This simulating book gathers five lectures that ask questions of the broadest general intellectual interest: What is religion? Do other peoples have the same emotional states as we do? Why do humans make use of body imagery? In Circumstantial Deliveries, Rodney Needham shows that the comparative study of societies may furnish the answers. Circumstantial Deliveries challenges the methodology and substance of many conventional ideas about human nature and calls for more radical and comparative analyses. For instance, the author discredits the (...) notion that to primitive peoples the colors red, white, and black symbolize blood, semen, and feces, respectively, arguing that an extensive comparative study of primitive societies discovered no such relationship. These essays sound a common theme: "If a deeper appreciation of the value of life can be had from reading Crime and Punishment, or if a more acute assessment of the springs of action can be acquired from Hamlet, then in principle it should be conceded that like benefits may be derived from a sympathetic observation of other men engaged in their daily affairs.". (shrink)

This book suggests a bold comparative approach to broad cultural differences between Africa and Melanesia. Its theme is personhood, understood in terms of what anthropologists call embodiment. These concepts are applied to questions ranging from the meanings of spirit possession, to the logics of witchcraft and kinship relations, the use of rituals in healing, and even the impact of capitalism. Questioning common assumptions about the huge differences among these discrete areas, the contributions document surprising continuities.

Cognitive anthropology contributes to cognitive science as a complement to cognitive psychology. The chief threat to its survival has not been rejection by other cognitive scientists but by other cultural anthropologists. It will remain a part of cognitive science as long as cognitive anthropologists research, teach, and publish.

guest editors' introduction to a special issue on techno-anthropology.

Posing a powerful challenge to dominant trends in cultural analysis, this book covers the whole history of the concept of culture, providing the broadest study of this notion to date. Johnson and Michaelsen examine the principal methodological strategies or metaphors of anthropology in the past two decades (embodied in works by Edward Said, James Clifford, George Marcus, V. Y. Mudimbe, and others) and argues that they do not manage to escape anthropology's grounding in representational practices. To the extent (...) that it remains a practice of representation, anthropology, however complex, critical, or self-reflexive, cannot avoid objectifying its others. Extending beyond a critique of anthropology, the book reads the twinned notions of the human and culture across the long history of the human sciences broadly conceived, including anthropology, cultural studies, history, literature, and philosophy. Although there is no chance, they argue, for a "new" anthropology that would not repeat the old anthropology's problem of disciplining the other, they also recognize that there may be no way out of anthropology. We are always writing, thinking, and living in anthropology's wake, within its specific compass or horizon. Moreover, they demonstrate, we have been doing so for a very long time, since at least the beginning of the institution of philosophy in Plato and Aristotle. (shrink)

The article explores the manifesto of the Moscow Anthropological School, emphasizing the primacy of hallucinations in anthropogenesis. The current predicament of modern humanity urges the anticipation of something genuine and substantial. However, the essence of philosophy does not always align with the prevailing “spirit of the times.” Its mission is to pursue autopoiesis, scrutinizing society for its inherent flaws that impede progress. From this viewpoint, F.I. Girenok’s hallucinatory theory is entirely pertinent and justified. The narrative of civilization is typically portrayed (...) as a chronicle of discoveries and triumphs of rationality over irrationality. The history of fears and misconceptions, which not only persist from the past but also resurface, is less well-documented. Therefore, the program of the Moscow Anthropological School is far from being peripheral; on the contrary, it holds significant relevance. It furthers the tradition of inversion anthropology, initially established by N.Ya. Danilevsky, the first Russian critic of Darwinism. This anthropological tradition was particularly advanced by the concept of B.F. Porshnev and the research of contemporary authors like Yu.M. Boroday and V.A. Podoroga. Each, in their unique way, contributed to the critique of evolutionism and reductionism. F.I. Girenok’s concept evokes schizoanalysis, albeit devoid of Marxist influence, unlike G. Deleuze. All these aspects warrant a comprehensive philosophical discourse on the manifesto. Meanwhile, reports and discussions concerning F.I. Girenok’s theory revealed that not all participants are readily prepared to tread the path suggested by the founder of this theory, confining themselves to theological explorations instead. This, as per the author of the article, inherently signifies that hallucinatory and messianic anthropologies are complementary to each other. (shrink)

Anthropology and the other cognitive sciences currently maintain a troubled relationship. What could rapprochement look like, and how could it be achieved? The seven main articles of this topic present anthropological or anthropologically inspired cross-cultural research on a diverse set of cognitive domains. They serve as an existence proof that not only do synergies abound across anthropology and the other cognitive sciences, but that they are worth achieving.

Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View essentially reflects the last lectures Kant gave for his annual course in anthropology, which he taught from 1772 until his retirement in 1796. The lectures were published in 1798, with the largest first printing of any of Kant's works. Intended for a broad audience, they reveal not only Kant's unique contribution to the newly emerging discipline of anthropology, but also his desire to offer students a practical view of the world (...) and of humanity's place in it. With its focus on what the human being 'as a free-acting being makes of himself or can and should make of himself,' the Anthropology also offers readers an application of some central elements of Kant's philosophy. This volume offers a new annotated translation of the text by Robert B. Louden, together with an introduction by Manfred Kuehn that explores the context and themes of the lectures. (shrink)

This unique book applies concepts from the field of anthropology to clinical settings to result in a powerful and dynamic model/theory of clinical anthropology.

Through an ambitious and critical revision of Michel Foucault's investigation of ethics, James Faubion develops an original program of empirical inquiry into the ethical domain. From an anthropological perspective, Faubion argues that Foucault's specification of the analytical parameters of this domain is the most productive point of departure in conceptualizing its distinctive features. He further argues that Foucault's framework is in need of substantial revision to be of genuinely anthropological scope. In making this revision, Faubion illustrates his program with two (...) extended case studies: one of a Portuguese marquis and the other of a dual subject made up of the author and a millenarian prophetess. The result is a conceptual apparatus that is able to accommodate ethical pluralism and yield an account of the limits of ethical variation, providing a novel resolution of the problem of relativism that has haunted anthropological inquiry into ethics since its inception. (shrink)

In order to address the question of hope in the present, it behooves us to revisit Kant’s third and fourth questions: ‘What may we hope?’ and ‘What is the human being?’ I reexamine these questions through an analysis of Thomas McCarthy’s recent book Race, Empire, and the Idea of Human Development and several works by Hans Blumenberg. I agree with McCarthy that Kant’s anthropology is incomplete and that the postmodern rejection of macronarratives was premature, but I claim that he (...) requires a more complex philosophical anthropology to guide a philosophy of history. In order to address the question about hope, I reconstruct the anthropology implied in Blumenberg’s writings. I claim that this answer to Kant’s fourth question supplies conceptual scaffolding missing from McCarthy’s book, provides resources necessary for making normative claims on behalf of all human beings, and can inform a multiversal history for grounding rational hope in the present. (shrink)

While increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the relation between Foucault’s conception of critique and Kant’s, much controversy remains over whether Foucault’s most sustained early engagement with Kant, his dissertation on Kant’s Anthropology, should be read as a wholesale rejection of Kant’s views or as the source of Foucault’s late return to ethics and critique. In this paper, I propose a new reading of the dissertation, considering it alongside 1950s-era archival materials of which I advance the (...) first scholarly appraisal. I argue that Foucault manifests a fundamental ambivalence to Kantian anthropology, rejecting it in theoretical terms while embracing its practical (‘pragmatic’) conception of the subject. Furthermore, I take these texts to collectively evidence Foucault’s attempt to situate himself within the anthropological-critical tradition rather than extricating himself from it. If we interpret Foucault to reject this tradition’s appeal to an essentialized, theoretical conception of subjectivity, what remains of anthropology is its inherent practical reflexivity in structure. Thus, I situate Foucault’s conception of ethics as one’s relation to oneself in continuity with this tradition. (shrink)

This article discusses the sources and principal ideas of Nikolai Berdyaev's philosophical anthropology. The author argues against the recent trend of including Berdyaev among conservative Russian religious thinkers.

This article has two objectives. In the first part, I present a critical overview of the extensive anthropological literature that may be deemed “phenomenological.” Following this critique, which is built up around a classification into four different varieties of phenomenological anthropology, I discuss the relationship between phenomenological anthropology and the ontological turn (OT). Contrary to received wisdom within the anthropological discipline, I suggest that OT has several things in common with the phenomenological project. For the same reason, I (...) argue, it is not accurate to posit OT and phenomenology as opposing or antagonistic projects, as they are often depicted among critics and advocates of OT alike. On the contrary, I go as far as suggesting, OT may be understood as one of the most concerted attempts anthropology has produced to realize a distinctly anthropological version of Husserl’s method of phenomenological bracketing, namely what could be called the ontological epoché. (shrink)

This book presents the results of an experiment in interdisciplinary collaboration to clarify theories of morality and anthropology and philosophy, showing how each may be enriched by borrowing from the other. Pooling the resources and methods of their respective fields-anthropology and philosophy-May and Abraham Edel examine the wide range of moral differences in the world "to establish 'coordinates' for the more systematic mapping of particular moralities, to explore more explicitly the relations of morality to cultural patterns and social (...) processes, and to see how philosophic issues of ethical theory become refined and reformulated when their cultural content is made manifest." The book contains an implicit suggestion that the anthropologist should focus on morality as an independent area of study and that the philosopher should stop treating morality in isolation. Anthropology tends to include morality as an incidental part of other inquiries. Philosophy, on the other hand, tends to cut morality off from the framework of psychological and cultural processes; the result is a kind of deadlock in ethical theory. The Edels observe that to develop a working concept of morality at least as well developed as that furnished for religion, anthropology can benefit from philosophic methods of analyzing concepts and from philosophical ways of conceptualizing problems of ethical theory. On the other hand, philosophy can use the methods of anthropology, to approach morality in more meaningful terms. This study is not addressed only to professionals; its aim, rather, is to "provide an orientation to morality itself in a world in which human problems are becoming extremely complex and have to be confronted directly as moral.". (shrink)

Paradigms of anthropology -- Evolution-hominization-anthropology -- Philosophical anthropology -- Anthropology in the historical sciences: historical anthropology -- Cultural anthropology -- Historical cultural anthropology -- Core issues of anthropology -- The body as a challenge -- The mimetic basis of cultural learning -- Theories and practices of the performative -- The rediscovery of rituals -- Language-the antinomy between the universal and the particular -- Images and imagination -- Death and recollection of birth -- (...) Future prospects. (shrink)

Recent ethnographic studies of lived ethics, such as those of Leela Prasad and Saba Mahmood, present valuable opportunities for comparative religious ethics. This essay argues that developments in philosophical and religious ethics over the last three decades have supported a strong interest in thick descriptions of what it means to be human. This anthropological turn has thereby laid important groundwork for the encounter between these scholars and new ethnographic studies. Nonetheless, an encounter it is. Each side brings novel questions to (...) the other. The second part of the essay focuses on one of these questions: How, exactly, are these ethnographic studies to inform normative reflection on ethical questions? (shrink)

Rising social, political and economic inequality in many countries, and rising protest against it, has seen the restoration of the concept of 'class' to a prominent place in contemporary anthropological debates. A timely intervention in these discussions, this book explores the concept of class and its importance for understanding the key sources of that inequality and of people's attempts to deal with it. Highly topical, it situates class within the context of the current economic crisis, integrating elements from today into (...) the discussion of an earlier agenda. Using cases from North and South America, Western Europe and South Asia, it shows the - sometimes surprising - forms that class can take, as well as the various effects it has on people's lives and societies. (shrink)

In this article we aim to distinguish between the transhuman and posthuman condition, according to their anthropological, ontological, and ethical natures. We will show that the current historical moment can be considered the beginning of a transhuman civilisation, given that the characteristics of the transhuman are already present in today’s human being. We will show that a series of decisive limitations for belonging to the human condition are in the process of being transcended due to acquisition of attributes of divinity (...) that human beings do not currently possess: omnipotence, omnipresence , ex nihilo creation – starting from the divine creative ideation – and immortality. Humans are increasingly taking on the attributes of divinity in the process of human enhancements. We will discuss the ways in which technology allows the human to overcome these limitations, elevating humans past their current condition, in a process in which they gain technological transcendence. Excepting immortality, all other limitations, once exceeded, generate a transhuman condition. Immortality generates a posthuman condition, since it can only be obtained by modifying the human ontological status from that of a biological being to that of a resident being in informatics networks. In order to clarify this process, we will discuss the concepts of everlastingness and artificial life prolongation. (shrink)

How do human beings become human? This question lies behind the so-called human sciences. But these disciplines are scattered among many different departments and hold up a cracked mirror to humankind. This is why, in the view of Paul Ricoeur, we need to develop a philosophical anthropology, one that has a much older history but still offers many untapped resources. This appeal to a specifically philosophical approach to questions regarding what it was to be human did not stop Ricoeur (...) from entering into dialogue with other disciplines and approaches, such as psychoanalysis, history, sociology, anthropology, linguistics and the philosophy of language, in order to offer an up-to-date reflection on what he saw as the fundamental issues. For there is clearly not a simple, single answer to the question what is it to be human? Ricoeur therefore takes up the complexity of this question in terms of the tensions he sees between the voluntary and the involuntary, acting and suffering, autonomy and vulnerability, capacity and fragility, and identity and otherness. The texts brought together in this volume provide an overall view of the development of Ricoeurs philosophical thinking on the question of what it is to be human, from his early 1939 lecture on Attention to his remarks on receiving the Kluge Prize in 2004, a few months before his death. (shrink)

The chapter deals both with the changing relations boys and men have had and have with ‘classic’ cars of the 1950s–1960s, and with the social relations classic cars aficionados have had and have between them apropos these machines that have survived and are still used, and therefore illustrate what has to be done so that artefacts do not become archaeological items. It raises an anthropological question having to do with what is at the core of the anthropology of objects, (...) techniques, and material actions, namely: What do interactions with the material world do that words alone could not do? The answer the chapter proposes is that by doing and making things in relation to these cars, men build, in a partially non-verbal way, a core of shared representations. In turn, this shared mixture of thoughts and actions is central to diverse social groupings and manifestations. (shrink)

Anthropologists and sociologists offer numerous critiques of bioethics. Social scientists criticize bioethicists for their arm-chair philosophizing and socially ungrounded pontificating, offering philosophical abstractions in response to particular instances of suffering, making all-encompassing universalistic claims that fail to acknowledge cultural differences, fostering individualism and neglecting the importance of families and communities, and insinuating themselves within the “belly” of biomedicine. Although numerous aspects of bioethics warrant critique and reform, all too frequently social scientists offer ungrounded, exaggerated criticisms of bioethics. Anthropological and sociological (...) critiques of bioethics are hampered by the tendency to equate bioethics with clinical ethics and moral theory in bioethics with principlist bioethics. Also, social scientists neglect the role of bioethicists in addressing organizational ethics and other “macro-social” concerns. If anthropologists and sociologists want to provide informed critiques of bioethics they need to draw upon research methods from their own fields and develop richer, more informed analyses of what bioethicists say and do in particular social settings. (shrink)

Abstract:In this paper I will explore the contribution of philosophical anthropology to music education research which, over recent years, has been showing an increasing interest in the human body. In order to do this I will especially be drawing on the ideas of one of its pioneers, Helmuth Plessner. Plessner’s philosophy should be understood as an effort to overcome the Cartesian dualism ‘mind/body’ and to highlight the unity of a human being and her/his relation to her/his environment. With his (...) central theory of “eccentric positionality,” Plessner draws on a human’s relation to her/his body because a human is able to acknowledge that “I am body” and “I have body” while at the same time being able to realize her/his own situation and reflect upon it. Plessner grounds his thinking about music on his phenomenological observation about sound. He remarks that sound, which can be at the same time far and near, has voluminosity, impulsivity, an undeviating relation to human expressivity, is organized in vertical and horizontal arrangement, and tends towards sequentially. Because of all this, sound is compliant with a human body. His philosophy and especially his writings about music and sound could be fruitful for music educational theory and praxis. Some crucial aspects of his theory are embodiment in music, the relation between the meaning of music and body movements, the relation between the conduct of music and conduct of a human and the formation of culture as an open process. In this theoretical terrain concrete proposals and more general suggestions for an efficient and successful music education practice can be located. (shrink)

Anthropology and the other cognitive science (CS) subdisciplines currently maintain a troubled relationship. With a debate in topiCS we aim at exploring the prospects for improving this relationship, and our introduction is intended as a catalyst for this debate. In order to encourage a frank sharing of perspectives, our comments will be deliberately provocative. Several challenges for a successful rapprochement are identified, encompassing the diverging paths that CS and anthropology have taken in the past, the degree of compatibility (...) between (1) CS and (2) anthropology with regard to methodology and (3) research strategies, (4) the importance of anthropology for CS, and (5) the need for disciplinary diversity. Given this set of challenges, a reconciliation seems unlikely to follow on the heels of good intentions alone. (shrink)

Ever since Kant, the possibility of having objects of knowledge has been one of the most basic anthropological questions (“what can I know?”). For the logician, the linguist, or the semiologist who studies natural language, negation is one of these objects. However, as an operation and as a symbol, it has the paradoxical property of not being able to be objectivized in the discourse that treats it without being used in this construction. Of course, it is an entirely general problem (...) that it is not possible to have a “distant view” of symbolism without using a symbolism of some sort or another. Anthropology is essentially concerned with such objects. The descriptions of ethnologists are thus fertile ground for the epistemologist who believes, like Aristotle, that non-being is not and therefore that, even though in fact we speak only of things (otherwise, what good is speaking?) our discourse cannot be a copy of them. (shrink)

Paul Ricœur is rightly regarded as one of the greatest representants of the hermeneutical tradition, at the crossroads of epistemological filiation from Schleiermacher and Dilthey and the ontological filiation of Heidegger to Gadamer. Johann Michel's bias in this article is to explore a third way of hermeneutics under the guise of an interpretative anthropology. Before being a set of scholarly techniques applied to specific fields, hermeneutics derives originally from ordinary techniques of interpretation at work in the world of life. (...) The purpose of the contribution is to show how Ricoeur's hermeneutics can give serious directions for elaborating such an interpretive anthropology, in which case it also needs to be supplemented by other intellectual traditions to achieve this goal. (shrink)

Purpose. The paper aimed at analyzing the anthropological and axiological dimensions of human social expectations in the aspect of the self-organization processes of social phenomena and revealing their essence. Theoretical basis. The research is based on the synergetic paradigm, the theory of shared intentionality as well as the concept of hidden influence on the processes of socialization, synchronization of social influence on moral decisions, benefits of the cooperative learning, interpretation of social expectations as epistemological norms and standards, and the concept (...) of social support. Originality. Social expectations are considered in a synergistic relationship to their anthropological and axiological nature. The anthropological dimension of social expectations based on human nature as a mortal and rational being is outlined. The paper highlights the axiological dimension of social expectations on the ground of the need for socialization and imitation of systems of material and spiritual values in the group. The concept of stereotype and the thanatology of social expectations is substantiated. It is proved that the stereotype of social expectations is dependent on its axiological dimension, and the thanatology of social expectations is dependent on its anthropological dimension, which is based on human mortality. It has been studied out that the stereotypical and thanatological nature of social expectations significantly influences the processes of social self-organization. Conclusions. The social expectations of a person are oriented mainly toward the anthropological dimension of values since by nature a human is a mortal being. Human social expectations are mainly related to life, health, and safety showing the priority of the thanatological nature of social expectations and their futuristic content. Social expectations are also oriented towards social values. The latter is related to the collective rational nature of a person who is prone to social imitation, which affects the stereotypical nature of social expectations. Any social expectation is an axiological one. It is an expectation of material and spiritual values. The axiological dimension of social expectations has a stereotypical nature since it is linked to the specificity of collective socialization and coexistence. The anthropological dimension of social expectations has a thanatological character and is based on human nature as a mortal and at the same time rational being forming own rationality in the group. The concept of stereotypical and thanatological social expectations is promising for further scientific exploration as its methodological basis. (shrink)

Purpose. With the consideration of anthropological tendencies in modern science, the purpose of the article is to analyze the problem of the subject of cognition, philosophical-psychological rationale for the need to complement it by the concept of "the researcher’s personality". Theoretical basis. The authors rely on post-non-classical methodological tools and basic principles of complexity theory, as well as theoretical provisions of epistemological constructivism, the results of theoretical and empirical psychological studies. In them, authors revealed psychological features of the potential of (...) self-realization of a person prone to innovation and research activities and transfessionalism, including the resources and reserves of the researcher’s personality. Originality. The concept of the subject of cognition is expanded by the concept of "researcher’s personality" and derivative concepts that describe the dynamics of self-harmonization of originative co-generative strengths and opportunities of self-realization of an enlightened person, reveal the degree of correlation in the cognition of the subjective and objective dimensions of his life. It is substantiated that further analysis of the problem of anthropologization of science requires appropriate onto-epistemological grounds that reveals the unity of cognition-education-skill as an essential characteristic of the maturity of the researcher’s personality of scientific knowledge. Conclusions. In the context of anthropological shifts in modern science, the philosophical-psychological analysis of the problem of the subject of cognition is actualized. The psychological research proves the advisability of using the "researcher’s personality" concept as a basic one for understanding the formation of an enlightened human-creator, capable of auto-eco-organization, self-transcendence, and syzygy with the Universe at different levels of innovational research activity. The self-realization of the researcher-personality is a way-search for the authenticity of the multiform unity of life, the personal meaning of scientific truth, and the self-harmonization of the originative co-generative co-determinative strengths in the knowledge of an enlightened person. Including the concept of the subject of cognition in the ontology of the unity of difference-multidimensional poly-essential autopoetic integrity, the anthropologization of science is intended to revive the ancient idea in the unity of truth, education and skill of a scientist, defining the ideal of a modern human-transfessional. (shrink)

The concept of philosophical anthropology is polysemous. These words carry the most diverse and sometimes mutually incompatible nuances of metaphysical thought. It is difficult to judge what criterion would enable us to draw the necessary demarcations. For example, the early writings of the French moralists, in which they discussed human nature, are considered to belong to philosophical anthropology. However, few would classify Arthur Schopenhauer's Aphorisms of Everyday Wisdom [Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit] as metaphysical literature, although they contain a typology (...) of human needs. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to reveal the anthropologization of Dasein-psyche’s being by methods of neurophilosophy. The anthropologization of Dasein-psyche’s being by methods of neurophilosophy allows considering the noogenesis from the perspective of philosophical traditions, which is much richer in comparison with the history of scientific knowledge about the psychology of meanings. The being of Dasein-psyche in the meaning of "philosopher’s soul" was firstly mentioned by Plato in "Phaedo". The anthropologization of Dasein-psyche’s being reveals the ontological orientation and limits (...) of the being of Dasein-psyche within the being of Dasein-the-One, as well as the intellect, knowledge and techne, as the arete existentials. Theoretical basis of the study is built on Heidegger’s fundamental ontology and methods of neurophilosophy. Originality lies in exploring Dasein-psyche through the neurophilosophical approach. In the context, Dasein-psyche is revealed as a part of the whole or the image, created from Dasein-Y-Matter as a paradigm. It is formed by the factors and causes of complication, as well as by the experience of being of the previous states of matter. Conclusions. In conclusion, the anthropologization of Dasein-psyche’s being by methods of neurophilosophy allows considering the noogenesis from the perspective of philosophical traditions. The essence of a person is revealed as the arete existentials, which require further rethinking and clarification. (shrink)

I argue that there can be, on Kant's account, a significant motivational role for feeling in moral action. I first discuss and reject Andrews Reath's claim that Kant is forced to disallow a motivational role for feeling because of his rejection of moral sense theory. I then consider and reject the more general challenge that allowing a role for the influence of feeling on the faculty of desire undermines Kant's commitment to a morality free from anthropological considerations. I conclude by (...) providing an overview of Kant's discussion of the moral feeling of respect which shows this feeling to meet the criteria he sets for inclusion in moral motivation. (shrink)

What can be understood of other cultures? And what can we learn about people in general from the study of other cultures? In the three closely related essays that constitute this book and which have already created considerable controversy in their original French versions, and been rewritten and expanded for this edition, Dan Sperber discusses these fundamental issues of anthropology. In the first essay he analyses the way in which anthropology is written and read. In the second, he (...) offers a novel rationalist alternative to cultural relativism, based on both anthropological and psychological arguments, and illustrated by his own fieldwork in Ethiopia. The third essay provides an assessment of the work of Lévi-Strauss, in which the arguments of the previous two essays are linked with an incisive critique of Lévi-Strauss' contribution to the study of cultural variation. (shrink)

Resumen En este artículo se tratará de mostrar hasta qué punto y en qué sentido se puede considerar la filosofía orteguiana como una forma de antropología filosófica, explicando cómo su tratamiento de la técnica conforma el punto diferencial respecto del resto de propuestas de esta corriente. Para ello, expondremos algunas ideas del propio Ortega sobre el tema, contrastando su evolución intelectual con la del propio campo de la antropología filosófica; un campo cuya pro- blematicidad añade varios grados de dificultad a (...) este análisis. Concluiremos que la propuesta “antropo-técnica” orteguiana constituye, a la vez, un fiel reflejo de las discusiones de su tiempo -con Scheler y Heidegger a la cabeza-; pero, tam bién, una concepción única por su tratamiento específico de la técnica y el lugar que se le otorga a esta dimensión.In this article we will try to show to what extent and in what sense Orteguian philosophy can be considered a form of philosophical anthropology, explaining how its treatment of technology forms the differentialpoint with respect to the rest of the proposals of this current. To this end, we willpresent some of Ortega's own ideas on the subject, contrasting his intellectual evolution with that of the field ofphilosophical anthropology itself; a field whose problematic nature adds various degrees of difficulty to this analysis. We will conclude that Ortega's "anthropo- technical" proposal constitutes, at the same time, a faithful reflection of the discussions of his time -with Scheler and Heidegger at its lead-; but, also, a unique conception due to its specific treatment of technology and the place given to this dimension. (shrink)

This article offers a critical rethinking of the view on ideas of psychoanalysis that have been established in Russian philosophical texts. The need to consider psychoanalytic concepts in the history of philosophy of the twentieth century, as well as in other educational courses, led to the creation of an unsubstantiated theoretical construct – «the philosophy of psychoanalysis». Against the backdrop of a number of problems of this type of conceptualization, we propose to concretize the area of interaction between philosophy and (...) psychoanalysis to a series of anthropological questions that have consequences for cultural, ethical and socio-philosophical issues, but in a revised form that does not have a direct connection with the theory and practice of contemporary psychoanalysis. Such a clarification, as shown in the article, allows us to more adequately and correctly (without the inaccuracies of a superficial and philosophically biased translation) present the originality of psychoanalytic ideas. This approach confronts us with the question of how exactly contemporary psychoanalytic thought can be used as a methodology in philosophical and anthropological research. (shrink)

Through an examination of such disciplinary keywords, and their silences, as the West, modernity, globalization, the state, culture, and the field, this book aims to explore the future of anthropology in the 21st century, by examining its past, its origins, and its conditions of possibility alongside the history of the North Atlantic world and the production of the West. In this significant book, Michel-Rolph Trouillot challenges contemporary anthropologists to question dominant narratives of globalization and to radically rethink the utility (...) of the concept of culture, the emphasis upon fieldwork as the central methodology of the discipline, and the relationship between anthropologists and the people whom they study. (shrink)

Purpose. The paper is aimed at studying the specificity of anthropological problematics in pragmatism from the perspective of its ability to be the source of analytic philosophy evolution in the socio-humanitarian direction. Theoretical basis of the research is determined by the works of the representatives of classical pragmatism, neopragmatism, post-pragmatism and analytic pragmatism. Their works give a clear understanding of the important place of anthropological searches in the theory of pragmatism. Originality. On the basis of the analysis of logical, epistemological (...) and metaphysical ideas formulated by representatives of pragmatism, it is proved that pragmatic methodology is anthropocentric. It is established that the ideological and social foundations of pragmatism can be determined as pluralistic ones due to the attention to the human person. It is revealed that theoretical and methodological searches of pragmatism can be effective in the formation of the socio-humanitarian concepts in analytic philosophy through the specification of strategies for the cognition of human existence in such terms as experience or self and the development of practical ways to justify the truth of knowledge. Conclusions. Pragmatists criticized impersonal, formal thinking, which cannot be an effective means of cognition. Thinking has a social basis and is entirely personal. Justifying its dependence on the socio-cultural sphere and the internal intentions of the subject, it is possible to develop an effective logical theory that operates symbols not only at the syntactic or semantic level but also takes into account the pragmatic aspect of language. Anthropological problematics is also important in the theory of knowledge, the core of which is the notion of pragmatic belief, which enables truth and religious beliefs, since the foundation of the theory of truth is determined by the principle of humanism, and the truth is interpreted as a value orientation. Knowing the external world, we find in it the similarity with us – that’s why the metaphysical foundations of being, according to pragmatism, are personified, and the methodology is defined in anthropomorphic terms. Applying it, the study of human existence is specified in the analysis of psychological and socio-cultural dimensions of such concepts as experience or self. Attempts to comprehend the nature of human existence in pragmatism are empirically grounded. Appealing to science, methodological pluralism, the search for socio-cultural background for thinking and suitable linguistic forms of expression of human experience are the achievements of pragmatism, which are the basis for the socio-humanitarian redescription of analytic methodology. (shrink)

Rejecting the category of belief is one of the most striking and profound ideas to emerge from the ontological turn. This essay will argue that the rejection of belief is best understood as part of a broader rejection of representationalism. Representationalism regards thought, speech, and intentionality as depending primarily on the mind’s ability to manipulate beliefs, ideas, meanings, or similar contents. Some central strands of the ontological turn thus participate in the philosophical project of understanding human life without appeal to (...) such representational states. After showing how 20th century anthropology was implicated in the representationalist picture, this essay will critique some of the arguments against belief found among proponents of the ontological turn. It will then try to construct a more robust argument against the use of the category of belief in anthropology. It ends with some reflections on what it means to do anthropology without belief. (shrink)

Michael Landmann, one of the prominent philosophers and scholars of our time, died in Haifa, Israel on January 25, 1984 at the age of seventy. He has enriched contemporary philosophy through his numerous writings whose principal theme was man's place in the world, or 'philosophical anthropology,' summarized as the conception of man as an individual with knowledge of his place within a historical tradition; man is therefore an expression of subjective and objective spirit at the same time. I.

“With great power comes great responsibility.” In today’s world, with our growing technological power and the knowledge about its impact, we are considered to be responsible for many instances that not long ago would have been deemed a matter of fate. At the same time, the looming options of, e.g., genome editing or neuroprosthetics, threaten traditional notions of responsibility if no longer the person but the technology involved is deemed to be responsible for a specific behaviour. The growing ethical debate (...) on the expansion of human responsibility, e.g. when it comes to human-machine-interaction, ambient intelligence, or reproductive technologies, thus intertwines with the challenge to formulate an appropriate understanding of the concept of personal responsibility and our respective anthropological self-understanding in today’s technological world. The volume brings together both perspectives and aims at illuminating crucial dimensions of responsibility in light of technological innovation and our self-understanding as responsible beings. (shrink)