Philosophical Anthropology

Kierkegaard and Kant on Radical Evil and the Highest Good is a major study of Kierkegaard's relation to Kant that gives a comprehensive account of radical evil and the highest good, two controversial doctrines with important consequences for ethics and religion. Fremstedal offers an original account of Kierkegaard and his role in the history of philosophy that reconstructs several of his central ideas by relating them to Kant and partially also to contemporary debates. By offering a comparative presentation, the book shows how Kant and Kierkegaard offer different solutions to the problem of evil and its complex relation to religious faith and happiness. Fremstedal sheds new light on Kierkegaard's argument against secular thinking, and shows that there are more Kantian elements in Kierkegaard than has been acknowledged. Kierkegaard's use of Kantian ideas is instructive, since it points to problems with Kant's philosophy of religion and indicates how Kantian philosophy can be used to defend religious faith and hope.

Edith Stein (1891–1942) was a German-Jewish philosopher who joined the Carmelite Order after her conversion to the Roman Catholic faith in 1922. She has written a number of books, out of which the Potency and Act (1931) and the Finite and Eternal Being (1937) stand as monumental works, in which she probes the wonder and mystery of human being in relation to the divine being. She suffered an untimely death under the
Nazi regime at Auschwitz in 1942. She was later canonized as a martyr and saint by Pope John Paul II in 1998 as Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
In this book, Donald Wallenfang is presenting a holistic theological anthropology as he distills this theme from the works of Edith Stein.

Occorre oggi allargare il nostro paradigma antropologico di riferimento, passando da un paradigma che dice una parte di verità sull'essere umano, a un paradigma più accogliente e più rispettoso, più confortevole per noi e per le esigenze della nostra libertà: un paradigma più adeguato alla nostra umanità. Un paradigma che riconosca come la nostra interiorità è sempre esteriormente mediata e come, al contempo, l’esteriorità si presenta alla nostra esperienza sempre interiormente mediata. È un paradigma che riconosce che l’essere umano è, prima di tutto ed essenzialmente, un animale simbolico.

La pregunta por el modo de orientar la vida se revela como una de las más serias y apremiantes. Tanto en su acepción sacra, que remite a una llamada trascendente, como en su concepción laica, que vincula el sentimiento de felicidad con la propia realización personal, la palabra vocación quiere indicar el modo adecuado que sigue el sujeto para desempeñarse con éxito en la vida.

Quizá por ello, cuando se habla de vocación resuenan aquellos elementos que componen la identidad del ser humano: corporeidad y espiritualidad, intimidad y relacionalidad, inteligencia y sensibilidad, conciencia y libertad, biografía personal e historia colectiva.

El desencanto causado por la «liquidez» axioló­gica, la demagogia política, el pragmatis­mo económico, la incertidumbre eco­lógica, el narcisismo digital y la uniformidad cultural en los que parece haberse instalado la antropología del trashombre, urge a elaborar un nuevo modelo de orientación vocacional que enseñe a vivir desde la «autotrascendencia» y la «ultimidad personal», o sea, desde la alteridad, la relación, la libertad y el don. Puesto que, sin vocación, el ser personal se condena a tratarse y ser tratado con indiferencia.

In my paper, I set The Language Animal against a broader picture of Charles Taylor's intellectual trajectory. Sources of the Self (1989) left open three major questions: (a) the viability of religious moral sources in a 'secular' age; (b) the compatibility between a robust moral realism and a genealogical account of modern identity; and (c) the meaning and destiny of the so-called 'linguistic turn.' This is the framing topic of his last book. Although Taylor's variety of hermeneutics is unquestionably a product of the linguistic turn, he has operated with a broad notion of the linguistic capacity from the start. Language is, for him, a shared activity and the acknowledgment of its animal embeddedness functions in his work as an antidote against any too idealized a view of the kind of creatures that humans are. In his earlier writings, however, a structural tension lurked below the surface between a Gadamerian notion of Sprache and a more phenomenological, Merleau-Pontyan, embodied outlook that was less modelled on articulate speech. My claim is that his new book marks a shift from a more speech-oriented to a more body-oriented understanding of language. RÉSUMÉ : Dans mon article, j'analyse The Language Animal sur la base d'une considération plus large de la trajectoire intellectuelle de Taylor. Les sources du moi (1989) laissait trois grandes questions en suspens : (a) la pérennité des sources morales religieuses dans un âge «séculier»; (b) la compatibilité d'un réalisme moral robuste avec un récit généalogique de l'identité moderne; (c) le sens et le destin du soi-disant «tournant linguistique». Cette dernière question est devenue la question-clé de son plus récent livre. Bien que la variété de l'herméneutique taylorienne soit incontestablement le produit du tournant linguistique, Taylor a travaillé dès le début avec une conception large de la capacité linguistique. Le langage est pour lui une activité partagée et la reconnaissance de ses origines animales joue dans son travail un rôle d'antidote contre une vue trop idéalisée du type de créature que sont les humains. Dans ses premiers écrits, cependant, se dissimulait une tension structurelle entre une notion gadamerienne de Sprache et une perspective plus phénoménologique, liée à Merlau-Ponty et à la notion de parole incarnée, moins modelée sur la parole articulée. J'avance que ce nouveau livre de Taylor marque le passage d'une conception du language axée sur la parole à une conception davantage axée sur le corps.

The exegesis of Otto and Blumenberg elucidates how Blumenberg sees in affectivity - particularly anxiety - how the subject’s instinctual failure and its accidental mythical rationalization are modes of coping with the 'absolutism of reality'. Parallel to Otto's understanding of the ‘Mysterium Tremendum’ as an extreme affective response to the world, namely another kind yet similar form of coping seen in the religious self-affirmation.

Frederick Douglass’ Narrative was intended and has been read as a first-hand document on slavery and the power of an individual to gain freedom. It contains a wealth of information on the structure of American slavery and the means to overcome it. For a philosopher, the first-person narrative also contains valuable refl ections and indications on what it means to be human in spite of, and in the face of, systematic de-humanization. In the first place, Douglass gives indications on what constitutes human dignity, which is contextualized in religion and the self, body and mind, altruism and morality. Being (potentially) sold and selling one’s physical labor turns into an instrument of liberation. The famous master-slave dialectics is depicted in Hegelian patterns in the fight with Covey. Resistance appears as a quasi-natural feature of being human. Therefore, this document of a Maryland slave and fugitive can be read as a document of far-reaching topics of philosophy that merit generalization. Such a reading has the effect that the reader cannot escape by way of historicism (“that happened to that man back then”) but can apply the fruits of Douglass’ reflections to the understanding of humanity as such.

In this article, we adopt a socio-anthropological approach to understand how hegemonic international representations are constructed in the politics and theory of international relations, specifically how Southeast Europe is perceived in West European imagination. We focus on various forms of travel writing, media reporting, diplomatic record, policy making, truth claims and expert accounts related to different narrative perspectives on the Balkan wars, both old (1912-1913) and new (1991-1999). We show how these perspectives are rooted in different temporalities and historicizations, and how they contribute to international representations that affect international politics, particularly in relation to perpetuating othering and containment of Southeast Europe. We demonstrate through a detailed analysis and problematization how these international representations are culturally and politically constructed. They do not neutrally refer to a reality in the world; they create a reality of their own. As such, how international representations are constructed is itself a form of power and hegemony in both the practice and the theory of international relations.

The Chapter considers what is implied in the being-there of the ethnographer in the field. in particular it focusses on the role of moods - notably the pathos of estrangement - and postures assumed in response to such moods in the processes of truly and emphatically "arriving" in the field. In other Words, the chapter attempts to disclose the existential conditions of possibility of the being-there in place in the field that is presupposed in participant observation.

This paper dispels the Cartesian reading of Augustine’s treatment of mind and other minds by examining key passages from De Trinitate and De Civitate Dei. While Augustine does vigorously argue that mind is indubitable and immaterial, he disavows the fundamental thesis of the dualistic tradition: the separation of invisible spirit and visible body. The immediate self-awareness of mind includes awareness of life, that is, of animating a body. Each of us animates our own body; seeing other animated bodies enables us to see other animating souls or minds. Augustine’s affirmation of animation lets us perceive that other minds are present, but Descartes’ denial of animation renders others ineluctably absent. Augustine’s soul is no ghost, because his body is no machine.

RESUMEN
La relación interna entre filosofía, literatura y arte permite examinar con propiedad qué significan la pluralidad y complejidad en los usos de la razón. Posibilita la aproximación a esos usos y figuras desde un ángulo privilegiado. El interés por lo literario y artístico no tendría por qué significar un apresurado abandono del modelo discursivo y analítico -que es característico de la filosofía-, sino más bien el acceso a un punto de vista más completo, un nuevo método reflexivo, otro límite crítico. Esta perspectiva facilita la puesta al día de las tesis modernas sobre la filosofía como emancipación, esto es, como su salida de la minoría de edad.
Espacios ficcionales, campos de proyección de la experiencia, métodos y perspectivas trasdisciplinarias constituyen los distintos niveles a través de los cuales se trata de definir un nexo complejo entre discursos. La ficción como conocimiento, subjetividad y texto, así como la relación entre mundo y lenguaje pretenden acotar algunas dimensiones de esa relación.
A través de la literatura llegamos a estar familiarizados con situaciones, sentimientos, formas de vida, obteniendo así una mirada desde dentro -epistemológicamente empática-. Cada nueva visión del mundo constituye un nuevo tipo de conocimiento, un conocimiento que puede incluir aspectos cognitivos y emotivos y que demandará, probablemente, algún tipo de lógica paraconsistente. De modo que a la par que por nuestras narrativas creamos o descubrimos mundos (dependiendo del estatuto ontológico otorgado a la ficción) también establecemos o desentrañamos la legislación lógica, según la cual tal curso de sucesos o tal tipo de entidades son o no admisibles al interior de este particular mundo posible.
Precisamente, es en la constante re-creación de sus objetos, práctica que surge en una comunidad de problemas -un espacio de representación colectiva- el espacio en que se da la ciencia. Es, precisamente, en una particular forma de hablar y de referirse a objetos, creándolos con el habla, el que funda a la medicina -por ejemplo- como cuerpo autónomo de conocimientos, vale decir como ciencia de primer orden. Las disciplinas, pues, en tanto discursos, están, literalmente, constituidas por él. Por ello es necesario estudiar el discurso científico en tanto que discurso, hay que reflexionar sobre sus orígenes y modo de constitución, hay que aceptar que no es sólo un producto sino una fuerza productiva. La realidad es una narrativa exitosa. Es aquello que se hace hablando. Las comunidades científicas son comunidades de problemas y, sobre todo, de retóricas, reconstrucciones de objetos que sólo existen en tanto se habla de ellos de una determinada manera,
Hasta los mundos narrativos más imposibles tienen como fondo lo que es posible en el mundo que concebimos como real. Las entidades y situaciones que no son explícitamente nombradas y descritas como diferentes del mundo real son entendidas a partir de las leyes que aplicamos a la comprensión del mundo real.
Así, pues, la narración de ficción construye un modelo análogo del universo real, una proyección...lo que permite conocer la estructura y los procesos internos de la realidad y manipularla cognitivamente. Se otorga así un valor cognoscitivo a la ficción, de modo tal que todas las posibles connotaciones, no expresadas directamente por el texto, sino -más bien- mostradas implícitamente o implicadas contextualmente en lo allí dicho, iluminan aspectos de la realidad que sin estas extrapolaciones ficcionales permanecerían en penumbras.
La perspectiva crítica -propia de la filosofía- puede hallarse así implícita en escritos de ficción, de la misma manera como las teorías filosóficas pueden aceptar como suyos a los argumentos procedentes del discurso literario. La reflexión filosófica se articula, pues, desde distintos ámbitos y modalidades discursivas.
Dr. Adolfo Vásquez Rocca

O presente texto se propõe a apresentar uma fenomenologia do pensamento védico a partir da estrutura teórica da antropologia filosófica de Ernst Cassirer. Acreditamos assim poder compreender sua sistemática e, destarte, oferecê-la como base capaz de integrá-lo no corpus das investigações sobre o fenômeno religioso, mantendo-o, entretanto, próximo tanto quanto possível de suas próprias premissas. Para tanto, apresentaremos pontos suficientes da perspectiva teórica de Cassirer para a compreensão do pensamento religioso enquanto tal. Em seguida, trataremos da fenomenologia do pensamento védico a partir desta perspectiva, com especial atenção para o lugar dos textos śruti e para a evolução interna de seus temas. Por fim, apresentaremos algumas das perspectivas de investigação que se abrem a partir da nossa ex-posição.

This paper aims to present a Phenomenology of the Vedic thought viewed from the framework of the Philosophical Anthropology of Ernst Cassirer. We believe that doing so we can comprehend its systematics and then offer it as a capable basis to integrate the Vedic thought to the corpus of the investigations about the religious phenomenon, keeping it how-ever as close as possible of its own premises. In order to do so, we will make a brief introduc-tion to the Cassirerian theoretical perspective to the comprehension of the religious thought as so. Then we will deal with the phenomenology of the Vedic thought with special attention to the place of the śruti texts and the internal development of their themes. At last, we will pre-sent some of the investigative perspectives opened with our explanation.

This article provides a different angle to understand the Cambridge Analytica (CA) data scandal. It focuses on the role of models and simulations in the big data campaigning tools CA allegedly used, and their epistemological and ontological potential to produce and reproduce voters' digital doubles that would first colonise and eventually replace the analogue selves they were related to. By integrating and revising Zuboff's surveillance capitalism framework with Debord's classic theory of the Spectacle, the article argues that the dystopian simulations played as real life experiments by surveillance capitalist firms such as CA have the ultimate goal of replacing analogue humanity with digital humanity – the two kinds are ontologically different albeit dialectically related. The predictive models that these simulations produce are only as good as the capacity of the digital doubles in the simulations to shape the behaviour of analogue selves in line with the simulations' parameters and goals.

»Die ›Idee‹ blamierte sich immer, soweit sie von dem ›Interesse‹ unter-schieden war« (MEW 2, 85). Mit diesen Worten beginnen in den vierziger Jahren des 19. Jahrhunderts die jungen Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels ihren Feldzug gegen jene frühsozialistischen Denker, die mit moralischen, religiösen oder philosophischen Ideen zum Aufbruch aus dem irdischen Jammertal des Frühkapitalismus aufrufen. Dabei klären Marx und Engels auch ihr eigenes Denken und schaffen die für ihr Werk originäre metho-dische Basis. Ideen werden demnach nicht mehr allein aus sich selbst er-klärt, sondern in Bezug gesetzt zu den Bedingungen, in denen sie entste-hen, und zu den Interessen, die sich in ihnen ausdrücken. Das spezifisch Menschliche wird nicht mehr in einem hypothetischen Wesenskern des Menschen gesucht (wie dies teilweise auch der junge Marx noch getan hat), sondern in der Lebenspraxis und in den gesellschaftlichen Beziehungen. Die Vorstellungen, die sich die Menschen von ihrer gesellschaftlichen Lage machen, bleiben überdies im Regelfall in der Lebenswirklichkeit verhaftet und können diese nur beschränkt überschreiten. Das Bewusstsein, auf das die Frühsozialisten und Frühsozialistinnen damals setzten, könne nach Marx/Engels »nie etwas anderes sein als das bewusste Sein, und das Sein der Menschen ist ihr wirklicher Lebensprozess« (MEW 3, 26). Folglich ist es zunächst erforderlich, den Geheimnissen dieser Lebensprozesse auf den Grund zu gehen, um die Kräfte zu entschlüsseln, die die Menschen an ihre gesellschaftliche Lage binden. Denn allein mit idealen Vorstellungen einer besseren Gesellschaft lassen sich die realen Lebensprozesse nicht aus den Angeln heben. Deshalb betonen Marx, Engels und die ihnen folgenden MarxistInnen die Geschichtlichkeit sowohl ihres Gegenstandes (der Gesellschaft) wie auch ihrer Erkenntnismethode (der materialistischen Dialektik). Nicht mehr um ein absolut verstandenes Wesen des Menschen und der Dinge soll es gehen, sondern um das historisch Konkrete, das Spezifische und Veränderliche: Um die Erkenntnis der Struktur und der Bewegungsge-setze einer bestimmten menschlichen Gesellschaft, der bürgerlich-kapita-listischen Gesellschaft-und dies unter der Massgabe ihrer so notwendigen wie möglichen Veränderung. Diese radikale Hinwendung zum historisch Konkreten, diese Absage an ein spekulatives Philosophieren über die Natur des Menschen und seiner

... a typical naive set of assumptions about "group oriented" cultures it that the participants within them are basically altruistic, self-effacing, self-sacrificing and sociable. A society of such individuals should exhibit the very best of human civilization working in equitable, democratic communities. By contrast, those from individualistic cultures should be cold, grasping, selfish, egotistical and almost incapable of the cooperation demanded by a civil society. Indeed, a society of individualists, by this stereotype would be a dog eat dog affair, dedicated to conflict, riven with disloyalty and betrayal, forever failing to build a stable and humanistic community.

Starting from Karl Löwith’s Mitanthropologie, my paper aims to put forward a principle disappointability conceived as a “trust gradient” for the interhuman dimension.
Löwith’s Mitanthropologie develops a taxonomy of the different binary
bonds, at the top of which emerges the “absolute relationship between an I self and a you self”. The peculiarity of this bond is based on trust and responsibility. In order to prove the responsible and trust-based intentionality of the two relata, I propose the principle disappointability, inspired by Popper’s principle of falsification. The authenticity of a relationship depends on the fact that each relatum responds entirely for itself within the space of Miteinandersein. In other words, I can show my trust (in my co-relatum) only if I en-trust (to it). Such a total entrusting can be attested only by the fact that I am “falsifiable”, namely “disappointable”. The principle disappointability emerges therefore as a natural “trust gradient”.

This article examines Hannah Arendt's contribution to a philosophical anthropology that twists free of what Martin Heideg-ger criticized as a " metaphysics of subjectivity. " In this, it considers how her approach to philosophical anthropology allows us to conceive of being human not with reference to a subject but, more originally, in terms of the relationality of self, other, and place. To demonstrate this, the article first develops Arendt's philosophical anthropology with reference to her notion of power, suggesting that power is best understood as a matter of potentiality or the realization of what is necessarily contingent, singular, and inexhaustive. This, in turn, provides a platform to understand her notions of judgment , action, worldliness, and worldlessness in terms of what may be described as " the necessity of contingency. " The second part of the paper further develops this as a rejoinder to Heidegger, suggesting that for Arendt, proper human life—or the achievement of being an authentic self—is not a matter of separation from others but, on the contrary, a matter of relationality, which is to say, of being with others in place.

В статье рассмотрена проблема отчуждения людей друг от друга в ситуации современности, что ведет к формированию субъективности за границами экзистенциального взаимодействия. Показаны особенности формирования изоляции, представлены причины отчужденного состояния в индивидуальном существовании и трансформационных процессах социокультурной реальности.

Philosophers of education have argued that in order for Environmental Education’s goals to succeed, students must form bonds and place attachments with nature. Some argue that immersive experiences in nature will be sufficient to form such attachments. However, this may not be enough, requiring other means of motivating them for environmental stewardship. Here, I explore the role the imagination could play for helping (re)enchant students’ perception of themselves-in-relationship-with nature which could support the work these educators are already doing. I explore philosophical, psychological, and pedagogical domains to begin developing a holistic vision of what imagination could contribute for human-environmental flourishing. Philosophically, I build from Martha Nussbaum’s work that stories imaginatively shape our understanding of ourselves and the world, arguing that story—namely, myth—may have a unique power to enchant student’s moral and ethical imaginations. I attempt to synthesise Michael Bonnett’s rich ‘primordial’ phenomenology with what some mythologists identify as ‘implicit myth’—both of which are drawing attention to the human-environmental interrelationship. Psychologically, I posit that if myth of this kind can develop a human-environmental imagination in students, it may serve to create conditions to motivate students to act for environmental stewardship. Pedagogically, I close by identifying authors who seem to embody this primordial and mythic way of being in the world, arguing that studying their writings may help educators and students cultivate this human-environmental imagination. I draw particular attention to Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poetry for exemplary inspiration and guidance.

Die Erforschung des historischen und systematischen Kontextes von Kants Philosophie weist bis auf den heutigen Tag signifikante Lücken auf. Dies gilt umso mehr für unser Verständnis der Bedeutung der gegenüber Kants Philosophie erhobenen Einwände und Kritikpunkte sowohl für die verschiedenen Entwicklungsphasen seiner Philosophie wie für ihre Rezeption und Darstellung in späteren Jahrhunderten. Die im vorliegenden Band versammelten Beiträge wollen einen Beitrag zur Schließung dieser Lücken leisten. Sie gehen auf Vorträge zurück, die auf dem VII. Multilateralen Kant-Kolloquium zum Thema „Kant und seine Kritiker – Kant and his critics – Kant et ses critiques“ gehalten worden sind, das vom 28.-30. April 2017 an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg stattfand.

La Trilogía cósmica —conformada por Más allá del planeta silencioso, Perelandra. Un viaje a Venus y Esa horrible fortaleza— expone desde la fantasía algunas de las reflexiones filosóficas más relevantes del académico y literato C. S. Lewis (1898-1963). Esta saga de especulación científica adopta los ropajes del modelo cosmológico precopernicano en su vertiente de apología cristiana para desarrollar imaginativamente las reflexiones de su autor acerca de la naturaleza de la condición humana y sobre las formas utópicas del pensamiento político mientras permite atisbar y vislumbrar el papel de la magia en estos libros a la luz de la historia de la filosofía. La sabiduría del firmamento: transhumanismo y magia en la Trilogía cósmica de C. S. Lewis aspira a contextualizar estas tres obras de fantasía y las estudia sistemáticamente a través de varios ámbitos académicos que comprenden la filosofía de la naturaleza, la antropología filosófica, la filosofía política y la historia de la filosofía. En consecuencia, esta obra sirve a modo de guía de lectura sobre cuestiones perennes de la filosofía para quienes se acerquen por primera vez a la Trilogía cósmica al tiempo que sus páginas brindan un análisis pormenorizado para un público más académico y especializado.

While Stein never developed an ethics of her own, her work is nonetheless suggestive of an ‘ethics of renewal’, which appears in nuce in various moments of her corpus. First, in her phenomenological treatises, Stein analyzes the ethical development of personality in the unfolding of the personal ‘core’ as responding to ever higher value domains. During the 1930’s, this becomes a project of living out a moral vocation bestowed by God. In Endliches und ewiges Sein, the moral life becomes a work of renewal in connection with the Teresian metaphor of the ‘interior castle’. Morality, for Stein, emerges from out of an inner, personal work of the soul’s conscious refurbishment according to its essential structure by coming to terms with the value-world and with God. This paper will attempt to develop Stein’s account of the nature of the moral task as renewal and some implications for moral theory.

This is a new, 2021 edition of Buber's masterpiece, complete with explanatory notes, glossary, and an interpretative essay. A bibliography is also included, along with testimonies of people who have read and lived with the book. Buber's "Ich und Du" (I and Thou) ranks as a twentieth-century classic of philosophical literature. The present book offers the first complete commentary on Buber's book.

Humanism went out of style in the second half of twenty century. Moreover, it became a special target of theoretical criticism. For many theorists, it may be not honourable to defend human dignity, to be guided by universal values, and to foretell an emancipated humanity. After totalitarianisms, post-colonial and ecological movements, post-structur-alism, and decolonial criticism, it is no longer possible to be a humanist in a naive or self-confident way; indeed, it has become an actual danger for one's own academic reputation to proclaim oneself a 'humanist'. Behind an intended humanist's lovely 'symbolic' vision, we can always be unmasked as having a 'diabolical' attitude of domination, exploitation or exclusion. As a matter of fact, there is a wide post-humanist consensus in contemporary thought. All of these criticisms are of significant relevance because they require self-critical surveillance whenever someone dares to be a spokesperson and starts by saying: 'we humans … '. However, the deconstruction of a wrapped humanism in itself is different from sheer disinterestedness in the human or rejection of the question about what humanity is. If the question is problematic and the answer unaccomplished, it does not mean that it should be interdicted or that it cannot be thought about. What we need to recognize is that the human being is neither an obvious starting point nor a necessary one, but still an inescapable problem with which we have to deal. We live in times of crises in which contemporary critical thinking seems to be restricted to negativity and deconstruction. In this way, it reinforces the process of social fragmentation , resulting in closed communitarianism, political radicalisms and relativizations of human rights and democracy. In such times, a democratic reconstruction of universal values is necessary. In my view, this is only possible if we take humanity seriously. That is why Daniel Chernilo's project of philosophical sociology is very welcome, for he undertakes this task in a scholarly, rigorous, timely and fruitful manner while performing a rescue of the question about the human within the social sciences. He investigates grounds and objectifies blooms of universal values: freedom and autonomy, reflexivity and recognition, love and justice, responsibility and solidarity, dignity and good life, democracy and deliberation. Besides the fact that I identify with his normative repertoire, I consider that the reconstruction of the possibility of affirmative speaking of universals is crucial for the development of a critical social theory. In the first part (I), I point out the relation between philosophical sociology and critical theory. My attention is directed to the human capacities of criticism and justification, to which I propose the Rhetoric understanding of the human. In part two (II), I propose to explore other ways towards a philosophical sociology. I suggest that philosophical

RESUMEN Después de una introducción en la cual se trata de responder a tres problemas, el artículo aborda, en primer lugar, la filosofía de hoy frente al tema antropológico. En segundo lugar, pretende responder a la pregunta: ¿quién dice quién es el hombre hoy? Por último y en tercer lugar, se plantea este otro interrogante: ¿ha cambiado el hombre? Se estudia al hombre en el cosmos y su imagen considerado en sí mismo, prestando atención a la concepción contemporánea de los filósofos actuales y, en particular, de los científicos. En la parte siguiente se trata sintéticamente de algunas fundamentales polaridades de lo humano como naturaleza en sentido biológico y cultura, individuo y dimensión social, cuerpo y emociones, razón, libertad
como asentimiento, libertad como elección, sexualidad y generación, individuo humano y reconocimiento. Por fin, en la conclusión se reflexiona sobre la excepcional situación delhombre a día de hoy.
PALABRAS CLAVE Transhumanismo, cientificismo, naturalismo, deseo, libertad, derechos.
SUMMARY After an introduction in which it tries to respond to three problems, the article addresses, first, today’s philosophy regarding the anthropological issue. Second, it intends to answer the question: who says who is man today? Finally and thirdly, this other question arises:Has man changed? Man is studied in the cosmos and the image of man considered in himself, paying attention to the contemporary conception of current philosophers and, in particular, of scientists. The following part synthetically deals with some fundamental polarities of the human as nature in biological sense and culture, individual and social dimension, body and emotions, reason, freedom as assent, freedom as choice, sexuality and generation, human individual and recognition. Finally, the conclusion reflects on the exceptional situation of man today. KEYWORDS Transhumanism, scientism, naturalism, desire, freedom, rights.

Menschenbilder sind wichtig, darüber ist sich die Wissenschaft einig. Nicht von ungefähr spielt die Berufung auf ein Menschenbild in vielen öffentlichen Debatten eine zentrale Rolle. Doch was ist überhaupt gemeint, wenn von einem „Menschenbild“ die Rede ist? Was sind die Inhalte dieser Bilder? Welche Funktion haben und welche Rolle spielen sie? Vor allem aber: Welche Auswirkungen haben Menschenbilder im Alltag? Sind Menschenbilder tatsächlich, wie manche meinen, das Fundament unserer moralischen und politischen, ja selbst der existenziellsten Orientierungen im Alltag?
Fragen wie diese sind bislang weitgehend unbeantwortet geblieben. Denn so beliebt und zentral der Begriff des Menschenbildes ist, so unbestimmt ist er; er besitzt kein wissenschaftliches Profil. Bis heute gibt es keine gründliche theoretische Untersuchung zum Begriff und keinen Versuch, das Phänomen Menschenbild im Allgemeinen theoretisch umfassend zu bestimmen. Selbst in manchen Nachschlagewerken sucht man den Terminus vergebens. Eben dieser längst überfälligen Forschungsarbeit nimmt sich dieses Buch an: der Klärung des Begriffs „Menschenbild“ einerseits und der allgemein-theoretischen Bestimmung des Phänomens Menschenbild andererseits. Ziel ist es, damit der verbreiteten Rede vom Menschenbild endlich ein tragfähiges wissenschaftliches Fundament zu verleihen.