Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction Philosophy and Anthropology in Dialogues and Conversations
- Part I Nurturing the Field: Towards Mutual Fecundation and Transformation of Philosophy and Anthropology
- Chapter 1 The Project of Philosophical Anthropology
- Chapter 2 The Self-Preservation of Man: Remarks on the Relation between Modernity and Philosophical Anthropology
- Chapter 3 Whither Modernity? Hybridization, Postoccidentalism, Postdevelopment and Transmodernity
- Chapter 4 Philosophical Anthropology and Philosophy in Anthropology
- Chapter 5 The Engagement of Philosophy and Anthropology in the Interpretive Turn and Beyond: Towards an Anthropology of the Contemporary
- Chapter 6 Mediation through Cognitive Dynamics: Philosophical Anthropology and the Conflicts of Our Time
- Chapter 7 Philosophy as Anthropocentrism: Language, Life and Aporia
- Part II Sources of Philosophical Anthropology
- Part III Philosophical Anthropology at Work
- Afterword The Return of Philosophical Anthropology
Chapter 6 - Mediation through Cognitive Dynamics: Philosophical Anthropology and the Conflicts of Our Time
from Part I - Nurturing the Field: Towards Mutual Fecundation and Transformation of Philosophy and Anthropology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction Philosophy and Anthropology in Dialogues and Conversations
- Part I Nurturing the Field: Towards Mutual Fecundation and Transformation of Philosophy and Anthropology
- Chapter 1 The Project of Philosophical Anthropology
- Chapter 2 The Self-Preservation of Man: Remarks on the Relation between Modernity and Philosophical Anthropology
- Chapter 3 Whither Modernity? Hybridization, Postoccidentalism, Postdevelopment and Transmodernity
- Chapter 4 Philosophical Anthropology and Philosophy in Anthropology
- Chapter 5 The Engagement of Philosophy and Anthropology in the Interpretive Turn and Beyond: Towards an Anthropology of the Contemporary
- Chapter 6 Mediation through Cognitive Dynamics: Philosophical Anthropology and the Conflicts of Our Time
- Chapter 7 Philosophy as Anthropocentrism: Language, Life and Aporia
- Part II Sources of Philosophical Anthropology
- Part III Philosophical Anthropology at Work
- Afterword The Return of Philosophical Anthropology
Summary
Introduction
In the light of a heightened sense of contingency and vulnerability, a pronounced uncertainty has set in since the late twentieth century about human nature and, hence, the image of the human being. This has been fuelled further by the recognition of the inherent ambiguity of these concepts. Awareness of the precariousness of our assumptions about what human beings are like has not only affected intellectuals, prompting philosophers and social scientists to embark on a searching interrogation, but has also penetrated into the policymaking and the public domain. While philosophers and social scientists may still be able, during the process of reflection, to maintain a sense of the difficulty and even impossibility of finding something to take the place of these problematic assumptions, the reaction of many who feel the need for a more secure foundation is to fix on a particular interpretation. The sources of such interpretations are diverse, and as a result we are witnesses to a proliferation of polarization and conflict at a variety of levels in contemporary society – between science and religion, secularists and believers, North and South, winners and losers of globalization, the West and Islamism, and so forth.
Under these conditions, the old question of philosophical anthropology has made a strong reappearance. This event is accompanied by the urgent demand to come to a better understanding of its core problematic and how the latter could possibly relate to the contemporary situation, particularly to the polarization and conflicts of our time. Answering this call is what I propose to undertake in the following paragraphs.
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- Information
- Philosophy and AnthropologyBorder Crossing and Transformations, pp. 105 - 122Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2013