Philosophical Anthropology

Brain death, philosophical anthropology, and the body-mind problem

by Raji C. Steineck

Published in: S. Shôji, A. Tamaoka. (ed.): Proceedings of [sic] International Congress on Ethical Issues in Brain Death and Organ Transplantation, Tsukuba, Nov. 1-2, 2003. Tsukuba 2004, pp. 24-36.

In the 'classical' literature in favour of the normative concept of brain death (i.e. brain death as an ethically and... more In the 'classical' literature in favour of the normative concept of brain death (i.e. brain death as an ethically and legally valid criterion for the death of human beings), references to modern philosophical anthropology and body-mind-theory are conspicuously absent. Given the fact, evidenced by this very literature itself, that the normative concept of brain death touches directly on our understanding of what it means to be human, this absence of philosophical theory is peculiar at least. In my presentation, I give an evaluation of the concept of brain death in the light of 20th century discussions on philosophical anthropology and body-mind theory, with a focus on 'rationalist' Continental philosophers like E. Cassirer and H. Plessner. The normative concept of brain death comes in two forms. One assumes that the death of the brain signifies the end of organic life. This notion will be discussed in terms of Plessner's theory of the organism as a positional entity. It will be argued that singling out dysfunction or destruction of the brain is not a correct way of asserting death. A second version of the brain death concept takes brain death to signify the end of personal, and hence, social life. Its analysis requires a theory of the body that differentiates and integrates its biological, personal, and social dimension. Such a theory will be briefly sketched out with reference to Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. The notion of brain death as 'death of the person' will be analysed accordingly. It will be shown that, and why, the life of a person is coextensive with the perceptible life of the body.

Rethinking Human Nature and the Place of (Wo)Man in the world: Anthropology between Philosophy and Science. A Manifesto

by Giacomo Pezzano

We are knowing more and more about (Wo)Man, but the determination of her/his nature is still problematic: asking «What... more We are knowing more and more about (Wo)Man, but the determination of her/his nature is still problematic: asking «What is (Wo)Man?» is paradoxically possible only in the space left open by (wo)man’s erasure. Whatever human nature is, (wo)man wants to know her/himself, because if (s)he does not know who (s)he is, (s)he can not know where to go: moving from hominitas to humanitas requires a definition of (wo)man’s nature, of her/his «place» in the world, in view of describing ex-istence as a modulation of the «World Openness» and an attempt to find a way of articulate the possibilities, as intrinsically «medial» and «modal» since it is founded on «referral» and «relationship with the outside»

Comunità, immunità, apertura verso l’alterità: una biopolitica affermativa e oltre-umana?

by Giacomo Pezzano

Published in "Trópos. Rivista di ermeneutica e critica filosofica”, IV, 2, 2011, pp. 167-184

Roberto Esposito claims that biopolitics characterizes the entire modernity, and that it is built on the immunity... more Roberto Esposito claims that biopolitics characterizes the entire modernity, and that it is built on the immunity dispositive. Im-munity is the negation of the munus which animates and builds com-munity: inside the immunitarian paradigm, thinking politics and ontology is considering men as ab-solutes beings, without any kind of engagement to each other, inhabited by a vacuum to deny. Esposito believes this means shaping an anthropological paradigm (systematized by philosophical anthropology in the 20th century) in which man is thought to be distinct from the animal since he is capable of denying his own nature and, more generally, his relationship with the world and the other beings – that is, a paradigm in which community has no ‘positive’ place. In order to overcome the immunitarian paradigm, we need to define the outlines of an affirmative biopolitics, a politics ‘of ’ life and not ‘on’ life. This biopolitical shift requires the understanding of the ‘flow of life,’ of its everlasting and unprotected openness: Esposito claims that life is impersonal and intrinsically normative, over-human and perpetually exposed to the ‘outside.’ Finally, this perspective leaves open a crucial question: can over-man exist without man?

Meta-Goods in Fashion Myths. Philosophic-Anthropological Implications of Fashion Myths.

by Roman Meinhold

In: Prajna Vihara. Journal of Philosophy and Religion. Bangkok, Assumption University. Vol.8., No.2, July-December 2007. 1-17. ISSN 1513-6442

This paper tries to investigate which aspects of human nature are responsible for the recurrence of new fashions. It... more This paper tries to investigate which aspects of human nature are responsible for the recurrence of new fashions. It is divided into five sections: the first explains the multidisciplinary approach used in the research on this phenomenon, the second provides a – very brief and stroboscopic – historical overview of the issue in question, the third distinguishes different notions of fashion, the fourth introduces the term meta-goods as indicators of values and symbols for philosophic-anthropological features in fashion
advertisements and the last section elucidates the myths narrated by fashion advertisements, which are based on philosophic-anthropological implications.

Popular Culture and Consumerism: Mediocre, (Schein-)Heilig and Pseudo-Therapeutic

by Roman Meinhold

(2009) In: Yusuf, Imtiyaz and Atilgan, Canan (ed.) Religion, Politics and Globalization. Implications for Thailand and Asia. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. Bangkok. 51-65. ISBN 978-616-90475-0-6

Comparative Melioration and Pathological Pathogenization in Viagra Marketing.

by Roman Meinhold

(2011) In: Botz-Bornstein, Thorsten.: The Philosophy of Viagra. Bioethical Responses to the Viagrification of the Modern World. New York, Amsterdam: Rodopi (Value Inquiry Book Series)

The paper investigates how Viagra marketing utilizes the human condition of comparative melioration. Comparative... more The paper investigates how Viagra marketing utilizes the human condition of comparative melioration. Comparative melioration is the drive of humans to improve themselves and their environment by  comparing their own condition or status quo with those of others or with potential conditions. In Viagra marketing the utilization of this human condition is linked with the strategy of pathogenization, that is the constant widening and re-definition of the notions and concepts of disease, disorder, and dysfunction. Side effects of the pathologization are that this strategy itself is creating additional medical problems, that means that the pathologization is pathogenic and therefore it is also pathologic. The paper concludes with an enlightenment-appeal according to which one should utilize various available resources of information to improve one's own understanding of medical conditions.

Meta-Goods in Fashion Myths. Philosophic-Anthropological Implications of Fashion Myths.

by Roman Meinhold

In: Prajna Vihara. Journal of Philosophy and Religion. Bangkok, Assumption University. Vol.8., No.2, July-December 2007. 1-17. ISSN 1513-6442

This paper tries to investigate which aspects of human nature are responsible for the recurrence of new fashions. It... more This paper tries to investigate which aspects of human nature are responsible for the recurrence of new fashions. It is divided into five sections: the first explains the multidisciplinary approach used in the research on this phenomenon, the second provides a – very brief and stroboscopic – historical overview of the issue in question, the third distinguishes different notions of fashion, the fourth introduces the term meta-goods as indicators of values and symbols for philosophic-anthropological features in fashion
advertisements and the last section elucidates the myths narrated by fashion advertisements, which are based on philosophic-anthropological implications.

Constitutive Relations: A Philosophical Anthropology

by Lyubov Bugaeva

Co-authored with John Ryder. In: Human Affairs (A Postdisciplinary Journal for Humanities and Social Sciences). December 2005. Vol. 15. No. 2. P. 132–148.

This is an essay in philosophical anthropology that explores two themes: 1) an understanding of human being as... more This is an essay in philosophical anthropology that explores two themes: 1) an understanding of human being as relationally constituted, and 2) the constitutive role of absence in human being. The authors present and explore the general ideas of the American philosopher Justus Buchler and their intersection with those of Nicholas Rescher, Jacques Lacan, Helmuth Plessner, Arnold Gehlen. The authors contend that a relational conception of human being is both plausible and desirable, and that absence or lack is a distinctive constitutive feature of human being.

Objectos e Pessoas na Metafísica Analítica Contemporânea

by Carlos Santos

Il paradigma dell’antropologia filosofica tra immunità e apertura al mondo

by Giacomo Pezzano

Published in in “Dialegesthai. Rivista telematica di filosofia”, XIII, luglio 2011

The paradigm of the Philosophical Anthropology is not an "immunitarian" one: in fact, it makes possible to... more The paradigm of the Philosophical Anthropology is not an "immunitarian" one: in fact, it makes possible to think the human being as characterized by "Mitweltoffenheit"

Antropologia della creatività: tra genericità e modalità

by Giacomo Pezzano

part II: http://costruttiva-mente.blogspot.it/2012/02/antropologia-della-creativita-tra_22.html#more
part III: http://costruttiva-mente.blogspot.it/2012/03/di-giacomo-pezzano-giacomo.html#more

There is a connection between human nature and creativity: human creativity is paradoxically a biological necessity.... more There is a connection between human nature and creativity: human creativity is paradoxically a biological necessity. i) Human nature is creative because (according to Marx, Scheler, Plessner, Gehlen, Heidegger and Derrida) man is by nature over-natural. Man is not umweltbedungen, he is weltoffen: thus, he has to create his own world and way of life – that is, he is weltbildend. Human nature is neither degender nor genetic, but it is generic: therefore, it is specified in different and creative historical modes. ii) Creation moves from the datum (seen as a dandum) in order to overcome it, first of all catching it as such – its Als (as Heidegger suggests). Consequently, human creativity is not ex nihilo, as shown by the wittgensteinian «paradox of the rule»: creativity is possible only through the ap-plication of a rule, the em-ployment of which is as much a re-plica as a fold, that opens up lots of unexpected ways of using and the institution of a new rule. iii) Creativity itself should be conceived in terms of «genericity»: there is no reason to privilege only one of the dimensions in which it takes shape. Finally, the ancient symbolic dimension of logos can offer a renewed definition of human nature in its «natural unnaturalness» and in its constitutive openness to possibility

Il «residuo produttivo» della secolarizzazione: l’uomo, il denaro e il sacro. Considerazioni a partire da Charles Taylor

by Giacomo Pezzano

Published in “Lessico di Etica pubblica”, II, 1, 2011, pp. 19-41

"Economical imaginary" is one of the three key cultural forms of the modern social imaginary: we need to... more "Economical imaginary" is one of the three key cultural forms of the modern social imaginary: we need to overcome it and open the space for the complete realization of the human being

Analysing Hope

by Nicholas H Smith

pre-proof-read version. Published in Critical Horizons, vol. 9, no. 1, May 2008, 5-23.

The paper contrasts two approaches to the analysis of hope: one that takes its departure from a view broadly shared by... more The paper contrasts two approaches to the analysis of hope: one that takes its departure from a view broadly shared by Hobbes, Locke and Hume, another that fits better with Aquinas’s definition of hope. The former relies heavily on a sharp distinction between the cognitive and conative aspects of hope. It is argued that while this approach provides a valuable source of insights, its focus is too narrow and it rests on a problematic rationalistic psychology. The argument is supported by a discussion of hope understood as a stance and by a consideration of the phenomenological contrast between expectation and anticipation.The paper concludes with some reflections on the relation between hope and illusion and the idea of responsible hope.

Arguing from identity: ontology to advocacy in Charles Taylor's political thought.

by Sam Sadian

Castoriadis at the Limits of Autonomy? Ecological Worldhood and the Hermeneutic of Modernity

by Suzi Adams

Draft only (Forthcoming in the European Journal of Social Theory)

This paper critically engages with Castoriadis’s elucidation of autonomy. It does so by taking into account the... more This paper critically engages with Castoriadis’s elucidation of autonomy. It does so by taking into account the implications of Castoriadis’s enduring interest in the ecological devastation of the natural world, on the one hand, and the changing configuration of his philosophical anthropology, on the other, especially in regards to his reconsideration of the creativity of nature in the 1980s and the reconfiguration of the nomos and physis problematic. It contextualizes these movements in his thought within a broader hermeneutic of modernity that, following Johann Arnason, emphasizes the cultural currents of both Romanticism and the Enlightenment as constitutive of modernity as a field of tensions. In an extension of Arnason’s elaboration, however, the present paper argues that a latent opening towards an ecological worldhood is implicit to Castoriadis’s hermeneutic of modernity that, conversely, also finds Castoriadis at the limits of autonomy. 


Keywords: Cornelius Castoriadis * Johann Arnason * autonomy * ecological worldhood* hermeneutic of modernity* physis and nomos * philosophical anthropology

'"The natural extension is movement": J.H. Prynne's "Aristeas" and The English Intelligencer'

by Ryan Dobran

Under consideration at the Journal of Innovative British and Irish Poetry.

Het unheimliche huisdier. Biotechniek en bio-ethiek in het licht van Sloterdijks radicaal-historische antropologie

by Pieter Lemmens

Verschenen in Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, Vol. 68, 2006

'Man Simply': Excavating Tocqueville's Conception of Human Nature

by Alexander Jech

Forthcoming in Perspectives on Political Science

Alexis de Tocqueville’s interest in the question of human nature is without doubt, but readers have found it difficult... more Alexis de Tocqueville’s interest in the question of human nature is without doubt, but readers have found it difficult to articulate Tocqueville’s conception of human nature with any degree of precision. The difficulty may lead us to imitate Pierre Manent, who argues that Tocqueville’s obscurity about human nature is due to his lacking any firm account of humanity as such. I disagree with this pessimism and argue that Tocqueville’s conception of human nature requires excavation; human beings are situated beings whose circumstances intimately shape their attitudes, desires, and mores, and to recover his sense of simple human nature, we need to first see how different circumstances determine the determinable facets of human nature, and then move back from these determinations to the permanent principles that underlie humanity’s many alterations. We are not seeking a “third man” to set alongside democratic man and aristocratic man, a man in the “state of nature.” A triangle may be scalene, isosceles, or equilateral, but the idea of a triangle is none of these or all and cannot found in the world or set alongside these three as a fourth sort of triangle. So, too, when we excavate Tocqueville’s conception of human nature, we do not find a hypothetical man undetermined by any context, but the principles inherent in humanity in virtue of which human nature is transformed by its physical and social circumstances.

'Een hart dat veel verdragen kan'. Blumenbergs antropologie van de troost.

by Nadia Sels

Lecture given at the cultural festival 'The Unbearable'/ 'Het On(ver)draaglijke', Leuven, 20-22 october.

Hegel's Naturalism

by Italo Testa

Paper given at the 20th Biennial Meeting of the Hegel Society of America, University of South Carolina, October 24-26, 2008 forthcoming in the Conference Proceedings, Essays on Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, SUNY Press (2012)

The local problem of the soul-body relation can be grasped only against the global background of the relation between... more The local problem of the soul-body relation can be grasped only against the global background of the relation between Nature and Spirit. This relates to Hegel's naturalism: the idea that there is one single reality - living reality - and different levels of description of it. This implies, moreover, that it is possible to ascribe some form of naturality also to the social body of institutionalized ethical life. Hegel’s position can thus be characterised as a kind of aristotelian social naturalism: this, at bottom, is the combined meaning of the Hegelian theses that soul is the substance of Spirit, and habit its universal form.