From classical anthropology to «anthropotechnic». And back?

Philosophy «Problematization of the human: an ongoing project» (special issue)

Abstract

The article attempts to consider in general terms the evolution of anthropology, understood, on the one hand, as a special view of human nature and, on the other hand, as a method of human formation. The paper deals with the relationship between the views on human nature and the goals and strategies of education. Special attention is paid to the Humboldt model of education as the most complete and consistent embodiment of modern anthropology. A hypothesis is put forward and substantiated about the correlation of the dispute between Socrates and the sophists with the opposition of the Humboldt and postmodern models of education and views on human nature. The essence of this confrontation is in two different views on a person: proceeding from the goal of a person or proceeding from his actual factuality. The former view corresponds to the anthropology and pedagogy of Socrates and the culture of modernity, the latter — to the sophists and the culture of postmodernity. Postmodern culture gives rise to posthumanism, which looks at a person as a kind of aggregate of properties and abilities. The educational strategy corresponding to it consists in the desire to «upgrade» a person, to supplement or discard something in order to maximize his situational adaptation to the changing reality and to increase the existing set of possibilities in each here-and-now. The term «anthropotechnics» in its mechanistic meaning is more relevant to such a view and attitude towards a person. An assumption is made and arguments are presented that behind various types of «anthropotechnics», ethical relativism, and the like, one can see the intention of the elites to construct the image of a person they need. At the end of the paper, a question is raised about the possibility of turning from «anthropotechnics» to a new anthropology. It is shown that this anthropology should be based on the desire to see a real person, that is, to see in him the main behind the cover of the accidental and secondary, without falling into abstract idealization. The philosophical concepts of E. Husserl and S.N. Trubetskoy are proposed as a promising basis.