Publication Details

Abstract

The study, dedicated to the complex problem of philosophical anthropology is an endeavour to present an outline of theory of man. The author tries to demonstrate the inconsistencies of general anthropology as a science on man. These inconsistencies flow from the inability to give an integral, systematic interpretation of the essential sings of human reality. Anthropology was not able to resist to the tendencies aiming at the reduction of the essence of man some time to its physicallybiological and physiological, another time to social components. Hence, according to the author, philosophical anthropology is unavoidable, or at least a philosophy on man is needed, i. e., a philosophy which issues from and fully respects all the knowledge on man obtained by means of the different scientific disciplines (archeology, paleontology, physiology, psychology, sociology. etc.), which, however, tends to integrate all this knowledge, and which tries to elaborate — at the level of philosophical considerations — an integrated, coherent theory on man. This actually means that it aims at an ontologic assessment of the essence of man. The author critically analyzes some attempts made at philosophical antropology from the positions of idealism, and he tries to prove that a scientifically based theory on man can be established exclusively on the basis of a scientifically-materialistic philosophy. His point of departure is the known statement of K. Marx according to which the basical specifity of man is the fact of selfcreation by the proper work of man. By his work man creates a humanized world, he considers himself as a new dimension of objective reality. By work the main motif of which is a project, an idea of his future, man starts from natural and sociological conditions, he becomes aware of their determination; at the same time, however, he transceeds them by making them anthropomorphous, i. e., giving them human features and mission.