Anthropology was a new field of study when Kant first began lecturing on it in 1772, and Kant himself was the first academic to teach regular courses in this area. As is well known, his own approach to anthropology is self-described as ‘pragmatic’, and Kant’s pragmatic anthropology differs markedly from the anthropologies that other early contributors to the new discipline were advocating. In this essay I focus on a fundamental feature of Kant’s anthropology that has been under-appreciated in previous discussions; (...) namely, the particular conception of human nature that he believes anthropology, when pursued properly, leads to. I call this conception a cosmopolitan conception of human nature. In addition to establishing the central importance of this idea for Kant’s project in anthropology, I also try in this essay to unravel some of its ambiguities and tensions as well as to highlight its underlying moral motives. The cosmopolitan conception of human nature that is central to Kant’s anthropology is a further indication of the significance of his anthropology for ethics.Keywords: Immanuel; Kant; Anthropology; Pragmatic; Cosmopolitan; Human nature. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall examine the evolution of Heidegger’s concept of ‘transcendence’ as it appears in Being and Time (1927), ‘On the Essence of Ground’ (1928) and related texts from the late 1920s in relation to his rethinking of subjectivity and intentionality. Heidegger defines Being as ‘transcendence’ in Being and Time and reinterprets intentionality in terms of the transcendence of Dasein. In the critical epistemological tradition of philosophy stemming from Kant, as in Husserl, transcendence and immanence are key notions (...) (see Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, 1907, and Ideas I, 1913). Indeed, ‘transcendence in immanence’ is a leitmotif of Husserl’s phenomenology. Husserl discusses transcendence in some detail in Cartesian Meditations §11 in a manner that is not dissimilar to Heidegger. Heidegger is critical of Husserl’s understanding of consciousness and intentionality and Heidegger deliberately chooses to discuss transcendence as an exceptional domain for the discussion of beings in his ‘On the Essence of Ground’, his submission to Husserl’s seventieth-birthday Festschrift. Despite his championing of a new concept of transcendence in the late 1920s, Heidegger effectively abandons the term during the early 1930s. In this paper, I shall explore Heidegger’s articulation of his new ontological conception of finite transcendence and compare it with Husserl’s conception of the transcendence of the ego in order to get clearer what is at stake in Heidegger’s conceptions of subjectivity, Dasein and transcendence. (shrink)

Husserl’s theory of passive experience first came to systematic and detailed expression in the lectures on passive synthesis from the early 1920s, where he discusses pure passivity under the rubric of affection and association. In this paper I suggest that this familiar theory of passive experience is a first approximation leaving important questions unanswered. Focusing primarily on affection, I will show that Husserl did not simply leave his theory untouched. In later manuscripts he significantly reworks the theory of affection in (...) terms of instinctive intentionality and a passive experience of desire aimed at satisfaction and enjoyment. This paper will show that the theory of affection and the theory of instincts in Husserl are really one and the same, differing only in the superior theoretical apparatus with which Husserl treats the phenomenon in his more considered theory of the instincts. I demonstrate the connection between the two theories by showing how what he generically calls “affection” in earlier texts is the same phenomenon he calls “curiosity” in later texts. The connection is further supported by the way curiosity does the same work as affection in its function within Husserl’s theory of association, serving as the basic connective tissue linking diverse experiences. In closing, I deal with the problem of how to integrate the experience of the body into the theory of instincts, displaying in another way how Husserl improves his theory of affection by making it more concrete when he recasts it as a theory of instincts. (shrink)

Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed.

This paper considers the question of whether there is a human-animal or ‘anthropological difference'. It starts with a historical introduction to the project of philosophical anthropology. Section 2 explains the philosophical quest for an anthropological difference. Sections 3-4 are methodological and explain how philosophical anthropology should be pursued in my view, namely as impure conceptual analysis. The following two sections discuss two fundamental objections to the very idea of such a difference, biological continuity and Darwinist anti-essentialism. Section 7 discusses various (...) possible responses to this second objection - potentiality, normality and typicality. It ends by abandoning the idea of an essence possessed by all and only individual human beings. Instead, anthropological differences are to be sought in the realm of capacities underlying specifically human societies. The final section argues that if there is such a thing as the anthropological difference, it is connected to language. But it favours a more modest line according to which there are several anthropological differences which jointly underlie the gap separating us from our animal cousins. (shrink)

(1986). Scientific instruments and the senses: Towards an anthropological historiography of the natural sciences. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 106-123.

The article undertakes a phenomenological interpretation of the description of contingency in two late-antique models of the relationship of time and eternity — in the theory of Plotinus, and in the eschatology of Paul on the basis of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians. Contingency as a possible property not of time, but of eternity, the presence of the supertemporal in the physical world — this hypothesis promotes a new view of the relationship between time and eternity and a new (...) view of the properties of time. Time remains as immeasurable as eternity, inheriting its character as a phenomenon of consciousness. The article also compares the ideas of H. Bergson and E. Husserl on duration and memory, on the coincidence of moments and the measurability of the movement of time. A turn to Ptolemaic cosmology proposed by Q. Meillassoux seems relevant, an appeal to ancient mathematics and ontology through the optics of post-metaphysical criticism. The search for a new correlationism is significant for the philosophy of time, and contingency, like any coincidence of thought and object, the world and the subject, the signifier and the signified, leads to new forms of manifestation, new phenomena of presence, a new fullness of being in history. (shrink)

Dass wir alle in einer gemeinsamen Wirklichkeit leben, setzen wir meist unhinterfragt voraus. Sehen Andere die Welt dann doch einmal anders, mag es uns scheinen, als sähen sie diese einfach nicht so, wie sie wirklich ist. Schwerer fällt uns anzuerkennen, dass andere zuweilen in ganz anderen Wirklichkeiten unterwegs sind als wir selbst. - Tom Poljansek zeigt, wie sich die Vorstellung einer Pluralität menschlicher Wirklichkeiten mit der Annahme einer wahrnehmungsunabhängigen Realität vereinbaren lässt, ohne sich in einen Relativismus der vielen Wirklichkeiten zu (...) verlaufen. In Auseinandersetzung mit »kontinentalen« und »analytischen« Ansätzen legt er eine elegante Theorie menschlicher Wirklichkeiten vor, die konstruktivistische und realistische, phänomenologische und naturalistische Motive unerwartet miteinander verbindet. (shrink)

The essay “Was ist der Mensch?” appeared for the first time in December 1944 in the German magazine with a hundred years of tradition edited by the publisher J. J. Weber Illustrierte Zeitung Leipzig [Illustrated Magazine Leipzig]. This special cultural edition, entitled Der europäische Mensch [The European Man], which was distributed exclusively abroad, was to be the last volume of the magazine after its final regular issue in September 1994 (No. 5041). Only in 1947, the text was republished, with the (...) same pagination, in a compilation made by J. J. Weber, Vom Wahren, Schönen, Guten. Aus dem Schatz europäischer Kunst und Kultur [On the True, the Beautiful, the Good. From the Treasury of European Art and Culture]. The publisher was expropriated in 1948, and three years later the company was finally removed from the German commercial registry. “Was ist der Mensch?” has never been released in any of Gadamer’s books or separately published in a journal; it also does not appear within the 10 volumes of his Gesammelte Werke [Collected Works]—the only exception is an Italian translation included in a volume devoted to Gadamer’s views on education and the notion of Bildung (cf. Gadamer 2012). The aim of this translation is to make accessible this Gadamer’s quest for the occidental interpretations of human self-consciousness, which has until now been almost unknown and in which, for the first time, Gadamer shows, from a theoretical standpoint, not only his early—although implicit—keen interest in Max Scheler’s anthropology (particularly Scheler’s considerations on the basic historical types of the occidental man’s self-perception in accordance with the basic and underlying concept of human history that still have powerful effectiveness in modern times), but also—at the historical threshold of the imminent ending of World War II—his own concern regarding possible philosophical answers to the question: “What is man?” Cf. especially Scheler 1926 (GW 9, 120–144); 1928 (GW 9, 7–71); 1929 (GW 9, 145–170). All commenting annotations to Gadamer’s text are authored by the editor and translator. (shrink)

Im Mittelpunkt dieses Beitrags zu Grundlagen der psychiatrischen Anthropologie steht die spezifische Vulnerabilität der psychischen Organisation des Menschen. Diese wird anhand von zwei Leitfragen untersucht, die sich auf die Entgleisungsmöglichkeiten der psychischen Struktur und auf problematische und überfordernde Bedingungen der menschlichen Existenz beziehen. Als wichtige Komponenten dieser Vulnerabilität werden die besondere Offenheit, Ungesichertheit und inhärente Widersprüchlichkeit der Organisations- und Daseinsform des Menschen identifiziert. Demnach sind die höheren Freiheitsgrade, die die psychophysische Organisation des Menschen mit sich bringt, zugleich auch wesentliche Gründe (...) für die Prekarität und Verletzbarkeit der menschlichen Existenz. Ziel des Beitrags ist ein vertieftes Verständnis der leidvollen Widersprüche und Konflikte im Leben insbesondere psychisch kranker Menschen. (shrink)

Purpose. Philosophy of culture is an extremely multifaceted field, which includes the anthropological segment as well. In particular, we can talk about the role of man in cultural progress in a particular period of development of the society. To some extent, this problem may also apply to the theory of archetypes, which is rapidly developing today, being used not only in philosophy but also in other fields, deeply penetrated into the methodology of humanities knowledge. Therefore, we used interdisciplinary tools for (...) this study. The purpose of this work is to study the influence of personality on the development of Ukrainian culture in a global, comprehensive dimension, based on the experience and works of famous figures that carried out cultural activities in a certain historical period. In this case, we can appeal to the archetype of the Wise Old Man, which contains a set of permanent features that connect its projections with both the "foretype" and at the same time the "accumulation" of experience. Theoretical basis. Based on the work of famous researchers in the field of philosophy, anthropology, analytical psychology, ethnophilosophy, the authors note the insufficient elaboration of the topic regarding the distinction of anthropological dimensions of different cultural periods of Ukraine in chronological order. Originality. The authors of the article prove that the continuity of the accumulation of anthropocentric features in individuals gives them transcendence, elevate to the archetype of the Wise Old Man, which can be perceived as a universal process against the ethnic development background. Conclusions. As a result of the study, we can say that the role of individual key figures in the development of national culture is quite noticeable. This can be traced both at the local level and at the national level, when we should talk about individuals who in a certain period of development of society and culture were leading and became a kind of embodiment of universal experience accumulated in an individual with a certain identity, which is the "personality" required in "that place" and "that time". For this reason, we turn to the archetype of the Wise Old Man as an "invariant", a "conductor", which reflects the most realized and individualized personality in a particular chronotope. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to re-think the question of the world of persons with schizophrenia from the perspective of the German phenomenologist Max Scheler and that of the Japanese psychiatrist Bin Kimura. So far, no comparison between these two authors has been made, even though there are several convergences and evidence of Scheler’s indirect influence on Bin Kimura through Viktor von Weizsäcker. In recent years, Dan Zahavi, Louis Sass, and Josef Parnas have interpreted the modus vivendi of schizophrenic patients (...) in relation to a disturbance on the level of the “minimal self”. Subsequently, the discussion has highlighted the importance of disorders on the level of intercorporeality and intersubjectivity (Thomas Fuchs) and on the level of “existential feelings” (Matthew Ratcliffe). This paper argues that Max Scheler and Bin Kimura allow us to focus on an aspect which has been neglected so far: that of a “relational self” that relates to the very foundation of intersubjectivity and intercorporeality and that can thus be reborn in the encounter with the other and may position itself differently in the world. In Scheler’s perspective, the world of persons with schizophrenia is the result of an axiological disorder (valueception) that impairs contact with the primordial life impulse (Lebensdrang). As a consequence, they are incapable of attuning emotionally and socially with others: this prevents the singularity from being reborn in the encounter with the other and forces them to position themselves in their own solipsistic universe. Moving in a similar direction, Bin Kimura interprets the world of persons with schizophrenia as the result of a disorder of aida (one of the central concepts of Japanese culture that indicates the space of being in between). The disorder of aida compromises the basic relationship (Grundverhältnis in the sense of Viktor von Weizsäcker) and hinders what Bin Kimura calls festum, i.e. the birth of subjectivity, so that it is experienced by persons with schizophrenia only as ante festum. Starting from these two perspectives, I argue the existence of an axiological and anthropogenetic dimension of psychopathology. I begin with a discussion of Zahavi’s concept of minimal self and the thesis that reveals the disorders on this level of subjectivity as the origin of the world of persons with schizophrenia. I, then, analyze Max Scheler’s position and its historic importance for the emergence of phenomenological psychopathology. Thereafter, I introduce the concepts of “disorder of aida” (Bin Kimura) and “disorder of ordo amoris” (Max Scheler). Finally, I develop the concept of a “psychopathology of ordo amoris” by also comparing it with Ratcliffe’s thesis of “existential feelings”. (shrink)

The goal of creating Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – or in other words of creating Turing machines (modern computers) that can behave in a way that mimics human intelligence – has occupied AI researchers ever since the idea of AI was first proposed. One common theme in these discussions is the thesis that the ability of a machine to conduct convincing dialogues with human beings can serve as at least a sufficient criterion of AGI. We argue that this very ability (...) should be accepted also as a necessary condition of AGI, and we provide a description of the nature of human dialogue in particular and of human language in general against this background. We then argue that it is for mathematical reasons impossible to program a machine in such a way that it could master human dialogue behaviour in its full generality. This is (1) because there are no traditional explicitly designed mathematical models that could be used as a starting point for creating such programs; and (2) because even the sorts of automated models generated by using machine learning, which have been used successfully in areas such as machine translation, cannot be extended to cope with human dialogue. If this is so, then we can conclude that a Turing machine also cannot possess AGI, because it fails to fulfil a necessary condition thereof. At the same time, however, we acknowledge the potential of Turing machines to master dialogue behaviour in highly restricted contexts, where what is called “narrow” AI can still be of considerable utility. (shrink)

Purpose. The research is aimed at understanding the philosophical and journalistic heritage of M. Scheler during 1914-1919. "The philosophy of war" is regarded as the middle link between the phenomenological and anthropological stages of its philosophical evolution. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is the philosophical legacy of Max Scheler, as well as the work of domestic and Western researchers devoted to this issue. Problems of Weltkriegsphilosophie become comprehensible based on the historical, logical and comparative principles of historical (...) and philosophical analysis, which allowed to theoretically reconstruct the cultural and historical context, philosophical sources and ideological intentions of the German philosopher. Originality. For the first time in domestic historical and philosophical thought, it proved that the works by Max Scheler of the First World War played an outstanding role in the formation of philosophical anthropology as a separate philosophical trend. Conclusions. The basis of the Weltkriegsphilosophie by Max Scheler is the philosophical comprehension of the war in which the thinker tries to see the high sacral meaning, where the sacrifices that the nation brings to the altar of victory are not in vain: the nation is rallying this sacrifice, its readiness for it. According to Scheler, war is the most effective means of forming the so-called "love communities", to which he refers combat brotherhood, family and nation as a "collective personality", which recognizes itself through war. The philosopher is disappointed to some part with militaristic enthusiasm in his later military journalistic works and calls for a spiritual and moral renewal of Europe, fed from Christian roots. At the heart of this renewal should be the principle of personal solidarity, based on the Christian idea of love. However, Catholic universalism is an insufficient means for the formation of a "love community" and a new man who is co-creator of God that constitutes the main core of the philosophical anthropology of Max Scheler, which emerges in the 20s of the twentieth century. Based on this, the article affirms the existence in Sheler’s works of an intermediate stage between his phenomenology and philosophical anthropology – Weltkriegsphilosophie. (shrink)

This article compares Max Horkheimer’s and Theodor W. Adorno’s foundation of the Frankfurt Critical Theory with Helmuth Plessner’s foundation of Philosophical Anthropology. While Horkheimer’s and Plessner’s paradigms are mutually incompatible, Adorno’s „negative dialectics“ and Plessner’s „negative anthropology“ (G. Gamm) can be seen as complementing one another. Jürgen Habermas at one point sketched a complementary relationship between his own publicly communicative theory of modern society and Plessner’s philosophy of nature and human expressivity, and though he then came to doubt this, he (...) later reaffirmed it. Faced with the „life power“ in „high capitalism“ (Plessner), the ambitions for a public democracy in a pluralistic society have to be broadened from an argumentative focus (Habermas) to include the human condition and the expressive modes of our experience as essentially embodied persons. The article discusses some possible aspects of this complementarity under the title of a „critical anthropology“ (H. Schnädelbach). (shrink)

All large-scale technology options in recent history were received by the public, partly with enthusiasm, partly with rejection. This applies to space exploration as a whole, but particularly to human spaceflight. However, the conclusion that human spaceflight involves huge costs for little benefit by no means justifies its rejection as a pointless endeavor. In fact, there may be a trans-utilitarian or non-monetary rationale to justify human spaceflight. Consequently we have to distinguish between utilitarian and trans-utilitarian ends of spaceflight. It is (...) this system of utilitarian and trans-utilitarian ends, and the resources allocated to each of them, that constitutes the culture of a society. As a result, human spaceflight emerges as a cultural option. Such options neither need to be taken under all circumstances, nor does the acceptance of any such option mean that they should be exempt from further critical reflection. Rather, having considered all other cultural options, they should be pursued as far as they can be afforded. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The main purpose of the study is to examine Kant’s first experience in creating a methodology for determining the holistic, spiritual nature of man, firstly, in terms of identifying the range of phenomena that should be included in the analysis of the spiritual essence of man, and secondly, this experience may be indicative for identifying dead ends in the research of spirituality of modern philosophers. _Theoretical__ basis._ The study is based on the methodology of philosophical anthropology formulated by M. (...) Scheler, which, on the one hand, integrates the achievements of philosophy of life, phenomenology, existentialism and philosophical hermeneutics, and on the other hand, is based on the premise of the initial direct unity of the opposition of mental and physiological processes of human life. The basis for further expansion of the theoretical framework is the experience of spiritual practices of the Ancient East and religious practices of the Christian Middle Ages. Particularly noteworthy is the experience of modern psychotherapeutic practices, which, for all their diversity, have their roots in the depths of primitive beliefs and mysteries of ancient civilisations, and the tips of their branches reaching to the ideas of modern transpersonal psychology. _Originality__._ Firstly, the author uses M. Scheler’s ideas about the spiritual nature of man and the unity of his essential forces: corporeality, senses, feelings, thinking, values of worldview principles and the Absolute to analyse Kant’s anthropological concept. Secondly, Kant’s position on the way of describing human nature reveals contradictions. These contradictions are caused, on the one hand, by the prevailing mechanistic picture of the world, and, on the other hand, by the philosopher’s intuitive assumptions that did not follow from the provisions of his dualistic position (the concepts of mind and soul as used in Kant’s work "Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View"). Thirdly, the author identifies those fragments of the said work where Kant assumes the presence of corporeality, but does not clearly formulate its role in building the integral nature of the spiritual man. _Conclusions__._ Immanuel Kant was one of the first to raise the issue of the primary study of human nature in comparison with issues of ontology, epistemology, morality, etc. However, the philosopher failed to create a concept of holistic human nature, the essence of which would be its spiritual core. Kant based his methodology of studying human nature on the dualistic opposition of the essential forces of man. This methodology was conditioned by the dominant mechanistic picture of the world. Kant’s researches in the field of morality, aesthetics, and science were carried out in the cognitive-theoretical plane, so they were unable to reach a true synthesis of the essential forces of man by their methodology. Such a synthesis is possible on the basis of spiritual practice. The results of the study of the experience of the achievements and mistakes of the outstanding philosopher in the study of human nature open up the possibility of further refinement and development of philosophical and anthropological methodology in understanding the spiritual nature of man as a whole through comprehension of the mechanism of spiritual practice and, on this basis, understanding of the phenomenon of spirituality in all historical forms of its manifestation. (shrink)

Purpose. Based on the anthropocentric approach to the analysis of visual self-presentations of Artemisia Gentileschi in paintings, to present the artwork as self-objectifications of the artist, which give rise to a new cultural reality and are at the same time a means of knowing the essence of man. Theoretical basis. The principles and methods of philosophical and anthropological research in combination with biographical, historical and comparative, iconographic, figurative and stylistic methods were used when writing the article. Among philosophical and anthropological (...) methods the principle of anthropological reduction was used, based on which the works by Artemisia Gentileschi were analyzed as her self-objectification, principle of extrapolation of a separate fact of the painter’s life and anthropological interpretation of art evolution, when an attempt is made to know their creator through a series of chronological consistent works as figurative objectification. The biographical method was used when working with data on the painter’s life, iconographic and figurative stylistic – when analyzing the art visuals: self-portraits, allegories and narrative paintings. The analytical work was carried out in stages as transition from an iconographic interpretation of paintings with gradual elimination of art and style characteristics as extra-anthropological cultural constants with subsequent anthropological reduction of cultural image. Originality consists in the author’s method of analyzing the works of visual art in terms of anthropocentric approach, as well as in considering the artwork by Artemisia Gentileschi as her self-objectification as such that give rise to a new cultural reality. Conclusions. The artworks by Artemisia Gentileschi in diachronic deployment can be seen as the painter’s self-objectification, which traces the evolution of self-expression from a person with traditional self-perception by social gender stereotypes to the phenomenon of personal life, which will determine further evolution of her self-identification and extirpation of sense of shame through virtual revenge, repentance, guilt, and formation of component of the painter’s identity as exemption from social gender prejudices and stereotypes on roles and standards of behavior socially assigned to women. (shrink)

Helmuth Plessner’s Levels of Organic Life and the Human [Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch, 1928] is one of the founding texts of twentieth century philosophical anthropology. It is argued that Plessner’s work demonstrates the fundamental indispensability of the qualitative humanities vis-à-vis the natural-scientific study of man. Plessner’s non-reductionist, emergentist naturalism allots complementary roles to the causal and functional investigations of the life sciences and the phenomenological and hermeneutic interpretation of the phenomenon of life in its successive levels and (...) stages. Within this context, human agency can be understood as a higher-order property of organic life, which act by the selective activation of lower-level psychophysical powers. Plessner’s three ‘anthropological laws’ are used to situate the notion of practical self-understanding in between two extremes: deterministic views that deny human freedom and responsibility and views that ascribe an unrealistic amount of autonomy to human beings. (shrink)

Gewürdigt wird die Philosophie, die Karl Löwith in der Weimarer Zeit formuliert hat. Es wird gezeigt, wie Löwith zwischen Existenzphilosophie und marxistischer Theorie und aus den Wurzeln des 19. Jahrhunderts eine anthropologische Philosophie entwickelte.

Philosophical anthropology emerges, partly at least, by dissatisfied and critical followers of Husserl’s phenomenology, such as Max Scheler and the young Martin Heidegger. They were dissatisfied with what they saw as a disregard of the concrete human being as an essential part of phenomenological analysis. They tried instead to claim that philosophy must search for, and anchor, its foundations exclusively in the human being, not as an abstract entity, but as an existential, concrete, physical being. In this specific philosophical, as (...) well as historical, context this paper suggests to locate Hans Blumenberg’s philosophical project by reconstructing his unique version of philosophical anthropology. The main aim of the paper is to describe and understand the way Blumenberg combines his theory of metaphors together with his anthropological considerations regarding the origin and emergence of human culture into his own version of philosophical anthropology. A version that can be seen as joining the original attempt of philosophical anthropology to overcome the deficiency in Husserl’s phenomenological project. (shrink)

Transformative theories of what distinguishes human beings from animals face the problem of conceptually managing the transition from animal to human. This paper will show that this transition contains logical problems that are more rhetorically glossed over than logically solved by the concept of second nature. In the first part, I develop two main concepts of transformative theories, namely that of Hinzutreten (additive capacities occurring in humans) and that of Verwandeltsein (humans already being of a different kind), before outlining in (...) the second part Helmuth Plessner’s anthropological approach as one that elaborates not a transformation, but a holistic difference in the structure of human life as well as a non-metaphysical process of nature’s self-differentiation in human beings as opposed to animals. (shrink)

Purpose. Research of the phenomenon of human destructiveness in the context of metaphysical images and violence practices of late Modernism. Theoretical basis. The problem is that the philosophical reflection of violence as objectified, realized destructiveness of man is usually contextual in nature and is on the periphery of understanding its external manifestations. Accordingly, anthropological crisis remains behind the scenes, as evidenced by the devaluation of the humanistic potential of modern culture. That is why one should turn the focus from the (...) obvious, objectively conditioned incarnations of violence in the XXI century to the internal factors that are in the realm of existential. The departure from the consideration of violence as an abstract, faceless or ideologically colored evil allowed us to focus on man, his way of thinking, life and social orientations, feelings and internal contradictions, which find their expression in one or another form of destructiveness. Originality. Based on the works of M. Scheler and E. Fromm defining for philosophical anthropology and psychoanalysis, for the first time the conceptualization of positive and negative forms of manifestation of human destructiveness against the background of sociocultural transformations of late Modernism was carried out. It has been proved that its ontological principles are rooted in specifically human existence and relations with other members of society, while anthropological ones are directly connected with the endless struggle of the life, the vital with the spirit in man. Conclusions. Violence is a tool and a product of man’s transition to more mature and complex forms of existence. The interdependence of the violence and nonviolence practices ensures the progressive movement of humanity towards society humanization. This progress is accompanied by a natural internal conflict of personality, which can be both progressive and regressive. At the metaphysical level, destructiveness appears as a connection between the entropy of world existence as a whole and the instability of human existence itself, which is a complexly organized and open to the world system. Self-transcendence as an anthropological prerequisite for human destructiveness has a dual nature and combines negative and positive characteristics, the content and significance of which were revealed in the study. The authors are convinced that there is no other way to overcome the negative, malignant destructiveness, except for the incessant, daily gathering of life meanings around them and their development. After all, the loss of such core structures of the existence as the meaning, purpose and value of life has become a truly global problem for the modern world. Emphasis is placed on the need to keep in harmony the trinity of body-soul-spirit, which will allow a person in any social transformation to preserve and increase his integrity. (shrink)

The architect who plans and designs our living environment in town and country can neither think exclusively technologically nor act completely independently. Rather, his designs and actions are always in moral relation to the environment, i. e. to nature and landscape as well as to the city/town or the people who live daily with and within the built space and thus have a kind of effective group affiliation. But to what extent does architecture – in the sense of Hegel’s phrase (...) the “sensuous in the meaningful” – already possess ethical implications? (shrink)

This paper analyses the relatively neglected topic of hierarchy in the philosophical foundation of human rights. It develops a transcendental-discursive approach. This approach develops the idea that all human rights could be derived from a small set of fundamental rights that are interconnected and that incorporate all ulterior possible specific rights. This set is then applied to an analysis of human rights as they have been formulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The claim is that this prior set (...) of transcendental rights is discursively implied whenever we talk about human rights. Thinking about the hierarchy of rights pragmatically means thinking about prioritising their implementation. Some consequences for practical philosophy and politics concerning the role of states, enterprises and world citizenship are then discussed. (shrink)

The idea to utilise cognitive neuroscientific research for educational purposes is known as Mind-Brain Education or Educational Neuroscience. Despite some calls for an uncritical endorsement of such an agenda, a growing number of educational scholars argue that it must remain impossible to translate neurological descriptions into mental or educationally relevant descriptions. This paper takes these well-established arguments further by not only focusing upon these different levels of description but going beyond this issue to assess the theoretical foundations of cognitive science (...) as a functional theory of the mind. With relevance to education it is argued that because of its functional character a cognitive-psychological approach to education suffers from an inherent blind spot regarding the actor’s feelings and motivations. The paper concludes with the claim that, because of this experiential poverty, any cognitive neuroscientific approach must face severe limitations when utilised for educational purposes. (shrink)

Plessner’s Stufen des Organischen questions both the conditions of possibility as well as the consequences of a self-understanding of life. Originally written against the background of urbanisation, industrialisation and colonisation, the strength of Plessner’s work lies in his combination of an analyticalphilosophical conceptualisation, the introduction of materiality and the body as well as his historical–ethical dimension. As a re-sult of this combination, Plessner’s approach is well suited to contribute to the current inter-national discourse on the relationship of sociality and materiality. (...) This article provides an overview of the reception of Plessner in Germany and embeds his approach into current de-bates, discussing its value with regard to the sociality-materiality relationship. The focus is on three issues: the definition of the boundaries of the social, the relationship between the social and the body as well as the cultural historic-ethical situation. Finally, Plessner’s Steps of the Organic are related to the current issues of ecologisation and digitalisation, allowing us to see what a Plessnerian perspective on the materiality-sociality relationship can do with-in applied social theory. (shrink)

What is the role of the environment, and of the information it provides, in cognition? More specifically, may there be a role for certain artefacts to play in this context? These are questions that motivate "4E" theories of cognition (as being embodied, embedded, extended, enactive). In his take on that family of views, Hajo Greif first defends and refines a concept of information as primarily natural, environmentally embedded in character, which had been eclipsed by information-processing views of cognition. He continues (...) with an inquiry into the cognitive bearing of some artefacts that are sometimes referred to as 'intelligent environments'. Without necessarily having much to do with Artificial Intelligence, such artefacts may ultimately modify our informational environments. -/- With respect to human cognition, the most notable effect of digital computers is not that they might be able, or become able, to think but that they alter the way we perceive, think and act. (shrink)

The First World War was both an historical and a philosophical event. Philosophers engaged in what Kurt Flasch aptly called "the spiritual mobilization" of philosophy. Max Scheler was particularly important among these "war philosophers", given that he was the one who penned some of the most influential philosophical writings of the First World War, among them Der Genius des Krieges und der Deutsche Krieg. As I aim to show, Max Scheler's war writings were crucial for Jan Patočka's interpretation of the (...) First World War in the sixth of his Heretical Essays. However, the importance of Scheler's war writings goes far beyond the First World War for Patočka, since they offer Patočka a far-reaching interpretation of the 'excessive' character of the 20 th century. As I will show through the example of Max Scheler, the German war philosophers succumbed to a dangerously romantic conception of "force" – and it is this ominous force, which Patočka takes to lie at the root of the increasingly excessive character of the 20 th and 21 st centuries. (shrink)

Early American pragmatism was an attempt to question the philosophical conceptions of the human being inherited from modern European philosophy. This revision of the philosophical canon was deeply tied to the social, cultural, technological, and political changes that shook the structures of modern societies in the 19th century, disclosing unforeseen potentialities, unregulated powers, as well as social feelings of alienation, anonymity, and repressed social power (Bernstein 1971, 2010; Misak...

Abstract: Being-in-the-world defines in Heidegger an ontological and practical existential situation that in a first approach characterizes intellectual knowledge, an approach related to the Husserlian notion of intentionality. In his Curso de teoría del conocimiento, Polo rectifies this characterization, stressing the primacy of theory regarding action, and interpreting the practical (technical) relationship with the world as a lower level of “having”. Making some comparisons between Husserl, Scheler and Jonas, in connection with Polo’s thought, the article presents different accounts of the (...) notion of the world (phenomenological, metaphysical, moral) that allow to clarify the problem of the relationship between contemplation and action in the world. (shrink)

We need a metaphysics of respect for nature in order to establish the foundation for a humanistic philosophical anthropology. A metaphysics of respect for human beings will assist us in overcoming the human crisis. Genuine metaphysical respect for nature and for humans needs no supernatural substance. Matter is realized as causa sui and can be also defined as Natura sapiens. Humans are not the only intelligent life forms in the universe. Man is primordial a creative being: Homo creans. The predestination (...) of philosophical anthropology consists in clearing and co‐creating the essence (logos) of human being. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es examinar la definición de "vida" en el pensamiento de Helmut Plessner y de Hans Jonas, para, con base en las evidencias biológicas y las reflexiones de estos autores, plantear la pregunta por las categorías fundamentales que diferencian lo vital de lo inerte, que son, a nuestro juicio, tres: la célula como unidad estructural y funcional, la transmisión de información genética, y la evolución por selección natural. The objective of the article is to explore the (...) definition of "life" in the thought of Helmut Plessner and Hans Jonas. On the basis of biological evidence and the authors' reflections, the paper inquires into the three fundamental categories that differentiate living and non-living things: the cell as a structural and functional unit, the transmission of genetic information, and evolution due to natural selection. (shrink)

When discussing the philosophical question of the relation between mind and nature, dualistic approaches are often contrasted with scientistic approaches. However, mind can be situated in nature in a non-scientistic manner and outside of nature in a non-dualistic manner. John McDowell represents the first approach, as he connects mind to our second nature. In his attempt to specify the categorial relation between first and second nature, McDowell finds himself in a dilemma which cannot be solved within his framework. The second (...) approach is represented by Nicolai Hartmann, for whom mind does not belong to nature, but to the real world. Hartmann’s ontology of layers is able to avoid McDowell’s dilemma and the unity of the real world is made intelligible. (shrink)

Helmuth Plessner’s Levels of Organic Life and the Human [Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch, 1928] is one of the founding texts of twentieth century philosophical anthropology (understood as philosophical reflection on the fundamental characteristics of the human lifeform). It is argued that Plessner’s work demonstrates the fundamental indispensability of the qualitative humanities vis-à-vis the natural-scientific study of man. Plessner’s non-reductionist, emergentist naturalism allots complementary roles to the causal and functional investigations of the life sciences and the phenomenological and (...) hermeneutic interpretation of the phenomenon of life in its successive levels and stages. Within this context, human agency can be understood as a higher-order property of organic life, which act by the selective activation of lower-level psychophysical powers. Plessner’s three ‘anthropological laws’ are used to situate the notion of practical self-understanding in between two extremes: deterministic views that deny human freedom and responsibility and views that ascribe an unrealistic amount of autonomy to human beings. (shrink)

Tras una breve exposición de la filosofía de Scheler, en este trabajo se defiende que su antropología ocupa un lugar central en sus escritos, y se revisan las aporías metodológicas y temáticas de su último libro, las formuladas en El puesto del hombre en el cosmos. After a brief presentation of Scheler's philosophy, we defend herein that his anthropology makes a fundamental part of his writings. We also examine the methodological and thematic aporias in his last book, those set out (...) in The Place of the Man in the Cosmos. (shrink)

In Sachen Funktionalanalyse befaßte man sich in der allgemeinen Wissenschaftstheorie anfänglich überwiegend mit der Logik funktionaler Erklärungen. Diese bedarf einer Ergänzung durch eine Semantik der Funktionalanalyse. Nach einer einleitenden Erörterung einiger Schwachpunkte und Grenzen der klassischen Literatur zur Logik der Funktionalanalyse wird eine Wortfeldanalyse von 'Funktion' und 'System' sowie eine phänomenologische Beschreibung der Wirkungsweise von Motiven angeboten. Im Unterschied zu Zielen, die man nur Entitäten zuschreibt, die als selbständig angesehen werden, spricht man Funktionen nur Entitäten zu, die als nichtselbständig angesehen (...) werden, die jedoch mit ihrer Funktion bezogen sind auf eine solche zielorientierte selbständige Entität. (shrink)

Wie ist es möglich, im Hinblick auf anthropologische Fragen über die problematischen Ausdrücke von Lebewesen angemessen zu sprechen? – Helmuth Plessners philosophische Anthropologie folgt einer Kombination von Methoden, um a) lebenden Phänomenen begegnen und sie beschreiben zu können , b) die Kontraste dessen zu rekonstruieren, das als Präsupposition in a) verwendet worden ist , c) eine Hypothese über die allgemeinen kulturellen Präsuppositionen zu bilden und sie in der Entdeckung neuer Phänomene zu bewähren , und d) schließlich denjenigen Bruch im Selbstverständnis (...) zu rekonstruieren, das die Lebensführung im Ganzen ermöglicht. Gegenwärtige Philosophien haben kein derartiges Verfahren zur kritischen Kontrolle der Verwendung von anthropologischen Demarkationen. (shrink)

Moral judgements are based on automatic processes. Moral judgements are based on reason. In this paper, I argue that both of these claims are true, and show how they can be reconciled. Neither the automaticity of moral judgement nor the post hoc nature of conscious moral reasoning pose a threat to rationalist models of moral cognition. The relation moral reasoning bears to our moral judgements is not primarily mediated by episodes of conscious reasoning, but by the acquisition, formation and maintenance (...) ? in short: education ? of our moral intuitions. (shrink)

The paper presents an analysis and interpretation of axiology and ethics as seen by the writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. The author follows the assumption that, in a situation where indifference is observed with regard to values (cf. Simmel, Sloterdijk), a return of philosophical reasoning to the idea of objectivity of values could be worthwhile. Therefore, he examines a specific type of axiological objectivism that can be found in Rand’s work. In the present paper, the suggested comparison with Baden neo-Kantism (...) as well as phenomenological axiology serves to capture the specifics of Rand’s axiological approach. These lie in placing emphasis on such a relationship between facts and values in which values result from the facts of reality, as well as in the very understanding of the objectivity of values that Rand identifies with long-term life goals and identifies them as an objective necessity for an individual’s life. Following the analysis of Rand’s axiology, the author focuses on her understanding of ethics, which he places in contrast to Kant’s deontology, as well as morality, which he views through the prism of a business relationship based on the exchange of values. The aim of the paper is to, by means of an analysis and interpretation of Rand’s ideas, show that objective values can be understood as a necessary prerequisite for consequential ethics and an individual living a happy life without being anchored in transcendence or social consensus. (shrink)

Straipsnyje analizuojamos 2 fenomenologinės prieigos prie gyvūnų gyvenimo antropocentrizmo kritikos kontekste. Pirmoje dalyje apžvelgiamas antropocentrizmo klausimas. Pradedant posthumanistine antropocentrizmo kaip žmogiškojo išskirtinumo ideologijos kritika siūloma fenomenologiniu požiūriu reflektuoti žmogaus antropocentriškumą kaip patirties sąlygą. Antroje dalyje apžvelgiama San Martíno ir Pintos prieiga, kuri, remdamasi Husserlio transcendentalinio ego analize Ideen II, atskleidžia žmonių ir gyvūnų tapatumą egotiškumo, kūniškumo ir prasmės konstitucijos aspektais. Jų pozicija labai svarbi antropocentrizmo kritikoje, tačiau laikoma nepakankama žmonių ir gyvūnų santykių įvairovei reflektuoti. Trečioje dalyje analizuojama Depraz pateikta keturių (...) pakopų empatijos struktūra ir siekiama nustatyti, kokios yra ribinių subjektų – gyvūnų – prieinamumo sąlygos ir ribos. Išskiriamas kūniškumas kaip bendriausias sluoksnis, analizuojama gyvūnų sąmonių prieinamumo, jų patirties supratimo galimybės ir ribos. Galiausiai daroma išvada, kad šios dvi pozicijos gali prisidėti suprantant žmonių ir gyvūnų bendrumo ir skirtumo ribas bei tai, kiek gali būti apribotas antropocentrizmas. (shrink)

Some of the contemporary ethical debates have put in value the rational feature of feelings because of the estimative intentionality that is implied in them. In this context, some claim that the intentionality of emotions is a kind of value perception, as Phenomenology stressed at the beginning of the twentieth century, particularly Max Scheler, by analysing emotional Feeling [_Fühlen_] in the frame of emotional life. In order to extend the context of this philosophical debate, and after describing Scheler’s phenomenology of (...) feelings of the intentional and non-intentional emotional life, firstly, we defend _the_ _axiological_ _and_ _emotional_ _intentionality_ _as_ _double_ _intentionality_ that—in our understanding—Scheler analyses phenomenologically, while taking distance from Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl’s intentional structure of estimative emotions. And, secondly, we propose a tentative interpretation of _the link_ between estimative and emotional double intentionality _as living_ _structure_ _of_ _ethical_ _life_, in the light of Martin Heidegger’s Hermeneutical Phenomenology. (shrink)

Against the background of quite frequent historical periods of physical imprisonment of the Jewish people, this people became the bearer of the Revelation of Truth, which led to the conscious use of freedom of choice in favor of preserving divine gnosis with further ethical direction of freedom. At this stage of the design of the Torah as a collection of sacred books, and the subsequent management of its commandments, the freedom of the individual was sacrificed to the general religious goals (...) of the community. The sacred fear of the greatness of God led to the realization of almost total predestination. The Talmudic and rabbinical currents, which initially continued to cultivate the content of freedom that began in the Torah period, later adopted the anthropocentric ideas of medieval Europe and gradually transformed their religious and cultic positions under the influence of civil liberties. so-called "modern Judaism". The common general orientation of the freedom of the Jewish people has been divided into the political and social freedoms of each individual Jew, where each is responsible for the ethical consequences of his own existence. (shrink)