ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate and explicate the technique of Philosophical Anthropology. 1 The thesis is that Philosophical Anthropology is a particular (and arguably extremely important) theory in that it steers a course between naturalism and culturalism, in other words, between Darwin and Foucault. Plessner might have said ‘between Darwin and Dilthey,’ but today, Philosophical Anthropology appears as a paradigm which sits between the theories of Darwin and Foucault. It builds a bridge between biology on the one hand and social and cultural sciences on the other; a bridge which could neither be constructed by Darwin (and his followers) nor by Foucault (and his followers). Yet, this bridge allows us to accept both paradigms as ways of thinking while simultaneously limiting their spheres. This Philosophical Anthropology is reconstructed with reference to Plessner’s The Levels of the Organic and Man [Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch, 1928] and to his sophisticated (and subtle) concept of ‘eccentric positionality.’
