Vers une anthropologie négative. La théorie critique en conflit avec l’anthropologie philosophique

Abstract

Can philosophy say what man is? What is gained or lost by making theoretical assumptions about the human being? This essay examines the “negative anthropology” of the early Frankfurt School by asking how Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno and Ulrich Sonnemann engage with the question “What is man?” Negative anthropology turns out to be more than the critique of philosophical anthropology: By understanding the human being as the ensemble of what it is not, negative anthropology avoids the predicament of spelling out what it could be, while holding on to the idea of man’s self-realization in history. What role does negative anthropology play as a component of critical social theory? To what extent can it count as a theoretical programme? Do certain historical situations demand anthropological assumptions more than others? To address these questions, this essay follows the early Frankfurt School’s altercations with anthropological philosophy.