İnsan Felsefesinin Bazı Sorunları

Abstract

Philosophy of Man, academically named Philosophical Anthropology, is a discipline pushed back in higher education curricula since the last three decades. The reason for this neglect is understandable. In a world -of increasing inter-cultural communication difference rather than similarity, variety rather than generality come to the foreground and a binding, universal conception of man cannot be regarded as of primary importance. It is obvious that this reason is not philosophical, but as a matter of actuality effects her course. Philosophy cannot drop the problem because without a clear insight into the essence of being human, differences or modifications cannot be properly evaluated. Examples from world literature and from the history of philosophy are abundant to show that the natural and the historical essence of man are one, - a single paradoxical phenomenon. At the core of the problem of man lies the transcendence of reality by belief and by imagination. Without these faculties there wouldn't be any humans walking upright; at most there would be some sort of an animal with some sort of rationality moving horizontally. With the scientific disjunction of true or false the phenomenon of transcendence cannot be understood in the least. The whole must be grasped and the disjunction dissolved. But if,the disjunction is apotheosized, then, instead of a uniting concept of man pseudo-scientific universalities invade minds. This is always to the advantage of the aggressor who easily declares his own image of himself as universal and his apologists start to give human rights lectures to peoples with thousands of years of humanistic achievement. But that these are done globally wholesale is the calamity of our time.

Philosophy of Man, academically named Philosophical Anthropology, is a discipline pushed back in higher education curricula since the last three decades. The reason for this neglect is understandable. In a world -of increasing inter-cultural communication difference rather than similarity, variety rather than generality come to the foreground and a binding, universal conception of man cannot be regarded as of primary importance. It is obvious that this reason is not philosophical, but as a matter of actuality effects her course. Philosophy cannot drop the problem because without a clear insight into the essence of being human, differences or modifications cannot be properly evaluated. Examples from world literature and from the history of philosophy are abundant to show that the natural and the historical essence of man are one, - a single paradoxical phenomenon. At the core of the problem of man lies the transcendence of reality by belief and by imagination. Without these faculties there wouldn't be any humans walking upright; at most there would be some sort of an animal with some sort of rationality moving horizontally. With the scientific disjunction of true or false the phenomenon of transcendence cannot be understood in the least. The whole must be grasped and the disjunction dissolved. But if,the disjunction is apotheosized, then, instead of a uniting concept of man pseudo-scientific universalities invade minds. This is always to the advantage of the aggressor who easily declares his own image of himself as universal and his apologists start to give human rights lectures to peoples with thousands of years of humanistic achievement. But that these are done globally wholesale is the calamity of our time.