist-feminist politics; situated knowledges as feminist epistemological alternative to "the view from nowhere."

Author

Editions cited

  • Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (Routledge / Free Association Books, 1991)
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School Embodiments

Feminism · 25%
Critical Theory · 15%
Transhumanism / Posthumanism · 20%
Dialectical Materialism · 10%
Postmodernism · 10%
Intersectionality · 10%
Cybernetics · 10%
Feminism 25%

Canonical cyborg-feminist statement — central to feminist-theoretical canons of the late twentieth century.

"A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction." (Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, "A Cyborg Manifesto")
Critical Theory 15%

Major contribution to critical theory — politics of science, knowledge-production, technological mediation.

"The boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion." (Simians, Cyborgs, and Women)
Transhumanism / Posthumanism 20%

Foundational text of posthumanist theory — the cyborg as principal figure.

"I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess." (Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, "A Cyborg Manifesto")
Dialectical Materialism 10%

Socialist-feminist political tradition — the cyborg as figure for late-capitalist labour-politics.

"The cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labour, or other seductions to organic wholeness." (Simians, Cyborgs, and Women)
Postmodernism 10%

Post-structuralist-influenced rhetoric — irony, partial perspective, contingent identity.

"Irony is about contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes." (Simians, Cyborgs, and Women)
Intersectionality 10%

"Women of colour" as paradigmatic cyborg figure — intersectional alongside other identity categories.

"Chela Sandoval names the strategies women of colour have invented as 'oppositional consciousness' — a kind of cyborg politics avant la lettre." (Simians, Cyborgs, and Women)
Cybernetics 10%

Engages cybernetic-informational frameworks — the cyborg figure depends on cybernetic-organic synthesis.

"By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorised and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism." (Simians, Cyborgs, and Women)

Internal Tensions

Cyborg feminism has been variously assessed — defenders see proper late-twentieth-century socialist-feminist politics, critics worry about the depoliticisation of technological-capitalist conditions.

⧖

I. Time

The 1980s essays of late-Cold-War feminist socialism.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Grain: Continuous Freedom: Non-Deterministic Traversability: Non-Linear Direction: Bi-directional Dimensionality: One
✦

II. Space

The cybernetic-techno-scientific spaces of late-twentieth-century capitalism.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Curvature: Flat Dimensionality: Three Locality: Non-Local
◉

III. Matter

The hybrid bodies — biological-cybernetic — of the cyborg politics.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Non-Local
◎

IV. Observer

The situated-feminist observer of cybernetic-organic synthesis.

Attributes
Time Instance: Single Space Instance: Single Knowledge Extent: Partial Knowledge Retainment: Partial Physicality: Embodied Agency: Active Number: Plural Metaphysical Agency: None
⚡

V. Energy

The political-techno-scientific energies of late-twentieth-century feminism.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dispersibility: Irreversible
⧉

VI. Information

The cybernetic-informational content of cyborg-feminist analysis.

Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival Cosmic Conservation: Variable Personal Conservation: Variable Granularity: Discrete

Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint

Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.

80%
Carneades
8/10
77%
Anaximander of Miletus
23/30
77%
Epicurus
23/30
76%
Thales of Miletus
22/29
74%
Derek Parfit
25/34
74%
Hilary Putnam
25/34

Computed school proximity

The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.

43%
Cosmopolitanism
19/26
37%
Modal Realism
19/26
37%
Atomism
19/26
36%
Effective Altruism
19/26
34%
Virtual Realism
18/26
34%
Pragmatism
19/26
34%
Empiricism
19/26
34%
Humanism
19/26

How Simians, Cyborgs, and Women resolves each dilemma

31 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 6 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 26 unaligned.

Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.

Time · 9 dilemmas · 3 distinctive

Persistence, the future, and the direction of becoming.

Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Is the universe running out of usable energy?
The heat death of the universe — entropy maxed out, no further work possible — is among the more sobering implications of mainstream physics. Whether it is structurally inescapable depends on what kind of finitude the cosmos has.
Both time and matter are unbounded; 'running out' is misframed.
On this view, the cosmos has neither a temporal horizon nor a material exhaustion point. The framing of running out presupposes bounds that the cosmos doesn't have. Energy gradients perpetuate; new configurations emerge; the categories that make heat-death scary don't apply at the cosmic scale.
Roads not taken Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing. (47%) · Time both has and lacks bounds depending on the level you ask at; finitude is conventional. (26%) · The cosmos has bounds; heat death is a real horizon. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so?
Whether we can grow our way out of resource constraints — or whether the cosmos sets limits the economy ultimately must obey — depends on what kind of finitude matter has.
Resources are practically inexhaustible on cosmic scales; terrestrial limits are engineering.
On this view, matter and time are both unbounded at the largest scales. Terrestrial resource limits are real engineering and political constraints but not metaphysical ones; the cosmos can in principle support whatever expansion intelligence is capable of.
Roads not taken Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time. (47%) · The finitude question is level-dependent; resource ethics happens at the level that constrains us. (26%) · Resources are finite in the strict sense; living well requires accepting the limit. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide?
If we owe future people a habitable planet and the material means to flourish, and the cosmos is bounded in ways that make those obligations impossible at some scale, the obligation and the possibility come apart. Where they come apart turns on what kind of finitude we live in.
Both time and matter are unbounded; we cannot in principle owe more than is possible.
On this view, the cosmos has the resources to support whatever flourishing future generations are capable of, given sufficient time and intelligence. The impossibility concern is misplaced; the real questions are about trajectories and choices, not about resource ceilings.
Roads not taken Time is unbounded but matter is not; we can owe more across long time than the matter can provide. (47%) · The owing-and-possibility question is level-dependent; we owe what is appropriate at the level we act on. (26%) · The cosmos is bounded; our obligations to future generations are bounded with it. (12%)
3 mainstream positions
Do you really choose? The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it. 69% Are addicts responsible for their addiction? The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real. 69% Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do? An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible. 69%
3 unaligned
Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them? Schools split: 47% / 32% / 17% — How much weight do future people deserve? Schools split: 47% / 32% / 17% — Is regret rational? Schools split: 47% / 32% / 17% —
Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is the world created from nothing? Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. 55% Is the physical world fully real? Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting. 55% Does matter have intrinsic moral standing? Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good. 55% What is money? Money is a real institution with intrinsic features. 54% What is a nation? A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character. 54% What makes someone male or female? Sex is a real biological kind with given content. 54% Should we edit the human germline? Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given. 54%

Observer · 37 dilemmas · 3 distinctive

Mind, agency, and the knower's relation to the known.

Distinctive · only 13% of schools agree (27/202)
Is reality fundamentally digital?
Pancomputationalism, Planck-scale quanta, simulation theory and Kabbalistic letter-mysticism all say yes — but for very different reasons. The rest of the atlas says no.
Yes — bits, quanta, computational substrate.
On this view, the world is at bottom discrete and law-governed, with no metaphysical agency above or behind the substrate. Reality reduces to bits or their physical analogues; the continuous appearance of fields and flows is coarse-graining over discrete underlying structure.
Roads not taken No — continuous divine sustaining act, the Tao that knows no joints, the One's self-disclosure. (44%) · No — continuous fields, classical limits, analog deep structure. (37%) · Yes — but divinely-discrete: divine letters, momentary cognitions, atomistic theism. (6%)
Distinctive · only 13% of schools agree (27/202)
Are there indivisible units of experience?
Whiteheadian actual occasions, Buddhist moments of mind, Kabbalistic letter-cognitions, IIT phi-units — or the unbroken Jamesian stream? The atomism of experience cuts across naturalism and theism alike.
Yes — naturalist quanta of experience.
On this view, experience comes in discrete units defined by the substrate: information-theoretic phi-units, computational frames, discrete neural events. There is no further metaphysical agency that knits them; the appearance of a stream is the way many discrete events present to introspection.
Roads not taken No — continuous divine presence; consciousness is the unbroken witness. (44%) · No — continuous Jamesian stream, phenomenological lived time. (37%) · Yes, theistic atomism — actual occasions, divine letters, momentary cognitions. (6%)
Distinctive · only 13% of schools agree (27/202)
Is memory stored or reconstructed?
Engrams and traces — or continuous re-narration each time you remember? The cognitive-science debate has a theological cousin: divine memory holding each hair, or the ancestors' continuous remembering.
Stored — discrete engrams, traces, weights.
On this view, memory is the readout of discrete information stored in the substrate: engrams, synaptic weights, file-like records. Reconstruction at retrieval is real but secondary; without the stored bits there would be nothing to reconstruct from.
Roads not taken Held in continuous divine or ancestral remembering — neither stored discretely nor purely reconstructed. (44%) · Reconstructed — continuous re-narrating, no fixed engrams. (37%) · Stored — in divine memory's discrete particulars, or in karmic-record units. (6%)
15 mainstream positions
When does a person begin? A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. 54% What is marriage? Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make. 54% Can prayer for someone far away affect them? Prayer changes the pray-er, not the prayed-for. 49% Are coincidences ever more than coincidence? Coincidence is exactly what the math says it is. The pattern is in the noticer. 49% What is our place in nature? Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform. 48% Should we colonize space? Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship. 48% Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination? Genetic modification is cultivation by other means. 48% Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom? The observer is in time; foreknowledge across times raises real freedom problems. 46% Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless? Meditators are bounded observers reporting unusual brain states; the 'timeless' is metaphorical. 46% Does prayer change God's mind? If there is an addressee at all, it is in time; prayer is communication, and may genuinely change what comes next. 46% Are the dead morally present to the living? Observers are bounded by their own moment, and no further agency makes the dead present. 44% Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans? Animal minds are real because biology is the substrate of mind. 32% Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious? Brain tissue can in principle do what brains do; the question is integration. 32% What happens to "you" when you die? Death is genuinely the end. 30% Could an AI have a mind that matters? No — mind is what a biological brain does, and an LLM has no brain. 30%
19 unaligned
Can a civilization recover from collapse? Schools split: 66% / 17% / 8% — Could causation work backwards? Schools split: 68% / 17% / 8% — Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces? Schools split: 32% / 28% / 17% — Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally? Schools split: 50% / 29% / 12% — Does history have a direction or meaning? Schools split: 37% / 23% / 19% — Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally? Schools split: 66% / 17% / 8% — How is knowledge of reality produced? Schools split: 25% / 17% / 13% — If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived? Schools split: 36% / 29% / 14% — Is environmental damage ever truly permanent? Schools split: 66% / 17% / 8% — Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge? Schools split: 32% / 28% / 17% — Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal? Schools split: 15% / 14% / 4% — Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it? Schools split: 68% / 17% / 8% — Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us? Schools split: 68% / 17% / 8% — Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married? Schools split: 36% / 29% / 14% — Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed? Schools split: 65% / 16% / 10% — Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it? Schools split: 32% / 28% / 17% — What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize? Schools split: 44% / 16% / 14% — What makes someone the same person over time? Schools split: 36% / 29% / 14% — Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species? Schools split: 40% / 28% / 14% —
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Could the dead, in principle, be brought back? — — Does deleting your data online destroy something real? — — Is anything truly lost when someone forgets? — — Is forgiveness ontologically possible? — —
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