This paper deals with both educational and biotechnological possibilities of improving man. The fundamental issue is the question concerning the necessity for and thus also the aim of such an improvement. In the first part of the paper I study the being of humanity in an attempt to elucidate these issues. During the course thereof, I realize that human existence is characterized by a fundamental lack of existence (Sartre 1943). The deficiency in existence is however the prerequisite for every relationship to oneself and to the things in this world, and moreover the reason why people strive towards anything whatsoever. The striving towards improvement is, as far as humanity is concerned, an expression of an attempt to fulfill one’s own existence. The perfect man turns out to be the man who no longer is one.

In the second part of the paper I investigate both educational and biotechnical considerations which could be involved in the improvement or perfection of man. I show that the educative ideas of the perfection of man correspond with a telos inherent in humanity, starting with the Italian humanistic Renaissance philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandolas (Riemen 1989) and his notion of man as creation with creative potential, over Johann A. Comenius’ “Didactica magna“ (Comenius 1657) all the way to the neo-humanism of Wilhelm von Humboldt (Humboldt 1793). Without education, man cannot attain his destiny. However, would he reach it according to the notions, in particular those of Pico’s and Comenius’, man would transcend the non-identicality of humanity - all that what it is.

In the third part I deal with the possibility of a better, because more efficient, self-formation by neuro-enhancement therapy (Gesang 2007, Juengst 2009, Fukuyama 2002). Here the crucial issue is the question concerning the self in the self-formation. Thereby the person considers that what is, and therefore also what he is, as being solely the result of his subjective power of self-formation, which the power of self-determination renders possible.

I advocate for an extended term of maturity, which explicitly tries to create sensitivity for the intangible that shall be made prudently productive and preserved in keeping with its own purpose during the course of a life.

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