Reframing Philosophical Anthropology: Searching for an Anthropological Difference Beyond the Nature/Culture Dichotomy
Principal investigator: Filip Jaroš
The subject of this interdisciplinary project is a new conceptualization of the problem of anthropological difference in the context of philosophical anthropology. Philosophical anthropology is presented as an independent paradigm that allows for deliberation on humans outside the methodologies of reductive naturalism and social constructivism. The research has three goals: i) a reconstruction of the thought of Buytendijk and Plessner relating to the problem of anthropological difference; ii) a contextualization of the classic program of philosophical anthropology (the Umwelt/Welt distinction) in current hypotheses in developmental comparative psychology (Tomasello), evolutionary anthropology (Henrich), and cultural primatology (de Waal); iii) a new assessment of anthropological difference around the disposition to integrate into the cultural-historical environment of human society. The linking of ontogenetic and phylogenetic perspectives, part of a wider trend in the life sciences (e.g. the extended evolutionary synthesis, biosemiotics), will serve as a theoretical foundation.
