Purpose of the article is to determine plagiarism as anthropological and social phenomenon. Theoretical basis. The author has analysed authentic historical-philosophical and literary texts to explicate the original meaning of the terms, by which the phenomenon of plagiarism was denoted. There were used methods and principles of socio-philosophical and philosophical-anthropological research, in particular: social determinism and anthropological interpretation of human life phenomena. Originality consists of: clarifying the terminological evolution in relation to designating the phenomenon of plagiarism; 2) the philosophical-anthropological description (...) of the motives and personal traits of the subject of plagiarism proposed by author. Conclusions. 1. Plagiarism as practice and plagiarism as a term existed separately for a long time. With the nominates, which denoted the practice, "Plagium" had as its predecessors the Greek "Λογοκλόπία" and the Latin "Furta". The modern semantics genesis of the term "plagiarism" took place as a process of changing the nominal values due to the complication of the semantic structure of the word before reintegration. 2. Analysis of historical-philosophical and literary sources from the "Empedocles Case" and "Fedentinus Case" allowed reconstructing the anthropological characteristics of the named persons as plagiarists: both of them were induced to plagiarize by vanity, either due to temporary limitation of abilities to intellectual creation or due to constant limited ability to the literary creativity. Plagiarism was also caused by the low moral qualities of both, that allows to consider plagiarism as one of the manifestations of the individual’s integral characteristics. 3. Vanity, that motivates the commission of plagiarism, is one of the manifestations of the esteem needs, sociogenic by its nature, but unlike the next, higher stage in the hierarchy of basic needs does not foresee the self-improvement of man. Therefore, the plagiarist does not pass to the level of the need for self-actualization, the means to satisfy which is creativity in its various forms, "trampling" on the previous level. 4. Plagiarism is an ambivalent phenomenon, because in spite of plagiarists’ anthropological peculiarities, the ontological foundations of plagiarism are rooted in the social nature of man. (shrink)