emergence of Christianity has turned philosophical understanding of human problems - instead of being one of the elements of the universe as was the case for antiquity, it has come to occupy a particular place given to him by God.On the one hand, it was created by God for a special mission, on the other - separated from him as a result of the fall.Thus, the theological thinking of the first centuries of our era is the essence of a man on a dualistic manner, chopped.In the Christian philosophy of the Middle Ages it was dominated by the doctrine that the divine and human nature is the same as in the image of Christ.Christ became man, without ceasing to be God, and at the same time each person by virtue of the grace of communion, close to Christ.
This is a unique place in the cosmos, between vale of sorrow and God do for the thinkers of the Renaissance thus "microcosm", which, they believed, is directly related to the macrocosm (and in this match as the pantheism and Christian mysticism).Assuming that a person no one and nothing can be compared, and Nicholas of Cusa and Paracelsus and Boehme stated that "the macrocosm and the microcosm - is the essence of one."However, the new European rationalism differently raised the question of what is the essence of man.Since the time of Descartes at the forefront of the definition laid down the ability to think, because the specifics of rationalism being people see it in mind.If Descartes thus saw the connection between the physical and spiritual components of a psychophysical paralellizm, the Leibniz believed them inseparable.The Age of Enlightenment, thanks to La Mettrie, gave us the aphorism such as "man-machine", as the French philosopher believed that the soul is identical with consciousness, reacts to external and internal stimuli.
In the XVIII century, the problem of "the essence of man that he is," became one of the basic philosophical questions.For example, Kant proceeds from a dualistic understanding of a reasonable being, belonging to different "universes" - natural necessity and moral.He calls the physiology of all that makes human nature, and pragmatics - that it is a rational creature does or is able to make himself self.However, other members of the classical philosophy of Germany was taken as a model representation of the Renaissance (for example, Herder, Goethe, advocates of "natural philosophy of romanticism").Herder said that the people - this is the first freedman nature, because his feelings are not as regulated as in animals, and are able to create culture, and even Novalis called history of applied anthropology.
The Spirit of Hegel's philosophy comes from the nature of the onset of a rational being.The essence of human self-understanding Hegel is the absolute idea.At first, she is aware of itself as a subjective (anthropology, phenomenology, psychology);then - as an objective (law, morality, state);and finally as absolute Spirit (art, religion and philosophy).With the creation of the last completed history of ideas and the spirit as it returns to itself, according to the law of negation of negation.In general, the German philosophy of this period, believes that people are the subjects of spiritual activity, which creates the world of culture, bearers of a common ideal and a reasonable start.
Already Feuerbach criticized Hegel, understands man as a sensual-corporeal being.Marxism is the same approach to the explanation of natural and social in the "homo sapiens" on the basis of the principle of dialectical materialist monism, seeing it as a product and the subject of social and working life.The main thing - it is the social nature of man, as he represents the totality of all social relations, Marx said.XIX century enriched anthropology irrational concepts that highlight the essence and power that lie outside thinking (feelings, will, etc.).The priority in this area Nietzsche thinks the game vitality and emotion, rather than the mind and the mind.Kirkegor sees in the most basic act of the will, which, in fact, is born a man, and through which natural being becomes a spiritual being.
Biosocial essence of man is seen not as a popular idea for the twentieth century, because the thinkers of the modern age especially concerned about the person, in connection with which many areas of the philosophy of our time called personalistic.According to them, the human being can not be reduced to any fundamental basis.Rejecting both social and mechanistic approach, existentialism and personalism are bred in different directions of the concept of individuality (as a part of nature and the social whole) and identity (unique spiritual self-determination).The ideas of the "philosophy of life" (Dilthey) and phenomenology (Husserl), formed the basis of philosophical anthropology as a separate flow (Scheler, Plesner, Gehlen, "Rothakkera cultural anthropology, etc..).Although representatives of Freudianism and related schools is typical naturalistic approach.
