Negative Anthropology

This handbook chapter examines Critical Theory's early engagements with humanism and philosophical anthropology. Although the critics and philosophers associated with the first generation of the Frankfurt School rejected the concept of an invariant human nature, they developed compelling ways to analyze the limitations that antagonistic societies impose on the human being. Early impulses came from Walter Benjamin, who destabilized the notion of human language and the antithesis of nature and history that shaped the anthropological problematic after Kant. Complementing Benjamin’s efforts, Max Horkheimer engaged critically with philosophical anthropology, humanist psychology, and fundamental ontology, proposing a negative humanism that takes its cue not from what is essentially human, but from what is inhumane and has to be abolished. Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm based their critique of existentialism and psychoanalysis in a more positive manner on Marx’s early understanding of the human being’s self-realization in labor. Theodor W. Adorno, in contrast, spurned anthropological assumptions in general, while at the same time interpreting in a dialectical fashion how human beings are restrained and negated under the conditions of repressive societies. In 1969, Ulrich Sonnemann’s "Negative Anthropology" demanded a permanent anthropological revolution, seeking to demonstrate the impossibility of any conclusive knowledge of the human being.

Hannah Arendt and Hans Blumenberg are usually only  considered as intellectual opponents on the topic of secularization. This article shows that despite obvious differences, not least on Arendt’s interpretation of Eichmann, a much more substantial connection obtains between them in their approach to metaphor. A shared critique of Heidegger led them to arrive independently at a “negative anthropology,” which rejects the idea of human essence and replaces it with a functional (Blumenberg) or conditional (Arendt) view of the human. Both took this negative anthropology as a point of departure for their theories of metaphor. This article analyzes the workings of both their versions and shows that even though Blumenberg’s metaphorology, drawing on Kant, Gehlen, and Husserl, might have been more sophisticated, it is, in fact, Arendt’s theory of metaphor that highlights a corporeal vacancy in Blumenberg’s.

Онтологическо-темпоральный дуализм, развиваемый Кожевом в оппозиции онтологии Гегеля и «антропологии» Хайдеггера, сопровождается разделением людей на «не-философов», «философов» и «мудрецов». Отличие между ними состоит в разных эпистемологических предпосылках (Койре) и созерцательно-деятельных установках (Маркс). Как удается установить в настоящем исследовании, эпистемологические предпосылки Кожева не только определяют его онтологию и антропологию, но и разрушают его историософскую концепцию, сохранение которой требует изменения созерцательно-деятельной установки. Отличие эпистемологических установок состоит в разном понимании возможности мышления о бесконечном. Идея бесконечного рассматривается как следствие конечности человека и мира в контексте онтологического аргумента (Ансельм, Декарт). «Философ» отличается от «не-философа» тем, что философское понимание cogito не нуждается в гипостазировании или субстантивации идеи бесконечного в виде бесконечного мышления или мышления бесконечного сверх-существа, поэтому cogito присуще смертному человеческому существу автономно, рефлексивно и самотрансцендентно. Кожев утверждает, что мыслимая бесконечность «потенциальна», т.е. на языке схоластики является «безграничностью» (interminatum), тогда как «актуальная» бесконечность (infinitum) признается немыслимой и сводимой к «потенциальной». Редуцирование «актуальности» бесконечности делает невозможной веру в Бога, а поэтому эпистемологические расхождения не разрешаются дискурсивно, они — вопрос выбора «мировоззрения» (Weltanschauung). При этом, согласно Кожеву, эпистемологическая «ошибка», которая сделала возможными «актуальную бесконечность» и Бога авраамических религий, была эвристически продуктивной и, посредством секуляризации, помогла появиться науке Нового времени. Однако, редуцирование «актуальной» бесконечности мешает осуществлению наиболее известной идеи Кожева — идея «конца истории» темпорализуется, теряет собственную абсолютную необходимость. Поэтому «философ» должен деятельно вступить в осуществление истории и закончить историю, только так он может стать «мудрецом».

Thinking about (and of) the infinite as an epistemological problem
of the Kojève’s philosophical system


The ontological-temporal dualism developed by Kojève in opposition to Hegel’s ontology and Heidegger’s anthropology is accompanied by the division of people into “non-philosophers”, “philosophers” and “sages”. The difference between them consists in different epistemological presuppositions (Koyré) and contemplative-active attitudes (Marx). This study proved that Kojève's epistemological presupposition not only determines his ontology and anthropology, but also destroy his philosophy of history, therefore, to preserve it, a change of contemplative-active attitude is required. The difference of epistemological attitudes consists in a different understanding of the possibility of thinking about the infinite. The idea of the infinite is viewed as a consequence of the finiteness of human and the world in the context of the ontological argument (Anselm, Descartes). A “philosopher” differs from a “non-philosopher” in that the philosophical understanding of cogito does not need to hypostasize or substantivate of the idea of the infinite as an infinite thinking or a thinking of the infinite super-being, therefore cogito is inherent in a mortal human being autonomously, reflexively and self-trancendency. Kojève argues that thinkable infinity is “potential”, i.e., scholastically speaking, it is “limitlessness” (interminatum), whereas “actual” infinity (infinitum) is considered unthinkable and reducible to “potential”. Reducing the “actuality” of infinity is incompatible with faith in God, and therefore epistemological differences are not overcomed discursively, they are a matter of the “world view” (Weltanschauung) choice. At the same time, according to Kojève, the epistemological “mistake” that made possible the “actual infinity” and the God of Abrahamic religions was heuristically productive and, through secularization, helped to appear modern science. However, the reduction of the “actual” infinity prevents the implementation of the most famous Kojève’s idea - the idea of the “end of history” temporalizes, losing absolute necessity. Therefore, the “philosopher” must actively enter into the implementation of history and finish history, only in this way he can become a “sage”.

Bevor Ulrich Sonnemann 1968 seine "Negative Anthropologie" veröffentlichte, wurde diese Wendung bereits mehrmals und in verschiedenen Sprachen erfunden. Dieser Beitrag versucht sich nicht an einer Begriffsgeschichte, die die Sache auch unter verschiedenen Namen findet, sondern in einer Semasiologie, die allein der exakten Wendung "negative Anthropologie" und ihren Bedeutungen nachspürt. Dabei lassen sich drei Grundverwendungsweisen unterscheiden: Negative Anthropologie meint 1) eine apophatische 2) eine pessimistische oder 3) eine defektive Anthropologie.

„Negative Anthropologie ist die bestimmte Negation aller Möglichkeit widerspruchsfrei positiver.“ Diese kurze, aber deswegen nicht minder erläuterungsbedürftige Definition Negativer Anthropologie gibt Ulrich Sonnemann in seinem gleichnamigen Werk von 1969. Kurz zuvor hatte Theodor W. Adorno in der Negativen Dialektik geurteilt, dass es „keine besonders erhabene Anthropologie, sondern ein Veto gegen jegliche“ sei, wenn die Frage nach dem Menschen mit dessen Unbestimmbarkeit beantwortet wird. In einer Rezension der Negativen Anthropologie sieht Adorno in Sonnemanns Ansatz jedoch eine Denkfigur, die ihn „als Bestätigung beglückt“. Sonnemann kritisiert widerspruchsfreie und abgeschlossene Bestimmungen des Menschen in anthropologischen Theorien ebenso wie uneingestandene Anthropologeme, unter anderem in den Theorielektüren der revoltierenden 68er-Bewegung. Er möchte, um der Menschen willen, die Antworten auf die Frage danach, was der Mensch sei, in eins mit denjenigen Verhältnissen kritisieren, unter denen diese Antworten gefunden wurden.
Der Vortrag diskutiert, inwiefern Sonnemanns Negative Anthropologie eine an der Kritischen Theorie orientierte Wissenschaft vom Menschen im Zeitalter seiner (Selbst-)Verdinglichung darstellt. Dazu wird eine Einführung in Sonnemanns negativ-dialektische Anthropologie gegeben und dessen Kritische Theorie psychoanalytischer Sprachkritik als die hiermit korrespondierende ideologiekritische Methode ausgewiesen.

In the preface of the Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), Adorno and Horkheimer mention the term "dialectical anthropology," a concept they did not fully elaborate in this passage. To find out more about this quite unresearched term this essay examines two lesser-known papers written by Adorno in 1941: Notizen zur neuen Anthropologie ("notes on a new anthropology") and Problem des neuen Menschentypus ("problem of a new type of human being"). In contrast to the philosophical anthropology in the tradition of Max Scheler, both documents discuss a specific notion of anthropology that focuses on the radical transformation of human nature in late capitalist society. In the light of this background, the author discusses why this theoretical draft was left unfinished and remained fragmented in Adorno's oeuvre.

Adorno (1903-1969) torna in questi anni di attualità per la sua indagine sull'uomo e sulla natura della sua esperienza esistenziale. Questione che, pur oscurata dall'attuale omologazione dei linguaggi, sembra tenacemente riaffiorare. Il "non-identico" e il "tempo" sono i due concetti che l'autore individua nella sua analisi dei testi adorniani e che ripropone al lettore come elementi fondanti una rinnovata antropologia che sia in grado di ospitare l'idea di una conciliazione che non violenti l'origine dell'altro e lo restituisca all'irriducibilità della sua storia.

In the current humanities, the status of "the human" is contested as never before. While posthumanism is based on the epistemological skepticism about and the ethical aversion to defining “the human,” research in the wake of the “anthropocene” has undermined this prohibition by raising humans to the status of geological factor. "The human," then, must be determined but it cannot be defined.
In this controversy, the argumentative figure 'negative anthropology' might have something to offer. Negative anthropology, put briefly, eschews any definition of an “essence of man,” but still insists on making the human the main focus of its attention.
On the basis of a historical reconstruction of the varieties of negative anthropology in German thought – in currents like the Frankfurt School and philosophical anthropology, and in individuals like Arendt, Anders, and Blumenberg – this paper attempts a normative reconstruction of the argumentative figure 'negative anthropology.' As a generalizable paradigm, such a general concept of negative anthropology may have the potential to negotiates determination and definition of "the human" in the current humanities.

> Gurong Yang, Die geteilte Schönheit von Natur und Mensch: Der doppelte Horizont der „Sicht des Menschen“ und der „Sicht der Natur“ (The Shared Beauty of Nature and Human Being: The Twofold Horizon of „The Perspective of Human Being“ and „The Perspective of Nature“).
> Richard Kearney, Die Herausforderung des Anatheismus (The Challenge of Anatheism).
> Charles-Romain Mbelé, Die Frage einer Philosophie der Ränder zwischen Wahrheit, Solidarität und Gerechtigkeit (The Question of a Philosophy of Margins, Between Truth, Solidarity and Justice / La Question d’une philosophie des marges, entre vérité, solidarité et justice).
> Lars Frederik Svendsen, Menschlich sein (Being Human).
> Bashshar Haydar, Kreativität in der Kunst: Ein skeptischer Blick (Creativity in Art: A Sceptical View).
> Amita Chatterjee, Ein naturalistisches Schema der Vernetzung von Geist, Körper, Bewusstsein und Gefühlen (A Naturalist Scheme of Interlinking Mind, Body, Consciousness and Emotions).
> Eileen Sweeney, Liebe, die Leidenschaften, Beziehung: Der Beitrag der mittelalterlichen lateinischen Tradition (Love, the Passions, Relationship: The Contribution of the Medieval Latin Tradition).

I first comment on the tense personal relationship between Arendt and Blumenberg, their disagreements on secularization and the Eichmann  trial. In a second part, I show how their theoretical stances converge in a 'negative anthropology.' In a third part, I compare their theories of metaphor and show how Arendt takes up the topic of the sense anthropology of metaphor Blumenberg worked on only very briefly in the beginning of his studies.
The finished essay will appear soon.