Philosophical Theology and Evolutionary Anthropology

Abstract

Summary Being one of most influential anthropologists of contemporary times, Michael Tomasello and his groundbreaking evolutionary approach to a natural history of human beings are still to be received by theological anthropology. This article aims at evaluating the prospects and limitations of Tomasello’s natural history of human ontogeny from a philosophical and theological perspective. The major advantages of Tomasello’s approach are a new conceptual perspective on the mind-brain problem and a possible detranscendentalization of the human mind which leads to an intersubjectively grounded anthropology. At the same time, evolutionary anthropology struggles with the binding force of moral obligations and the human ability to interpret one’s existence and the world in a religious way. This article thus offers a first theological inventory of Tomasello’s account of evolutionary anthropology which praises its prospects and detects its limitations.