“Overcoming the Human” and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant

Abstract

The article explores the possibility of re-actualizing the Kantian concept of man in the context of the modern situation of the anthropological crisis. In the philosophy of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, this crisis manifests itself primarily in the form of a tendency to “overcome the human.” In various philosophical approaches and directions, both the very concept of man and anthropocentric ideas characteristic of the new European philosophical tradition are problematized. Accordingly, the key ideas of representatives of new European thought are criticized due to their “metaphysical” nature. At the same time, the replacement of anthropological concepts of the New Age with the “anti-anthropologism” of modern philosophy, while justified to some extent, does not allow us to explain a number of the most important phenomena of human existence. The paper argues that Kantian anthropology and ethics, based on the concept of “unconditionally good will,” can be conceptualized in a non-metaphysical way and act as an important complement to modern concepts of man.