ABSTRACT
Biological and medical anthropology, social and cultural anthropology, and historical anthropology – each investigate different aspects of the human condition. Yet the first specifically philosophical anthropological task consists of integrating these different aspects into a single interdisciplinary framework. Such a framework must systematically capture the interconnections between nature and culture, as well as individuality and sociality. As far as temporal and historical issues are concerned, such a systematic and interdisciplinary framework must also be able to provide us with some orientation with respect to human evolutionary history. In short, it must perform a significant heuristic function. In this interdisciplinary sense, philosophical anthropology is not a special anthropological discipline but rather a universal anthropology, which circumscribes the field of research as a whole and shapes it to be compatible with all other anthropological subfields. The structure and function of philosophical anthropology is assessed by its ability to weave together a number of disciplinary tasks.
