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This paper problematises the justification of ‘postist’ revisions of humanism. In the first part of the paper, a line of thought that persistently marks the self-perception of man is presented. It stretches from Plato, through Pico della Mirandola and Kant, all the way to existentialism and philosophical anthropology in the twentieth century. In it, man is understood as chronically deficient in their own ‘nature’ or ‘essence’, and his privileged status is built from this rootlessness. The second part of the paper is dedicated to the relationship of transhumanism and critical posthumanism to humanism. Transhumanism is found to harmoniously continue and/or radicalise the humanist project of self-creating and self-transcending man, while critical posthumanism advocates a rethinking and redescription of man in view of what are considered to have been the disastrous consequences of humanism: a transgression in relation to everything different from man by anthropomorphising it and anthropocentrically measuring it against himself. The concluding part of the paper detects a certain arbitrariness in the understanding of humanism by its critics, reminds that even within such a broadly understood humanism, critical moments have been inherited as its own content and corrective, and that announcements of radical cuts and ruptures with the humanistic tradition are perhaps redundant. It is also noted that something non-negligible has changed with the contemporary challenges of technoscience – artificial intelligence, informatics, robotics –but it is contested that this change in social history requires a cardinal rejection, change or neglect of the intellectual heritage that enables responses to it and/or a rational dispute about it. A synoptic overview of humanist landmarks and their post-humanist condemnations is suggested, which would respect the heritage of humanist thought and the right or even the obligation built into it of its critical review.

The theme of this paper is the relationship to „others“ – other civilizations and cultures in the history of Earth, and other species and different forms of life in science fiction. The analysis of Star Trek series and films shows that, despite considerable endeavor to adopt „multiculturalism“ as a principle, and despite a conscious effort to respect and celebrate diversity, „colonial narrative“ remains in force in the popular science fiction visions of the future. Fear and/or violence are typical reactions that (un)hiddenly repeats the pattern of our thinking of otherness and treatment of different ones whenever it comes to aliens, whether they are foreigners or extraterrestrials.

The main question of this article is why imagine other worlds. In addition to shedding light on the motivation, we also examine the imaginative processes, their resources and the associative arrangements available to imagination in the construction of new worlds. We see ‘other worlds’ as both utopian and as fantastic spaces, following the hypothesis that the space of fantasy is never entirely free. We place particular emphasis on the space and time of utopia, and on the aspect of the novelty. The paper is divided into four parts. The first takes into account the path to the other world, or the methodical problem of imagination. The second wants to portray the other world, or the limitations to imagining something entirely different and new. The third part inquires about the cost of utopian thinking: what is lost in the process, what is sacrificed to its flattening gestures? Finally, despite all these limitations, in the fourth part we consider the significance of utopian thought for social theory.

Abstract Breast cancer is the most common malignant tumor and one of the leading causes of cancer-related death in women throughout the world. This study is a parallel, randomized, double-blind, controlled, 12-week supplementation trial, investigating the anti-inflammatory effects of dietary intake of fish oil and evening primrose oil (EPO), in patients with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy. The primary outcomes were changes in the nutritional status and inflammatory cytokines of patients during the study. The secondary outcomes were changes in hematological and biochemical parameters and fatty acid profile. Of the 32 eligible patients, half of them is randomly assigned to a treatment arm with fish oil and EPO (n = 16), or a control arm (n = 16) with mineral oil as a placebo. The intervention group was taking 2 gel capsules of fish oil and 3 gel capsules of EPO (400 mg eicosapentaenoic acid, 600 mg docosahexaenoic acid, and 351 mg gamma-linolenic acid) fish oil and evening primrose oil for 12 weeks, during their chemotherapy. The control/placebo group was taking 5 gel capsules of 1g of mineral oil. One of the patients dropped out due to discontinuation of the treatment (in the placebo group) and two did not show up at the post-treatment measurements (in the intervention group), thus, 29 women completed the study. The results showed an increase in plasma levels of docosapentaenoic acid (22:5n-3), docosahexaenoic acid (22:6n-3), total n-3PUFA, vaccenic acid (18:1n-7), and a decrease in n-6/n-3 PUFA ratio in the intervention group. An increase in the plasma level of dihomo-gamma-linolenic acid (20:3n-6) was observed in the placebo group. There was no difference in plasma levels of interleukin (IL) IL-8, IL-10, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha, while the level of IL-6 decreased in both groups and was significantly lower in the intervention group at the end of the study. In conclusion, this supplementation improved the PUFA status and decreased the level of IL-6 in breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Consequently, this treatment may help reduce cancer complications resulting from impaired lipid metabolism and inflammation. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03516253. Date of registration 04/05/2018.