History of Philosophy

Schools of Contemporary Philosophy

Philosophy of Man

One of the central themes in contemporary philosophy is the problem of humanity. The study of this topic in the 20th and 21st centuries is both rich and multifaceted. At the beginning of the 20th century, a school emerged in Germany, which its proponents termed philosophical anthropology. This school focused on human beings as its central concern. Its foundations were laid by Max Ferdinand Scheler (1874—1928), Helmuth Plessner (1892—1985), and Arnold Karl Franz Gehlen (1904—1976). Scheler described human beings as creatures endowed with diverse forces: physical, psychological, and spiritual. Through spirit, humanity is capable of transcendence, or moving beyond the world, which Scheler called a breakthrough. A breakthrough (the achievement of human spirit) is possible only when the spirit can harmonize the forces of body and soul and direct them towards a set goal. Spirit and the capacity for breakthrough are defining characteristics of humanity, distinguishing it from all other creatures. Plessner extended the study of human characteristics, asserting that the distinguishing feature of plants is their inseparability from the world; for animals, it is their having a center of being within themselves; and for humans, it is that the center of their being lies outside themselves, meaning that humans do not identify solely with their biological and psychological essence but transcend themselves. Gehlen, another representative of the philosophical anthropology school, also explored the distinctive features of human nature that set humans apart from other creatures. He posited that animals are aided by instincts and physical predispositions for survival, while humans lack such developed instincts and physical predispositions. Instead, humans are aided by what they have developed for their own benefit—social institutions.

Dutch philosopher and historian Johan Huizinga (1872—1945) approached the study of humanity from a different perspective. He defined humanity as homo ludens (the playing being). Play is the primary means of socializing children. As children grow, they continue to play, but the nature of their play changes. Social institutions, behavioral norms, role distribution, fashion, and beliefs—these are elements of play that are valuable only within the context of that play.

French scholar and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881—1955) argued that all existence is in a constant state of evolutionary development. Everything is created by God. This means that God is the alpha point for everything (the first letter of the Greek alphabet). Evolution is directed towards God; it leads to becoming like Him. Thus, God is the omega point for everything (the last letter of the Greek alphabet). The highest achievement of evolution is the emergence of the noosphere, or the sphere of human consciousness.

Austrian philosopher and Jesuit priest Karl Rahner (1904—1984) adopted Martin Heidegger's ideas that human essence is defined by what it is directed towards. Heidegger referred to this directedness as existential. Rahner expanded on this notion, showing that humanity is directed beyond its own being, towards transcendence. Thus, a defining feature of humanity is the transcendent existential, or the direction of humanity beyond the world and its own nature, towards God.

Among the philosophical movements centered on the study of humanity, existentialism has had the most significant impact on philosophical discourse. The starting point of this school’s considerations was the distinction between essence and existence, as established by Thomas Aquinas. Thomas proved that any substance is defined by two characteristics: it is (i.e., has existence) and it is something (i.e., has essence). Existentialists claimed that humans are unique beings because they possess only existence (they are) but lack essence (they have no inherent nature). Humans choose who they will be, thus independently shaping their essence.

The necessity of self-definition places humans in a position of conflict with nature, society, and reality; they must constantly make choices and bear responsibility for them. This leads to anxiety and unease. Humans strive for happiness but encounter misfortune, desire health but face illness; they wish to live but, despite their efforts, face death. All this transforms human life into an absurdity. The absurdity of human life and the resulting anxiety are central themes in existentialism. The first thinker to articulate existentialist ideas was Søren Kierkegaard (1813—1855), whose ideas, though not widely resonant in his time, were vigorously embraced in the 20th century and gave rise to one of the most influential philosophical movements. Influential existentialists included Karl Theodore Jaspers (1883—1969), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905—1980), Albert Camus (1913—1960), Gabriel Honoré Marcel (1889—1973), and others. Among existentialists, there were both Christians and non-believers. A key difference in their views is that Christian existentialists noted that the perspective of death makes human life absurd, but the resurrection of the dead at the end of time resolves this absurdity; whereas, for non-believing existentialists, the absurdity of human existence is insurmountable.

Personalism is grounded in the principle that the human person reveals and realizes itself exclusively through dialogue. To engage in genuine dialogue, an individual must form relationships with others based on the "I-Thou" principle, seeing the other as a person rather than as an "I-It," where others are merely means to one's own ends. Personalists emphasize that relationships should adhere to the "I-Thou" principle at all levels: with God, with other people, with nature, and with oneself. Notable figures in personalism include Martin Buber (1878—1965), Franz Rosenzweig (1886—1929), Eugen Moritz Friedrich Rosenstock-Huessy (1888—1973), and Emmanuel Levinas (1905—1995).

Psychology has had a profound impact on the development of the philosophy of humanity in the 20th century, with some branches closely intertwined with philosophical anthropology. In 1875, Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832—1920) established the world's first experimental psychology laboratory, marking the beginning of psychology's rapid development. Experimental psychology, based on empirical experimentation, evolved into various schools worldwide. Early in the 20th century, behaviorism emerged—a branch of psychology that posits human behavior as the primary subject of study, as it provides empirical data for examination. The founder of behaviorism was John Broadus Watson (1878—1958). His ideas were further developed by Edward Lee Thorndike (1874—1949), Clark Leonard Hull (1884—1952), Albert Bandura (b. 1925), among others.

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, a significant psychological school in Central Europe (Austria and Germany) was Gestalt psychology, which focused on the study of human perception of reality. Gestalt psychologists argued that reality is a vast array of phenomena that cannot and need not be fully encompassed. The human mind organizes the received information about reality into Gestalts (wholes or structures). Gestalt psychology includes several schools: the Berlin School, which included Max Wertheimer (1880—1943), Kurt Koffka (1886—1941), and Wolfgang Köhler (1887—1967); the Second Leipzig School, which included Felix Krüger (1874—1948) and Friedrich Sander (1889—1971); and the Graz School, which included Alexius Meinong (1853—1920), Vittorio Benussi (1878—1927), and Stefan Vitašek (1870—1915), among others.

Depth psychology, focusing on the internal world of the individual rather than external data (behavior, reactions), has also significantly impacted the philosophy of humanity. Proponents of depth psychology explored the unconscious and instincts. The founder of depth psychology was Sigmund Freud (1856—1939), who described the human psyche as a complex composed of consciousness (Ego), the unconscious (Id), which represents instinctual drives, and the superego (Superego), which consists of social norms regulating human behavior and worldview. Freud defined psychic life as a struggle between two fundamental instincts: the sexual instinct (libido), which drives humans to reproduce and thus ensures the survival of the species, and the instinct for self-preservation or fear of death, which concerns the survival of the individual. Fear of death constrains libido, compelling it to seek unnatural forms of expression. One such manifestation is sublimation, or the redirection of energies towards creativity.

Sometimes, libido breaks through the unconscious in the form of neuroses and psychoses, which Freud identified as causes of mental illness. Following Freud, other scholars further developed depth psychology. Carl Gustav Jung (1875—1961) initiated analytical psychology, studying the role of the collective unconscious and its archetypes in mental life. He demonstrated that the unconscious is not individual but collective, shaped by humanity's experiences over millennia. Alfred Adler (1870—1937), founder of individual psychology, emphasized that adult psychic life is determined by complexes formed in childhood. Erich Fromm (1900—1980), the founder of humanistic psychoanalysis, explored the relationship between freedom and responsibility.

The schools and branches of psychology in the 20th century made significant contributions to the development of the philosophical concept of humanity. Abraham Harold Maslow (1908—1970), the founder of humanistic psychology, analyzed the needs guiding the behavior of a healthy person. He argued for a hierarchy of human needs known as the "Maslow's Hierarchy," which he classified as physiological, safety, love, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, and self-actualization. Rollo Reese May (1909—1994), the founder of existential psychology, applied existentialist concepts to explain the nature of the psyche. Awareness of life's absurdity and anxiety are seen as sources of all psychological problems. Viktor Emil Frankl (1905—1997) examined the role of finding meaning in life for mental well-being, noting that the ultimate form of loss of meaning is suicide. However, many people who do not have suicidal tendencies express loss of meaning through other psychological or antisocial manifestations, such as alcoholism or depression. Frankl assessed these issues from the perspective of loss of meaning.

Another branch of psychology closely linked to philosophy is cognitive psychology. Scholars in this field investigated human cognitive abilities. Jean Piaget (1896—1980) studied the development and changes in a child's cognitive abilities, demonstrating that cognitive mechanisms differ between children and adults. Other cognitive psychologists researched psychological development levels, intelligence quotients, and cognitive capacities. Their methods are actively used by personnel selection professionals in business corporations, the military, and public service.

An important step in studying human intellectual activity is neuro-linguistic programming. Linguist Richard Bandler (b. 1950) and programmer John Thomas Grinder (b. 1940) concluded that the success of psychotherapists, whose methods they studied, relies on a form of psychological programming achieved through language. Successful psychotherapists use specific linguistic constructions that positively affect the human psyche. Thus, language can be a tool for programming the psyche, leading to its liberation from disturbances. This programming resembles computer programming.