Virtuality and humanity

This chapter discusses the key questions raised by its titleâwhat should we understand by the terms virtuality, humanity, and, thereby, by the term reality? These questions are explored with reference to the work of philosophers such as Henri Bergson, and his concepts of perception and moral obligation, and Michel Foucault, and his concepts of discourse, power, and epistemic shifts in history. These philosophical backgrounds then underpin the more recent theorizing of thinkers such as Karen Barad, Stephen Gill, and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, whose agential realism and neo-Gramscianism together constitute a broad picture within which the material manifestation of our dreams can be better understood. The chapter concludes that virtuality is consciousness, but that the freedom to choose implicit in this equation must be fought for, generation after generation.This chapter discusses the key questions raised by its titleâwhat should we understand by the terms virtuality, humanity, and, thereby, by the term reality? These questions are explored with reference to the work of philosophers such as Henri Bergson, and his concepts of perception and moral obligation, and Michel Foucault, and his concepts of discourse, power, and epistemic shifts in history. These philosophical backgrounds then underpin the more recent theorizing of thinkers such as Karen Barad, Stephen Gill, and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, whose agential realism and neo-Gramscianism together constitute a broad picture within which the material manifestation of our dreams can be better understood. The chapter concludes that virtuality is consciousness, but that the freedom to choose implicit in this equation must be fought for, generation after generation.