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<p><?tk 2?>The Web 3.0 era has ushered in an ontological and epistemological rupture in the foundations of legal thought. No longer centered solely on the human subject, contemporary legal phenomena increasingly unfold within machinic ecologies composed of smart contracts, autonomous agents, and algorithmic infrastructures capable of generating, interpreting, and enforcing norms without direct human intervention. This paper advances a posthuman reconceptualization of cyberlaw by situating its inquiry at the intersection of virtual ontology and algorithmic epistemology, offering a theoretical framework for understanding law in an age of non-human legal intelligence. The analysis begins by tracing the collapse of anthropocentric categories such as legal subjectivity, intention, and jurisdiction, as they are destabilized by the operational autonomy of digital entities. It then examines the rise of computational metaphysics, wherein law emerges not from textual reasoning but from code, protocol, and data flow. Through a semiotic lens, the paper explores how law is now enacted through executable signs, displacing interpretation with automation and transforming meaning into machine-readable function. Further, the article addresses the ethical dilemmas of normative automation, the erosion of legal hermeneutics, and the growing opacity of algorithmic governance. A comparative analysis reveals how various jurisdictions: European, American, East Asian, offer divergent responses to posthuman legal challenges, each revealing the tensions between sovereignty, control, and machinic normativity. Finally, the paper argues for a radical rethinking of legal education, urging the formation of jurists fluent in systems, ethics, and computational design. Rather than resist the dissolution of human centrality, this study embraces it as an opportunity to develop a post-anthropocentric jurisprudence, one that is plural, situated, and capable of responding to the emergent complexities of law in the Web 3.0 era. Law must no longer be viewed solely as a human discourse, but as a hybrid, dynamic, and materially entangled phenomenon: co-produced across networks of signs, infrastructures, and intelligences, both human and otherwise.</p>

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Beyond the Human Subject: Reconceptualizing Cyberlaw through Virtual Ontology and Algorithmic Epistemology in the Web 3.0 Era

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年10月11日

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  • Anggita Doramia Lumbanraja

摘要

The Web 3.0 era has ushered in an ontological and epistemological rupture in the foundations of legal thought. No longer centered solely on the human subject, contemporary legal phenomena increasingly unfold within machinic ecologies composed of smart contracts, autonomous agents, and algorithmic infrastructures capable of generating, interpreting, and enforcing norms without direct human intervention. This paper advances a posthuman reconceptualization of cyberlaw by situating its inquiry at the intersection of virtual ontology and algorithmic epistemology, offering a theoretical framework for understanding law in an age of non-human legal intelligence. The analysis begins by tracing the collapse of anthropocentric categories such as legal subjectivity, intention, and jurisdiction, as they are destabilized by the operational autonomy of digital entities. It then examines the rise of computational metaphysics, wherein law emerges not from textual reasoning but from code, protocol, and data flow. Through a semiotic lens, the paper explores how law is now enacted through executable signs, displacing interpretation with automation and transforming meaning into machine-readable function. Further, the article addresses the ethical dilemmas of normative automation, the erosion of legal hermeneutics, and the growing opacity of algorithmic governance. A comparative analysis reveals how various jurisdictions: European, American, East Asian, offer divergent responses to posthuman legal challenges, each revealing the tensions between sovereignty, control, and machinic normativity. Finally, the paper argues for a radical rethinking of legal education, urging the formation of jurists fluent in systems, ethics, and computational design. Rather than resist the dissolution of human centrality, this study embraces it as an opportunity to develop a post-anthropocentric jurisprudence, one that is plural, situated, and capable of responding to the emergent complexities of law in the Web 3.0 era. Law must no longer be viewed solely as a human discourse, but as a hybrid, dynamic, and materially entangled phenomenon: co-produced across networks of signs, infrastructures, and intelligences, both human and otherwise.