Original of this work:

Trajtelová, J.: Philosophical Anthropology: Selected Chapters. Uni Slovakia Series. Frankfurt am Main:
Peter Lang, 2016. (102 p.).
Jana Trajtelová, PhD.
Jana works as a Scholarly Assistant at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy
and Arts at Trnava University in Trnava, Slovakia. Her main areas of specialization are
the Philosophy of Religion, Phenomenology, and Philosophical Anthropology. In 2011
she published a book on the phenomenology of mysticism, Distance and Proximity of
Mysticism: Phenomenological Study of Fundamental Movements in Traditional Western
Mysticism (2011), and is a co-author of the book Person as Phenomenon: From
Intersubjectivity to Interpersonality (2015).
Jana Trajtelová
Philosophical Anthropology: Selected Chapters
This publication has been peer reviewed:
Prof. Dr. Josef Dolista, ThD., PhD.
Prof. PhDr. Slavomír Gálik, PhD.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1 What is Philosophical Anthropology?
2. The Human Place in the Cosmos
3. A Rational Animal?
4. Culture
5. The Issue of Freedom
6. The Person and the Constitutive Dynamics of Interpersonal Relationships
7. Appendix: Short Exercise Book and Closing Remarks
Bibliography
INTRODUCTION

Emmerich Coreth, the Austrian philosopher, opened the question of man in terms of
philosophical anthropology, by saying that no other known living creatures ask questions
about their existence, their essence, or their place and meaning in the world: “Only man asks
questions; he questions everything, even himself, his essence – exceeding the immediacy of
what is given, heading to the very foundations” (Coreth, 1994, p. 10). In the 20th century, the
philosophical question of man experienced a rebirth. While trying to consistently examine the
ontological structure of a human being from a philosophical point of view, Max Scheler, the
founder of modern philosophical anthropology, questioned specifically “man’s place in the
universe”; Martin Buber raised the philosophical “problem of man”, and Emerich Coreth
summarised the point of philosophical and anthropological research through Kant’s simple
question: “What is man?”. Many other contemporary thinkers have declared their allegiance
to philosophical inquiry known as philosophical anthropology. Many other authors with
various scholarly concerns, such as E. Cassirer or K. Lorenz, have spoken directly of their
contribution to the philosophical-anthropological issue. Since their very beginnings,
philosophical as well as religious thinking have mused upon the origin and essence of man,
his or her destiny, and the meaning of his or her existence. M. Landmann made an apt
comment on the issue by saying that every anthropos is already an anthropologist
(Landmann, 1982, p. 10). It seems that the lot of man really is to question and learn restlessly,
first of all, about his own being.

What does the uniqueness of reflections in philosophical anthropology consist of? A person
within a peculiar cultural and historical context directly or indirectly always already cognises
and interprets himself or herself on the basis of various theological or philosophical traditions
and today especially on the basis of ever increasing knowledge of natural and social sciences.
What is the focused philosophical thematisation of the issue of man in philosophical
anthropology good for? Philosophical anthropology seeks to provide the unifying
philosophical perspective on the meaning of a human being as always and already an
integrated whole and unity of his or her specific anthropological attributes, that is to say that
absolutising only one of them may lead to reductions with serious existential consequences.
This auxiliary textbook is a thematisation and systematisation of selected key topics
and issues of philosophical anthropology. Since we believe that the issue of man cannot be
grasped through only one characteristic or attribute (as an exhaustively qualified “human
essence”), the chapters of this text attempt to introduce more various constitutive
fundamental aspects which essentially characterize human beings (rationality, formation of
culture, freedom, person, interpersonality), which, however, are cumulated and converged
into the reflections on man as a unique personal being; only within this unifying personalistic
perspective may the particular anthropological
aspects reveal their authentic sense. We introduce an overview of selected philosophical-
anthropological topics, influential persons and writers related to these, and methodological
influences and approaches. The textbook is primarily intended for bachelor students of
philosophical anthropology – to make selected key issues more transparent and accessible to
them, to lead and refer them to deeper involvement in philosophical anthropological studies.
Although the systematic works and textbooks of philosophical anthropology are very helpful,
only the original texts and more intense self-study (see “Recommended literature”) can help
students grasp the issue thoroughly. To every chapter we have assigned a task which is
formulated thematically; it is to be a creative activity for the student – involving the original
texts of philosophical anthropology, as well as implementing it “into life” through
philosophical and anthropological reflections of films or literary works. At the end of the
textbook, students may test their knowledge in the short concluding questions section.

1 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY?

Philosophical anthropology –pre-understanding – anthropinum – homo sapiens – unity of man

Philosophical anthropology is a systematic philosophical examination of the question “What

is man?”. The etymology we know leads us to an analogous definition. The Greek words
anthropos and logos may be translated as human being and reason (as well as word,
meaning); therefore, a simplified definition may be that philosophical anthropology is a
philosophical theory on man. A human individual questions his or her identity – 1) as a
member of the Homo sapiens species, 2) in terms of his or her historical and social identity
and, most of all, 3) in terms of his or her unique personal identity.
*
From the very beginning, differences in the understanding of the concept of philosophical
anthropology should be noted:
1) Philosophical anthropology as an integral part of philosophical thinking
2) Philosophical anthropology as an independent philosophical discipline of the 20th century
*
In the former case, we address philosophical anthropology supposing that every philosophy
always, implicitly or explicitly, brings its own anthropology. Examining the philosophical
schools of all history of philosophy, we would conclude with respective philosophical and
anthropological models of man (which is also true in a wider scope, of course, within the
framework of theology and mythological ideas, too). Therefore, we can speak of Platonic,
Aristotelian, Thomistic, Cartesian, personalist, existentialist anthropology, etc. Concerning
the teaching of philosophical anthropology, many publications traditionally begin with an
overview of the basic philosophical and anthropological ideas in the history of philosophy, or
more broadly, in the history of thought, which have shaped the further development of
thinking about a man (Letz, 2011, pp. 13 – 36; Šlosiar, 2002, pp. 11 – 84; Coreth, 1994, pp.
20 45; Gálik, 2008, pp. 11 – 92). We will mention some of them as part of our systematic
approach, rather than chronologically1. Primal areas of man´s self-interpretation are,
undoubtedly, myths and religions, later also philosophy, art and literature.

Philosophical anthropologies have various types of classifications, e.g. according to their

methodological aspects and the peculiar nature of philosophical conceptions (rational –
irrational, metaphysical – scientistic, objectivistic – subjectivistic, etc.) or according to their
fundamental ontological insights (naturalistic and materialistic, and personalistic and
spiritualistic) (Kowalczyk, 1991, p. 5). J. Letz offers another type of the classification of
philosophical anthropologies: vitalistic types (e.g. W. Dilthey, H. Bergson and others),
existential types (e.g. G. Marcel, J. Jaspers), personalistic types (e.g. M. Buber, M. Scheler),
phenomenological-ontological types (e.g. A. Gehlen, A. Portmann), existential and
transcendental-thomistic types (e.g. E. Coreth, K. Wojtyla), and nature-scientistic-
evolutionary types (e.g. P.T.de Chardin, C. Tresmontant) (Letz, 2011, p. 22 – 36).

E. Coreth states that philosophical thinking itself has always inevitably been
“anthropologically determined by its origin and objective” (Coreth, 1994, p. 21). A man is
always the one asking questions; he or she asks them in his or her specific human way, in line
with his or her possibilities and way of perception; thus, it is impossible to separate

1
We suppose that the student has a sufficient knowledge of the history of philosophy and of the philosophical
conceptions of man and relatively.
knowledge of the world from self-cognition. It is also obvious that each period of history
brings some answers on the basis of its own contexts – in accordance with its form of specific
self-awareness. This experience of history implies that the image of a man has no steady
form; it has been developing and changing, even though the way of questioning and its
existential dimension may be described as anthropologically constant. Thus, a man, making
an issue of himself or herself through philosophical reflection, never starts “out of nothing”.
Somehow he or she always understands what “man” (and “who am I”) means; therefore,
when researching, we cannot avoid the so-called hermeneutic circle of the always present
initial pre-understanding (Coreth, 1994, pp. 14 – 16): “An a priori horizon forms
the precondition for the possibility of the performance of questioning.” “Man” remains an
“open question” – both at the individual as well the social level of knowledge.
*
By the latter we mean philosophical anthropology as a peculiar philosophical school, or in a
wider sense, a line of philosophical reflections and research on man working for the more
holistic grasp. This philosophical movement originated in Germany in the early 20th century,
and was often referred to as a modern “anthropological turn”. Max Scheler (1874 – 1928) has
been traditionally considered its “father”. In 1928 two key philosophical-anthropological
works were issued in Cologne: Scheler’s The Human Place in the Cosmos (Die Stellung des
Menschen im Kosmos), and Helmuth Plessner’s, The Levels of the Organic and Man (Die
Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch). Philosophical anthropology questions the essence
of man, i.e. what makes human a human, or through what is a human a human. It tries to
bring an “essential definition” of man, thus grasp the “something” which defines us
essentially – a kind of essential function or aspect.

Michael Landmann states that the arising of philosophical anthropology is accompanied and
influenced by these factors: refusal of positivism and all types of reductionism, dissatisfaction
with traditional theories of knowledge and increasing necessity of the establishment of an
independent ontological region of man (Holzhey, Röd, 2006, pp. 287 – 288).

In this context, a new methodology was developed, merging three key approaches: 1)
Philosophical anthropology refuses to examine a man only in the light of tradition, although it
reflects many traditional theological and philosophical concepts of man and engages with
them seriously. 2) Philosophical anthropology authors respond to the expansion of special
scientific research, they study and reflect on the contemporary knowledge of natural and
social sciences, and try to creatively integrate them into the holistic philosophical image of a
man (biology, physiology, evolutionary sciences, ethology, empirical psychology and
sociology, ethnography, theories of culture, religious studies, etc.) 3) The phenomenological
method became the basic approach of philosophical anthropology authors who themselves
voiced their support for phenomenology and its specific method. The question “What is man”
is, in fact, a phenomenological question about an “essence” or “eidetic structures” (Holzhey,
Röd, 2006, s. 293). A perspective of the first person, phenomenological epoché, precise
description of the “how” of experience, the search for essential structures of experience and
the constitution of meaning – all of these are the precious philosophical tools handed down to
20th century philosophers by the founder of phenomenology, E. Husserl (1859 – 1938). Thus,
philosophical anthropology grasps a man through a so-called first and third person experience
– phenomenologically and critically in the very midst of traditional philosophical, theological
or contemporary scientific concepts.

Leading philosophical anthropology authors (Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner, and Arnold
Gehlen) draw primarily from man’s place in nature as the biological sciences find it – side by
side with other living creatures. They ask: What does the uniqueness of a man, our unique
place in nature consist in? What distinguishes humans from animals? More precisely, what is
the core of the unique human specificity – anthropinum – defining a human person as a
human person? The primarily biological orientation of the beginning of philosophical
anthropology was asking about the comparison of man and animal, or in a broader sense,
about man’s position in the whole of the organic world. In the 1920’s, philosophical
anthropology was heavily influenced by e.g. anthropologically important research by P.
Alsberg, L. Bolek, and Jakob von Uexküll (Holzhey, Röd, 2006, pp. 290-292). Alsberg
pointed out that human development has been determined by “the principle of body release
using artificial tools”, i.e. the development and implementation of tools (material, linguistic,
conceptual) allowed a man to distance from nature and develop (even in a sense of physical
adaptation) in a specific human way (Holzhey, Röd, 2006, pp. 290-292). Uexküll significantly
contributed to the discussion by his exploration of binding of specific animal species to their
own distinctive environments. The most discussed unique aspect defining a human being as
specifically human became a “spiritual dimension” (Scheler) including the sphere of culture
(Plessner, Gehlen), exceeding the pure biological indisputability we share with the rest of the
living world (including simple vegetative functions as well as practical intelligence) (also see
Sokol, 2002, pp. 23-31).
*
Philosophical anthropology authors have also been united in their effort to understand a man
holistically, i.e. as an integrated unity of various unique aspects or spheres of being, i.e.
according to the manners in which man experiences himself as a biologic, sensual, rational,
emotional, as well as cultural, spiritual and social being. In his extensive work, Scheler
revealed and examined the individual dimensions of human experience in a great detail;
Coreth noted three specific ways of human self-realisation (spiritual knowing, volition and
action); Cassier discerned unique spheres of sense giving, which he defined as distinctive
symbolic forms (a myth, religion, science, art, etc.). The criticism of absolutising a partial
view on a human being via specialised sciences (not the criticism of science itself and its
progressing areas of research) or partial aspects in general (a person as a mere rational, social,
historical, etc. being) was reflecting on the failure of naturalism when it comes to a human
person which is always and already a complex integrated personal unity or whole (Coreth,
1994, p. 16; Buber, 1997, p. 18). This has been nicely expressed by G. Marcel: “A being
whose deepest originality consists, perhaps, not only in enquiring into the nature of things, but
in questioning himself, about his own essence is, by this very fact, situated beyond all the
partial replies in which such an enquiry can issue” (Marcel, 2003, p. 129).

How do particular fields of science work? They select a specific area of human reality which
is then examined by their own methodology – from a very specific, focused point of view.
Then they rightly claim accuracy and exactness. However, they necessary ignore those
aspects which are not relevant for the research or the aspects they cannot grasp through their
methods; they abstract from the concrete for the sake of generally applicable conclusions.
Therefore, philosophical anthropology reminds this to be the reason why none of the partial
sciences can grasp the whole of human reality; however, they can significantly contribute to
our understanding of it. Moreover, a man (one of his or her aspects) is necessarily objectified;
a human person is the object of examination as an object among other objects. This is, of
course, not only legitimate, but also necessary way of approach within objective scientific
research. However, Husserl already pointed out the insufficient uncritical accepting of
proliferating facts of the empirical sciences and positivism, generally speaking of a crisis of
science and philosophy as well as European culture. According to him, the crisis is
predominantly rooted in the objectivism started by Galileo’s mathematisation of nature,
causing a reduction of human cognition to a mathematical (scientific) model only, which
became the paradigm in all other research fields, including the contemporary research of
subjectivity – empirical psychology (Husserl, 1996, p. 27). Science resigned from answering
the basic questions of human existence; it became rather a storehouse of facts (Zvarík, 2011,
p. 58). It is no coincidence that Husserl’s method became the leading method of philosophical
anthropological inquiry.

In related issues, S. Kowalczyk names three exemplary types of reductionism, significantly

reducing the idea of man, leading to determinism and limiting his or her own self-
understanding and self-actualisation. They include “biologism” and “physicialism”
corresponding to the mechanistic-materialistic model of man, while man is interpreted on the
basis of our regular biological and physico-chemical processes and reduced to them;
“psychologism” reducing the human being and self-experience to the principles of his or her
psychological processes; a typical example of this is Freud’s or Skinner’s model of man; and
finally “sociologism” (e.g. Marxism), where man is understood as a product of society and a
result of social, cultural and economic relationships to which he or she is perfectly subjected.
(Kowalczyk, 1991, pp. 7-14). Philosophical anthropology authors, in the times of Scheler as
well as today, like philosophers of many other schools of the day (e.g. personalism,
existentialism), responded to these tendencies to reductionism and its possible wide-ranging
implications; they perceived the need for a new philosophical approach – hereinbefore
exemplarily interpreted by Husserl.
*
Eventually, it is necessary to explain the relation of philosophical anthropology and
anthropological sciences, or anthropology as understood by the contemporary language
usage of the broader academic community. In a wider scholarly context, the word
anthropology mostly refers to the sciences of a human person (as an individual of the Homo
sapiens species), researching his or her biological as well as cultural nature (biological
anthropology and cultural anthropology as two basic anthropological scientific disciplines).
Therefore, anthropologists refer to a human person as a two-dimensional being – as a bio-
cultural being equally subjected to the laws of nature as well as to the structure and influence
of culture (Soukup, 2005, p. 13).2 This distinction is well-known in the reflections of
philosophical anthropology philosophers, too. Philosophical anthropology, however, is not
directly a part of established anthropological research, but rather an independent philosophical
discipline integrating the knowledge acquired from special anthropological sciences, critically
and philosophically considering that knowledge and, on its basis, bringing forward a
comprehensive philosophical model of a person.

Stanislav Kowalczyk tried to create a general classification of existing anthropological

disciplines according to the nature of the subject focus – into four main types which are
presented at the end of the chapter, since we consider them a purposeful systematisation of
anthropologically oriented research. We distinguish these types as: 1) natural anthropology; 2)
cultural (social) anthropology – both of a primarily factual, exact, descriptive character, based
on special scientific research; 3) theological anthropology (based on Revelation); and 4)
philosophical anthropology – focused on rational critical reflections on an issue, and including
evaluation-prescriptive elements (Kowalczyk, 1991, p. 7).

Task:
Select and carry out one of the following tasks:
1. Write a free philosophical essay (5-7 standard pages) on the topic “Man as a Philosophical
Problem”, using at least three relevant philosophical sources.
2. Write a philosophical reflection (5-7 standard pages) on the movie, The Elephant Man
(David Lynch, 1980), focusing on the philosophical-anthropological question “What is man?”
When writing free reflections, use relevant philosophical literature.

Recommended literature:
(for recommended English sources consult your teacher)

2
The broad spectrum of anthropology may be demonstrated by the example of the division method of
anthropological sciences in North America. In the North American context, anthropology is understood as
composed of four key scientific disciplines: archaeology, anthropological linguistics, biological (of physical)
anthropology and cultural anthropology (or ethnology). They define anthropology as a social science concerning
science as well as classic humanities. All of these areas have been standard and stable pillars of anthropological
explorations in many world university and specialist institutions. In Europe, a tendency to preserve standard
classification of knowledge and sciences within the science and social science disciplines with their subject areas
and methodology prevails. Nowadays, so-called applied anthropology should be among the standard
anthropological disciplines, too. Within its framework, anthropological knowledge has been practically used to
deal with intercultural issues, e.g. in the field of healthcare or economic development, like in the case of various
environmental and anti-discrimination activities (Trajtelová, 2013, pp. 13-26).
RÖD, W. - HOLZHEY, H.: Filosofická antropologie. In: Filosofie 19. a 20. storočia II.
Praha: Oikoymenh, 2006, pp. 287-322.
ŠLOSIAR, J.: Od antropologizmu k filozofickej antropológii. Bratislava: Iris, 2002.
GÁLIK, S.: Filozofická antropológia. Porozumenie človeka z hľadiska „filozofie večnosti“.
Bratislava: Iris, 2008.3

2 THE HUMAN PLACE IN THE COSMOS

Max Scheler – the essence of man – sublimation – vital impetus – spirit

The fundamental text of philosophical anthropology is the text by the phenomenologist, Max
Scheler (1874 – 1928) – The Human Place in the Cosmos (Die Stellung des Menschen im
Kosmos, 1928). It may not be great in size, but it is a rich text. Therefore, we have decided to
introduce Scheler at the beginning, as he well defines specific philosophical attempts at
philosophical anthropology. The text was originally given as a lecture in 1927 in Darmstadt,
reflecting on a special man´s standpoint in the world. He based his reflections on
contemporary knowledge and discoveries of biological morphology and the research of
animal behaviour and plant life. Scheler tried to grasp man holistically – by inquiring into his
relation to nature and defining his special position in it.

Firstly, Scheler distinguished between two meanings of the word “human”: 1) human as a
biological being with a fixed place in the natural animal life scheme (he is on the top of the
range of vertebrates and mammals), and 2) human as a being with a seemingly peculiar and
unique place in the world; this cannot be compared to the status of any other creatures. In this
sense, Scheler assumes a specific essence of man (Scheler, 1968, p. 45).

Scheler draws attention to the fact that we have come to a stage in history, when there is no
“unified idea of man” that would be accepted generally (contrary to e.g. the Middle Ages).
Instead, he introduces three paradigms of anthropological thinking – three different models of

3
Philosophische Anthropologie. Erster und Zweiter Teil. (= Neuen Anthropologie. Band 6 u. 7). hrsg. von Hans-
Georg Gadamer und Paul Vogler. Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart 1974/1975; GERHART ARLT:
Philosophische Anthropologie. Metzler, Stuttgart 2001; M. TILES: Philosophical Anthropology. In:
Encyclopædia Britannica. 1989.
human self-explanation in the history of the West. Scheler says that if one were to ask an
educated European what he thought, when confronted with the word “man,” three disparate
ideological views would start competing with each other. (Scheler, 1968, p. 44). They are:
1) Judeo-Christian (Biblical) view of man (based on the religious faith, Revelation)
2) Greek-ancient view of man (philosophy – man as a rational animal)
3) Scientific view (science – man as a product of evolutionary natural processes).
Scheler calls for the search of the unified view of man which cannot be confused with a
theory about man. “The essence of man is in no sense abstract or arbitrary; the essence of man
is concretely evident, immediately and directly, as a lived totality open to multiple modes and
manners of concretization, manifestation, or presence. The complexity and richness of this
essence is deepened profoundly when the phenomenon is seen as it is, concretized in a unique
personal life, which life is integral to life with other persons in this universe.” (Luther, 1974,
p.3).
*
To understand Scheler’s conclusions concerning the essence and place of man in the world,
we will first explain the broader context of his thought. As a phenomenologist, he was
building on the experience of man with himself as he exists in the world as well as with the
world. Human experience is trustworthy and self-evident. It is the only original source and a
legitimate basis of all knowledge, including the scientific one. How am I given to myself in
my experience? How is the world given to me in my experience? Experience innocently gives
to us what is as it is – directly, fully and evidently. And this has to be true in the case of the
phenomenon of “man”, too. We always encounter already the whole and each phenomenon is
in relation to all other phenomena. The fullness of my present experience is only a
perspective or an aspect of any possible experience of being. The whole may be precisely
encountered in and through perspectives characterised by their own internal completeness,
richness and perfection; „lived experiencing is always an experiencing of a whole or the
totality from a certain perspective.” (Luther, 1974, pp. 2-3). Each phenomenon, as well as
each dimension of being is a part of the whole of being and only in the context of the whole
may its true meaning be revealed. However, each phenomenon and dimension of being is also
given independently, or possibly it may be abstracted from the whole of being and made a
subject of phenomenological inquiry. This is what Scheler did in the sum of his extensive
work: he examined various dimensions of human experience to understand the whole of
human reality. Thus, the gateway to knowledge is an openness and attention to phenomena;
this is equally useful to philosophers as well as to scientists. And this is the way the world is,
obviously, given to us in its original sense through our original experience: as a multi-layered
richly-structured unity. And a person also reveals himself or herself in a network of very
complex ontological relations. Reality, given as unity in its fullness and inexhaustible
richness, is of a relational nature (Luther, 1974, pp. 2-3).

First of all, an inorganic level of reality is given as force centres, blind forces and
concentrated energies (e.g. lightning, earthquakes, hardness of minerals, splitting the atom,
etc.). It is a unique richly structured sphere of microscopic and macroscopic events and
processes of the natural world, ruled by its own internal structural laws. It is characterised by
the absence of interiority and individuality. This fundamental natural blind pressure or force –
“Drang” (urge, drive) – is thus active in an inorganic level of reality and is demonstrated
within and through it. However, it is the same kind of primordial drive or thrust which will be
later found in the sphere of the organic world, too, in a specific way as a vital impetus,
“Lebensdrang” (see below).

The organic sphere of being is demonstrated as a blind life force, “Lebensdrang”, the
ceaseless movement of life or vital urge tending to relief and actualize itself. The stunning
richness and diversity of living forms has been manifested as unity of life in multiplicity.
Within this, interiority occurs as a new internal “dimension” of reality. It is characterised by a
kind of directedness toward a purpose (life support, growth, development, proliferation). A
vital impetus has two main “objectives” (as Freud noted – Eros and Thanatos): a maximum
realization and reproduction and a maximum restriction and death. (Luther, 1974, p. 10-12).
Inorganic and organic spheres have been primarily experienced as resistance (also Patočka,
1968, p. 28).

Now we will proceed with the description of a specific person’s place in the whole of
existence. It certainly belongs to the organic sphere of being and to a quite unique
manifestation of Lebensdrang. When searching for the essence of man, Scheler started with
searching for the hierarchy of the “psychic”, i.e. vital forms, forms of the organic world. He
identified the psychic with the phenomenon of the life itself. In his The Human Place in the
Cosmos, he distinguished four levels of psychical life - four vital principles or four “essential
forms of soul” (Wesensformen): impulsive emotions, instinct, habitual behaviour, and
practical intelligence. While more complex life forms always include the less complex.
1) The lowest level of the psychic life form is typical of plant life. As “psychic proto-
phenomenon” it represents an unconscious life force without perceptions and impressions.
Plant existence is, thus, actualized through its growth, nourishment, reproduction, and finally
its extinction. This unconscious vital urge is also present in animals and people as the lowest
component of their psychic life. “In animals and man the vital impetus is identified further as
a complex of instinct, habit, and practical intelligence, all of which indicate an increasing
specificity and specialization of it.”(Luther, 1974, p.9).

2) Instincts are innate schemes and behaviour dispositions playing the most important role in
the survival of individuals and species preservation (e.g. a way of nourishment, reproduction,
or self-preservation). Instinct, being innate, is always bound to a species and beneficial for the
species. It is characterised by a “rigidity”, “readiness” and fixity of structure and function (in
comparison to the other life forms noted below). It defines the precise way in which an animal
reacts to its environment, to which it is specifically bound. It also brings along a typical
behaviour specialisation characterising the given species (not an individual). It is a decisive
element of animal behaviour its world: “What an animal can see and hear is only what is
of importance to its instincts” (Scheler, 1968, p. 53).

3) Instinctive behaviour, however, enables the discovery of two other, qualitatively superior,
principles of living organisms typical of two new behaviours: “habitual” and “intelligent”.
Habitual behaviour, related to the associative memory operations and functioning of the
conditioned reflexes, enables some release from the rigidity of instinct, since an animal can
learn through practice. Animals are able to form new associations, e.g. through a “trial-and-
error” method; thereby they can adapt to specific conditions and repeated stimuli from their
environment, and react to them respectively. In the case of humans, the principle of
association and reproduction (learning, accepting cultural models) is an important forming
element, in a specific human form generationally also related to the emergence and
development of tradition (Scheler, 1968, p. 59).

4) Practical intelligence allows an animal to cope with even brand new situations –
individually, purposefully, “creatively” and without any prior attempts (like the “intelligent”
behaviour of some chimpanzees and their inventiveness in new situations). “Discovery” or
resolving a difficulty within the given situation is “sudden” (“Aha!” experience). Practical
intelligence, too, belongs, according to Scheler, to an organically bound domain; it is always
purposeful, related to a specific situation and a vital goal. It is also linked to the (organically
bound) ability to choose (e.g. to decide between individuals when mating).

Finally, Scheler asks: If animals are able to behave intelligently on the basis of thinking
processes, what is the difference between a human person and an animal? Is there any
essential difference at all? (Scheler, 1968, p. 65).
*
In Scheler’s opinion, what we as people have “more” is not only another (higher) level in the
hierarchy of life forms. Drang and Lebensdrang are not the only ontological principles of
reality; the full picture is much more dynamic, much more complex. No doubt, all of the
above mentioned vital principles qualify man as a part of nature. However, what places him
above nature, quite specifically and essentially, is a principle contradictory to movement of
life – spirit.

Eventually, Scheler describes a human being as an ontological encounter and complementary

interaction (Luther, 1974) of two principles – “Lebensdrang” and “Geist” (spirit) which is
much different from the movement of life; it is contradictory. Only in human existence, in the
process of “becoming” a person as a person, do life and spirit encounter and interact in an
indissoluble unity and fruitful though tense interplay. In human existence, life has been
spiritualised and the spirit has been vitalised, embodied. The dimension of freedom includes
both the possibility of a person’s orientation towards spiritualisation and deepening of the
highest values, as well as toward “bestialisation” and the actualisation of the simplest, lowest
or perverted values.

How can one recognize the presence and the work of spirit? The Greeks identified this non-
vital principle as reason. Scheler ties up here but his view is much broader and complex: the
activity of spirit includes all higher intellectual, volitional and emotional acts such as love,
awe, compassion, respect, despair, free decision-making, all creative deeds and thoughts. He
notes the following typical aspects or displays of spirit:

a) Ideation – includes the ability of objectification (while the spirit itself cannot be
objectified), thinking of ideas and abstraction, or speaking more generally, it is a direct insight
into and of essences. That is why it relates to ability to deal with formal relations in
mathematics and logic, with abstracted meanings independent of specific objects, as well as
with existentially significant insights of the essences of things and events (– like when
Buddha, after his first encounter with a sick, then an old, then a dead man, could immediately
grasp the meaning or suffering, i.e. he understood its eidos or essence. Thanks to the spiritual
property of ideation, we grasp objects essentially, as they have sense in themselves; i.e. we are
able to disregard the contingent empirical presence of an object by grasping its “essence” (e.g.
for a monkey a banana is just an object for saturating its needs, but for man it is also a “fruit”
of beautiful yellow colour, which a person can grow as a hobby, admire its shape, colour,
beauty, thus, appreciate its value itself).

b) Thanks to the spiritual ability of ideation, a person is able to think reflexively, critically and
creatively. We are the only beings in nature, which are not only conscious but conscious of
our own consciousness (Plessner’s ex-centricity).

c) The spirit reveals the value latently present in every experience. Life urge itself is value-
blind. We immediately grasp and conceive values through peculiar spiritual acts. It happens
due to our feelings and emotional life; love is the best example.

d) Spirit itself is the possibility of human freedom and the possibility of unfolding and
developing a personal dimension of human existence. It seems that a person is the only
creature in nature able to stand against it and say “no” to it; Scheler states that a person is
“Neinsagerkönner”, ascetic of life, free of immediate natural determinacy, open to the world.
Human existence is not limited to the “here and now” (as life); it is virtually directed beyond
nature and the world, continually transcending itself.

e) Man is essentially a personal spiritual being. Scheler defines person as a “center of

spiritual acts” (Scheler, 1968, p. 66). The spirit manifest its presence in and as particular acts
of cognitive, volitional and emotional intentions. The spirit is not “real” in the sense of the
world’s existence or force (Dasein, Drang), but it is real as actual (wirklich), effective in
terms of concrete personal actuality (Sosain); i.e. a person is as thinking, wanting, suffering,
hoping, loving; as a unique dynamic orientation of his or her spiritual acts (Luther, 1974).
The problematic as well as criticized4 part of Scheler’s model of man (i.e. of his ontological
and metaphysical model of reality, too) is the relation of spirit and life. They have been often
interpreted as mutually complementary. However, Scheler’s sublimatory solution is not
unambiguous; this has been proven by the passionate debates of Schelerian experts on this
topic. The originally powerless spirit sublimates blind forces of life. This way spirit uses and
guides its energies toward the realisation of higher values. Scheler is inspired by and he is
overcoming the Freudian term of sublimation as transformation of the lowest drives (mostly
sexual) into its culturally accepted forms (like art, science).

After all, in a broader perspective of Scheler’s metaphysical reflections, all of the world
process consists in the mutual interaction of the originally powerless spirit and originally
blind forces. The “scene” of this encounter is a man – a “partner of deity”. This is the unique
human place in the cosmos. Spirit controls the world process, directs it; the world and life
urge are the performance factors of spirit. Both life and spirit are manifestations of the
Ground of Being (Weltgrund, Grund des Seins); they are both rooted and integrated in it.
Deity is a “becoming God.” Thus, man cooperates in creation, man is a co-creator within the
entire world process. In his earlier works, Scheler described the Ground of Being (deity,
Gottheit) as the creative dynamic movement of eternal Loving (Luther, 1974, pp. 36-42;
Luther 1972; Scheler, 1961).

Task:
Select and carry out one of the following tasks:.
1. Write a philosophical reflection (5-7 standard pages) on the movie, Diary of a Country
Priest (R. Bresson, 1951), focusing on the question of the relation between spirit and life
forces. When writing free reflections, use relevant philosophical literature.
2. Write a philosophical essay (5-7 standard pages) on the topic, “Nature versus spirit? Nature
and spirit. Nature as spirit?” on the basis of the motives of Jane Campion’s movie, The Piano
(1993). When writing free reflections, use suitable philosophical literature too.
3. Write a philosophical essay (5-7 standard pages) analysing the issue of the relation between
life and spirit in Scheler’s Human Place in the Cosmos, and on the basis of broader study of
primary and secondary literature)

4
E.g. Martin Buber criticizes Scheler, saying that his relation of life and spirit is very obscure and it casts a new
type of dualism and gnostic division on human beings (Buber, 1997, pp. 123-136).
Print the paper and turn it in during the following lesson.

Recommended literature:
(for recommended English sources consult your teacher)
SCHELER, M.: Místo člověka v kosmu. Praha: Academia, 1968.
SCHELER, M.: O studu. Praha: Mladá fronta, 1993.
HODOVSKÝ, I.: Max Scheler – filosof ducha a citu. In: SCHELER, M.: Můj filosofický
pohled na svět. Praha: Vyšehrad, 2003, pp. 9-103.5

3. A RATIONAL ANIMAL?

nature – thinking – symbol – spiritual cognition - language

From the point of view of biological and evolutionary sciences, humans are an integral even
though a tiny part of living nature. However, having discovered our self-consciousness, we
have always rather tended to define ourselves against nature; we seem to be quite a “strange
animal”, as J. Sokol writes (Sokol, 2002, p. 23).

E. Coreth outlines the specifics of human behaviour. He adopts Scheler’s notion of “man’s
world-openness” and summarises specific signs of human behaviour as follows:
1) The organs non-specialisation within and towards an environment becomes the biggest
advantage and “specialisation” (Coreth, 1994, p. 66).
2) An insufficiency of instincts making him or her more dependent on others (a new-born
child, society) and, at the same time, later leading him or her to intellectual development and
creativity (Coreth, 1994, p. 66).
3) The natural unaccomplishment of man as open to the world and towards others (not
essentially defined merely by instinctual and developmental schemes) (Coreth, 1994, p. 66).
4) The free acting and free self-realisation (Coreth, 1994, p. 66).
5) The ability of possessing distance given by overcoming mere instinctiveness – he or she is
able to objectify, grasp meaning, understand values, etc. (Coreh, 1994, p. 66).

5
SCHELER, M.: Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos. 16. Auflage. Bouvier, Bonn 2007; Schriften zur
Anthropologie. Reclam, Ditzingen 1994; Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik, hrsg.
von Christian Bermes, Hamburg 2014.
6) Experiencing the world as “the whole of the world reality” – always and already within
peculiar cultural historic social and individual contexts (Coreth, 1994, p. 66).
*
The so-called essence of man was classically defined by thinking, reason, and rationality
(“Animal Rationale”) at the dawn of western philosophy. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean
Ethics (I, 13), found the principle in a person’s very ability to think, which is – act rationally
as well. It would be difficult to find the more obvious point differentiating humans from other
animals in man’s experience with him or herself and with the world. A man, who thinks,
speaks, differentiates and evaluates things and events, creates unique values on this basis, and
forms an ordered society and culture. Rationality is a notion used in several specific
meanings, e.g. as rationality of formal-logical, scientific-theoretical thinking or as
instrumental or practical rationality, leading us to meaningful and purposeful discussions. The
philosophical-anthropologic definition of reason or rationality, however, must be wider.
Rather, we speak of a unique person’s ability of insight into the meaning and order of being,
i.e. an ability to meaningfully, articulately and deliberately grasp the experience of himself or
herself in the world and with the world (Sokol, 2004, p. 356). Rationality thus penetrates into
all spheres of human existence; that is why a man simply cannot be “irrational.” E. Coreth
writes that even a simple sensual experience cannot be compared to the sensual experience of
an animal, as the “sensory cognition of man is always experienced and understood in
consciousness, already received and processed in and through thinking” (Coreth, 1994, p. 78);
Similarly, E. Cassirer states that a man can relate to the world only indirectly, through the
symbolic forms which characterise the functioning of human mind (Cassirer, 1977, p. 75 –
79).

*
Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) of the Neo-Kantian school demonstrated that symbolism is a
unique feature of the human cognition of reality. We grasp the world through symbolic
systems. Homo sapiens are also “Homo symbolicus” – creators of the entire universe of
symbolic systems. The symbol is the “key to the essence of man” (Cassirer, 1977; Cassirer,
1996).

Symbolic activity is an ever and omnipresent cognitive process producing symbols and
representative signs; through these humans acquire forms for understanding the world. We
can distinguish three essential symbolic forms: language, myth, and science. Each provides a
unique approach to reality. Man “... has so enveloped himself in linguistic forms, in artistic
images, in mythical symbols or religious rites that he cannot see or know anything except by
the interposition of this artificial medium” (Cassirer, 1977, p. 78). He or she can no longer
enter a perfectly direct relationship with nature. Human relation to the world is inevitably
mediated by systems of symbols and only through them can he or she grasp and know the
world. For instance, just as the relationship between a stimulus and response is absolutely
direct in the case of animals, the reaction of a person reacting to a stimulus is “delayed”: the
response has been “hindered” by the process of thinking. More precisely – in the case of a
functional circle of animals, the system of receptors (used by animals to receive stimuli from
the outside world) and the system of effectors (responsible for the reaction to stimuli) are in
close direct relation. In the case of man, there is a “third connecting link” between them - a
symbolic system. This link is responsible for the unique symbolic human world - for a unique
human experience represented by language, myth, religion, art, science, etc. In other words,
what we call culture.

People have been aware that language is an essential attribute of humanity for a great many
years. Of course, discussion about the “speech” and mutual communication of animals is still
open. Cassirer admits that animals have a kind of subjective “emotional language”. He draws
from the well-known observations of Wolfgang Köhler who discovered that chimpanzees
have relatively good verbal skills. Using gestures, they show emotional states such as fear,
grief, pleading, anger, desire and joy, and even mischief. Other research of anthropoid apes by
Yerkes even implied the presence of symbolic processes – as if in an early phylogenetic stage
(Cassirer, 1977, p. 85). Often, the behaviour of animals does not even lack a complicated
system of symbols and signals by which they respond to their surrounding physical existence.
However, they lack representative signs with an objective, general sense independent of
specific biological needs or practical interests. In humans, the ability of making units of sheer
sense and its´ relations fully independent and comprehensible – the ability of abstraction and
theoretical thinking – has developed. Therefore, Cassirer notes that the core of the issue is
the distinction between emotional and predicative language, which he understands as a
“milestone between the world of animals and the world of people” (Cassirer, 1977, p. 84).
The “language” of animals remains subjective and emotional. Humans have shifted from the
concrete to the abstract, from the field of nature to the field of sheer meanings.
A man assigns words and concepts to objects and events and uses and understands them
independently of these objects themselves. E. Coreth summarised this unique ability as the
following: “The human way of thinking has an inherent ability to abstract general meaning
from factual reality. Classical tradition speaks of “an abstraction”, modern psychology and
anthropology speak of “ideation” meaning more or less the same: an ability to abstract a
certain meaning from a real particularity and to give it a general validity” (Coreth, 1994, p.
79). Using concepts, man can denote and describe various kinds of specific and ideal objects,
as well as relations. We create categories and classification systems, schematically rendering
and organising known reality. In the case of a baby who begins to understand the symbolism
of speech, a small intellectual revolution begins (Cassirer, 1977, p. 229). Similarly,
considering the historical development of human speech and research on indigenous
languages, there is a generally accepted opinion on human speech being developed from more
concrete world-dependent stages to the stages of ever-increasing degrees of abstraction. “The
shift to general concepts and categories in the development of human speech, thus, seems
very slow, but each new progress in this field leads to better orientation in the world we
perceive around us; it allows us to become better acquainted with it and organise it better”
(Cassirer, 1977, p. 234).
*
In this context, we also note, an important concept which has attracted broad professional
interest in language: the discussion on language universals or innate linguistic forms. This
theory is based on the thesis stating that our mind has an internal structure responsible for
identification, sorting and classifying data. People possess a genetically innate “universal
grammar” with language universals – universal a priori language forms. More concretely, an
American linguist and philosopher, Noam Avram Chomsky (*1928), has noted that there are
structures in our minds that are a prerequisite for grammatical speech. He, for example, draws
attention to a well-known fact that children can playfully and naturally acquire language in
their early childhood. He mentions the innate structure or a given prerequisite being as a basis
of the possibility and form of ontogenetic language development. From this universal innate
structure, all grammars of languages have derived and the child is able to “re-transform” it
into a specific mode of his or her mother tongue (transformative or generative grammar).
Thanks to this mechanism, children are able to differentiate between the syntactic
relationships and the components of sentences, between the relation and an object, actions and
agents represented by the words in a sentence; thus, they adopt language with no problems. Or
in other words: the human brain should, according to Chomsky, contain a special neuron
structure or an “innate module of language development” able to adopt language (Language
Acquisition Device – LAD). V. Soukup notes that Chomsky’s theory of the innate nature of
language dispositions and structures has not only been proved by the fact that children go
through the same stages of language development (even deaf children), but also by the
research of transcultural linguistics; e.g. the fact that various languages really contain so-
called “language universals” (e.g. nouns and adjectives). This theory has been very popular
recently, also in the fields of other highly specialized disciplines (psycholinguistics,
sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, cognitive science, cognitive linguistics) (Soukup,
2011, p. 147).
*
When searching for the essence of man, E. Coreth started with the functions significantly
defining humans, being inherent and constitutive in the process of the development of our
existence. He finds three specific ways of human self-realisation in the world: spiritual
cognition, free volition, and morally responsible behaviour (Coreth, 1994, pp. 71 – 125).

When examining the specificity of human knowledge, Coreth systematically examines the
meaning of conceptual, judging and cogitative thinking which are typical of thinking
structurally. He also emphasises that conceptual thinking is a part of human nature itself.
While a concept is abstract and universal, independent of time and space as well as the causal
determination of physical existence, a thing is always concrete and particular, bound to time
and space as well as to the causal events of world order; it is individual, non-interchangeable
and unique. Even in these reflections, Coreth does not omit emphasising his notion of
fundamental freedom, which pertains to humans already in a biological sense as soon as there
has been release from the instinctual determinations (Coreth, 1994, p. 69). Coreth states that
thanks to the unique human ability to separate semantic content which ceases to be
directly attached to a particular thing or physical reality, in the field of thought we have
relieved a space for the fundamental freedom, the freedom of thought, which is necessary for
the formation and development of abstract theoretical thinking and a specifically human
world (Coreth, 1994, p. 79). E. Cassirer demonstrated this fact via Helen Keller – a deaf-
mute-blind girl whose world did not become fully opened in a unique human way until she
understood the meaning of concept on the basis of independent and universally applicable
meanings. Despite her lack of sensual data, her governess managed to lead her to this
discovery, using only tactile communication (Cassirer, 1977, pp. 92 – 93).
Coreth then continues saying that from an anthropological point of view the ability of
abstraction is a very important phenomenon, and allows the development of a specifically
human cognition, determining the development of specifically human volition and action,
which belong to the area of the spirit’s freedom. We create concepts which can be fully
unrelated to space-time existence (e.g. “value”, “God”, “law”, “possibility”, etc.). Thus, man
is essentially different from nature as he peers above or beyond it; he or she essentially
belongs to the spiritual dimension of being understood as non-material and independent of
nature and its principles (Coreth, 1994, p. 83).

Regarding the judicative reason, we create meaningful judgements, statements; we predicate

of reality. And with each statement, we claim the implicit veracity of the predication, although
we may be wrong due to the restrictedness of our partial perspective. Judgement grasps
reality; it claims “formal claim to unconditional validity” (Coreth, 1994, p. 84). Coreth tries to
emphasise that human thought is able to speak truthfully about its world. Thinking is virtually
unlimited and opened in giving judgement and if it had infinite time, it could cognise, so to
say, forever. Thus, Coreth mentions the virtual infinity of our cognition (Coreth, 1994, p.
86). And finally, not only do we create judgements, but we are also able to process these
judgements on the basis of principles of thought (e.g. formal logic). We draw conclusions
from knowledge acquired, we state hypotheses, and create entire theoretical systems. The
freedom and creativity of the human spirit seem to be limitless in the field of cognition,
although just virtually, not actually.

Coreth finishes the chapter about spiritual cognition with his reflections on a non-thematised
“area of proto-knowledge” which is, according to Coreth, self-evident to human cognition. He
finds fundamental cognitive insights non-thematically present in every inquiry and reasoning,
and they are self-evident and reliable for human cognition. This most original field of
knowledge is, in his opinion, “the determining and normative basis” for all our practical and
theoretical approaches to the world (Coreth, 1994, p. 83).

Task:
Select and carry out one of the following tasks.
1. Write a philosophical reflection of the given topic (5-7 standard pages) on the basis of the
movie, The Miracle Worker (Nadia Tass, 2000). Use relevant philosophical literature.
2. Write a philosophical paper (5-7 standard pages) analysing one of the specific symbolic
forms (myth, science, art, etc.) of E. Cassirer.

Recommended literature:
(For recommended English sources consult your teacher)
CASSIRER, E.: Esej o človeku. Bratislava: Pravda, 1977, pp. 45 – 129.
CORETH, E.: Co je člověk? Praha: Zvon, 1994.
SOKOL, J. : Filosofická antropologie. Člověkjako osoba. Praha: Portál, 2002, pp. 9 – 85.
SCHELER, M.: Můj filozofický pohled na svet. Praha: Vyšehrad, 2003.6

4. CULTURE

culture – act – creativity – mediated immediacy - technology

We have mentioned that in his Essay on Man, Ernst Cassirer considers the symbolic rational
activity of a person to be the very essence of humanity (understood functionally, not
substantially). This author understands his philosophy of symbolic forms not just as an
epistemology, or as he says, “anthropological philosophy” or a “philosophy of man”, but also
as a “philosophy of culture.” Man could have evolved in a specifically human way and his or
her world could have acquired a specific human form, when he or she “managed” to abstract
meaning and understand the sense of “symbol,” i.e. when we started to use articulated speech
and develop conceptual thinking – as Cassirer demonstrated, for example, through the well-
known story of Helen Keller. He believes that a human being can be successfully
comprehended in his or her specificity only through this symbolic “functions” (and if the
“essence” of man should be mentioned, in this sense only). This specific cognitive functions
are visible in the specific accomplishments of human activities, which we can call “culture”:
language, myth, religion, morals, law, science, i.e. all specifically human creations forming
our uniquely human cultural world (Cassirer, 1977, p. 140). It is no coincidence that culture
has become the focal point of interest of various anthropological inquiries.

6
CASSIRER, E.: An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture. Yale University Press,
1972; Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. (Band 1: Die Sprache, 1923; Band 2: Das mythische Denken,
1925; Band 3: Phänomenologie der Erkenntnis, 1929); CORETH, E.: Was ist der Mensch?: Grundzüge einer
philosophischen Anthropologie. Innsbruck, Wien, München: Tyrolia 1973.
Even the philosophers of modern philosophical anthropology have dealt with the phenomenon
of culture seriously – as trying to grasp the specificity of man through our differentiation
between humans and other animals. They qualified culture as a characteristic feature of a
human being – as a tangible expression of the uniqueness of human mental and physical
activity. Already in his book, Outline of a Philosophical History of Humanity, German
philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) regarded the cultural phenomena such as
language, writing, religion, art, tradition, law, clothes or the variability of human lifestyles as
the keys to human existence. Moreover, Herder stated that culture is a kind of compensation
for a lack of biological equipment; it is a unique method of human adaptation to the
environment (Soukup, 2011). We deal with the cultural “withdrawal” from nature – the
interruption of a direct connection with the natural, which is the common denominator of
philosophical anthropologists Helmuth Plessner (1892-1985) and Arnold Gehlen (1904-
1976), who presents humans as essentially cultural beings.

The core of Plessner’s teaching is the concept of eccentricity which he understands as a

“principle of humanisation” (The Levels of Organic and Man, 1928). Plessner noted that
every living thing mutually interacts with its environment. A plant is directly incorporated in
it, all exposed to the environment and it is all “outside”; this is a so-called open life form. In
contrast, an animal is more independent – it has its own conscious and control centre – a so-
called inclosed and centric life form. It is able to control and perceive its body. A higher
animal may live its life consciously, but it does not experience itself as conscious. According
to Plessner, only a human being is characterised by a distance relation to the world and
himself. We can take a distance from our own selves; we are able to objectify our own selves.
People are self-reflective beings. Thus this twofold movement (toward and out of the
conscious center) or principle of ex-centricity is a universal principle of human essence.

Ex-centricity is closely related to the creation of a specific human world, which is the world
of culture, as it means a withdrawal from the implicit connection with nature. In comparison
to other living creatures, man is a creature poor in instincts. Through ex-centricity, i.e. as a
result of a conscious reflexive ability to experience one’s self, the world and the practical
implications of this ability – creative and purposeful deeds – man compensates for this
handicap in an “artificial” way. Yet, it should be added that the fact humans do not live from
our direct natural determinacy is at the same time an anxious moment of uncertainty for us. In
a reflecting distance we realise the unpredictability of an open future, our uncertain situation
and vulnerability. Thus, we acquire some kind of safety “artificially”: we create mediated
environments, “natural artificiality”, or culture. Plessner defined three basic anthropological
laws (the law of natural artificiality, the law of mediated immediacy, and the law of utopian
standpoint) (Holzhey, Röd, 2006, p. 308). E. Coreth summed them up in a single law of
mediated immediacy (Coreth, 1994).
*
The philosopher and sociologist, Arnold Gehlen, also draws on the knowledge of biology
(Gehlen, 1940). He understands philosophical anthropology as a general teaching on man
which should precede all specialised anthropologies. Gehlen became known among German
philosophers thanks to his work, Man, his Nature and Place in the World, (1940). He
emphasised the holistic and systemic understanding of man whom Gehlen perceived as
a unique project of nature. The starting point of his considerations is an act, human action. A
man is an acting being able to transform nature by his or her activity and accommodate their
environment. Human action does not serve only immediate biological goals and needs; it also
produces something of a “higher” order – culture. Therefore, acting is, according to Gehlen,
the principle making a human a human. The need for purposeful and creative action is, in his
opinion, rooted in biological ground – as compensation for a feeble instinctive endowment.

Humans seem to be, in comparison to animals, absolutely not specialized, having just a feeble
instinctive endowment and insufficient specialization of organs. Therefore, Gehlen notes that
humans are deficient beings (Mängelwesen). As an impoverished animal, a person is
unprotected and vulnerable to nature. Culture becomes a “second nature” for a person – a
principle of “relief.” Thus, man has been defined as a “naturally cultural being” (Röd,
Holzhey, 2006, s. 318). An important role in cultural “relief” has been played by speech,
being a critical breaking of immediacy, enabling communication, planning, and all action.
Gehlen metaphorically calls culture “a nest” built by humans in the centre of the world. It
includes institutions and social norms which should regulate the coexistence of people.
Important topics of Gehlen’s reflections also included technology which is an integral part of
human life “in the nest”. Technology is a unique creative act, an achievement of man, human
skills and our intellect. Technology is also a unique means used by people to conquer nature.
Gehlen called the world of technology “macro human” and included it among the
characteristic features of human nature itself (Gehlen, 1972).
Erich Rothacker (1888–1965) and Michael Landmann (1913–1984) belong to the so-called
cultural line of philosophic anthropology. They note that man is a product as well as a creator
of culture. Landmann claims that non-specialization cannot be understood only as a cause of
the development of specifically human features which should compensate for it, but it is also
a consequence of this humanity itself. “Man may and even must put his specialization aside,
because his life is based on a different kind of endowment. He does not need it and it could be
even obstructive” (Seilerová, 1995, p. 93). To a human being Landmann assigns two basic
closely interconnected characteristic signs – freedom and creativity. Let us mention the
Renaissance thinker, Pico de la Mirandola, who perceived these two attributes as the most
important and very essential aspects of a human being; through these two aspects we reach
our essential nature as imago Dei (Seilerová, 1999, pp. 59-69). According to Landmann,
creativity has been fully demonstrated by the creation of culture and the entire human world
as the cultural world. And despite the variability and diversity of the historical and cultural
“faces” of man, he finds this principle valid universally as the universal anthropinum: In any
culture and historical context a person actualizes himself or herself through exercising his or
her creative rational abilities, and through upbringing and training comes to be himself or
herself.
*
An important topic related to the inquired cultural aspect is the question of the psychic unity
and cultural diversity of humanity. This became crucial primarily in the area of cultural
anthropology research and it has been dealt with in detail elsewhere (Trajtelová, 2013, pp. 70-
80). The principle of the psychic unity of humankind is one of the classic anthropologic
dogmas. The assumption that human nature is only one in essence, regardless of cultural and
historical context, was the ground for any anthropological inquiries. Human properties and
abilities and their possible development are common to all people. Psychological
universalism, derived from the Enlightenment idea of universal rationality, became the
fundamental anthropological axiom and a condition for comparative ethnographic research
methods. In more contemporary language: the idea of psychical unity may be conceived as a
metaphor of common hardware. E. B. Tylor (1832–1917), the founder of cultural
anthropology, believed that despite various cultural variations, the human mind works, in
principle, in the same way for all people. According to Tylor, the multiplicity of cultural
variations exists due to the “universal properties of human mind” (Kanovský, 2004, p. 22).
James George Frazer (1854-1941), an important British anthropologist, was another
significant follower of the idea of the psychical unity of humankind.
Franz Boas (1858-1942) markedly problematized the concept of a unified human mind.
Individual cultures have their own unique direction of historical development and they cannot
be evaluated by a single universal measuring tool. As the father of “historical particularism”,
Boas emphasised the uniqueness of each culture given by its peculiar historical development.
He noted that classifications in various cultures are based on fundamentally different
principles. F. Boas suggested an important distinction between original cultural traditions
and universal mental equipment. The rich diversity of human cultural life forms has a
primarily cultural origin. With this distinction, Boas was able to keep the concept of the
fundamental unity of humankind, while defending the sovereignty of cultural and racial
variations (even in the mental area).

Anthropological inter-cultural inquiries are in line with philosophical anthropologists’ efforts

to reveal and define the essential feature, function, or simple essence of human beings. In his
paper devoted to symbolic forms of myth and religion, Cassirer noted that although individual
symbolic worlds (science, myth, art) differ from each other significantly and they are largely
autonomous, all of them are specifically human and have a unified and essential function
(“symbolic function”), which has been specified and, so to speak, embodied in the specific
areas and works of culture. “Language, art, myth and religion are not isolated, random
creations. They are held together by a common bond... It is the fundamental function
operating in speech, myth, art or religion which we must seek at the bottom of their
innumerable shapes and utterances, and which in the last analysis we must attempt to trace
back as to its common origin” (Cassirer, 1977, p. 140).

Task:
Select and carry out one of the following tasks.
1. Write a free philosophical essay (5-7 standard pages) on the topic “Man in the Age of
Technology”, using at least three relevant philosophical sources.
2. Write a philosophical-anthropological reflection (5-7 standard pages) on the movie,
Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), using relevant literature.
3. Considering the given issue, write a philosophical paper on the topic “Person, dialogue,
culture” (5-7 standard pages) on the basis of the movie, The Cuckoo (A. Rogozhkin, 2002).
Print the paper and submit it in the following lesson.

Recommended literature:
(For recommended English sources consult your teacher)
GEHLEN, A.: Duch vesvěte techniky. Praha: Svoboda, 1972, pp. 29 – 47.
PLESSNER, H.: Člověk jako živá bytost. In: BLECHA, I. (ed.): Filosofická čítanka.
Olomouc: Nakladatelství Olomouc, 2000, pp. 446 –449.
LORENZ, K.: Osm smrtelných hříchů. Praha: Akademia, 2001.7

5. THE ISSUE OF FREEDOM

determinism – indeterminism – compatibilism – fundamental freedom –motivation

One of the key philosophical and anthropological issues is the question of freedom. Different
possible solutions are referring to different ontological models of man. At the same time, the
question expresses the existential situation of a person reflecting his or her position and
possibilities within his or her being. What is freedom? Is just an eternal god-like desire of
man, an illusion; or is it real? J. Sokol considers freedom “as one of the most characteristic
features of a human being” and besides reason “as the highest attribute of man” (Sokol, 2004,
p. 366). Perhaps the most intuitive definition associated with our daily lives is that freedom is
the possibility to choose or the possibility to act according to one’s own will. However, this
definition poses another problems. What does it mean to “choose”? What is the nature of the
will we tend to call “one’s own”? The aim of this chapter is first to outline the issue
systematically and introduce key notions and concepts. In the second part we will address the
issue particularly – as it was addressed by E. Coreth.

If we pictured an imaginary line as a scale for visual illustration of the best known concepts of
freedom, there would find radical determinism concepts on one side and the philosophical
teachings of radical freedom and indeterminism on the other.

Sartre’s radical understanding of freedom as absolute is a typical example of philosophical

indeterminism. A person is absolutely free and absolutely responsible for his or her decisions

7
GEHLEN, A.: Der Mensch, seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt. Junker und Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1940. 3.
Auflage. 1944. 4. Auflage. Athenäum-Verlag, Bonn 1950. 16. Auflage. AULA-Verlag, Wiebelsheim 2014;
PLESSNER, H.: Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. Einleitung in die philosophische Anthropologie
(1928) e Gruyter; Auflage: 3. Unveränd, 1975; LOREZ, K.: Die acht Todsünden der zivilisierten Menschheit
Piper Taschenbuch,1996.
and deeds.8 Determinism (from Lat. “determinare” – to delimit, determine) is the
philosophical view that everything that happens, happens inevitably, due to some kind of
causality (given the relation between causes and consequences) (Sokol, 2004, p. 282); thus,
the free will of a person does not exist, or possibly it is just an illusion. Everything that
happens (in the material or spiritual world) has been necessarily determined in advance.
Extreme forms of determinism include e.g. fatalism (a belief in fate - just like in the Ancient
myth of Oedipus), or, in terms of theism, so-called selective predestination (the doctrine of
predestination to salvation or damnation) or determinism in a strict sense, i.e. natural or
causal determinism based on the strictly given relationship between the cause and effect of
natural processes. Of course, there has not just been alternative radical freedom versus
necessity in the history of thought. There have been many approaches seeking some
compatibility and reconciliation of deterministic and indeterministic positions – a kind of
moderate determinism – a so-called philosophical compatibilism enabling the maintenance of
a certain degree of freedom and the related concept of personal or moral responsibility for
one’s actions, which is not possible in the case of “strict” determinism (e.g. stoics, Augustine,
Hobbes, Spinoza, etc.).

E. Coreth distinguished two basic types of determinism – positivist materialism assuming

only the existence of material reality and causal necessity of physical and chemical processes
(or possibly of atomic or subatomic movements,) and idealist pantheism in which all events
are necessarily subjected to one metaphysical principle (Coreth, 1994, p. 46.).
*
When considering freedom, it is also important to take into account the distinction between
external and internal freedom (Coreth, 1994, p. 91). External freedom has been understood
as the freedom of volition and action not limited by any external influences (personal,
political repressions, and so on.) It is, for example, the freedom of thought, conscience,
religious belief, speech or a universal civil right to freedom and to live with dignity. However,
external freedom does not necessarily guarantee that a person would feel free inwardly.
Internal freedom means that we are not determined by anything from inside; we are not
inherently pressed to choose or think in any way – even if we were bound in chains (the
freedom of a prisoner or a slave.) In this spirit, Thomas Aquinas similarly distinguished

8
“Man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless free, and
from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does.” (Sartre, 1996, p.
24).
“libertas a coactione”, i.e. being free from external pressure and “libertas a necessitate”, i.e.
being free from internal necessity rooted in the nature of freedom of a person (Coreth, 1994,
p. 91).
D. Palmer9 speaks about the concept of practical freedom, which is guaranteed in society by
laws and embraces political, economic and civil liberties, and the concept of metaphysical
freedom, which concerns philosophy (Palmer, 2008, p. 248). The concept of metaphysical
freedom deals with the following philosophical theses trying to approach the concept of
freedom:

1) Absolute free will (pure, perfect freedom) would concern just God’s existence; for Palmer
a free act of will would mean pursuance – that is, volition and acting (i.e. creation) would be
identical. Such freedom would not be limited by anything, what brings along a difficult
theological and philosophical issue (absolute freedom as arbitrariness) having been addressed
also by R. Descartes in his Mediations, or J.-P. Sartre (two absolute wills would limit each
other, therefore they could not coexist simultaneously).
2) Relative and restricted freedom concerns various types of compatibilisms. It grows out of
the experience of a person with himself or herself in the world. The necessity to choose is our
everyday experience. At the same time we experience our freedom as restricted since we
make our choices within already pre-given (natural and social) conditions and options.
3) Mental freedom (the freedom of thought, feelings and personal attitudes) is the freedom of
a slave or a political prisoner, who may be free inwardly despite external circumstances and
who still may take his or her own stance toward situations, ideologies, etc.
4) By the term ontological freedom, Palmer meant a kind of freedom which has been given
by our ontological constitution itself. A person experiences this kind of freedom, when
experiencing the necessity of choice between alternatives (the necessity of choice; Sartre’s
“condemnation” to freedom) – a choice which necessarily brings irrevocable existential
consequences.
5) Finally, Palmer introduces the category of perverse freedom manifested by the possibility
of free rejection of norms, including morality and sociality; it is a freedom of internal
rebellion. It is related to the unpredictability of human deeds, with the “misusing” of freedom

9
In this chapter we largely lean on the systematisation of the problem as proposed by the American philosopher,
Donald Palmer. PALMER, D.: Does the center hold? An introduction to Western philosophy. NY: The
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2008, pp. 213-255).
and “demonic freedom”. The question remains whether it is a manifestation of pathology or
rather of freedom in the proper sense.
*
Let us have a brief look at the best known forms of determinism in the history of philosophy.
The first known examples of causal mechanistic determinism include the teachings of Greek
atomists (Democritus, around 400 B C). Everything which exists (to on) is composed of
atoms – an infinite number of elementary, indivisible, invisible and unchanging particles
surrounded by empty space (not-existing, non-being – me on). They are in a constant motion
which is strictly determined by trajectories prescribed by the very nature of atoms. The things
of the world are created by the motion of atoms: by their collisions and merging into greater
units. All movements and events inevitably happen by the “predestined” atomic trajectories.
Like a soul of a person which is composed of very subtle atoms, thinking and perception are
subjected to the same principle of atomic motions. It is interesting to note that this atomistic
teaching was later adopted by Epicureanism (Lucretius). They seek how to maintain the
freedom of choice and they come up with the deflective theory and the idea of randomness of
atomic motion: trajectories of atoms are not given necessarily but randomly. This keeps the
possibility of free thinking, a freedom of the individual’s will, which itself may be the cause
of the motion of things and events.

In the 18th century, among others, modern Enlightenment materialists such as La Mettrie
(1709-1751) and Henri d’Holbach (1723-1789) presented exemplary theses of causal
determinism. Under the influence of Newton’s physics, based on a mainly mechanistic
interpretation of the world, and on general applicability of natural laws, materialists believed
that the same principles valid for the physical world must be equally valid for all levels of
human experience (will, thought, emotions, “soul”.) Simon Laplace (1749-1827) radicalizes
the mechanism of natural causal relations, and introduces the hypothesis of such a “demon”,
or such an intelligence that would know all natural laws and principles perfectly, as well as all
driving forces and their relations in nature. This overwhelming mind would have a perfect and
full knowledge and description of the universe, the natural order in every possible moment in
time – thus, it would be able to predict all future events as well as interpret the past on the
basis of this all-encompassing knowledge (knowing all driving forces and the positions of all
particles in the universe and the laws of their motion, i.e. the laws of classical physics.)
Speaking generally, one of the fundamental principles of science since the 17th century has
been the belief that nature may be explained and described in terms of causal theories, i.e. in
terms of the relation between a cause and effect.

In the early 20th century, Freud’s discovery of the unconscious caused a considerable stir –
with regard to the debate on the freedom of a person as well. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
the founder of psychoanalysis, was the first to draw attention to the unconscious level of our
psychic life and its determining influence on human acts, conscious actions and choices.
Similarly, in the 20th century, American psychologist, Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904-
1990), caused a considerable ado in the area of psychology with his work, Beyond Freedom
and Dignity. The principles of human behaviour are decipherable; human behaviour is
predictable – on the simple basis of cause-effect, stimulus-response mechanism. However,
accepting such a radical behaviourist model of a person is accompanied by considerable
practical difficulties. It challenges all functioning structures within our social order including
moral and legal institutions, courts and prisons. How could we speak about moral
responsibility or punishment? How could punishment be a solution, if there is no culprit, but
rather a victim (of circumstances or “programming”)? (Skinner, 1976, pp. 63-83). How could
we speak about moral or personal responsibility in the case of a man with programmable and
programmed behaviour, knowing that his or her acts are a mere result of correct or incorrect
stimuli (such as upbringing, various life experience)? (Palmer, 2008, pp. 214-222).
*
We will now present the personalistic solution of transcendental neo-thomisst, Emmerich
Coreth, the Austrian philosopher, as an example of a compatibilism defending free will and
personal responsibility, based on a personalist view on man. In his philosophical
anthropology, Coreth undertakes the phenomenological description of a human’s experience
with himself or herself in the world. The unique process of formation of human identity is
based on specifically human cognition, willing and acting. Not only may we cognise our
world, but also relate to it by our will (it offers the good, being the subject of will), and
transform and adapt it creatively. We are able to objectify and embody our thoughts, visions
and plans into actions.

How does E. Coreth grasp the question of freedom in this context of the creative spiritual
development of a person? Coreth starts with experience – the experience of freedom. Every
day we face choices and decisions – some of them less, some of them more existentially
loaded, changing the whole orientation as well as the momentum of our existence. Many
times, we experience decision-making as painful, as choosing one thing means to sacrifice
another (e.g. when choosing a life partner, or, in more escalated situations, when experiencing
battles of conscience and moral dilemmas, e.g. “Sophie’s Choice”). Thus, we experience
freedom practically, as the necessity of choice and decision-making, although it may be
denied theoretically (and only theoretically – as noted by Coreth, 1994, pp. 94-95). Even the
denial of freedom is an expression of our freedom: to deny freedom and accept a deterministic
worldview. The real practical experience of a person in the world, however, seems to
disrespect the theoretical arguments denying it. We assume this meaning of freedom when
meeting other people; we base the possibility of dialogue and discussion on it, and we
consider it a basis of free civil and political space.

However, according to Coreth, all of the daily practice of choosing freely between values, the
practice of decision-making and accepting responsibility has been based on an even more
original experience of freedom, called fundamental freedom. We can touch this freedom in
several ways and it comes to existence as if at various levels of human existence. This
original non-thematic awareness of freedom occurs in a person as a result of being released
from immediate natural instinctual determinacy (in comparison to animals,) emerging from
man´s essential openness to the world.

The same human experience with freedom is that our experience is limited. A person gets to
know himself or herself as a finite contingent being with limited, not absolute, freedom. This
contingency is given ontologically (by the finiteness of a human being), culturally and
historically (a wider social context sets the borders of free choices and acts,) and by an
individual unique context of a person (by the unique scale of values adopted). This last is,
however, as Coreth says, related to the authentic rational recognition of objective moral
values and ethical standards as the real restriction of our freedom. Ethical standards and a
moral relations to others are a specifically human phenomena which have been known in
various forms in every age and culture. It seems that neither the thesis of “strict” determinism,
nor the thesis of absolute freedom matches our daily experience.

Coreth seeks the metaphysical essence of freedom which refers to a man as a personal being.
First, Coreth explains that if the formal subject of reason is being as such, then its material
subject will include all richness of natural reality, which we can keep on cognising (virtually)
forever. Likewise, if the formal subject of will is the good or a value, then its material subject
includes wide range of the goods (values), from sensual to spiritual, even the Supreme Good
as the ultimate goal of our desires. The problem is, however, that many times we are forced to
choose between values, getting one, scarifying others. Moreover, each satisfaction is followed
by a hunger for another good and an ultimate satisfaction is not in sight. Coreth distinguishes
between two main types of values: the lower values (good-for-me) are related to the purpose
and benefit of a person (pleasant, beneficial, vitally useful), and the higher values (good-as-
such), such as moral values or the values of truth and beauty, we desire in and of themselves
and we approach them naturally by a “response of appreciation” (Coreth, 1994, pp. 108-109).
Correct spiritual knowledge allows us to distinguish between higher and lower values and
thus to perform a proper act of preference (Scheler). Thus, it is up to our freedom, whether we
choose the higher value or not. A value motivates, rather than determines, our choice.

I may want this or that, but I also might not want it. I even may want to want or not want not
to want. We always have our good reasons or counter-reasons, motives. Experience teaches us
that we are mostly able to distinguish the higher motives from the lower ones, even if the
lower motives could be affecting us by a greater motivational force. We may distinguish
higher motives and still choose the lower ones freely. “Motivational force rather depends on if
and how... we open ourselves to the motivation of a certain value and let it influence us. The
more we open ourselves, the stronger the motivation becomes and we – eventually – follow it
through psychological necessity. This does not cancel freedom, but it might suggest we had
freely decided long before the choice was clearly made... we had decided when choosing the
motives” (Coreth, 1994, p. 99). To use a metaphor, the decision is already made by taking the
train. The train then goes its course. We alone give the initial approval for a motive to
determine and guide our volition and acts. The space where this takes place is not a space of
nature and its determining forces, but rather a space of spirit, i.e. of freedom – as a uniquely
human space. Freedom is, therefore, according to Coreth, an essential element of human
personal being, who is (as specifically human) able to make responsible decisions and act
morally.

Task:
Chose and carry out one of the three following tasks:
1. Write a philosophical-anthropological reflection (5-7 standard pages) on the movie, The
Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998), using relevant literature.
2. Write a philosophical paper (5-7 standard pages) on the topic, “Freedom or determinism?”
using at least three relevant philosophical sources. Express your stance and defend it by your
reasoning in a discussion.
3. Using relevant literature, write a philosophical essay reflecting the issue of freedom on the
basis of G. Orwell’s book, 1984, or on the basis of philosophical reflection on “The Grand
Inquisitor” (part of F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov).
Print the paper and submit it in the following lesson.

Recommended literature:
(For recommended English sources consult your teacher)
CORETH, E.: Čo je člověk? Praha: Zvon, 1994, pp. 89 – 125.
LETZ, J.: Filozofická antropológia. Trnava: FF TU, pp. 80 – 110.
SARTRE, J.-P.: Existencializmus je humanizmus. Praha: Vyšehrad, 1996.10

6. THE PERSON AND THE CONSTITUTIVE DYNAMICS OF INTERPERSONAL

RELATIONSHIPS

the person – interpersonality – dynamic orientation – love - values

The term person was defined by E. Coreth as an “individual being of spiritual, thus conscious
and free being experienced as myself” (Coreth, 1994, p. 153), specifically constituted through
spiritual cognition, volition and action. The essence of a person is constituted by personal
relations; thus, “to be a person means to be existentially oriented to the personal being of
another” (Coreth, p. 155). M. Buber qualified a person simply as an accomplishment of a
personal relationship You – I11 (Buber, 1997); J. Sokol just mentions that a “person is
established and maintained where there are personal relationships” (Sokol, 2002, p. 15). On
the same basis of a substance-relational model of a person, S. Gálik formulates this integral
definition: A human person is an “individual 'I' accomplished in conscious self-possessing and
free self-disposing within relations with other persons” (Gálik, 2008, p. 124).

10
CORETH, E.: Was ist der Mensch?: Grundzüge einer philosophischen Anthropologie. Innsbruck, Wien,
München: Tyrolia 1973; SARTRE, J.-P.: L'existentialisme est un Humanisme, Éditions Nagel, Paris, 1946.
11
BUBER, M.: Já a Ty. Praha: Kalich, 2005.
Perhaps the most important phenomenologist of the person, M. Scheler, defined the person as
the centre of spiritual acts (Scheler, 1968, p. 66), while “spirit” is manifested as these acts and
through them (spiritual love, cognition, compassion, etc.). “Person exists in and through
spiritual acts” (Scheler, 1968, p. 74). M. Benköová notes that a person is, according to
Scheler, inevitably “characterised as unaccomplished” as it is a “dynamic becoming, constant
self-realisation” (Benköová, 2015, p. 61). Also in Scheler’s opinion, the constitution of a
person has always been taking place already within an interpersonal context, while loving is
the most significant constitutive moment guiding a person toward reaching his or her deepest
ontological possibilities. “On one hand, love is an act through which man reveals himself as
the person, and on the other an act focusing on another person. Love constitutes the person as
a centre of acts and is a peculiar ground of all acts. Its primacy has been found e.g. in
knowing, 12 rational as well as volitional acts; it is the basis of any perception of values and a
core of every preference (as a specific type of knowing values); it reveals its sense in moral
orientation of a person (contrary to Kant’s rigid formalism); it is the fundament of each
interpersonal interaction, including sympathy. However, this does not mean that all acts could
be reduced to love. Love is nevertheless the ground of all these acts, as it reveals the structure
of man as person to the deepest possible extent.”13 (Benköová, 2015, p. 80; cf. also Luther,
1972, p. 103).

The above mentioned qualities and aspects of the notion of person indicate that the
philosophical-anthropological search for the essence of man while focusing on maintaining
the integrity of a human being leads to the accentuation of the term interpersonality.
*
From the etymologic point of view, the Latin word persona may be derived from Gr.
“prosopon” composed of the prefix “pros” (to or towards) and “ops” (gen. opos), meaning
face, eye or appearance. “Pros-opon” thus means “my face is turned towards something or
someone” or “I am a counterpart of someone or something”. The word refers to an immediate
face-to-face relationship. In light of etymology, person refers to the irreplaceable uniqueness
and relationality of human reality, which has always and already been interpersonal
(Yannaras, 2007, p. 5). Already the primary semantic content does not allow defining a

12
Compare SCHELER, M.: Love and Knowledge. In: SCHELER, M.: Řád lásky. Praha: Vyšehrad, 1971, pp. 5 –
34.
13
“Love is the deepest act accessible to man; it constitutes a human being as a specificperson. As radically
personal, that is – also unique, it is the basis of all other acts. It is not man as a man, but man as person, who
loves.” (Luther, 1972, p. 100)
person as an isolated static individuality (e.g. in the sense of Descartes’ “cogito”). On the
contrary, it always defines an individual within personal relations as a dynamic and creative
orientation of an open, receptive and responsive unique individual life. The contemporary
Greek philosopher, Christos Yannaras, who focuses on a person constituted by personal love
(eros)14 emphasises the priority of being-a-person over the search for essence. Similarly, the
world of a man has always been already a personal world and our knowledge (of the world)
has already been personal knowledge, i.e. it is never “neutral”.

J. Sokol assumes another type of etymologic derivation. He derives the word persona from
the Etruscan word for “mask” (mask of an actor, a role), implying the meaning of social or
public identity or a role (Sokol, 2002, p. 18). Cicero says, a person has by nature two personas
(roles, natures) – one universal (as a human) and one unique (as an irreplaceable individual)
(Sokol, 2002, p. 1p).

The first known definition of a person has been attributed to Boethius (480-524), who
essentially defined a person as “Naturae rationalis individua substantia”, i.e. an individual
substance of a rational nature, or in other words, an “individual substance of the nature
endowed with reason” (Sokol, 2002, p. 5). From an historical point of view, the term “person”
and “personal” thus becomes related to the theological discussion regarding the Christian
Trinitarian mystery. The term occurred with a new sense in the 4th century, e.g. with Gregory
of Nyssa. The doctrine of the three divine persons of the Trinity became commonly used for
expressing the existence of God who reveals Himself in this peculiar ways throughout history.
The word “persona” 15 has been used for denoting God’s individual hypostases. The
hypostases acquired the meaning of Aristotle’s first substance and Gregory of Nyssa thus took
it for a synonym of “person” (Yannaras, 2007, p.16). Person as hypostasis is different from
mere essence (nature) because of the uniqueness and unlikeness of qualities. It is rather an
existential category, not an intellectual one; it precedes ontology and may not be objectified; it
is not part of the sphere of existence of the world’s beings. At the same time, person has been
defined by an essential dynamic relation to another person (similarly to the divine persons),
by a loving participation in the existence of another person. Person is a way of being of an
14
“This ecstatic self-transcendence necessarily refers to the fact of relationship. It is eros – as s a voluntary
ascetic renunciation of atomic (existential and intellectual) self-sufficiency, as a perfect self-offering in love,
always revealing the uniqueness and dissimilarity of circumstances of personal relationship” (Yannaras,
2007, p. XV).
15
Greek word “ousia” as essence, a substance; Greek “hypostasis” as an essential existence, individualised
existence (Yannaras, 2007, p. 15).
individual existence, who actualizes himself or herself as a relation (Yannaras, 2007, p.
18). This way is essential for the existence of a man as well; it is the sought essential
“definition”.
*
Even older theological connections may be genealogically revealed in Hebrew anthropology
which was the first to refer to the dynamic substance-relational model of a human as a person.
It is interesting that the Biblical view of a human has been somewhat “personal” since the
very beginning – even in several senses: in the sense of the ontological unity and integrity of a
human creature (e.g. the non-dualism of body and soul), in the sense of the dynamic
constitutive relationality (dialogic relation, moral relation, the relation of love), or in the sense
of the unique irreplaceable identity and personal vocation (the meaning of a “name” and
“calling”).

Biblical worldview has a personalistic as well as historical character. In the Book of Genesis,
man as Imago Dei is described as the crown and purpose of all creation (Gn1, 1:31). In the
first, earlier story of creation, God creates, because He freely wants – by the power of His
words – in six days (“Let there be light!”). Everything He creates has a highly positive value:
“Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” (Gn 1:31) Thus,
hereby we speak about positive anthropology, i.e. about anthropology characterized by a
positive relationship to life and all creation (spiritual as well as material) – contrary to e.g.
Gnostic or Platonic concepts refusing the material (and corporal) aspect of existence,
considering it inferior or subordinate to spiritual reality exclusively understood as divine. In
the following description of the creation of man (ha adam), humans were created from the
dust of the earth and God’s breath (spirit, ruach). Therefore, man is a being containing a
unique fusion of material and spiritual being. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being”
(Gn 2:7). From an anthropologic point of view, it is important that the phrase “living being”
or literally “a living soul”16 (Nefesh Chaya) which man turned into at the moment of his
creation, refers to the whole of a living human being – as a psychophysical unity
(Tresmontant, 1998, p. 90), which is all permeated by the very breath of God, spirit (ruach)

16
It is obvious that the Hebrew word for soul (nefesh) may not be identified with the Orphic-Platonic Greek term
“psyche”.
(Tresmontant, 1998, p.101). The spiritual is an integrated part of the physical (and
psychophysical); it is the mystery of God’s presence in the very centre of His creation.17

“In the beginning, there is the relation”, as Martin Buber writes in his work, I and Thou
(Buber, 2005, p. 59). This sentence, reminiscent of The Gospel of John, may be easily situated
in the biblical context of creation: man was created as a relational being and thus his essence
has been originally defined by relationships to God and to other persons. Sin, interpreted as a
violation of the interpersonal relationship of love between God and man, represents an
imperfect way of existence of a man who departed from his or her original orientation of
loving (“disobedience”, “shame”, “first fratricide”, etc.). This relationship may be renewed in
and through the loving relationships with others and with God, Loving Himself (Herself).
This is the meaning of redemption and the very core of the teachings of three greatest
monotheistic world religions, the religions of the so-called “Abrahamic tradition” (Judaism,
Christianity and Islam).

Man is a historical being – in the sense of humankind as well as his or her individual history.
He or she is existentially unaccomplished, opened toward the future, constantly “on the road”,
constantly being created in the process of his or her life. Man is an endless dynamic self-
transcendence: “In Hebrew worldview, human existence is “exodus”, i.e. going out (ex) to
journey (hodos) somewhere else – through a desert to the Promised “Land”. Thus, existence
has been defined as the ever-present “beyond”, exceeding the given “now” in its openness and
self-transcendence (Balabán, 1996, p. 14). The Hebrew way of thinking brings the discovery
and valorisation of history (expecting salvation or eschatological perspectives), the
introduction of linear time contrary to the cyclical time of myths18; it is the thinking of events,
motion, dynamics of free creativity and interactive relations. Man becomes a free co-creator
of his or her life; he or she chooses (in contrast to the necessity of fate given in myths) and
responds freely to the Deuteronomy call: “Choose life”19. He or she accepts full responsibility
for his or her moral decisions. On one hand, work becomes toil and the human lot, on the

17
“Hebrews had a great sense for physicality and love for her, precisely because they had a perfect sense for
what is spiritual, for the presence of spirit within the physical” (Tresmontant, 1998, p. 99).
18
Eliade mentions a mythical refusal of historicity and a fear to face the open uncertain future included in the
historical perspective. “Just as the Greeks, in their myth of eternal return, sought to satisfy their metaphysical
thirst for the “ontic” and the static, … even so the primitive, by confirming the cyclic time idea” (Eliade,
2009, pp. 78 – 79).
19
Dt 30:15 – 20.
other hand, it becomes the possibility of creative participation in creation, of developing
activities enriching the world and the community.

Eventually, in biblical anthropology, a personal relationship individualises and essentially

brings man to himself or herself; this is also implied in the symbolism of the “name” and
“calling”. The Hebrew word, “hineni”, meaning “Here I am”, is an existential answer when
one is addressed by his or her unique name in a face-to-face situation. Tresmontant wrote that
biblical metaphysics is the metaphysics of the name. God calls a person individually and
personally by his or her unique name, which is also an identification of a person in his or her
own uniqueness and vocational situation. The biblical event of calling (vocatio) is granting
identity in terms of individual vocation (good-in-itself-for-me – like in Scheler): “God wants
and creates individual creatures for themselves; their individual identities are unique and
irreplaceable” (Tresmontant, 1998, p. 94).
*
Viktor Emmanuel Frankl (1905-1997), a well-known Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist,
who addressed also the philosophical questions of meaning and suffering on the basis of his
own existential experience from Auschwitz20, was also influenced by the ideas of such
philosophers like M. Scheler, M. Buber or K. Jaspers. In his logotherapeutic practice, Frankl
“applied” and “verified” the validity of many of the mentioned philosophical ideas. Therefore,
we find his model of person worthy of attention and his ideas about the issue important – in
terms of philosophical anthropology research as well.

Frankl refused any form of reductionism, considering them variants of nihilism; he

distinguished three main types: physiologism as a reduction of a human being to his or her
physical reality, sociologism as a reduction to social reality and its unavoidable influences,
and psychologism as a reduction of a human being to his or her psychic states (Frankl, 2007,
p. 11, p. 14-73). He also claimed the existence of a spiritual dimension of a human being,
which is essentially intentional, existential and personal. As a spiritual being, a person
searches for meaning. He or she does it in and through this three ways:
1) creative act, work, work of art (and correlative creative values)
2) fulfilling kinds of experience, deep personal relationships, mainly love
(relational/interpersonal values)

20
His famous book, Saying Yes To Life In Spite Of Everything. FRANKL, V. E.: Napriek všetkému povedať
životu áno. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1998.
3) turning suffering to performance (attitudinal values)21.

Briefly, creativity–love–sacrifice are three spiritual events through which a person attributes
meaning to his or her existence. This meaning also constitutes and deepens oneself as a
person (Frankl, 2010, pp. 29-30). According to Frankl, an individuated human being – as an
integrated physical-psycho-spiritual unity – concentrates around and into a personal core
which is his or her spiritual and existential centre. He even specifies the ontological structure
of a human being by saying that rather than a personal core, it is a personal axis, going
through all the surrounding psychophysical layers, including consciousness, pre-
consciousness, unconsciousness. (Frankl, 2005, pp. 23-24).

Frankl defines the meaning of person in his ten interrelated theses (Frankl, 2010, p. 118):
1) The person as an individual is an undividable unity.
2) The person as a unit is irreducible to a greater unit (nation, race, state).
3) Every person as a spiritual being is an absolute “novelty” (perfectly unique and
irreproducible).
4) The person may not be identified with the psychophysical organism; the person is
spiritual. In comparison to person, an organism has an instrumental and expressive function –
the person acts and expresses him or herself through and as organism. This also means that a
physical or mental illness does not detract from the uniqueness, interchangeability and dignity
of a specific human person.
5) The person is existential – he or she does not belong to facticity; the person is free. The
free choice is a privilege of a person, a following responsibility is his or her “burden”.22
6) The person as autonomous and irreducible is part of an “I” dimension (contrary to “It”). A
so-called “instinctual I” possessed by its drives is absurd and impossible in this sense. There
is also “spiritual unconsciousness” – contrary to “instinctual unconsciousness” (dimension of
“It”), which is the origin of the “unconscious religiosity” as well.23

21
This technical-sounding formulation does not imply that Frankl wanted to introduce suffering as something
positive (in the sense of personal performance). But he says that suffering is the highest achievement a person
is capable of, i.e. in the passivity of suffering that cannot be removed or mitigated, he or she still has an
opportunity to take a spiritual stance of acceptance and turn it into a sacrifice in blind faith in some kind of
attributed meaning (Frankl, 2013, pp. 83-85).
22
“The person… is not determined by instincts; he is oriented towards meaning… He does not pursue pleasures,
but values” (Frankl, 2010, p. 118).
23
Instincts and instinctive determination would belong to the vital sphere – man as organism. On the contrary,
freedom, responsibility, search for meaning and actualisation of values belong to the spiritual sphere – the
sphere of the person. “Man is attracted by values, they do not press him” (Frankl, 2007, p. 38).
7) The person founds and keeps the unity and wholeness of a physical-psycho-spiritual human
being, who has always been oneness already. A spiritual person is capable of a distant point
of view regarding the psycho-physical dimension of his or her own being; he or she can
observe and reflect himself or herself, and say “no” to his or her lower motives or drives.
8) A person is no static substance; it is rather a spiritual dynamic and open orientation.
9) For now it seems, that only a human may be called a person; animals lack “ex-centricity”.
Through the conscious relation to his or her being, a person is able to reflect or question a
partial as well as holistic meaning of his or her existence.
10) The person always exists in relation to the transcendence and constitutes itself as the
person through it. Thus, humans are (in a broad sense) religious beings, even though it would
be just unconscious religiosity. The structure of the human person essentially assumes the
withdrawal from “himself” and turning to what exceeds man (human You, divine You,
destiny, universal love, higher meaning of the universe – no matter how veiled or vague, etc.)
(Frankl, 2010, p. 118). “Man is, therefore, characterised by a phenomenon we consider
essentially anthropological: the self-transcendence of human existence! By this I mean the
fact that a human being always points above himself - to something he is not himself - to
something or someone: to a meaning to be accomplished, or another human being he meets in
love” (Frankl, 2013, p. 11).

The question of interpersonality as an essential constitutive element of the person is related to

a peculiar understanding of the transcendence and the existentiality of a human being. We will
illustrate this via Frankl’s commentaries on a charming rabbinical story. The story portrays
heaven and hell metaphorically; however, Frankl perceives them rather as the two existential
orientations or states of a person. A righteous man came to the other world. First, he found
himself in a dining room. There were many skinny, sad and moaning people sitting at a big
table – yet there was a lot of delicious food on the table. In their hands, they had spoons
almost three metres long, so they were not able to have even a small bite. But instead of
feeding their neighbour sitting on the opposite side, they were sitting there hungry and
unhappy. Contrarily, in heaven’s dining room, there was joyful laughing and friendly talk
accompanying the feast. Everyone was feeding his neighbour with his spoon and they were all
satisfied and full. Frankl says: “The spoon is intentionality... You cannot direct your
intentional act to yourself, only to something, which is not yourself. However, through
reciprocity human existence becomes a possibility, because you are, I may say, a self-
transcendence of another one.”(Frankl, Lapide, 2005, p. 78).
In this sense, it is only possible to become a person through mutual interpersonal activity,
focusing on one another. Similarly, Frankl mentions a personal self-realisation – a personal
fulfilment and happiness: the direct way is doomed to frustration and failure, harrowing
isolation (as in the story of the spoon). A man may only achieve the fullness and depth of his
or her personal being indirectly; only indirectly – “accidentally he comes to self-
accomplishment, personal fulfilment and happiness – by an existential indirectness, through
the intentional focus on You”.24 The story reveals probably the greatest paradox of the
autonomous existence of a human being. “When giving himself to a task to accomplish or to
love another person, man actualises himself. The more he gives himself to his tasks, the more
he gives himself to his partner, the more human he is, and the more he becomes himself. So
he is able to fulfil himself only as much as he forgets himself, as he overlooks himself.
Similarly, an eye is able to see, though this depends on it not seeing itself” (Frankl, 2013, p.
12).

Recommended literature:
(For recommended English sources consult your teacher)
BUBER, M.: Já a ty. Praha: Kalich, 2005.
BUBER, M.: Problém člověka. Praha: Kalich, 1997.
TRESMONTANT, C.: Bible a antická tradice. Praha: Vyšehrad, 1998., pp. 83 – 134.
FRANKL, V. E.: Trpiaci človek. Bratislava: Lúč, 2007.25

Task:
Select and carry out one of the following tasks:
1. “The Person as the Transcendence” – write a philosophical-anthropological reflection (5-7
standard pages) on the movie, Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966), using relevant
philosophical literature.

24
Frankl’s dialogue partner, rabbi Pinchas Lapide, made the following comment on the existential “mechanism”:
“Man who lives and exists just for himself, it means, he is obsessed by his “self-performance”, will eventually
shrink, thicken and gradually die spiritually. ´I´ he desperately adheres to, has been degenerating him into a cold
and spiritless ´it´, because his soul has been prevented from its ability to shine and influence the others, as
requested by his true essence, be a free man who tries to rise above himself, inclines to another one and
experiences his happy self-finding in a giving love” (Frankl, Lapide, 2005, p. 73).
25
BUBER, M.: Das Problem des Menschen. Gütersloher Verlagshaus; Auflage, 2001; Ich und Du. Gütersloher
Verlagshaus; Auflage, 1999; TRESMONTANT, C.: Essai sur la pensée hébraïque, éd. O.E.I.L., 1953
(réédition 1956); FRANKL, V. E.: Der leidende Mensch. Anthropologische Grundlagen der Psychotherapie.
Huber, Bern, 1975–2005.
2. Write a free philosophical reflection (5-7 standard pages) on the movie, Persona (I.
Bergman, 1966), using appropriate philosophical literature.
3. Write a philosophical paper (5-7 standard pages) on “The Person According to Max
Scheler” on the basis of a more thorough study of the primary and secondary literature.
Print the paper and submit it in the following lesson.

7. APPENDIX: SHORT EXERCISE BOOK AND CLOSING REMARKS

(Answering the questions here requires a thorough knowledge of the recommended literature)

1. Describe the age, subject, topics and methods of philosophical anthropology in the 20th
century (“modern” philosophical anthropology).
2. Name the main representatives of modern philosophical anthropology; name their key
works and sum up their philosophical intention briefly.
3. The primary forms of human self-interpretation – mythical and religious man.
4. Myth as a symbolic form according to E. Cassirer.
5. Explain the relationship between spirit and life in Scheler’s work, The Human Place in the
Cosmos. What does his “sublimatory” solution consist of?
6. What is the meaning of Scheler’s term “ideation”? Give examples.
7. How does Scheler understand “Deitas” and his relationship to man and the world?
8. The anthropological model of man in the biblical tradition.
9. What levels of “the psychic” (vital principles) does Scheler identify in the order of vital
being? Describe their basic characteristic features as well.
10. Describe the concept of “ex-centricity” and assign it to an author and his work.
11. Introduce the aspect of “spiritual cognition” of man according to Emerich Coreth and the
three “elements” it has.
12. Name and describe the forms of knowledge according to Max Scheler.
13. Name and describe the philosophical-anthropological contribution of E. Cassirer: “animal
symbolicum”.
14. Look at the relation between knowledge – volition – freedom and morality according to E.
Coreth. Explain the concepts of “fundamental freedom” and “virtual infinity”.
15. Explain the relation between feelings (emotions) and values according to Max Scheler.
Explain his notion of “the person”. What is “ordo amoris”?
16. What is compatibilism? Give examples of such philosophical solutions of the question of
freedom.
17. Introduce Frankl’s model of man.
18. Explain the importance of culture in H. Plessner’s philosophical anthropology. What does
“mediated immediacy” mean?
19. Explain the importance of technology in A. Gehlen’s philosophical anthropology. Why
does he consider it a part of the very human nature?
20. Explain the etymology and development of the concept of “the person” and define it as an
existential category.
21. Describe the image of man in the thought of ancient Hebrew thought.
22. Look at Buber’s understanding of interpersonality. What does his criticism of M. Scheler
consist of?
*
We have introduced the fundamental topics and issues of philosophical anthropology and we
have mentioned the authors that are influential in the field. A student (or a reader) may test his
or her knowledge of the selected chapters of philosophical anthropology by answering the
above mentioned questions; their role is to sum up the issue in the form of questions. There
are many topics concerning philosophical anthropology research which would be worthy of
special attention and space, and we have not included and dealt with all of them here. Each of
them has their specific problem fields, philosophical solutions and implications. These are, for
example, how to find and qualify the human “essence” or the discussion on the essential
definition of man; the well-known issue of psycho-physical dualism and the dualism of the
spiritual and material in human existence (mind-body problem); or the issue of the final
destination of man – death or possibly immortality (Letz, 2011); the issue of individual
personal identity; evolution and creation; search for the meaning of human being, etc. We also
could have focused on other authors who contributed or have contributed to the explanation of
the philosophical and anthropological problems of man (K. Lorenz, C. Lévi-Strauss,
existentialists, etc.). Questions we can pose within the field of philosophical anthropology are
innumerable. Today, philosophical anthropology is as up-to-date as it was in the times of Max
Scheler. No doubt, the question What is man? remains inexhaustible for both scientific and
philosophical research.
Bibliography:

AGASSI, J.: Towards a Rational Philosophical Anthropology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1977.
BALABÁN, M.: Hebrejské člověkosloví. Praha : Herrman a synové, 1996.
BENKÖOVÁ, M.: K fenomenológii osoby Maxa Schelera. In: TRAJTELOVÁ, J. -
BENKÖOVÁ, M.: Od intersubjektivity k interpersonalite. Trnava: Filozofická fakulta TU,
2015.
BUBER, M.: Já a ty. Praha: Kalich, 2005.
BUBER, M.: Problém člověka. Praha: Kalich, 1997.
CASSIRER, E.: Esej o člověku. Bratislava: Pravda, 1977.
CASSIRER, E: Filozofia symbolických foriem. Praha: Oikoymenh, 1996.
CORETH, E.: Co je člověk? Praha: Zvon, 1994.
ELIADE, M.: Mýtus o věčném návratu. Praha: Oikoymenh, 2009.
FRANKL, V. E. – LAPIDE, P.: Hľadanie Boha a otázka zmyslu. Bratislava: Lúč, 2009.
FRANKL, V. E.: A přesto říci životu ano. Kostelní Vydří: Karmelitánské nakladatelství,
2006.
FRANKL, V. E.: Neuvedomený Boh. Bratislava: Lúč, 2005.
FRANKL, V. E.: Utrpenie z nezmyselného života. Bratislava: Lúč, 2013.
FRANKL, V. E.: Trpiaci človek. Bratislava: Lúč, 2007.
FRANKL, V. E.: Vôľa k zmyslu. Bratislava: Lúč, 2010.
GÁLIK, S.: Filozofická antropológia. Bratislava: Iris, 2008.
GEHLEN, A.: Duch ve světe techniky. Praha: Svoboda, 1972, s. 29 – 47.
HODOVSKÝ, I.: Max Scheler – filosof ducha a citu. In: SCHELER, M.: Můj filosofický
pohled na svět. Praha: Vyšehrad, 2003, s. 9-103.
HUSSERL, E.: Krize evropských věd a transcendentální fenomenologie. Praha: Academia,
1996.
KANOVSKÝ, M.: Kultúra a sociálna antropológia. Osobnosti a teórie. Bratislava: Chronos,
2004.
KOWALCZYK, S.: An Outline of the Philosophical ANthropology. Peter Lang, 1991.
LANDMANN, M.: Philosophische Antropologie: Menschliche Selbstdarstellung in
Geschichte und Gegenwart. Berlin, 1982.
LETZ, J.: Filozofická antropológia. Bratislava: Charis, 1994.
LÉVINAS, E.: Totalita a nekonečno. Praha. Oikoymenh, 1997.
LORENZ, K.: Osm smrtelných hříchů. In: BLECHA, I. (ed.): Filosofická čítanka. Olomouc:
Nakladatelství Olomouc, 2000, s. 464-469.
LUTHER, A. R.: The Articulated Unity of Being in Scheler’s Phenomenology. Basic Drive
and Spirit. In: FRINGS, M. S. (ed.): Max Scheler (1974 – 1928). Centennial Essays. The
Hague: Martinus Nijhof, 1974, s. 1 – 42.
LUTHER, A. R.: Persons in Love. A Study of Max Scheler’s Wesen und Formen der
Sympathie. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972.
MARCEL, G.: Člověk jako problém. In: BENDLOVÁ, P.: Hodnoty v existenciální filosofii
Gabriela Marcela. Praha: Academia, 2003, s. 79 – 131.
MIRANDOLA della, P.: O dôstojnosti človeka. In: SEILEROVÁ, B.: O dôstojnosti človeka.
Odkaz Giovanniho Pica della Mirandola. Bratislava: Iris, 1999.
PALMER, D.: Does the center hold? In introduction to Western philosophy. NY: The
McGraw-Hill Companiess, Inc., 2008.
PASCAL, B. Myšlenky. Praha: Odeon, 1973.
PATOČKA, J.: Max Scheler. Pokus celkové charakteristiky. In: SCHELER, M. Místo člověka
v kosmu. Praha: Academia. 1968, s. 5 – 41.
PLESSNER, H.: Člověk jako živá bytost. In: BLECHA, I. (ed.): Filosofická čítanka.
Olomouc: Nakladatelství Olomouc, 2000, s. 446 – 449.
RÖD, W. - HOLZHEY, H.: Filosofická antropologie. In: Filosofie 19. a 20. storočia II.
Praha: Oikoymenh, 2006, s. 287 – 322.
SARTRE, J.: Existencializmus je humanizmus. Praha: Vyšehrad, 1996.
SEILEROVÁ, B.: Človek vo filozofickej antropológii. Bratislava: Iris, 1995.
SCHELER, M.: Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values. Manfred S. Frings
and Roger L. Funk (trs.), Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973.
SCHELER, M.: The Nature of Sympathy. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2008.
SCHELER, M.: Řád lásky. Praha: Vyšehrad, 1971.
SCHELER, M.: Místo člověka v kosmu. Praha: Academia, 1968.
SCHELER, M.: O studu. Praha: Mladá fronta, 1993.
SCHELER, M.: On the Eternal in Man. Bernard Noble (tr.), London: SCM Press, 1960.
SCHELER, M.: Můj filozofický pohled na svet. Praha: Vyšehrad, 2003.
SKINNER, F.: Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Suffolk: The Chaucer Press, 1976.
SOKOL, J.: Filosofická antropologie. Praha: Portál, 2002.
SOKOL, J.: Malá filosofie člověka. Slovník filosofických pojmů. Praha: Vyšehrad, 2004.
SOUKUP, V.: Teorie člověka a kultury. Praha: Portál, 2011.
ŠLOSIAR, J.: Od antropologizmu k filozofickej antropológii. Bratislava: Iris, 2002.
TRESMONTANT, C.: Bible a antická tradice. Praha: Vyšehrad, 1998.
TRAJTELOVÁ, J.: Kognitívna antropológia: Vybrané problémy. Trnava: Filozofická fakulta
Trnavskej univerzity, 2013.
TRAJTELOVÁ, J.: Vzdialenosť a blízkosť mystiky. Kraków/Trnava: Towarzystwo Słowaków
w Polsce/Filozofická fakulta Trnavskej univerzity v Trnave, 2011.
YANNARAS, CH: Person and Eros. Brookline, Massachutsetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press,
2007.
YANNARAS, CH: Relational Ontology. Brookline, Massachutsetts: Holy Cross Orthodox
Press, 2011.
YANNARAS, CH.: Variations on the Song of Songs. Brookline, Massachutsetts: Holy Cross
Orthodox Press, 2005.
ZVARÍK, M.: Predsudok vo fenomenológii každodennosti. Kraków/Trnava: Towarzystwo
Słowaków w Polsce/Filozofická fakulta Trnavskej univerzity v Trnave, 2011.