Philosophical Anthropology

Philosophical Anthropology is the discipline that seeks to unify the several empirical investigations of human nature
in an effort to understand individuals as both creatures of their environment and creators of their own values.
The word anthropology was first used in the philosophical faculties of German universities at the end of the 16th
century to refer to the systematic study of man as a physical and moral being. Philosophical anthropology is thus,
literally, the systematic study of man conducted within philosophy or by the reflective methods characteristic of
philosophy; it might in particular be thought of as being concerned with questions of the status of man in the
universe, of the purpose or meaning of human life, and, indeed, with the issues of whether there is any such meaning
and of whether man can be made an object of systematic study.
What actually falls under the term philosophical anthropology, however, varies with conceptions of the nature and
scope of philosophy. The fact that such disciplines as physics, chemistry, and biology--which are now classified as
natural sciences--were until the 19th century all branches of natural philosophy serves as a reminder that
conceptions of philosophy have changed.
Twentieth-century readings of philosophical anthropology are much narrower than those of previous centuries. Four
possible meanings are now accepted:

the account of man that is contained in any comprehensive philosophy;

a particular philosophical orientation known as humanism, in which the study of man provides the
foundation for all else--a position that has been prominent since the Renaissance;

a distinctive, 20th-century form of humanism that on occasion has claimed the label of "philosophical
anthropology" for itself and that has taken the human condition, the personal being-in-the-world, as its
starting point;

any study of man that is regarded as unscientific.

Philosophical anthropology has been used in the last sense by 20th-century antihumanists for whom it has become a
term of abuse; antihumanists have insisted that if anthropology is to be possible at all it is possible only on the
condition that it rejects the concept of the individual human subject. Humanism, in their eyes, yields only a
prescientific, and hence a philosophical (or ideological), nonscientific anthropology.
By tracing the development of the philosophy of man, it will thus be possible to deal, in turn, with the four meanings
of philosophical anthropology. First, however, it is necessary to discuss the concept of human nature, which is
central to any anthropology and to philosophical debates about the sense in which and the extent to which man can
be made an object of systematic, scientific study.