Interconnections between philosophic anthropology, conceptions of globalization and sustainable development are investigated. Found out that biological, social, intellectual and spiritual parameters of human being determine specific directions and spheres of globalization. Discovering of these interconnectionsallows to make clear necessary measures of transition to sustainable development. Substantiated that such researches serve as a basis for working out of political, economic, social, intellectual and spiritual guidelines of ensuring of reliable international communication’s security, survival of mankind and solution of internal problems of (...) every country. Investigations of interconnections between philosophic anthropology, conceptions of globalization and sustainable development could became as a mainstream of development of philosophy in XXI century. (shrink)

Philosophical anthropology, as Helmuth Plessner has explored it, vindicates its relative priority towards ethics, because it can set out the anthropological prerequisites for considering the moral subject as the embodied person. This claim, however, is still an open question. Walter Schulz has argued that the prevalence of science in contemporary life brings ethics to the fore and forces philosophical anthropology to an auxiliary exploration of ‘leading figures of thehuman’. Jürgen Habermas endorses Plessner’s exploration of the issue (...) of the body, in order to oppose biotechnological naturalism. Thus, he enlarges his discourse on ethics through the ethics of the human species by defining the moral agent as the embodied person. Nevertheless, philosophical anthropology is a broader theoretical endeavour that cannot be reduced to ethics. (shrink)

If we take a bird’s-eye view of the history of philosophical ideas and try to assess the place the problems of modality hold in it, it is likely that we will gain the impression that they are not among the priorities of philosophical thinking of the essence of human being. A closer look at some classical theses, however, can provide us with different answers. In § 76 of Critique of Judgement, which is actually “just” a comment on the (...) basic text, Kant explains that “For human reason it is of absolute necessity to distinguish between the possibility and reality of things”. Kant helps us to include modality in the very metaphysical definition of the human being. That is why we can say: human being is a modal being before being “a rational being”, “a social animal” or “homo faber”. In my opinion that “before” should be understood in a strictly metaphysical sense and it should help us to discover a non-trivial basis and principle of philosophical anthropology. It is my thesis that philosophical anthropology should place modality in the very definition of human nature and consider human being as a possibilia entis. We could illustrate the fundamental character of modality by demonstrating that modality is at the basis of constituting time as temporality. In view of this position only the modal being has a time in the sense of temporality. Or, to put it in a different way, we can see in nature only changes, but not temporal phenomena in the strict sense of the concept of time perceived as temporality. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to consider the vicissitudes of “area studies” from the Second World War to the present focusing eventually on the normative imperative to develop a new paradigm of “planetary thinking.” First an overview of the history of “area studies” will be given from the start in the U.S. during the Second World War in response to the geostrategic imperative for America to know its new geopolitical responsibilities in a world divided by war. This security imperative (...) morphed into the postwar requisite to develop a counterhegemonic strategy against soviet communism in the hot spot parts of Asia, Latin American, and later Africa. The latter military-oriented strategy was added to with research into development and modernization in the third-world through to the boundary displacement of areas studies at the end of the Cold War into the current era of globalization. At this very historical moment of transition a new rationale for area studies emerged in the form of a geoeconomic imperative – both in the U.S. and, with a different gloss, in South Korea in the late 1990s. Second, on the basis of this historical apercu, the argument will be proposed that, given the problem of global warming and the issue‐area of global inequality lurking behind the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, a pressing contemporary task for philosophy is to make a critical contribution to developing a new planetary perspective for area studies informed by a constitutive philosophical anthropology attendant to the species being of human beings. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to consider the vicissitudes of “area studies” from the Second World War to the present focusing eventually on the normative imperative to develop a new paradigm of “planetary thinking.” First an overview of the history of “area studies” will be given from the start in the U.S. during the Second World War in response to the geostrategic imperative for America to know its new geopolitical responsibilities in a world divided by war. This security imperativemorphed (...) into the postwar requisite to develop a counterhegemonic strategy against soviet communism in the hot spot parts of Asia, Latin American, and later Africa. The latter military‐oriented strategy was added to with research into development and modernization in the third-world through to the boundary displacement of areas studies at the end of the Cold War into the current era of globalization. At this very historical moment of transition a new rationale for area studies emerged in the form of a geoeconomic imperative – both in the U.S. and, with a different gloss, in South Korea in the late 1990s. Second, on the basis of this historical apercu, the argument will be proposed that, given the problem of global warming and the issue‐area of global inequality lurking behind the UnitedNation’s Millennium Development Goals, a pressing contemporary task for philosophy is to make a critical contribution to developing a new planetary perspective for area studies informed by a constitutive philosophical anthropology attendant to the species being of human beings. (shrink)

Philosophers cannot avoid addressing the question of whether philosophical anthropology is possible. Any answer must be articulated in the context of the nature and function of philosophy. In other words, philosophical anthropology must be defined as an account of the nature of the subject of philosophical thinking. I argue that if philosophical thinkers admit that they are beings in nature, culture, and history, then the possibility of a uniquely philosophical theory of human nature (...) and human phenomenon should be discarded. Rather, philosophy's catalytic and integrative role in human cognition should be stressed. (shrink)

This book is a collection of the selected proceedings of the 4th International Conference "Human Being in Contemporary Philosophical Conceptions," which was held under the patronage of UNESCO at Volgograd State University (Russia) on May 28-31, 2007. In the letter to the organizers, Mr. Koïchiro Matsuura wrote: "I should like to congratulate you on this important initiative to promote philosophical reflection, which is one of the central objectives of UNESCO's Intersectoral Strategy on Philosophy." There is an interesting fact: (...) the 19th World Congress of Philosophy in Moscow (1993) had no session on philosophical anthropology, the next Congress in Boston (1998) had one such session, the 21st Congress of Philosophy in Istanbul (2003) had already four sessions, and the 22nd World Congress of Philosophy in Seoul (2008) had six sessions on philosophical anthropology. Obviously, we may observe a new anthropological renaissance in contemporary thought. This book serves the philosophical anthropology becoming as well. Perhaps an idea of integral studies is the most attractive trend in the contemporary philosophy and science. The book presents an experience in integral philosophy of human being. Also, the development of philosophical anthropology is closely connected with practical tasks. Our political activities, welfare projects and educational programs can become really useful only when we are guided by knowledge of what human being is, what we are able to do, what are own needs, and what we must become. Philosophical anthropology could correctly define the research purposes of all human sciences. This volume includes various reflexions and styles of thinking. By this, all the papers demonstrate metaphysics of respect for human being. The contributors, scholars from the different countries, are open for free discussions and fresh ideas. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION: Philosophy is the unique science which considers all other sciences in systematically unity (Kant). The classical anthropology (Platon, Aristoteles, Descartes, Hume, Kant, etc.) considers the human and his "spheres" (biological, psychological, logical, philosophical, theological) and his interdependence with nature and society. A philosophical theology investigates spiritual phenomena, described by religions and parapsychology in context of ethics, epistemology (incl. metaphysics), aesthetics. A theological anthropology should consider these phenomena multidimensional in context of a holisticscience, i.e. physico- (Kant), (...) bio- (Lüke), psycho-, logico-, philosophical theology, etc. [Lit.: Neu, Michailov: Integralanthropology. In: Proc. 21st World Congr. Philos. Istanbul. Press FISP 280‐281, 2003; Theol. Anthrop. In: Book: New Pathways for Eur. Bioethics. Ed.: Eur. Ass. Med. Ethics, Leuven, p. 53/60, 2006; Med. Ethics, 21st Ann. Conf. EACME (Ed.) Zürich, p. 53, 2007]. CONCEPTION: Regrettably philosophical theology is reduced to nearly philosophical and theological ethics: Both ethics in the future should realize a common scientific integrated ethics based on philosophy, theology, and psychology incl. of great cultures - Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianism-Mosaism, Confucianism, and Mohammedanism. The present moral philosophy is very pluralistic: Many views concerningnormative and metaethics (deontology, axiology), also relativism, absolutism (incl. utilitarism), noncognitivism are present. A similar situation exists in moral theology: Not only in context of philosophy (consequentialism, justice, protectionism), but more - of theology are existent contradictionary differences concerning ethics in the great religions (related to God, Spirit/Soul, reincarnation, etc.). A future philosophical theology needs a renewal of its scientific theoretical andexperimental fundamentals (controlled observations: criterion for intersubjectivity) concerning theological anthropology incl. not only occidental epistemology (metaphysics, scientific theory, etc.), but also oriental - esp. Brahmanistic and Buddhist (self realization by Yoga, Tibetan, Zen Buddhism) and scientific evaluation of spiritual phenomena by biophysics, physiology, psychology and formal (Aristoteles, Gautama), real, transcendental (Kant), metaphysical (Hegel) normal logic. Areconsideration of application of philosophy of arts, esp. aesthetics in philosophical theology is also necessary (incl. inspirations in music/Bach, Beethoven, Händel, painting/Leonardo da Vinci, sculpture/Michelangelo). CONCLUSION: Scientific and political support for a renovation of theological anthropology and philosophical theology could help essentially for a realization of UNO-Agenda 21 for better total (incl. spiritual) health and peaceful world. (shrink)

Agenda 21 of United Nations demands better situation of ecology, economy, health, etc. in all countries. An evaluation of scientific contributions in international congresses of fundamental anthropological sciences (philosophy, psychology, psychosomatics, physiology, genito-urology, radio-oncology, etc.) demonstratesevidence of large discrepancies in the participation not only of developing and industrial countries, but also between the last ones themselves. Low degree of research and education leads to low degree of economy, health, ecology, etc. [Lit.: Neu, Michailov et al.: Physiology in Agenda 21. (...) Proc. Int. Un. Physiol. Sci. San Francisco, Faseb J. 19/5, A1355, 2005; Agenda 21 in Psychol. 28th Int. Congr. Psychol. Beijing, 1028.62/3028.96, 2004]. CONCEPTION: The science is leading in the social and economic development of humanity, but the misuse of science causes disastrous repercussions (ecological and self-destruction). New models for scientific education, beginning with philosophy, followed by philosophical, pedagogical, medical, theological anthropology, and research are necessary tosupport Agenda 21 and prevent misuse of science. According to proposals on foundation of experimental schools (Immanuel Kant) and international universities (Bertrand Russell) the International Academy of Science/ICSD supports these ideas and initiated the creation of first (interdisciplinary) International Faculties forAnthropology as paradigm for humanization, higher effectiveness and pluralistic internationalization of science, leading to better education ("Erziehung und Ausbildung") and research in all countries, i.e. decrease of the gap between industrial and developing countries. CONCLUSION: Foundation of international institutes for general (philosophy, pedagogy, medicine) as well as for special anthropology (theology, informatics-logic-mathematics, culture, biology, (bio-) physics/chemistry) in context of an integralanthropology via networks of national ones from selected countries of Africa, America, Asia, Australia, Europe can permit the necessary implication of philosophy in education of anthropological sciences as well as research and education (post graduate) by common international research and educational programmes, lecturers, students, etc. in one country. This project needs political and financial support by UNO, European Union, governments, banks, industries to support the education of a homo sanus, humanus et spiritualis for the future humanity. (shrink)

What might the project be of lyric poetry in late global capitalism in the early years of the new millennium which acknowledges both a post-romantic and modernist lineage, and which faces the critical challenge of postmodernist theorizing? This paper endeavors to respond to this question forwarding the Adorno-inspired viewpoint that the praxes of individual lyric poems reveal orientations of affirmation or negation be they intended or not. The thesis is stated that the “arguments” of modern poets are creative litigations posing (...) counter-worlds, constituting anti-worlds, and projecting ideal worlds. The philosophical anthropology that informs this thesis focuses on the homo duplex conception of man as a double being—as a unique human individual and as members of thehuman species socialized into the social life-world. Thus a counterworld privileges the human subject in society as homo externus, whereas an anti-world centers on the human subject as homo internus opposed, at odds, or turned away from the external social life-world. These reflections finally concentrate on Northrop Frye’s idea of a “third order of experience” that, in his words, contrasts with “an existing world and a world which may not exist but is pointed toby the articulate orders of experience... this world is frequently called… an unborn world, a world that never quite enters existence.”. (shrink)

This paper aims to pay tribute to Figal’s comprehensive and innovative analysis of the artwork and beauty, while challenging both his realist position on the immediacy of meaning and his monist stance that reduces sublimity to beauty. To enquire into the origin of aesthetic feelings and sense, and thus, to break the hermeneutic circle, we first trace the origin of this reduction to the reception of Burke’s concept of the sublime by Mendelssohn and Kant. We then recur to Husserl and (...) Dufrenne to trace the origin of the sense of the feeling of sublimity in the realm of affectivity or sensuousness. This genesis takes place in passive experience, where we identify an excess of sensuous sense over categorial meaning that is constitutive of the affective sense that our bodily sensations give to hyletic material. It is argued that this sensuous excess evokes a sublime experience in the phenomenological sense, involving an affective and disruptive bodily experience and an endless process of sense formation. Affective or sensuous sense is thus an event that irreversibly affects the bodily surface. To elucidate this phenomenon, we draw on the theoretical framework of Breton and Bataille, positing it as a form-transgressive ‘convulsive’ sublime, which we then illustrate in the architectural works of Tschumi and Eisenman. In short, we have retrieved the origin of aesthetic experience and redefined the feeling of the sublime as a phenomenological ‘convulsive’ sublimity. (shrink)

Philosophical anthropologies (PAs) – ontological assumptions about human species-nature – have long faced Foucauldian post-structural rejection of their value and legitimacy in explaining sociological problematics. In this article I endorse Bourdieu’s resistance to a post-PA momentum, arguing that PAs need assuming in sociological research. In the process, I explore PAs within Bourdieu’s research framework, including how his key empirical-analytic concepts – ‘habitus’, ‘field’, ‘illusio’ and ‘forms of capital’ – echo the PAs he assumes. Yet I argue his conceptual framework (...) would do better without a PA he sometimes explicitly invokes: a ‘libidinal’ drive to compete for power in ‘games’ of social-field labour. I then draw on data from a survey of Australian education academics, who comment on how workforce restructures negatively affect their research and teaching labours. From the data, I argue that assuming a power-competitive PA as a driver of field labours inhibits attention to ethically-motivated desire for better labour purposes, fuelling critically-reflexive capacities to challenge field-structured power games. In turn, I diagnose that Bourdieu’s conceptual framework needs, but lacks, Marxian assumption of a human-species impulse for labours to serve use-valued social purposes, and that commodification of labours generates emotional alienation. I therefore suggest a ‘Marxification’ of Bourdieu’s framework. (shrink)

Brian Gregor draws together a hermeneutics of the self—through Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Taylor—and a theology of the cross—through Luther, Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, and Jüngel.

Philosophical Anthropology is one of the post-Husserlian splinters -- a dizzying mix and match of phenomeno-psycho-anthro-philosophical hyphenated schools of thought. It arose first in the 1920's out of the same intellectual promptings as existentialism, which it briefly rivaled. It differs from existentialism and other phenomenologies in fine ways which Landmann combs scrupulously, along with distinctions among the sub-specialties that have proliferated within the field itself. Fortunately, two more general premises distinguish it from other forms of anthropology. (...) First, taking anthropology in its broadest sense as man's search for a self-conception, it allows a signal, shaping importance to its own formulations: culturally speaking, and psychologically too, man tries, tends to fit his self-image. Second, embracing man and everything human as its focus, it assumes phenomenology's grandest claims: reconciliation of the inward and the outer, and, by inference at least, a proper holistic restoration of the essential human sphere. The impulse and the method are widely evident now and several disciplines seem to be quivering toward some such point of convergence. But it is a moot point whether Philosophical Anthropology will stake out the ground. Landmann traces it from its substantive origins with the Greeks down through its most niggling modern self-assertions in a strictly academic survey of high-philosophical or similarly accredited propositions, The argumentative appeals (Freud, Nietzsche) seem rather dated now; and there is a further difficulty in that the action and its object are one and the same, the medium, so to speak, is the message -- i.e., thought about man. While this is a necessary aspect of the method, it can be disorienting. Scholars, however, will know where they are, and this will admit admirably to conventional, general uses. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Status of Humans in Maimonides' Ontology Matter, Privation, and Evil Accounting for Multiplicity of Persons The Constitution of Soul and Body Immortality of the Soul: Personal or General? Conclusion further reading.

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)

In this paper it is argued that philosophical anthropology is central to ethics and politics. The denial of this has facilitated the triumph of debased notions of humans developed by Hobbes which has facilitated the enslavement of people to the logic of the global market, a logic which is now destroying the ecological conditions for civilization and most life on Earth. Reviving the classical understanding of the central place of philosophical anthropology to ethics and politics, the (...) early work of Hegel and Marx is explicated, defended and further developed by interpreting this through developments in post-mechanistic science. Overcoming the opposition between the sciences and the humanities, it is suggested that the conception of humans developed in this way can orient people in their struggle for the liberty to avert a global ecological catastrophe. (shrink)

Being Human is the fruit of many years teaching Philosophical Anthropology, conducting Phenomenological Workshops, and reading classic texts in the light of a reflective awareness of the field of experience. Being Human is intended to look to what is typically assumed but not examined in much of current philosophical literature.

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)

Mortality as a Philosophical-Anthropological Issue: Thanatology, Normativity, and "Human Nature" This paper examines mortality—the fact that we humans are all going to die—as an issue in philosophical anthropology, by applying a fourfold typology of some key forms of philosophical anthropology to the topic of death and mortality. First, this typology, originally suggested by Heikki Kannisto, is outlined; the mortality issue is, then, viewed from the perspective it opens. Finally, the challenges to our understanding of death (...) and mortality that this perspective may help us meet are discussed. The treatment of mortality from the perspective of philosophical anthropology may make it more understandable in a manner that will highlight the importance of the concept of normativity in the philosophical examination of any such humanly relevant issue. (shrink)

Introduction : the antinomy of human reality and the problem of a philosophical anthropology -- Attention: a phenomenological study of attention and its philosophical connections -- The unity of the voluntary and the involuntary as a limit-idea -- The problem of the will and philosophical discourse -- The phenomenology of the will and the approach through ordinary language -- The symbol gives rise to thought -- Freedom -- Myth -- The symbolic structure of action -- Human (...) beings as the subject of philosophy -- Individual and personal identity -- Narrative identity -- The paradoxes of identity -- Strangeness many times over -- The addressee of religion : the capable human being -- Epilogue : personal capacities and mutual recognition. (shrink)