Abstract: The article deals with the apophatic interpretation of man that has taken shape in modern Western literature as negation of all known attributes and properties of Adam’s offspring. The main proposition of new apophaticism, according to the authors, is disappointment in man. He is no longer considered as a measure of all things, as a creature endowed with reason and morality, as an exponent of humanistic consciousness. Human characteristics acquire a negative arrangement. Man is the focus of sinful thoughts, cruel desires, nearly the whole anatomy of destructiveness. Man’s essence is found in his striving for death. In this context, there is a need for comprehension of this tradition, which, as appears, to a considerable extent is inherent in European philosophy in some form or another.The authors are guided by philosophical-anthropological approaches to interpretation of human nature. They use the methodology of classical and postmodernist philosophy.The novelty of the work is in description of the apophatic image of man that has taken shape in modern philosophical anthropology. Conceptions of F. Nietzsche, G. Bataille and other authors are analyzed. The notion of human nature and human integrity is discussed. Human integrity is not rejected by modern philosophical anthropology, neither is it postulated as a preset anthropological property. It is acquired through the incoherence, fragmentariness of human existence. As is shown, the failure of the enlightening model of the ideal man in European culture has caused an irresistible interest to negative, pathological traits in human nature.The authors come to the conclusion that the apophatic project of man has permitted to reveal many real problems of current human existence. At the same time, it turned out that man has an inherent secret desire to rid himself of the idea of his existence, of his essence. The very reproduction of man as a human being is being ousted by machines, clones, prostheses. J. Baudrillard in this context writes about the end of anthropology, which is surreptitiously withdrawn by machines and new technologies.