Philosophical Anthropology

Philosophical Anthropology of the twentieth century began its development in Germany and is connected with the concept of human development of such prominent philosophers as Max Scheler, Helmut Plesner, Ernst Cassirer and others.

Among the precursors of philosophical anthropology Kant, L. Feuerbach, A. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche should be called. Freud's psychoanalysis, phenomenology of Husserl, the fundamental ontology of M. Heidegger made a significant influence on the philosophical anthropology.

Max Scheler (1874-1928) is considered one of the founders of philosophical anthropology of the twentieth century. In broad terms some researchers believe this thinker to initiate "reorientation" of philosophy towards anthropological thinking.

Max Scheler saw the main task of his theory in an integral and coherent doctrine of man that could bring together a variety of anthropological conceptions that existed in European culture: theological, philosophical and natural scientific.

The search for the essential definition of man leads Scheler to the question: what makes man really man? Answering this difficult question the philosopher finds a category that can reflect the specifics of human existence in the world. That category, said Scheler, is "spirit."

Spirituality, in Max Sheller’s philosophy forms the center of man that determines personality. Only man can regard anything including himself as a subject of cognition. The spiritual initial principle in man is a value-moral principle. In a series of his works the philosopher mentioned of the existence of absolute values in the life of the spirit, which enable human interaction in cultural space and time. Love as the highest manifestation of spirituality and humanity is always directed not to the value itself, but to the barrier of values - to personality. Love in the philosophy of Max Scheler is manifested as a desire, a constant tendency to value improvement, because it is the mother of soul and spirit themselves. The philosopher emphasized that love as the most important mode of life becomes the highest value when it becomes a dynamic factor in approaching to the "prototype of the One”, who is all-loving and all-knowing God.

Thus, the analysis of philosophical anthropology shows that appeal to God as the highest spiritual values instance logically completed all anthropological quest of Max Scheler.

One of the followers of Max Scheler in Germany was Helmuth Plesner (1892-1985). In his main work "Steps of organic and man. Introduction to Philosophical Anthropology”, G. Plesner, describing man came out of the idea that man is the end of the organic world evolution. So, having analyzed his interaction with the environment - one can understand human nature on analogy to any living organism.

The animal is limited with forms of instinctual behavior of its species. Man is able to operate his instincts, so it eccentric. Eccentricity of human existence for Plesner is an essential characteristic of man. In every moment of his life man is "another as for himself." His existence is outside the animal instinctive-rational behavior. For Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) man is a "symbolic animal". "A symbol is the key to the human nature", he said. Evolution pushes people out of the natural world, physical world of bodies and ties, which the animal ancestors of man belonged entirely. People surround themselves with the world of culture - "a symbolic Universum”. Unlike previous rationalists E. Cassirer did not define man "rational animal” any longer. For him, man is a "symbolic animal" in the literal sense.

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