This article deals with French post-humanist fiction, with as an example Michel Houellebecq's novel, The Possibility of an Island (2005), which offers an emblematic example of such "speculative critical fiction".

In recent years, post-humanism is increasingly present in Western thought and arts, in different forms, taking multiple meanings. Indeed, the third industrial revolution, that of computer science and biotechnology, triggered a veritable proliferation of questions about the future of humanity. Between technophilic and technophobia, post-humanism allows us to rethink the borders and the definition of humans.

We move on to the analysis of the novel of a contemporary author who uses post-humanism to build a proper critique of capitalism, its logic, its ethics, and its effect on humans. Michel Houellebecq writes The Possibility of an Island, in which the social transformation of the "world market" passes through the biotechnological metamorphosis of the bodies. But Houellebecq's solution remains ambiguous in its inefficiency and marked by irony, elevated to the rank of style.

This article tackles the two key arguments of post-humanism, that of the freedom to "increase", to pursue the project of a human emancipated from his natural weaknesses, and that of the benefits of improvement through techniques. It refutes on their grounds the false evidence on which these two arguments rest.