Philosophical Anthropology Research Articles

ONTOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL MEANINGS OF MYTHOPOETIC CONCEPTS OF THE ELEMENTS

The purpose of the article is to analyze matter, and more specifi cally the elements, which were understood in a similar way in diff erent cultures. The following basic qualities of the elements are revealed: water is the source of all being and vitality, earth is stability and corporality, air is space, as well as the “breathing” of the spirit, fi re is the guiding and purifying principle. Fire, especially in its most refi ned manifestation of light, and also air act as a pair of «upper» celestial, active elements. Earth and water follow the «upper» elements and complement them. «Axis of the world» connects the earth and sky, uniting all the elements. As its manifestations, which set the vertical and center the cosmos, are the world mountain and tree, as well as fi re, such as the «center of the universe», Hestia of the Pythagoreans. Natural numbers such as 2, 3, 4 set the structure and dynamics of the development of nature and man. In mythopoetic perception, the realistic setting of everyday consciousness is inextricably woven into the holistic panpsychist symbolic picture of the world. It is concluded that the archetypal mythopoetic ideas about the elements act as a source of meaning for philosophical knowledge: for the philosophy of art, anthropology and ontology.

Built Space Hinders Lived Space: Social Encounters and Appropriation in Large Housing Estates

The fundamental structural, demographic, and socio-economic changes afflicting large housing estates in Eastern German cities raise questions about how these neighborhoods could be maintained and developed into attractive residential locations where people want to live and settle down. Besides personal, social, economic, and even administrative factors, individual location decisions are influenced by the physical conditions of space and how they affect a sense of “home”—a crucial precondition for long-term habitation. In terms of urban planning and regeneration activities, we ask: To what extent do the current physical and infrastructural conditions (“built space”) of large housing estates encourage residents to “feel at home”? We understand home as an atmosphere of well-being and belonging that is based on the individual and communal appropriation of spaces, which in turn presupposes the possibility of contact and social exchanges among neighbors. The concept of “home” we present here is grounded in philosophical anthropology, new phenomenology, and architectural theory. It provides a specific spatial approach to housing from which we develop indicators to evaluate space. In particular, we apply the concept of “lived space” to evaluate infrastructural amenities, open and green spaces, as well as built structures in three case studies of large housing estates in East German cities. We aim to uncover local potentials for and obstacles to spatial appropriation and encounters in these settings. This allows us to draw conclusions on how urban regeneration policies and measures can make large housing estates more liveable in the long term by promoting encounters and appropriation.

Courage in the Anthropocene: Towards a philosophical anthropology of the present

AbstractIn the late 18th century, Immanuel Kant attracted attention for his criticisms of colonialism, that problematized the established boundaries between civilization and barbarism, and chastised English colonialism in particular. Some years later, however, in his lectures on Anthropology, he ventured some oddly racist views, concerning the specific differences between European and Indigenous peoples. Kant's racism is by now well‐documented. However, less attention has been paid to the peculiarities of that racism, and especially its foundations in a theory of virtue. His racism comes to light especially in his discussions of the virtues of patience and courage, and in passages which have rarely been subject to critical scrutiny still to this day. This article starts out from an analysis of the functions of Kant's concepts of courage and patience in his account of European versus Indigenous difference, with a view to interrogating the politics of virtue in the present, where this discussion is reoccurring in new guises. What Kant considered courage has now been devalorized, while what he considered patience is now valorized. This reversal of perspectives on what counts as virtuous has occurred in correlation with a reversal in western perspectives on Indigeneity. Such that contemporary accounts of courage are correlated with contemporary accounts of Indigeneity. These reversals of perspective must be understood in context of the transformation which philosophical anthropology has undergone under the duress of the Anthropocene. Contemporary works by Dipesh Chakrabarty and Jonathan Lear are of great relevance to this correlated transformation and will be discussed here. The article analyses what both Chakrabarty and Lear understand by courage today, its relevance to the Anthropocene, and points out the limitations of their theories. Ultimately the article argues for a rethinking of the definition of courage as a political virtue of the Anthropocenic present.

Crisis, Experience, ‘Excentricity’

This paper explores the relationship between crisis and experience, concentrating on ‘excentric positionality’ in relation to the shared world, as presented in the work of Helmuth Plessner. A by-product of the 1920s Weimar Germany, Plessner’s philosophical anthropology, it is argued, presents us with a forgotten blueprint for transitive and compositional approaches to the social world. Instead of the familiar ‘crisis of experience’ used to diagnose ‘what has gone wrong’, it allows us to re-learn how to work with ‘the experience of crisis’ itself. The latter holds the key to a different type of approach based on ‘xeno-communication’. This type of communication utilizes the productive potential of crisis in its uncertainty and hesitation before a decision, showing a way to extend and enlarge experience itself. Cultivation of these ‘excentric’ dynamics in turn suggests new ‘excentric methodologies’ based on a more flexible fit between concepts and the worlds they are meant to describe. ‘Excentric methodologies’ constitute a type of experience-based, analytical response to the shared world. They work with phenomena across spaces and problems, analytically utilizing their joint emergence from the fundamental imbalance and discontinuity characteristic of the human environment.

The Ethos of Distance in Emotional Culture Critiques: Helmuth Plessner, Richard Sennett, Frank Furedi

Although COVID-19 gave “social distancing” an omnipresent urgency, the concept of distance—in its spatial meaning and in its metaphorical use for emotional detachment, interpersonal boundaries, and socially constructed difference—has been central to theories, practices, and ethics of modern sociability. This article argues that the sociological critique of modern therapeutic culture deploys a specific ethos of distance, which is shown through the work of Richard Sennett and Frank Furedi. Sennett and Furedi reactualize intellectual debates around the regulation of emotional exposure and vulnerability reminiscent of the “codes of cool conduct” in the culture of Weimar Germany, which Helmut Lethen has famously conceptualized based on the philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s work, the article argues that this Plessnerian ethos of distance, while ostensibly designed to guarantee just and pluralistic societies, reproduces social hierarchies of political emotions and in this way prioritizes the stability of the current system and social cohesion over justice.

“Empty Claims of Fellowship”? Erich Doflein, Paul Hindemith, and Übungsmusik as Shared Task

Abstract Studies of the Weimar-era discourse of Gebrauchsmusik (utility music, or music for everyday use) have emphasized Heinrich Besseler’s appropriation of Martin Heidegger’s concept of knowledge gained through immediate participatory experience. Along with Germany’s musical youth movement (Jugendmusikbewegung), Besseler rejected formal concert institutions and promoted musical practices that solicited active involvement in everyday social contexts. The focus on Besseler has kept alive Theodor Adorno’s critique of the amateur movement’s claims of participatory immediacy as being illusory and allied with unreflective, exclusivist elements of National Socialist ideology. Adorno’s assimilation of the prominent Gebrauchsmusik composer Paul Hindemith to a Besselerian/Heideggerian position still informs scholarship, although this view overlooks an alternative paradigm for amateur and school music-making articulated in the late 1920s by the critic and educationist Erich Doflein. Doflein outlined a concept of Übungsmusik (practice music) by intertwining Besselerian elements with a commitment to pedagogical contexts, and by interpreting Hindemith’s compositional strategies as rewarding participants only after challenging their understanding and drawing them into deeply focused, playful activity. Übungsmusik offers a lens for reexamining Hindemith’s collaborations with the music-educational reformers Hilmar Höckner and Edgar Rabsch. Here, ongoing mutual effort formed a precondition for claims of sociomusical connectedness, claims that are further illuminated by the play-centered theory of sociability formulated by the philosophical anthropologist Helmuth Plessner. By bringing together musical knowing and doing at a fundamental level, Doflein’s paradigm is also relevant to recent methodological disputes over music’s object- and event-status.

Играта в антропологическа перспектива: теорията на Фредерик Бойтендайк

Play theory has been consistently regarded as a cornerstone of 20th century theoretical discourse in areas as diverse as philosophy, psychology, ethology and cultural studies. On the other hand, the rise of digital technology and the spread of video games on a broad cultural level have raised the necessity to reevaluate historical approaches to the multifarious phenomenon of play. Along with Johan Huizinga, another scholar of Dutch origin – the biologist and animal psychologist Frederik J. J. Buytendijk – developed a novel theory of play in the 1930s. Buytendijk’s attempt at theorising human and animal play has been variously defined as biological, psychological and psycho-dynamic due to this scholar’s background in the study of animal behaviour and his reliance on biological models to explain the mechanisms of play. However, Buytendijk’s ideas were shaped in a theoretical setting shared by German philosophical anthropology and he also borrowed heavily from prominent philosophers and phenomenologists such as Hungarian-born Melchior Palágyi, German neurologist and psychiatrist Erwin Straus and Catholic theologian Romano Guardini. This paper tries to provide an overview of Buytendijk’s conception of vital play by examining its original yet synthetic nature. Further emphasis is placed on the aesthetical and anthropological implications of Buytendijk’s contribution.

How Have We Always Been Posthuman?

This paper problematises the justification of ‘postist’ revisions of humanism. In the first part of the paper, a line of thought that persistently marks the self-perception of man is presented. It stretches from Plato, through Pico della Mirandola and Kant, all the way to existentialism and philosophical anthropology in the twentieth century. In it, man is understood as chronically deficient in their own ‘nature’ or ‘essence’, and his privileged status is built from this rootlessness. The second part of the paper is dedicated to the relationship of transhumanism and critical posthumanism to humanism. Transhumanism is found to harmoniously continue and/or radicalise the humanist project of self-creating and self-transcending man, while critical posthumanism advocates a rethinking and redescription of man in view of what are considered to have been the disastrous consequences of humanism: a transgression in relation to everything different from man by anthropomorphising it and anthropocentrically measuring it against himself. The concluding part of the paper detects a certain arbitrariness in the understanding of humanism by its critics, reminds that even within such a broadly understood humanism, critical moments have been inherited as its own content and corrective, and that announcements of radical cuts and ruptures with the humanistic tradition are perhaps redundant. It is also noted that something non-negligible has changed with the contemporary challenges of technoscience – artificial intelligence, informatics, robotics –but it is contested that this change in social history requires a cardinal rejection, change or neglect of the intellectual heritage that enables responses to it and/or a rational dispute about it. A synoptic overview of humanist landmarks and their post-humanist condemnations is suggested, which would respect the heritage of humanist thought and the right or even the obligation built into it of its critical review.

Phenomenology of Language as Praeambula Fidei: A Study Based on Edith Stein

The 20th century “linguistic turn” seems to have established itself as one of the main defining aspects of contemporary philosophy. This is especially visible in analytic philosophy’s emphasis on the study of language, ultimately disconnecting and isolating it from its deep connection to the person. Without denying the validity and meaning of this type of approach, the aim of this article is to highlight that, in Edith Stein’s work, it is possible to find a phenomenology of language, in which the connection with the totality of the person, with its spiritual dimension, is essential. Although it is true that none of the works by this author systematically deal with questions related to language as such, both in her more strictly phenomenological works as well as in those that are also inspired in the philosophy of Aquinas, we find thought-provoking reflections on the question of language. Once the philosophy of language becomes re-connected to philosophical anthropology, it is transformed by Stein into the praeambula fidei, which enables dialogue with theology, especially with the theology of the body and what Vatican II calls the “ecclesiology of the sign”.

Homiletical-liturgical Perspectives on Life in the Anthropocene: The Preeminence of People's Cognition, Weltanschauung, and Homeless Minds

The central theme of this article is the matter of church participants’ engagement in liturgy and how this could enhance their capacity for making moral decisions when it comes to life in the Anthropocene. First, one should acknowledge that liturgists in faith communities have to deal with the notion of people enclaved in the idea of homeless minds. They are exposed to contradictory views on reality. The concept of cognitive dissonance needs to be addressed, and without constructive homiletical-liturgical address of this matter, it will lead to people looking for answers elsewhere. Liturgy inevitably enables participants to see things they do not or may not want to. People want to make sense of life and experiences in daily life, a process well-known as cognition. It should also be acknowledged that without reflection on the functioning of attitudes within Weltanschauung's framework, numerous challenges for any debate on life in the Anthropocene will be experienced. First, this article offers a description of the currently concerning aspects to be found under this rubric. Second, systemizing perspectives based on the philosophy of religion, anthropology, bioethics, and cognitive psychology are examined as centered on the intimate interplay with ethical conduct in viewing the world and liturgy. Finally, the following research question is formulated and briefly discussed: How could a homiletical-liturgical praxeology dealing with the homeless mind enable its participants to cultivate a Weltanschauung committed to a focused interest in the Anthropocene? The methodological approach of Browning has been carefully identified to arrange the research into coherent phases and reflect on the research question.

Mythological. Anthropological. Bodily. Review of A.M. Lobok's Book “The Anthropology of Myth”

This paper reviews A.M. Lobok's monograph, The Anthropology of Myth. It was published in 1997 in Ekaterinburg by the publishing house Bank of Cultural Information, but is still little known in the scientific community and belongs to the philosophical underground. This has necessitated the creation of a review work to present The Anthropology of Myth to a wider readership. Despite an almost quarter-century gap between the year of publication and the present, the reviewed monograph is one of the most interdisciplinary to date and may be of interest to researchers specialising in mythology, general myth theory, philosophical anthropology, cultural philosophy, physical anthropology, pedagogy and body studies.

Interaction of Philosophical Anthropology and Neurosciences in the Context of Natural and Artificial Intelligence

The subject of the study is the relationship between philosophical anthropologists, who deal with the nature and essence of man, and neurosciences, who study neural processes - the work of the brain and nervous system. In particular, the present article is a discovery of how these two fields can shed light on issues related to detection and artificial intelligence, such as the nature of consciousness and intelligence, as well as the possibility of creating conscious machines and the ethical implications of the emergence of artificial intelligence. The study suggests an interdisciplinary approach. In this methodological work, dialectical methods are encountered in this important methodological plane, but also the hermeneutic and phenomenological approaches most often used in philosophical research are used. The novelty of research is found in the frequency of violations between the philosophical and empirical points of medicine in the considered area. Within the framework of this study, a philosophical examination is carried out for the most “objective” examination - a representative of philosophical anthropology, the doctrine of the nature and nature of man. The subject of research suggesting the creation of a promising possession towards a versatile understanding of man. Problems notwithstanding, the interplay between philosophical anthropology and neuroscience can provide valuable insights into some of the most fundamental and elusive aspects of the human experience, such as consciousness, the self, and free will. The interaction of philosophical anthropology and neuroscience can be organized as a dialogue between two approaches to understanding the human condition. Philosophical anthropology offers a conceptual framework for thinking about the nature of human experience, while neuroscience provides empirical evidence that can help test and refine philosophical theories. Together, these two areas can help shed light on some of man's most fundamental questions about what it means to be.

Концепция человека и его духовности в современных нейронаучных исследованиях: философский анализ

The article is devoted to a critical review of a qualitatively new project of human understanding, which has been developed in modern scientific interdisciplinary research. The latter refers to neuroscience research that affects not only neurophysiology, but also claims to revolutionize the philosophical understanding of human nature and spirituality. This revolution concerns, first of all, the interpretation of spirituality as a special subjective reality, as well as the solution of the so-called "hard mind problem" ("complex problem of consciousness"). The author turns to the analysis of the concept of spirituality, which is interpreted in the context of neuroscientific research on subjective reality. Spirituality in these studies is identified with subjective reality. In the neurosciences, spirituality as a sphere of human existence, aimed at transcendental values, is replaced by subjective reality, which ultimately comes down to the activity of brain neurons. The author gives a critical assessment of this interpretation of spirituality. A special place in understanding the subjective reality of neuroscience is assigned to the problem of consciousness. The author analyzes the solution of the "complex problem of consciousness" from the standpoint of modern neuroscience. In this regard, special attention is paid to the concept of neuropsychoanalysis by Mark Solms. The author considers the concept of Marx Solms as one of the many reductionist projects that exist in modern science, reducing human nature to biological and neurophysiological processes occurring in the brain. The author points out that such reductionism leads not only to a rethinking of human nature, but also to a new vector in the development of modern philosophical anthropology – as a secondary doctrine of man that complements neuroscience.

Tandem of philosophical anthropology and philosophy of education as a soil for the formation of professional identity

Introduction. The problem of professional identity in modern socio-cultural conditions continues to be relevant and requires a non-surface, non-structural methodological and anthropological rethinking. The purpose of the article is to determine the role of the tandem of philosophical anthropology and philosophy of education in creating the ground for the formation of professional identity.Materials and Methods. The methodological principle of historicism is fundamental. The research methodology includes hermeneutical and systemic methods. The analysis and generalization of scientific research works on the philosophy of education and philosophical anthropology were also used.Results. A person from different metaphysical positions thinks about the issues of his own identity, his career aspirations and professional orientation. Modern society creates an environment for the development of an “informed person”, who is immersed in fundamentally different spheres of life. Philosophical anthropology in modern conditions acts as a practice of self-knowledge, the result of which should be contact with oneself, understanding one's goals and aspirations. The philosophy of education comprehends the trends of modern education, calls for a critical attitude to the newly created concepts of man, culture, and education. Professional identity gives an understanding and a sense of one's own "I" in professional development. Therefore, the task of the philosophy of education and philosophical anthropology is to harmonize the process of self-identification as much as possible. The tandem of the philosophy of education and philosophical anthropology reconciles the individual with the fundamental incompleteness of his being, looking for ways of harmonious development in the conditions of constant choice, constant search for his identity.Discussion and Conclusions. The task of both philosophers and educators is to create all the necessary conditions for the younger generation to cope with the challenge of the new era. Modern man needs not just to accumulate information about the world; he needs to know life itself: he wants to ask questions about its meaning, to see the boundaries of his own self, to talk about freedom and necessity, love and fidelity, understanding and loneliness. The relevance of philosophical anthropology lies in the fact that it acts as an arbiter between andragogy and pedagogy in a dialogue with the philosophy of education, since it asserts the main subject of a Person regardless of his social circumstances.

Philosophical Principle of the Anthropic Locality Within the Political Governance’s Interdisciplinary Justification

The purpose of the article is to clarify the philosophical principle of the local in the context of modern political governance. The theoretical basis of the research embraces scenario analysis, dialectical and existential approaches, as well as philosophical anthropology and philosophy of communication. Local communities are a specific reflection of the connection between a person and a place. The specifics of the formation of a special mode of being, which forms and reproduces relations of loyalty, mutual understanding, and a common feeling in the locus, are established. Originality. The article for the first time focuses on the anthropological content of local existence, which is the matrix of civil culture and the prospects of its integration into the global cultural space. Conclusions. Local identity as an object of purposeful formation in the conditions of nation-building requires considering the philosophical provisions that were introduced in the anthropological discourse. At the current stage, Ukrainian civil culture strives to invent specific local meanings of political identity in the conditions of external aggression. Its main components will be consensus, mutual respect, integrity, and the will to unite in order to protect statehood. Interdisciplinary meanings of locality form subject-object relations within which modern political management should be carried out. Taking into account the ethnic, cultural, and socio-functional, and role aspects of locality promises to ensure effective decision-making and increase the well-being of modern local communities. The political context of locality is formed based on the interaction of local political actors and institutions. Their examination within the framework of the case studies approach allows for empirically substantiating the local priorities of political actions. It also indicates the specific functionality of local political and administrative structures. at the local level, the discussed source of locality is the question of the origin or authenticity of the local population. For political governance, this is one of the meaningful contexts for justifying local autonomy or even sovereignty.

Influence of Kant’s Aesthetics on the Aesthetics of Collingwood

R. G. Collingwood is supposed to be one of the most important Aesthetes of 20th Century. He was a multi-talented person having original ideas in the fields of Philosophical History (his most famous book is ‘Idea of History’), Aesthetics and Anthropology. He was a practitioner in the field of Archaeology and Music. His second most famous book is ‘Principles of Art.’ He is supposed to be an original philosopher of Art too. His Philosophy of Art has much to do and has much connections with the Aesthetics of Immanuel Kant. Kant was a multi-dimensional genius, presenting before the world very original and outstanding ideas about Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics and also Aesthetics. This article is an attempt to understand the influence of Kant’s Aesthetics on the Aesthetics of Collingwood and to present before the readers the great similarities between the Aesthetic ideas of these two philosophers. According to Kant, Aesthetics is the fourth most important function of human mind. Apart from pure reasoning, pragmatic thinking and moral concerns, Aesthetics is that aspect of human mind which deals with beauty. The problem with the Aesthetics of Kant or the Aesthetics of Collingwood is that both of the philosophers present Aesthetics as the divider and in the humble opinion of the writer of this article it is not divider but a connector – connector of moral, pragmatic and pure reason.

Антропология после метафизики в философии Бруно Латура

Under the influence of science, technology and global changes, the pathos of caring for a person today is transferred to non-human communities. Sensitivity to matter and its changing states has returned to philosophy. Nature is again considered as a universal model of everything that exists. A new value has become the world in all its diversity, the world itself, unlimited by the phenomenon of man. To think in a new way is to think on the other side of a person, to abandon the idea that it is a person who thinks. This is the anthropological trend in modern philosophy. It remains to consider what are the consequences of overcoming anthropocentrism and “posthumanistic” decisions for the individual, culture, and humanities. And why, despite the struggle with the “anthropological dream” (M.Foucault), the anthropological method of research remains in demand. To this end, the author refers to the works of the French philosopher, anthropologist, sociologist of science Bruno Latour to characterize his anthropological project. The author records when solving which issues Latour turns to anthropology. The place of anthropology in the actor-network theory of the philosopher is discussed. It shows the consonance of Latour’s methodological approach to the branch of philosophical anthropology that comes from Н.Plessner and A.Gehlen, in which there is no isolation of either the field of knowledge itself or its subject. On the contrary, philosophical and anthropological reflection is motivated by pragmatics, by what is carried out beyond the boundaries of philosophy and pure consciousness. The refusal to build anthropology on the basis of New European rationalism gives a new breath to the anthropological approach. There is a search for an alternative framework of thinking to anthropocentrism, new foundations from which the position of a person in the world, human reality can be comprehended. An overview of ideas regarding the “anthropology of modern” is given, the purpose of which is to explain to the bearers of modern consciousness that their own actions diverge from their own words. The study of Bruno Latour’s anthropological reflection contributes both to the concretization of the theoretical and methodological foundations of his philosophy and to the clarification of the question of the goals of philosophical anthropology. By publishing this text, the author invites colleagues to discuss the strategies of modern philosophical and anthropological discourse.

Антропология как строгая наука? К вопросу о методологическом обосновании философской антропологии. Статья 4. Гуманитарный проект В. Дильтея

The article is a continuation of the series of works devoted to the construction of philosophical anthropology as a scientific discipline. This article is devoted to the search for W. Dilthey, who built his sciences about the spirit from the point of view of the so-called “anthropological reflection”. In the article, the author analyzes W.Dilthey’s search for a method and system of categories, with the help of which he actually tried to develop a new scientific paradigm for European philosophy. As the main conceptual accents in this search, the author identifies three. First. Dilthey’s replacement of the concept of being by the concept of life. Second. The place of the cognizing subject, to which the classical sciences are accustomed, is occupied by the “whole man”, “the totality of human nature”. Third. The search for the place of the specifics of the sciences of the spirit was carried out on the basis of the so-called anthropological setting, on the basis of determining the place of man in the world and, accordingly, the word and method of understanding man adequate to this place, trying to overcome the boundaries of the mind set before by I.Kant. The author concludes that despite the influence of Dilthey’s works on many authors of the 20th century, we have to talk more about Dilthey’s project, about the idea, the ideal that he proposed for the humanities, than about the developed concept. The basis of this ideal is the idea of an understanding and experiencing person. But this project did not become a developed concept.

Alexander von Humboldt in China

The dissemination of Alexander von Humboldt’s ideas in China can be traced back to the late Qing dynasty, where a few articles in English-language newspapers served as the earliest means of exposure. However, the reach and availability of these articles were highly limited. It was not until the Republican era that Humboldt gained a relatively broader publicity through the translations of foreign academic works. The general public’s acquaintance with Humboldt mostly came from the extensive distribution of textbooks as well as biographical dictionaries of renowned scientists and explorers. Nevertheless, Humboldt’s reputation coexisted with a lack of comprehensive academic research. While his ideas were referenced in various fields, such as geography, social sciences, and humanities, there was a notable absence of in-depth exploration. The underlying reason can be the disparity between Humboldt’s global perspective and encyclopedic knowledge and the gradual subdivision of academic disciplines in the modernization process of Chinese universities. In recent years, Chinese literary researchers have taken the lead in revisiting Humboldt’s works, signaling a renewed interest. It reflects the growing recognition of interdisciplinary research in China and the significance attributed to holistic knowledge in fields like philosophy of science and anthropology. These developments offer an opportunity to dismantle the barriers that have impeded the blending of Humboldtian knowledge into the Chinese intellectual landscape.

Anthropology and history in the early Dilthey

Dilthey frequently recognizes anthropology as a foundational science of human nature and as a cornerstone in the system of the human sciences. While much has been written about Dilthey's “philosophical anthropology,” relatively little attention has been paid to his views on the emerging empirical science of anthropology. This paper examines Dilthey's relation to the new discipline by focusing on his reception of its leading German representatives. Using his book reviews, essays, and drafts for Introduction to the Human Sciences from the 1860s–70s, it highlights the influence of the new anthropology on his earliest attempts to elaborate the foundations of the Geisteswissenschaften. It argues that anthropology was a key source for some of the naturalistic features of Dilthey's philosophy, and that it pulled him in a direction contrary to the historicist hermeneutics of his teachers.