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Human actions are ambivalent in nature and this in turn has an impact on all components of socio-ecological systems. Their ambivalence results from the fact that human actions have both positive and negative outcomes and properties, which occur and manifest concurrently in the ontological realm of human existence. In terms of space–time, both micro-geography and macro-geography of human existence are intertwined during the COVID-19 pandemic, thus affecting pre- and post-pandemic space–time continuum. The utilitarian qubit can be used to describe the nature of human existence, i.e., Homo sapiens has always been experiencing a state of existence where pain and pleasure are co-extensive. In this state, it is impossible to establish to what extent pain, and to what extent pleasure, will have a definitive impact on our status as individuals and humanity as a species. In this article, the authors explore how the record of an individual’s life before and after the COVID-19 pandemic has been impacted by the wellbeing and actions of other humans and prior to one’s existence. Drawing on the utilitarian qubit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and its impacts on the members of Homo sapiens, can be understood as a partial outcome of the cumulative actions of humanity on the biosphere and other elements of the global ecosystem (the Age of the Anthropocene). We argue that this paper is also useful to foster disaster preparedness and resilience in the pandemic and post-pandemic era, at micro- and macro-geographical interfaces of human existence in the 21st century. The existence of individual members of Homo sapiens and humanity as a species is unfolding at the boundary between two levels: fundamental reality and situational reality. The result is the historical accumulation and ontological interconnectedness of humanity’s activities with one’s own actions. Pain and pleasure resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and the Age of Anthropocene, as well as the right and wrong consequences of humanity’s actions, are posited here to be symptoms of the Anthropocenic (phase of) epidemiological transition.

Introduction: Although this paper deals mostly with the positive effects of a posthumanist worldview on environmental sustainability, partnership, or moral accountability in science and scientific research, it also promotes a new understanding of our educational practice in higher education. The ideas espoused have the ability to inspire educators at all levels to show students, future researchers or other professions about the importance of a progressive, holistic approach to our environment. We claim that being sensitive and caring for our environment is not only part of our moral and ethical responsibility, it is an inseparable aspect of our environmental education, our environmental intelligence. This paper discusses posthumanist 1 reciprocity ethics in the context of traditional knowledge (TK) and the protection of indigenous traditional knowledge from commercial exploitation. Methods: Instances of unethical bioprospecting and biopiracy were common throughout the turn of the 21st century and are discussed using cases in countries such as Cameroon, India, South Africa and Australia, where medicinal plant species were, are still a highly sought-after source of potent, pharmacologically active phytochemicals. Results and discussion: The observed increase in regulations against bioprospecting on indigenous land in these countries as a result of intellectual property monopoly by big pharmaceutical companies is discussed in this paper along the lines of a 'humanist vs posthumanist' ontology. Patent exclusivity laws have historically marginalized the proprietary owners of indigenous traditional knowledge, creating a moral

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The recent institutional consolidation of feminist philosophy, African and Africana philosophies, sociology of knowledge and decolonial theory have brought professional philosophers face-to-face with the repressed side of Western philosophy. This essay, drawing on the theoretical framework developed in my previous article ‘Hic sunt leones’, investigates the role played by professional narcissism and resistance to history in the philosopher’s self-image and imaginary, with a particular focus on professional white philosophy in South Africa. The pedagogical aspects of philosophical apprenticeship will be examined psychoanalytically, and explored in their transferential components. Such a psychoanalytic reading will also engage with current conflicts within the South African philosophical field, promoting a shared space for negotiations. However, without adequate introjection of, and progressive identification with, African philosophers and their work, professional white philosophers in South Africa run the twofold risk of replicating regressive forms of disciplinary parenthood while institutionalising neocolonial forms of academic (af)filiations.